The gullible/naive ones. Right-wing extremists are generally quite good at promising simple (but wrong) “solutions” for complex problems that lower-educated people can easily follow and then feel like they’re on the correct track. That’s also why they produce so much easy-to-digest propaganda on the web.

But it’s all lies, accusing others who have nothing to do with the real problems, not making anything better except for the elite, and causing unnecessary cultural wars within the population instead of necessary class wars.

The elite generally wins when parts of the population are in-fighting against other parts of the population. Right-wing extremists love that and regularly pour more oil into that fire due to their general dividing and hateful nature towards all kinds of cultural opponents and minorities, and the elites love watching us fight each other while enriching themselves further and eating popcorn, because they know that when we’re busy in-fighting, we aren’t fighting for more equality or to change things in any meaningful way.

In more or less random order:

• Org-Mode is one of the most amazing packages for Emacs. Some people use Emacs only for that. I personally use it for second-brain style note taking, TODO lists, simple presentations, PIM, Wiki-like articles, writing docs (and then exporting it to other formats), and even some simple integrated spreadsheets/tables including some simple calculations
• Magit is a really good Git frontend. Some people use Emacs only for that.
• Use “use-package” to install/configure packages. Streamlines configuration a lot, compared to the old days.
• Use the “no-littering” package to move a lot of randomly generated files into centralized directories
• Use winner mode to undo/redo window configuration changes
• Use which-key to show a popup of available keybinds when typing something
• Use the integrated “time” package to create a world clock view
• Use the integrated modus-themes for highly configurable themes with a nice contrast (since I’ve spent some time configuring that theme, I’ve stopped using any other theme)
• Use hl-todo package to highlight keywords like “TODO”, “NOTE”, “WARNING” or “DONE”
• Use doom-modeline for a nice modeline
• Use nerd-icons to add nice icons to many views
• Use avy to quickly jump to specific locations, lines or characters using different keystrokes
• Use eshell for a quick shell (which works the same on every Emacs, regardless of the OS) and/or either vterm or eat if you need a full-fledged terminal emulator
• Use embark as a “context menu” when cursor is over anything (bind embark-act to e.g. “C-.”)
• Use editorconfig package to specify/load different editor configs per project
• Use treesitter and eglot (or lsp-mode) for modern syntax parsing using language servers
• Use neotree (or treemacs?) as a file tree viewer, but dired is also cool if configured well
• Use org-modern package to beautify org mode display
• Use org-appear to hide formatting characters unless cursor is directly next to them
• Use Unicode characters to beautify otherwise ugly or bland default characters, e.g. set " ▾" for org-ellipsis
• Use gcmh or similar packages or config settings to improve general Emacs UI responsiveness
• Use packages which improve the minibuffer, buffer switching, completion, and basic things like that. There are several good ones and you can’t really go wrong with any, I just think the newer, more well-integrated ones like consult, vertico, orderless, marginalia, and so on are “nicer” than the older less well-integrated ones like helm, ivy and so on
• Bind “goto-last-change” to a nice keybind
• Bind “quick-calc” to a nice keybind
• Bind “org-agenda” to a nice keybind
• Bind “toggle-truncate-lines” (line wrapping) to a nice keybind
• Bind “kill-this-buffer” and “kill-this-buffer-and-window” to nice keybinds (e.g. C-x k / K)
• Bind “consult-line” (or something similar) to e.g. C-s
• Bind all window and buffer cycling/management related commands to nice keybinds
• If you want an easier entry into Emacs and are already a Vim user, try the Doom Emacs distribution. If you want to start with Vanilla GNU Emacs but want a decent but minimal default configuration, try emacs-bedrock.

I was like that ~20 years ago. But since around ~10 years ago I realized that Emacs basically includes Vim. And much more. Yes Emacs is hard to get into and has a weird language, but it’s immensely powerful, extensible and also extremely reliable and future-proof. No you probably shouldn’t do everything inside Emacs. But several things are powerful, well-integrated and efficient.

Vim is still great though, I use it in the terminal for quick random config file edits or over ssh sessions (haven’t gotten around or used to trying tramp mode in Emacs). It’s great because some variant of it basically exists on every Unix-like system. And I also highly recommend learning modal editing with the Vim keybindings, which works inside Emacs as well of course. The default Emacs keybinds are unergonomic at best. But it also includes a mode for using Vim keys, and that mode is basically just as powerful as Vim itself. Not half-baked at all, which you might assume in such cases.

Probably, but it’s still much-needed actual retaliation against the regime. Doing nothing besides complaining helps even less. Wars aren’t being won in an instant but as a result of many cumulative small victories.

