I really like the animal mascots, I think more projects should have them again.

Oh, and are people still against using literally to mean intensified figuratively?

What’s the alternative to very figurative?

Very is overused but has its uses. I think it’s a good rule of thumb to avoid using it too much if you want greater impact, although eliminating it entirely would be a loss overall. What gives greater impact is the nuance that comes with having different words with similar meanings. Having a high impact word or phrase necessarily means having something lower impact to contrast against.

Also, the intensification with very isn’t quite the same as using the listed intensified words. Challenging is intensified hard as opposed to easy but not to soft. In human terms boiling is very hot and opposed to freezing, but what does that make the sun? It’s not a liquid turning into a gas.

I thought such disorders were much more frequent in the human population than 0.1%

The discussion is mostly about the date, some suggest 3 December, 1 January, 3 March or 9 July.

This is an interesting one, and I feel like there are many nuanced conversations to be had about this. I talk mostly about Christianity below, because that is what I have most experience with.

For one, most of the Christian churches that founded universities are considered rather theologically liberal now, sometimes to the point where its adherents question the basis of what I would consider Christianity. While those that haven’t are usually rather conservative. Interestingly, it is conservative churches that are growing right now, while liberal ones appear to be shrinking.

I have personally seen conservative Christians claim that not just religion, but specifically Christianity invented science, and also presuppose that modern science will come round to their belief in an approximately 6000 year old Earth eventually. Whenever scientists stop rejecting the obvious truth. These conservative Christians seem to expect science to only ever confirm their ideas, and if it doesn’t, the science is being read wrong. I can’t claim they aren’t religious, and I can’t claim this isn’t their religion.

But I do acknowledge that many religions have a history promoting scientific thought, that it can be compatible. Religious institutions encouraged people to value knowledge, and used to be a major source of funding to the sciences. From what I’ve heard, religion technically isn’t about belief at all, but ritual and community. I think those are both positive things that we don’t see as much in our society today.

I think there is something in the history of science greater at play than just religion by itself, but that religion may play a role in. The question becomes then: how crucial a role?

I’m confused. What do you mean by Curseforge uses it?

I thought all modern launchers supported easily adding Forge, Curseforge mods and Curseforge modpacks, including Curseforge’s own launcher and Prism Launcher. Not hating on it, but I was genuinely confused to see the default Minecraft launcher was on Flathub, let alone popular. I haven’t heard of anybody using it in a long time, and I remember it not being as convenient for modding. Maybe that’s changed.

Then again, maybe I’m unaware of some special support Curseforge gives to the default launcher, and it’s fair if you prefer the default launcher’s way of doing things. We all have preferences after all.

Oh, looking at the actual page shows Prism Launcher with 606.7K downloads, just under the Top Game Tools section rather than Top Games.

Why do people still use the default Minecraft launcher?

The reason road trains exist is to make trucks more efficient than normal trucks by transporting in bulk - instead of carrying the weight of multiple trucks + cargo, it’s only one big truck. More efficient, and therefore cheaper.

Rail is even more efficient than road trains at transporting in bulk from region to region, as they don’t waste energy on friction, and are even better at carrying in bulk. Road trains don’t exist in most countries because they usually have rail to take its place, trucks have their niche in the first and last legs within small regions. After all, moving a truck across regions is less efficient (and therefore more expensive to do).

The only form of transport more efficient than freight trains are cargo ships, which can’t go inland. There’s a reason mining companies often build their own freight railways to transport between mine and port.

Australia is finishing a build of Inland Rail, a rail freight corridor right now. I’d hardly call it dead when we are expanding the rail network. Admittedly the initial build is over budget, but the initial build is always the most expensive part.

Pale Moon is criticised precisely because its developers don’t have the resources to keep it fast, feature complete and secure.

I just appreciate that they prevent flies.

It bans only certain people by age. Now how do you figure out their age? Photos, ID both work, but simply asking for age is not considered enough by the government.

Well, you certainly made me feel much more optimistic, thank you.

I suppose you’re right that copyleft is not the primary motivator for contributions.

I’m aware that forks happen often when a takeover is attempted. There are many big success stories in FOSS. However, my point was that most FOSS software isn’t that successful. There are plenty of projects out there with very few contributors, and it is those I’m saying are easy for taking over. Perhaps they get taken over because most of the community doesn’t care, but it still happens from time to time. I originally commented because you seemed to make out that proprietisation was impossible.

I get your point that it’s incredibly unlikely for anything that matters however.

Edit: I think I misremembered an example I gave of a successful fork after an attempted takeover, but it was something Oracle.

I think the point of both is that even if he skipped all the text explaining he’s about to break the system, he would have still have had to type the words explaining them, and therefore hopefully think about the words he’s typing. It might not protect against copy-paste as effectively, but there’s a higher chance he’d read what he’d copied than a wall of text. Not 100% effective, but it’s probably going to catch more users than “do as I say”, where he still thought he was installing Steam, so it’s good those changes were made.

But yes, it won’t catch everyone like Linus because they either won’t think about it or they will copy-paste without reading. Ultimately an immutable distro might be best for him. Then again he might still find a way to break it somehow.

I suppose it’s true that neither would have been called feature complete by its authors, proprietisation is much more likely when there is still a lot missing. But I would still caution against thinking that having all the features you need means you’re immune to it.

Sorry, I didn’t explain what I was talking about.

The problem is that in the modern software environment there’s a constant need for updating and patching, and if a proprietary fork provides those updates and a free original can’t keep up for whatever reason, the proprietary fork (that could have contributed otherwise) gains inertia until the free original dies. This is admittedly harder to pull off in a mature and well maintained free software ecosystem, but I think you’d be surprised how many important free software projects lack needed manpower. It doesn’t help that MIT practically encourages people not to publish code, compared to GPL.

People make out forking like it’s a big protection against proprietisation, and it is, but it’s not foolproof. Good forks are usually founded by community members that already understand and contribute to the code, most forks actually die quickly. The fewer contributors relative to the project’s size and complexity, the more realistic it is to either be overtaken by a more competitive proprietary fork, or for the maintainers to sell out and relicense without anybody to fork it.

Realistically, I don’t know how likely this would happen to anything decently important, but it has happened at least a few times. I remember using Paint .NET while it was still MIT licensed years back, but nobody forked it. Since we’re on Lemmy, Reddit used to use a Free software license.

Code complete is arguably a myth when talking about security. You need to update when vulnerabilities are found at minimum. Sometimes, the changing software environment changes and so the software has to start adding features again or get replaced. Rarely old features are the vulnerability, and have to be removed.

I think there were a few other changes indirectly inspired by what had transpired, but admittedly I can’t remember most of them. I think Debian also modified apt.

I also think I remember immutable distros taking off just after this.