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[Serious] What's your hot take?
  • It's hard to argue that guns don't make the proverbial bad guy more efficient at killing. If guns weren't the most effective tool for killing someone, cops would carry cheaper alternatives like billy clubs, and wars would still be fought with swords and bows.

  • Why do some Americans get angry at other people for not speaking English?
  • Many people presume that if someone is speaking a different language, they are talking shit. I've regretably been one of them, but sometimes you aren't wrong (RE Chinese people who speak Chinese and the "ABC"s who don't)

  • Anon thinks about Google
  • Luckily, there is a choice! All google services have a FOSS alternative. If you want to completely degoogle yourself, it's a long process that takes dedication, but any amount is liberating. You are literally taking back your freedom!

  • FOSS programmers, what do you think of horrible people using your software?
  • I don't see it as a matter of being a bad person or not. When I use GPL, whomever uses my software may be "evil". The difference is whether or not they grant the freedoms I granted them to view, modify, distribute, and distribute modifications to whomever uses their version of the software. It is a requirement to pay it forward. Evil or not.

  • Vimms Lair is getting removal notices from Nintendo etc. We need someone to help make a rom pack archive can you help?
  • A friend of mine and I put this together a few years ago. I hope yall find it helpful:

    #!/usr/bin/env bash
    
    download_roms(){
        for ((i=$1; i<=$2; i++)); do
            cd "$HOME/retroarch"
            curl  -G -L "https://download3.vimm.net/download/?mediaId=$i" -H 'User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:109.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/110.0' -H 'Referer: https://vimm.net/' -O  -J
        done
    }
    
    choose_system(){
    printf "\n============================================"
    printf "\n NOTE: This Script has not been fully tested"
    printf "\n       It may not work as expected"
    printf "\n============================================\n"
    printf "Download roms for which systems?
        1. NES
        2. SNES
        3. GameBoy
        4. N64
        5. GameCube
        6. Sega Genesis
        7. Playstation1-2
        8. Playstation Portable
        0. All\n : "
    
    read -r system
        case $system in
            "1") download_roms 3      981    "NES";;
            "2") download_roms 983    1770   "SNES";;
            "3") download_roms 2955   5932   "GameBoy";;
            "4") download_roms 2465   2761   "N64";;
            "5") download_roms 7461   7634   "GameCube";;
            "6") download_roms 1771   2464   "Sega Genesis";;
            "7") download_roms 6071   9894   "Playstation1-2";;
            "9") download_roms 23991  23973  "Playstation Portabale";;
            "0") download_roms 1      100000 "All";;
        esac
    }
    
    mkdir -p "$HOME/retroarch"
    choose_system
    
  • How Would You Handle Students Cheating?

    I gave my students a take home exam over spring break. (This is normal where I teach) One of the questions was particulary difficult. It came down to a factor of three in the solution. That factor inexplicably appeared with no justification on many of their exams. I intend to have the students I suspect of cheating come to my office to solve the problem on the board. What would you do?

    Edit: I gave them the Tuesday before spring break until the Thursday after. I didn't want it to be right before or right after.

    When I say normal I mean giving take home exams.

    65
    What are Some Good, Recent, and Available Dumb Cars?

    I have a 2010 Toyota Corolla. She's been my trusty steed for the last 14 years and is in good working order. I recognize she won't last forever, and if, god forbid (mostly for her) I get in an accident, I will need to get a new car. So what dumb cars do you drive, and what would you replace them with?

    95
    What are some prominent stories about AI and cyber security you've seen this year? Are they just improvements upon old techniques or are they novel?

    My reading has found things like generic phishing becoming more like spearfishing and blue teams finding preexisting problems using AI. Have there been any zero days? Do you think quantum computing will have a more significant impact on security than AI? Relatively speaking, how significant a role does good personal security practices like password management play relative to these two?

    3
    What Are Your Favorite FOSS Android Apps?

    Here's what I'm rocking:

    • Aegis
    • App Lounge
    • AntennaPod
    • Bitwarden
    • Dicio
    • Doodle
    • F-Droid
    • FeedMe (Not FOSS. Open to suggestions)
    • Firefox
    • FNG
    • InvizBox
    • Jerboa
    • Mastodon
    • Music Player GO
    • Obsidian
    • OpenLauncher
    • Organic Maps
    • OsmAnd~
    • Proton Cal/Drive/Mail/VPN
    • RadioDroid
    • RedReader
    • Signal
    • Silence
    • Simple Keyboard
    • Tasks (Not the built in. I love this one)
    • Unit Converter Ultimate
    • Wikipedia

    This is just about everything I have on my phone. I'm on a FairPhone 4 running /e/OS. What's your load out like?

    I'm looking for a new keyboard. Glad for suggestions :D

    172
    InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)WU
    wuphysics87 @lemmy.ml

    Physics and Free Software

    Posts 6
    Comments 294