8BitDo Ultimate 2C Wireless here (but only using it wired, on PC, Linux). Good Xbox-style controller.

Microslop Crashpilot

I’ll always call it Microslop from this point on. Although that term, while true, also detracts a bit from the other problem this causes: 100% surveillance by Microsoft and 0% ownership of your documents/data. Personal and business alike. But anyway, it’s a term that Nadella doesn’t like so please keep using it.

Just remember that correlation is not causation. Yes, such things distract from the Epstein case and that’s a welcome effect for the US dictator. But he’s not thinking “hmm I really would like to have a distraction from that so that’s why I’ll just commit another war crime or atrocity so they’ll all be distracted”. He commits new atrocities anyway, and it just so happens that new atrocities automatically distract from older ones. He is causing way more problems than we are capable of mentally tracking.

Congrats.

Yes, desktop Linux is generally very usable for the majority of users these days. This was already claimed to be the case in the late 1990s, which is probably why many non-IT-professionals had a bad first expression with desktop Linux. But this has changed since (very roughly) about 10 years ago or so, and for gaming in particular it has changed since very roughly about 5 years ago. This is also the reason why desktop Linux was at like ~1% market share all the time but has suddenly grown to ~6% within the last couple of years already. And with higher popularity comes more developer interest and support. Furthermore, Windows is becoming worse over time because Nadella is more interested in milking his user base instead of nurturing it, and many want more independence from US-based proprietary software due to the current political situation, and so it’s very likely that desktop Linux is going to keep snowballing upwards. The trend is looking very positively for desktop Linux, it will probably reach MacOS market share within the next couple of years. For gaming specifically, it’s already #2.

The most important thing about the Linux ecosystem is of course that most of it (at least the core components) is free/open source software and this is necessary to have digital sovereignty.

Other users interested in making the switch can make their transition easier by doing it in 2 steps: first, replace all important applications you’re using on Windows with Linux-compatible applications (for example, no MS Office, no Adobe), then adjust to the changed workflows while still using Windows. Only after that, install Linux as the primary OS (or set up dual-boot, but it has disadvantages. Best is to physically disconnect your disk containing Windows (so you still have a backup in case you desperately need it) and use another disk for Linux). That way, the culture shock is a bit mitigated because you’ll have at least some familiarity (the applications you need) inside an otherwise unfamiliar new OS environment. That way, the change will feel less overwhelming.

If there are still dependencies which can’t be worked around, there’s also the emergency solution of using either wine or a Windows VM on Linux. In the latter case it’s probably best these days to use winboat, which allows running Windows-only applications which then run inside a specific Windows VM or container on Linux. Or you just use a full regular Windows VM on Linux, with a shared folder between both systems for exchanging files.

Unfortunately it wouldn’t change much. The current fascism is structural and enabled by many actors, companies and institutions, not tied to one particular person. When he dies, Vance will just continue doing the same.

The only thing that could initiate real change would be the majority of US citizens revolting (but the majority are currently brainwashed by fascist rhetoric on proprietary social media and Fox News) and/or retaliation from other countries.

Yes, and it won’t get better. There is no effective regulation against this kind of stuff. US big tech companies are basically (not theoretically/legally, but in practice) allowed to steal everything from their consumers what they want these days, just like AI companies violate copyrights on a massive scale.

In the EU, the US big tech companies already managed to pull off a regulatory capture of the Irish Data Protection agency, the one responsible for all US big tech companies operating in Europe, the one that is theoretically supposed to ensure data protection. Because that agency is being headed by a former Meta lobbyist. That means there will be effectively zero repercussion for US big tech breaking copyright, privacy, data protection or other such laws in the EU, despite the EU having some of the strongest data protection laws in theory. They will all be not mostly, but fully, ignored. There were never many repercussions before, and fines had symbolic character at best, but now they can all go completely unhinged, and on top of that the US will also add political pressure on countries which dare to hold US-based companies accountable under local laws. Since many EU countries and/or UK are essentially digital colonies of US tech companies I don’t think there will be much resistance. There are tons of self-inflicted painful dependencies on the US dollar, on US-based credit cards, on US-based cloud providers, on US-based payment providers, … for the EU, the US turning rogue is massively painful, but this outcome was already predictable decades ago, yet nothing was being done about it.

