• 4 Posts
  • 62 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 8th, 2023

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  • […] a public institution is really not a great example of the general population […]

    Which I touched upon in my disclaimer, but in some ways it is a great example. Public institutions are defined by the general population, indirectly through their representatives creating the rules that govern them, and directly through contact with the public at large. Now if all our institutions still use this very outdated technology, and you can have trouble convincing them - during a global pandemic mind you - that using email is just as safe as using fax (so not safe at all basically), then that speaks to a larger mindset in the general population.

    Many in the general public are also a lot quicker, some might even say careless, with adopting new technology of course. But as a society we are rather slow, and there are surprisingly many individuals who are hesitant or entirely resistant to adopting new technology. The fediverse usage is a bubble in a bubble here.

    The internet infrastructure is another good example for this on the societal level, as there were plans in the 1980ies [!] to lay out a glass fibre network between every publicly used building in the country, which would have gotten us a good part of the way towards adopting this new material at scale. But in the end it was deemed unnecessary and too expensive and the project got canned (mixed in with rumours of “close friendship” between the chancellor and a major copper producer). Instead now we have people running around thirty years later and collecting signatures at the door for last-mile fibre network projects that seldom make quorum and thus almost never materialise public funding.


    1. […] But also how are Germans technologically behind regarding common personal life?

    I bet you wherever in Germany you are, if you go to the website of your local city government right now they will have a still active fax number in their contact information. I guarantee it. Well if they have a website that is.

    Which is a bit silly as an example but highlights the central problem, which is that adoption of new technology happens at a glacial pace, especially in public institutions. There are many reasons for that of course, some good, like the aforementioned inclination towards privacy, some bad like whatever allows fax machines to still be around.

    And don’t get me started on internet infrastructure… In an international comparison we certainly aren’t leading the field regarding adoption of new technologies.







  • I think the problem might be your PostUp/PostDown lines have an in-interface (-i) but are missing an out-interface (-o) for the forwarding. Try this:

    PostUp   = iptables -A FORWARD -i %i -j ACCEPT; iptables -A FORWARD -o %i -j ACCEPT; iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o ens3 -j MASQUERADE
    PostDown = iptables -D FORWARD -i %i -j ACCEPT; iptables -D FORWARD -o %i -j ACCEPT; iptables -t nat -D POSTROUTING -o ens3 -j MASQUERADE
    


  • Yeah but like I said, if you promise some other form of compensation on the level or above what they lose in benefits, you will still find people willing to follow these illegal orders. Hell you could find people willing to follow illegal orders even before this ruling, but now that the presidents right to give illegal orders is explicitly enshrined in constitutional jurisprudence this pre-existing problem is much worse. I doubt those people will care about a dishonourable discharge, on the contrary it will make them martyrs to “the cause” and they will be worshipped for it. And it remains to be seen how all this would play out in court, I guess it’s quite possible for the defence to argue that if the president has immunity for giving orders, their subordinates have immunity for following those orders.


  • All good points if true. However I will say that to my limited understanding a crime under a specific law having been pardoned, that same law can then not be used to prosecute this crime anymore. Meaning states would have to find a different (preferably state) law under which the same offence is punishable.

    And that is all disregarding other issues like packed courts, republican controlled states, the vagueness of double-jeopardy in this regard, and the general chilling effect a presidential pardon would have on prosecutors to even press charges in the first place.

    The loss of benefits is easily circumvented by promising a golden parachute along with the pardon, so I could still see a lot of fanatics doing the crime “for country and freedom” or whatever they tell themselves.

    Overall this seems like a potentially dangerous erosion of checks and balances that is easily abused when put in the wrong hands. As the dissenting opinions in the ruling openly state.


  • Ok yeah fair enough, that sounds reasonable. But to my knowledge the UMCJ is a federal law, not a state law, so how does that line of argument factor in there? You cited that as an example of checks and balances that would prevent people from following illegal orders, but it being a federal law still means the president could circumvent it with the official order plus pardon combo, at least if my understanding of this new supreme court ruling is correct.


  • IANAL, but there is the presidential power to pardon. So the president could in theory give an illegal order (as long as it is an official act they have immunity) and promise a presidential pardon once the order is fulfilled (therefore extending immunity to the perpetrator). Meaning the president can entirely circumvent the UCMJ.









  • So WINE was just imagined into existence? Or maybe it was a wizard with a magic spell?

    GP is simply wrong on this one. While it is an open source project with a lot of volunteer involvement, there are companies like CodeWeavers and Valve which directly or indirectly contribute to development. You can get support from CodeWeavers AFAIK, but that means paying them.

    Why do people get so uppity when I simply ask questions? I never claimed that anyone owed me anything. I never asked for anything.

    Well you did ask for something, which is replies to your questions. And your reaction to those replies, whether intended or not, comes off as “uppity” as well. Hence the downvotes and hostility (not to say that I support that from either side of the conversation).

    I am unwilling to learn.

    Then why are you wasting peoples time with asking questions?

    I’ve wasted hundreds of hours trying to learn to use Linux for basic tasks after everyone assured me it was “so easy” and not gotten anywhere. I’m done trying to learn.

    Running software on an OS it wasn’t made for is anything but a basic task. Try running various Linux software on Windows and you will see. If you want to run software made for Windows easily the way to do that is using the version of Windows it was created for.

    What people mean by “basic tasks” is usually browsing and office, and there is Linux-native software for that.

    Someone posted Zorin OS elsewhere, which appears to be exactly that.

    Not really. It has deeper integration of Wine into the system by default, but it is still a Linux OS running a compatibility layer for Windows software. This will not save you if you are unwilling to learn, there will still be various problems. Some software will simply not work, or only partially work, or require additional configuration to work.

    In summary, if your definition of “basic tasks” is running arbitrary Windows software then doing it on Windows is the way to go.



  • Oh I suppose it’s still not as bad as other places. It was free and fully financed by taxes because it was seen as a societal investment, now it’s ~300€ per semester at my university and still mostly financed through taxes. But the neoliberals sure didn’t impose that without a fight! And they would probably have set it higher if they could.

    I mean I know I’m complaining from a position of privilege here (sorry US debt slave bros), but still, fuck that shit. Cutting the most financially vulnerable people in society out of an education is what that amounts to. In other words, it’s just another front in class warfare.