One of the problems I have with search engines when looking for tech solutions is that the results are incredibly out of date. I don’t bother any more and just go straight to the product’s own support forum. Where possible I add the forum’s own search entry to Firefox’s search box. At least I no longer get answers to a problem no one has had since 2018.

The whole Bellendcat thing sounded a bit sus to me when I first came across them being lionised in the UK press. One plonker sitting in his bedroom outdoing the might of the Five Eyes? Mmm, sure.

Pot/kettle.

‘CIA sidekick’ gives £2.6m to UK media groups

https://declassifieduk.org/cia-sidekick-gives-2-6m-to-uk-media-groups/

NED money has gone to UK investigative groups Bellingcat, Finance Uncovered and openDemocracy, as well as media freedom and training organisations Index on Censorship, Article 19, the Media Legal Defence Initiative, and the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Pot/kettle.

‘CIA sidekick’ gives £2.6m to UK media groups

https://declassifieduk.org/cia-sidekick-gives-2-6m-to-uk-media-groups/

NED money has gone to UK investigative groups Bellingcat, Finance Uncovered and openDemocracy, as well as media freedom and training organisations Index on Censorship, Article 19, the Media Legal Defence Initiative, and the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

It was Mozilla for me back in 2000. I gradually replaced all the proprietary apps I was using on Windows with FLOSS alternatives and then finally made the mover to Linux around 2010. The only closed stuff I use now is an iPhone and I despise it.

Oh, it’s not that simple. I could call, email or any number of other methods. It’s just that I’d rather not communicate with a right wing, paranoid, fear-spreading, racist nut job. I just need to know they’re still breathing. This individual is spewing bile every single day,

Good news. I use it once a week to check if a relative is still alive.

This is not at all what it’s meant for but I use Element messenger for this purpose. It’s on all my devices, it’s e2ee, it’s shareable if needs be. It’s also a damn fine messenger in its own right.

This is irritating. I use Nitter once a week to check if someone’s still alive. If I see them posting crap I know they’re still breathing.

btw, if anyone wants a shitty pic of a firefox then I declare this one now in the public domain.

Edit: I should add that I don’t have a Reddit account to post this myself.

I’m glad he saved you money. I just wish he’d learn the basic grammar of production.

He’s not the only bad YouTuber. 99.9% of them are clueless. Take the ubiquitous jump cut edit. They are everywhere. This is fine if you’re a nouvelle vague French film director in the 1950s and 60s but have no place in a YT vid. It’s unprofessional. None of these people seem to be able to get through a paragraph of text without fluffing their lines and consequently having to jump cut over the mistake. Watch an Andy Edwards music analysis vid and you’ll see he can get through 45 minutes without a single edit. He knows his subject well and therefore is less prone to errors. If he does screw up he’s smart enough to explain it and just let things flow without interruption.

What’s with editing every breath and pause between sentences? Anyone that tried to talk like than in real life would die of oxygen deprivation before the end of their vid. It’s unnatural and destroys the flow.

Then there’s the unnecessary use of effects. It reminds me of the early days of desktop publishing when everyone and his dog suddenly became typographers. The horror, the horror. Just because they have 49 installed typefaces doesn’t mean they have to use all of them in their poxy one page newsletters but that didn’t stop them.

The basic principles of film and TV production were established over a century ago. If some spotty oik with a computer and a cam in his bedroom at his parents’ house thinks they can do better then bring it on. I have yet to see any evidence of this happening. Putting some Star Wars toys on a shelving unit in the background and draping some LEDS over it is not visual innovation.

Let me summarise: Know your subject. Write a decent script. Learn it. Rehearse until you are perfect. Don’t use SUPERFLUOUS capitalisation in the TITLES of your latest MASTERPIECE.

I’ve been in the business too long and amateurs irritate the f**k out of me. There’s a lot more I could mention but life’s too short.

Ok. grumpy old man rant over :)

When it removes the entirety of LTT from YouTube it will worth a try. There isn’t much in this world that makes me seethe but that plonker is one.

Thanks for the head up.

The lovely Mrs Spudger and I met on IRC in the previous century. At the time we lived on opposite sides of the planet. This year we celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary

I still get most of my news via RSS. Lemmy is my sole social media usage. I use Matrix every day but see it as very different to IRC for some uses. Forums are useful but much of the tech content you find via search engines is out of date. Also not all forums are created equally. The new KDE forums have a major shortcoming compared to the old version.