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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 16th, 2023

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  • It’s a thought experiment, not an observation. The idea is that if you have infinity and it’s truly random than eventually all possibilities emerge somewhere within that.

    The idea of infinite monkeys typing randomly on infinite typewriters is that eventually one of them would accidentally type out all the works of Shakespeare. Many more would type out parts of the works of Shakespeare. And many many many more would type random garbage.

    If we then take that forwadd imagine for a moment the multiverse is also infinite and random, then every possible universe would exist somewhere in that multiverse.

    It can be taken in other directions too. It’s a way of cocneptualising the implications of infinity and true randomness.

    Meanwhile actual Shakespeare had intelligence and wrote and created his works. Him being a monkey writing Shakespeare is just a sly humerous observation, but it has nothing to do with the actual meaning of the thought experiment and the idea it is trying to convey.



  • I don’t have specific experience with the tools you list, however on googling it looks like Ableton Live does work under wine. Wine is what underpins playing windows games on Linux too; it’s very powerful and effective.

    You can install Mint into a VM environment on your current PC (such as Virtual Box) and see how you get on with software you really can’t live without. It won’t run as fast as real life in a VM but you should get an idea whether any tools you can’t live without can work.

    As for OneDrive there are unofficial clients to get it working with Linux if you want to sync to your local filesystem. However Microsoft doesn’t officially support it beyond Web browsers, so if you want something slick and supported you probably would be better migrating to other solutions. You’d certainly be able to migrate with the unofficial clients but I’m not sure I’d want to rely on them long term as things xna break if Microsoft unilaterally changes something.


  • There are PPAs with different builds of ffmpeg for Ubuntu. It also depends what codecs are needed as to whether this is even relevant?

    Bearing in mind some (many) encoding codec libraries are not installed by default as most people don’t need them but can readily be added from the official repos via apt or synaotic. Each codec is usually provided as a library of its own; ffmpeg is more than just one set of binaries. There is a big difference between an incomplete build and incomplete default install of all available libraries/codecs. Most people don’t need or want every possible encoding codec installed by default.

    However some codecs are more strictly licensed and may need to be installed or acquired via different routes - that is the nature or proprietary software (as on Windows).

    Which codes are you saying are not available in Ubuntu official repos?




  • BananaTrifleViolin@lemmy.worldtoDeGoogle Yourself@lemmy.mlAlternative email?
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    12 days ago

    I use Proton mail. I like the suite of products (mail, calendar and storage), and it’s been reliable. They also seem to be secure.

    You can use your own domain with them which is pretty standard but a good idea if you want long term email independence/remoce vendor lockin.

    I also like that Proton mail are going down a non-profit route and have open sourced their apps. I’m not suggesting they’re perfect, but these moves and the scale of their set up makes me feel happier to use them.



  • Flatpak is supposed to be a sandbox, so if there is a vulnerable dependency then in theory any attack would be limited to the sandbox.

    However, it depends on the software - some Flatpak need quite low level access to use, and in that case an attack or mlaware could get into the main system. And unfortunately Flatpak itself has vulnerabilities which cna negate the whole idea of a sandbox.

    Flatpaks should be using up to date secure dependencies, but the reality is many do not. I would not rely on Flatpak for security. Even fully up to date Flatpaks can be insecure, and Flatpak itself have vulnerabilities that have needed fixing. And for many Flatpaks it’s not even clear who is maintaining them.

    Flatpaks are useful for deploying software that’s just not available in your distros repos. But when deploying any software outside your repos - including App Image, build from source or 3rd party repos - you are opening your system up to security vulnerabilities. That’s the nature of installing 3rd party software. Flatpak offers some reassurance compared to some methods but it’s far from perfect.

    If security is your prime concern, then Virtual Machines may be more secure route to sandboxing software (if done properly). Building from source would be the other option, as it means you take ont he responsibility for security by using the latest code including for dependencies. But there is no perfect option, it’s always about balancing risk vs convenience.

    It’s also worth noting that software repos are also not perfect. But good distros invest a lot of time and effort in keeping them as up to date and secure as possible, usually via the hard work of volunteers.





  • Then you have to trust the person you are communicating with has turned off windows recall. That has to be the starting position.

    Tools will come to block or break windows recall but it will still be based on trust that the recipient is using them. Privacy centred apps like Signal wouldn’t want windows screen shotitng every message for example. There are many apps and tools including in the professional sphere that would not want their data leaking via recall so it will come.

    Unfortunately it may come late in the professional realm probably after scandals break. Employers using recall data to investigate staff for example - it’s bound to happen eventually.

    My own organisation, a huge health organisation, has opted in to CoPilot. It’s crazy in my view, even if our data is ring fenced in some way. I don’t want private patient information being used to train Microsoft shitty tools, or stored on their servers. Regulation and the law is way behind when it comes to this stuff.



  • It is but it’s also one of the few options available to devs. They can sign up with a big publisher and then be beholden to them financially and creatively. Or they can try the kickstarter route, or they can take out huge loans or investment and be beholden to them. If they’re lucky they can get grants from governments but that is sporadic and uncommon. Or they can scale back projects to reduce financial risk.

    Some devs can self fund once very successful, but even a successful dev like the makers of Subnautica won’t have lots of money on hand. Plus even if they have cash, it is also about risk and sharing that so they don’t go completely bankrupt on one project and all their employees lose their jobs.

    Early Access has its down sides for definite but it does allow game devs to get revenue in while developing, and also (if done well) focus on delivering a game the players actually like. The biggest benefit is definitely that it allows devs as much independence as feasible.

    Of course for the players, it can be hit or miss but that is the risk with any game. And no one forces anyone to buy an EA game - if you don’t like it, don’t buy and wait til 1.0. That’s no different than waiting for any game to release so not sure what the problem is from that point of view?

    For players in terms of a pure “investment” then of course it’s a bad deal - the only return you get is the hopeful 1.0 game, and you get no share of any profits. You’re actually just another customer, who has been tapped very early. But again, it’s a choice and gamers can just not buy early access.

    I’ve bought quite a few games via kickstarter and EA routes, but only games that I’m passionate about and are relatively niche (like small indie projects, or genres that don’t get much mainstream action now like Adventure games). As much as I enjoyed Subnautica, I personally wouldn’t buy its sequel on EA except maybe if it was very close to release.





  • “Yacht maker who makes yachts for billionaires scrambles to blame the crew so he can save more yachts and not be sued”

    That’s the story here. He’s trying to set the narrative as entirely human error rather than a design flaw. For example one concern is how quickly an intact vessel sank - 30 seconds is being claimed in some areas - and the yacht may have an overlong aluminium mast which contributed to it capsizing .

    People saying they don’t care about billionaires dying are missing the point. The yachts maker is trying to pin it on the crew before its even been properly investigated.