Libb

You’re right, but once a few have that law the EU is a Union (and most countries are not against controlling us), so I would not hold my breath (posted from France, so you know ;)

The pencil and the sheet of paper.

Zero surveillance. Zero AI.

They would not stop there.

Our elected representatives are way too afraid of their citizens (which many of them would not mind if they could change those ‘citizens’ into powerless ‘subjects’), and they’ve become obsessed with the idea of surveilling our every move. An idea that has been very actively encouraged by an industry that is more than happy to sell them the required surveillance technology for a lot of money. Money always wins, freedom (which can’t stand without privacy) is screwed.

So, I already made up my mind upon the quick disappearance of any online privacy, here in the EU. The cloud I’m using (for its full encryption) won’t be able to stand against the law (and it should not). So, the moment they introduce a law to force backdoors into encryption I’ve already decided to quit using any form of online storage and as much online services as I can (one of the reasons I I went back to reading printed books—yep, I’m that paranoid save that It’s not being paranoid at all).

Those wannabe EU dictators, worrying so much about our own well-being (as no one in their right mind would express any doubt about their true motivation) they can go funk themselves.

It’s going fine. Switched around 5 years ago, after using Apple products since the mid-80s. Switched to Mint, after trying a couple other distros. Mint ticks all the boxes for me ;)

I have no desire to move back to Apple. even though I do miss some features (Spotlight, for example) being fully in control of my computer and software is priceless. And so is my freedom to use my computer however I fancy without anyone having a word to say about that.

I still use an iPhone, though. Not much, but I do use it…

Okay, how much effort should an end user be expected to put into learning how to use software?

As much as they’re need to, as much as they’re willing to.

If you need to use the software, then also you need to learn how to (properly) use it. If it’s too much work because of the poor doc or because it’s just something hard to use for you (which could very well be, I don’t know but I do know I’ve failed myself to learn to use Emacs save that I don’t blame the devs or the docs that’s provided for free), then you need to either:

• Spend some more time (to learn it better).
• Spend some money to have someone make some digest version of a too technical doc that will help you. I decided not to do that with Emacs because I realized I could also not use the software and still be able to do my work fine.
• Find another app that will suit your needs better and time/energy availability.

FLOSS is provided as is. The user is free to use it however they fancy (which is amazing) but as a user we’re entitled to no support either. And why would we?

I’m not Writing Their Fucking Manual for them. That is utterly insane.

No one is asking you to write the doc if you don’t feel like it, and that’s 100% fine: no one will ever blame you for not writing it either. I’m just telling you that if you think it’s too much work for you you should not expect anyone to do it for you either. End of the story.

But let me ask you this: would writing the manual really be that much more insane than, say, writing the hundreds of thousans of lines of code to make the application itself? And if you think it would be more work to write the doc than to create the app (and offer it for free) may I ask you why? It’s a real question, as I hope you realize I’m not trolling I’m just curious to understand your reasoning.

BTW, I’m no dev, I’m a mere (and non expert) user of FLOSS myself. So, I know quite well how frustrating docs can be ;)

“I don’t know how this works. I guess I’ll have to be the one to explain it.”

Nope, it should read: “I don’t understand how it works. It probably means I should (make the effort to) learn how to use it, and then I may want to share what I learned to make it easier to others.” And then, yeah, you’re right:

How do we get the makers of FreeCAD to document their fucking software?

It’s FLOSS. You may not like that but it’s up to everyone of us to contribute to make things better. With our time, with our money, or with our expertise. And there is no fucking need to be fucking mad at anyone for not fucking doing it for you.

Or you can spend the money, time and expertise you don’t have for FLOSS on shiny Apple or Microsoft proprietary apps so they can keep on not making good documentation and not giving a fuck about it. It’s fucking up to you.

Listening (to one another).

TV is such ad ridden garbage, I would never want to go back to that.

We have not owned a TV since the 00s (and my spouse and I are well into in our 50s, so you know how old we’re compared to your parents) but when I think ‘ad ridden garbage’ my first thought goes to YT, not tv which would come second (without an ad-blocker, how many ads are there with each single video on YT?)

Generally curious, this sounds like a cry to protect something unnecessary in its current form. It needs to adapt to nowadays needs, not cry for regulatory changes to restrict competitors imo.

i’ve not read the paper but, imho, that’s exactly what the US want us to think. Which I call bullshit.

EU creators can’t compete on equal terms with the USA, that’s why they need all the legal help we can give them. Then, and only then, the EU audience will be able to decide if those EU productions are worth their time and money, or not.

And, once again, not just for TV/Movies. It’s valid for all creators.

