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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 8th, 2023

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  • I’m not sure exactly what I was expecting by “Values of the Fediverse”, but I was pleasantly surprised! It focuses on what over the decades seem to be the core values of Open Source software movements, such as openness, independence, and freedom to use the software how you choose to use it. Just applied to the concept of social media. Which makes sense.

    My main home account is on Lemmy.ca not Lemmy.ml ( or another Lemmy instance) because that is how I’ve chosen to associate, and I can. And I could spin up my own instance, and federate or de-federate with whomever I choose.

    This isn’t a novel concept, OpenSource.com has a page on “The Open Source Way” which espouses transparency, collaboration, “Release early and often”, inclusive meritocracy, and community. I remember reading “The Cathedral and the Bazaar” back in the day, and Eric Raymond seemed to extrapolate several values or principle from the open source model.

    The free software movement does implicitly have positions on “political” topics. Right to repair, DRM, and privacy come to mind immediately. These shouldn’t be seen as being “Left” or “Right”,





  • The standard I recall being established back in the nineties as to whether strong encryption was even legal in the US was “substantial non-infringing use” or similar. It’s been awhile.

    The problem with key-escrow or anything similar is that any proscribed circumvention is also available to the “bad guys”.

    I think Telegram’s stance would be that they can’t moderate because of strong end-to-end encryption. Back in the day the parallel would have been made to the phone system or mail.

    Of course this is all happening in France, so I have no idea what the combination of French and EU laws will have on this, but I would still broadly expect that if a parallel can be made to mail or phone, Telegram would be in the clear. The phone company and mail service have no expectation of content moderation.

    I guess we’ll see.





  • Grimpen@lemmy.catoTechnology@lemmy.mlPortable music player
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    2 months ago

    If you can get one of those cassette adapters, you can test the tape deck of interest first.

    Technology Connections on YouTube had an episode on those tape adapters, but I can’t remember the reason why she some tape decks don’t work with those cassette adapters.

    So far I’ve only had that one tape deck not work.



  • Yes… in the cassette players that work with those adapters. Annoyingly, the old stereo we have set up at work in one shop doesn’t work with those casette adapters or the Mixxtape.

    Also, if you use it in a tape deck, it doesn’t use the spools as inputs. You just set it playing and pop it in. Similar to my old Digisette Duo Aria.

    I will admit, I have rarely used the tape deck function, but it has been useful on occasion.




  • Similar. Had a Colecovision when I was a kid, followed by a second hand Commodore Vic-20. Hands down the Colecovision had better graphics, but all you could do is play the games you bought or shared. Next was a Tandy 1000 TX, and I don’t think I ever looked back.

    I did have an original Gameboy, that I bought with my own money, and that was pretty cool, but still it was simply a matter of playing the games they sold you. In the shareware scene of the 90’s, even the Gameboy was horrendously limiting.

    For me it’s never been a performance issue. Most of the time I’ve been using old PCs, and the latest console would technically be more powerful (back to Colecovision vs. Commodore Vic 20). It was a matter of flexibility and variety.






  • Ironically, the Atari -like joystick from the 2000’s from Walmart for $15 that plugs directly into your TV with games stored in the joystick is a better joysticks than the original 2600 joysticks.

    However, I would contend that the Intellivision controller was worse.

    I had a Colecovision (and Vic 20), and although I will say that was better than the 2600 and Intellivision joystick, I have to emphasize to all these youngsters complaining about the original NES controllers that those were still an improvement over previous default joysticks.


  • Flashbacks! This reminds me of my first Gravis Gamepad (IIRC). Was a disappointing joystick, even compared to old Intellivision controllers.

    It was okay with fighting games, and I do recall a nineties PC giant robot fighting game (One Must Fall maybe?)

    Still, my first joystick that I actually loved and made a game much better was an old CH Products flightstick. Early flightstick, so it only added a throttle to the base, so no rudder control.

    I remember playing Comanche Maximum Overkill with that stick and just popping in and out of canyons. Also Earthsiege and Strike Force Centauri. I ended up with a Saitek Flightstick, and it was even better (Independence War is a fond memory) but the difference was not as revolutionary as going from a regular joystick to that first CH Products flightstick.