And so MS will absolutely enshittify Windows even more to harvest more and more data and feed their AI models, and there will be zero repercussion, except that Windows will continue to slowly decline and desktop Linux will continue to slowly climb up. It’s just a matter of time. It’s just sad that MS gets away with all that crap. The people who value data protection or privacy have already left the MS world long ago. The rest will simply get looted - all your personal and work life (including a lot of your customers’ data) belongs to MS (and, by extension, to the US) if you continue to use their software and services.

Kind of true, although for many, the comic starts at the 3rd panel.

Yes. The current modern neo-nazis behave similarly: they claim only the others (the ones they don’t like) are Nazis and their own kind just want the “freedom” to say and do what they like, e.g. get rid of people of color, or political opponents after that. They also frequently claim they’re the victims themselves (e.g. claims of “white genocide” => whites “need to fight back”)). But they would never call themselves Nazis even though they are doing Nazi things regularly. Fascists twist and redefine words and meanings to serve their own agenda.

Unfortunately, most Windows users have a long history of complaining about it and then still continuing to use it.

There’s no way around it: if you keep using abusive software, you’ll stay in an abusive relationship.

I once said “Some people living in 2025 aren’t very far advanced from people who lived in the Dark Ages” (or Middle Age, whatever). Then somebody replied “… but they are wearing nice suits!”. That’s about the difference. The layer of modern civilization is thin.

Wikipedia has some interesting parts about it as well:

The Dark Ages is a term, now deprecated by most historians, for the Early Middle Ages (c. 5th–10th centuries), or occasionally the entire Middle Ages (c. 5th–15th centuries), in Western Europe after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, which characterises it as marked by economic, intellectual, and cultural decline.

The concept of a “Dark Age” as a historiographical periodization originated in the 1330s with the Italian scholar Petrarch, who regarded the post-Roman centuries as “dark” compared to the “light” of classical antiquity.[1][2] The term employs traditional light-versus-darkness imagery to contrast the era’s supposed darkness (ignorance and error) with earlier and later periods of light (knowledge and understanding).[

Doesn’t seem so far away now does it.

• Private notebook: linux-hardened (fallback: linux-lts)
• Private desktop: linux-zen (fallback: linux)
• Work notebook: linux-hardened (fallback: linux-lts)

They want a civil war, or rather a cultural war between civilians, to detract from a class war. They want the civilians to be fighting among themselves (i.e. left vs right), rather than uniting against ruthless billionaires and grifters in the government. Having a civil war would also make some of their false claims become “true”, e.g. that cities are “war zones” and that they “need” to utilize the Insurrection Act and put the military everywhere without any remaining legal obstructions. I mean they still do it partially already, which is bad enough, but when a civil war would actually exist (like they claim), then they could also claim that what they were lying about the whole time is actually “true” (just not at all the way they said it to be, but the end result would be kind of the same: war zones inside cities) and they’d be legally allowed to be even more oppressive than they are already. It would increase their power overall. It would lead to a guaranteed dictatorship. Dictators love using “emergencies” to grab full, unrestricted power. So it’s best to never aid them while they try to construct an emergency where there is none. That exposes their lies better.

In order of priority:

1. Check for a Linux-compatible alternative
2. Try installing/running it via Bottles (a veeeery easy to use Wine frontend, hiding lots of wine complexity). Wine allows running most windows programs directly on Linux, with almost zero performance overhead.
3. Try installing/running it via winboat (basically WSL in reverse - a well-integrated Windows VM or container running on Linux so you can run pesky Windows-only programs with it) (haven’t used it myself yet)
4. Use a regular full Windows VM on Linux (likely less well integrated and more resource intensive than #3, but maybe even more compatible). Set up a shared folder between host and VM for easy file transfers.
5. Dual-boot Windows from another disk. Set up a shared folder/partition for file transfers.

1. Lie that someone is a threat (without evidence)
2. Justify killing him based on #1 (without due process)
3. Claim that anyone opposing #1/#2 is aiding the enemy
4. Justify killing that opposition based on #3/#1

Fascism 101

First, there are still technical means and operational security techniques of having and safeguarding private chats, that means if you don’t utilize them and it leaks, it’s basically your fault for either not being informed enough or for being too careless.

Second, if you do criminal things in said private chats, and it leaks, then you should be held accountable for it. Especially if, as in this case, what you did went against the constitution, human rights or similar very basic laws that no one should break, ever. In these times, no one can predict if or when such online hostility turns into real-life hostile acts. The line that separates saying hostile stuff online and actually doing it IRL is sometimes very thin. With the extreme amounts of right-wing extremist propaganda on the web these days, I’d say this is a serious matter and there’s a high chance that some individuals will forget their moral compass and just go full Nazi after being exposed to too much of this stuff.