There is almost nothing our governments here in France have done in the last 3 or 4 decades I would consider smart. The ‘exception culturelle’ is surely one of those smart decision. One I will support (and it doesn’t matter if I like, or not, what most people are creating under its umbrella… which for the most part… I don’t like). And I would not be surprised to finally see the US openly put a lot of pressure (with Trump and is tariffs war, for example) to force the EU to get rid of any semblance of cultural protectionism so ‘the poor US industry would at last be able to ‘freely’ compete against our ‘unfairly protected’ local creators’. Or some shit along that line.

I would like for us to stay diverse and not become a second-class wannabe US consumers (not even citizens). But I could be wrong, obviously, and maybe that would be amazing to eat the same cultural production the US as feasted upon?

Ask France, maybe? The French ‘exception culturelle’ law is doing a lot of work to protect local/French productions (and not just TV) against US dominance. Not always for the best mind you, but that’s another question ;)

I always work towards being better,

Imho, it’s the only thing that should really matter to anyone willing to change. Looking forward, not backward and not judging anyone (including myself) but trying to understand. To me, that’s what ‘getting better’ means.

I accept that this is the world, it is fucked up but it also has all of tgese amazing things in it

There are amazing things indeed, and they’re priceless. And we’re lucky to be able to appreciate them.

The thing is that what you call ‘bad things’ are also part of the package. Like all of us not being perfect. Not a single one of us.

Bad things are legit part of the world. They’re not an accident. They’re not an error. Like the shadow goes with the light, you cannot have the good bits without also tasting the shittier ones. No one can.

Like no one can be perfect either. As a matter of fact, I will say that we’re all shitty persons and the difference is in how we teach ourselves (and kids) how to deal with what we are, the good as well as the bad, and how we learn to better control our worst traits (I call that “keeping the animal under leash”).

this is just something that is out of my control but also directly affects me.

try to really think what is under your ‘control’ and you will realize it’s not much beside your own thoughts, emotions and reactions to whatever may happen around you.

You did not control being born, nor who your parents are or your friends (working hard enough, you may be lucky to be able to pick your foes). You barely control how you look. You don’t control with whom you (don’t) fall in love. You don’t control the weather or who is deciding what in the rest of the world. You don’t even control if you’re enjoying spinach, or not ;)

None of us control much.

More often than not, the need for control ‘control’ is a way to avoid facing our fear (fear of the other, of the unknown, of the uncertainty and fear of oneself). It’s that fear trying to hide itself behind something seemingly actionable, and therefore so reassuring. Like little kids checking under their beds every night before going to sleep. Cute but also not the most effective way to fight a monster… when there is one.

The day I started welcoming that fear and doubt in my life (and in my head) is the day I started getting bett… less shittier of a person myself. At least I think so ;)

For example, on a really depressive day I might end up staying in bed for the first 4 hours, while with weed I might get up and clean and shift my mood towards a more hopeful one

Don’t be afraid to admit you depend on that. I depended on my own addictions back then. Admitting it is the first step to effectively getting rid of it.

Imho, weed is not the issue as I reckon it does to you more or less exactly what you want it do? The issue is you not realizing you could get the same or a very similar result without relying on weed. Which would be cheaper and much healthier choice for you,. A choice without any bad side effect btw.

But what if you were in a situation where it did impact you? In a way that is part of your everyday. What if for years you are struggling with the internal conflict of “there is nothing I can do about it” and “I can’t continue like this”?

Let’s imagine you do drug for that painful ‘thing happening in your life’ and then something new also painful happens, what would you do? Take even more drugs?

As an ex-addicted I know quite well the seductiveness of substances. And how easy they are to fall back into. They never helped me get better, they just… numbed me down and not even enough to not feel the pain.

What helped me get better, almost instantly, is to decide I should accept the world around me was something like a shithole (and that I too was an asshole) and work my way out from there and not from some wishful thinking about what I would do and how great it would be if those shit that were happening to me and had been for years were not a thing.

It’s humility (I was an absolute turd and i was living a shitty life even if I earned good money, and I most certainly at least partly still am an asshole) and sweat. I literaly started moving my body to get back into shape (I rel-learned to walk, one step at a time painfully for a few weeks/months and nowadays I will gladly walk 10+ miles a day without breaking a sweat)

Edit: published too fast:

Don’t bother with telling me that even the individual has the power to make great changes, I believe it and I’m doing my best, but I am also aware of the fact that this situation will not be changed in my lifetime probably.

Well, that can be true but that should not impact your willingness to get better. I mean, I can’t get back that body of mine I ruined years not caring about it but I can make it work as well as it’s able to. and that’s what I do. I can’t get back all those wasted years either, but I can better use what’s left. and so on.

Hope this helps. Wishing you the best

Indeed but, to me at least, this is not Trump/UNESCO-related issue. It’s a Western societies issue.

