And they lived happily ever after. The end.

I stopped posting there the moment they pulled the trigger on the API change. I used to like cruising LinuxQuestions and answering people, too.

In my web browser I personally use uBlock Origin to just block all remote fonts and browse with a JS disabled by default policy. It’s an annoying but necessary compromise, in my opinion.

Also, in Firefox v118 a new feature was introduced to curtail the font fingerprint route as well: “The visibility of fonts to websites has been restricted to system fonts and language pack fonts to mitigate font fingerprinting in Private Browsing windows.”

I’m sure you know this, but for anyone else scrolling through the comments it is actually ridiculous how much data websites can query and receive to fingerprint users from the web browser. Just look at https://amiunique.org – “WHY IS THIS ALLOWED?” is the question I have asked for many years now.

why are you posting generated spam?

What’s the use case for that? Would mkv solve your need?

What you ask for already exists.
https://opus-codec.org/docs/opus-tools/opusenc.html

The duration of software patents is completely absurd and in a just society would immediately be halved. That said, at any possible point I have totally ditched this ancient technology in favor of the vastly superior Opus.

Edit: just noticed this was published in 2017, which makes much more sense with my understanding of when mp3 was developed.

This is why I’m fundamentally opposed to what the coreutils rewritten in Rust project is doing. And the guy who started it just claims that he’s not interested in the license or legal stuff, he just picked MIT. I mean, maybe he really doesn’t for all I know, but he can certainly imagine the implications of what he’s doing, no? Personally, I don’t believe him.

This FSF guy might sound like he’s coming in to be a scold but he’s absolutely correct (https://github.com/uutils/coreutils/issues/1781). We can clearly see the implications of an essential (coreutils) MIT-licensed project like in Android where it is “Linux” strictly speaking, in that it uses the kernel, but every other piece of code is some form of MIT or BSD licensed software that allows Google to, rather successfully, jail its users.

Edit: And if you want to do some reading about how this argument over licenses formed, especially with a PR campaign to support the non-GPL style ones, check out the first half of this piece about Tim O’Reilly (as in the O’Reilly books guy) https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-meme-hustler

That account’s profile clearly states it’s _un_official, just BTW.

Delightful :)

But Wednesday’s move to significantly bump prices, marked an acknowledgment by Iger of the media giant’s intent to squeeze more revenue out of streaming by pushing consumers to the advertising-supported plans, which have proven to be more profitable.

“The advertising marketplace for streaming is picking up,” Iger told investors on the quarterly earnings call. “It’s more healthy than the advertising marketplace for linear television. We believe in the future of advertising on our streaming platforms, both Disney+ and Hulu.”

This is extremely important for them. Netflix’s excellent deal for most of its streaming existence was obviously a thorn in the side of many other businesses. Even if streaming services can get you to pay an exorbitant amount of money on an ad-free tier, advertisers are frothing for the chance to advertise to you regardless. They want you to see their ads so badly. And let’s not forget all the big tech companies, Netflix included, were riding high during the free money days of 0% interest loans. Those days are over, and the bill is due. Wall Street wants its money. And we are all the ones who have to pay up. Cheap streaming is officially over.

This is why these companies, including Netflix, have all introduced ad tiers. Not only is it a great way for them to juice their revenue streams, but also every other company wants a permanent residence in your brain, and then some. Given the way things have been going since duo-eras of the COVID pandemic and corporate profit-based inflation, they don’t even need to collude on prices. All the execs need to do is look at the business press and say, “Hey, they’re getting away with increased prices and password sharing crackdowns. We can do the same thing. The pay pigs keep paying!”

Should they? To my awareness that’s all original code developed by Meta.

I love that you guys use AGPL, the best license for networked software. This is exactly how Truth Social (the Donald Trump social site) was forced to release their source code, since it was just Mastodon, which is AGPL. The links to their sources are available here (warning, fash website link), but I do not know if they are actually compliant and up-to-date with whatever code changes they’ve made to it.

Of course, as we can see, AGPL is not about disallowing monetization, even by corporate actors. It’s about giving back. A thing that reactionaries and big companies are exceptionally bad at doing. The AGPL is anathema to the all-consuming, anti-social goals of silicon valley tech companies. Consider Google’s Anti-AGPL policy: https://opensource.google/documentation/reference/using/agpl-policy. Compare that to how they treat Android, which is Linux (GPLv2) with the entire userland stripped out and replaced with non-copyleft code so as to ensure their continued control over the devices once they sell them to you.

OK, I’m hopping off the soapbox, now 😆

Haha. Is there a demand for that from old timer windows 2.0 users? That stuff is before my time :)

I’d love to but I would dox myself here which I don’t want to do. I’ll say this much: it is a thing where if you have looked for Linux alternatives of the Windows version, there is a small chance you’ve found my code already :)

I’ve got a 60 star project on github. Some people have left some very nice feedback about how useful my code has been for them as a Linux alternative to a Windows program. I’m proud of my little bit of code, even if it hasn’t earned me a single cent (nor do I have expectations for it to)!