We have very similar issues going here in France. For me, it all begun back in the 80s so, yeah, it’s not really something new. But things have been going worse since then. And it has been accelerating. Quickly. Badly.

In France, our educative system (it’s called l’éducation nationale, aka a nation-wide highly centralized system deciding what kids are to learn and how they should be educated) and since the mid-80s the level has collapsed beyond belief. Kids aren’t being taught much anymore, and math as well as reading are vanishing skills. Let’s not mention history and civic education (which help in any working democracy). Things have become real worse in recent years. Like, a lot worse.

Obviously, it’s not the kid’s fault. It’s us the adults, teachers, parents and elected representatives voting absurd laws who have failed. But it’s them kids who will pay dear for our mistakes (like with the climate crisis, btw).

They already started paying.

I mean, who has the best chance of getting a qualified job between say a lower or, nowadays, even a middle-class kid barely able to open a book and to understand what’s written in it (and barely able to spell their name correctly) and a kid from a family where knowledge and teaching are still considered valuable investments worthy of sending their kids into private schools in which, unlike public schools, they’re actually being taught how to read (and how to properly use books), and do math, and learn some history, philosophy and so on?

Those wealthier and better-educated kids will get all the rewards, while all the others kids will be fucked up, for their entire life (but hey, they will know how to watch ads on YT and TikTok).

They already are being fucked up btw, they just can’t realize it as we have not given them the basic tools required to understand what’s happening around them.

But the real worse is yet to come. Here in France at least even our private schools are subjected to the dumbing-down of the entire educative system, as they also depend on nation-wide laws and controls… Controls that have been getting harsher and harsher and, unsurprisingly, even those private schools are witnessing a sharp decline. Sure, it’s less sharp than in public schools but still very worrying. So, what will happen? Well, I can’t predict the (very near) future but would I have school-age kids myself and would I have enough money to send them to a private school I would simply pack my things and move abroad in any other country but France, in a country that would not actively be trying to ruin our educative system.

France was rightly regarded as a country of readers up until the late 70s to early 80s. Books (serious books, I mean) were a popular discussion topic, it was in the newspapers, magazines, radio and TV, it was discussed between people (the Internet and social media of back then). It was popular. Nowadays? It’s not rare at all to enter a house where there is not a single book to be found. A house where no one owns a library card either (or read ebooks). Kids are just not encouraged to read books. Even comics are starting to become a happy exception.

Once again, this is a failure that will cost dearly to kids growing up in those families.

Without any reading culture and habits, not only will they be at a disadvantage when competing against ‘reading kids’ but they’re also much more vulnerable to the stupidest ideas floating around… provided those already stupid ideas are simplified enough for them to instantly grasp them without much effort.

What kind of adults and citizen will that create? I’d rather not imagine. That’s a fucking nightmare happening right in front of our eyes and nobody seems to care.

If a zombie loses blood, they aren’t going to keep walking, their muscles won’t work without blood.

Isn’t that the whole idea behind zombies: they need no circulating blood nor an heart pumping it? Soulless and heartless bastards, you know.

If you have a strong door, zombie arms will break before the door breaks.

One zombie no doubt, but like we all know those assholes are often moving in hordes… Sure, the first zombies squashed against the door won’t like that very much but then neither will the door and once it breaks under the weight of all the other zombies… Or if it is not the zombie-proof door, they will inadvertently press too hard on one of those nice large windows we often see in the hollywood type of houses, a window that isn’t zombie-proof obviously and then… bon appétit, like we say in my country ;)

The only kind of zombies I really worry about is the quickly and very much non-fictional ramping up illiteracy among younger generations. To me, this kind of cerebral death is much more worrying than hordes of dead people suddenly wanting to take a bite of my sorry ass. That said, maybe I should see that as the latest kind of zombification? Pure brain rot instead of flesh rot?

So, what would I do if illiterate zombies were to try to eat me or turn me into one of them? I would be throwing all the books from my personal library at them, knocking them off one by one with some (not always that) serious knowledge I suppose :p

Or maybe it’s time I learn how to pray? Because if those illiterate zombies become dominant we’ll all be screwed once and for all I’m afraid.

An adult that refused to stop using diapers, while complaining that their their poopy bottom smells like poop.

I quite like this approach :)

Any suggestions?

Ignore the nuts, like we all do?

thx for the clarification :)

I’ve not clicked the link (without any description or comment, I see no reason to follow a link to YT). That being said, I would agree with your comment if the video was also shared elsewhere than on YT since non-YT alternatives already exist. I insist: also shared elsewhere, not published elsewhere as I’m all for reaching people where they are, not where I would want them to be. But I’m also all for not bowing to simplicity, conformity and, but isn’t that linked, to laziness ;)

Thx a lot, it’s very interesting.