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Cake day: June 29th, 2023

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  • It’s not about force or having authority to define something, this is about being able to have a real conversation, and you left the main term undefined except in your own mind, and then when I asked you for it you gave an absolutely wild definition that makes no sense and which I can’t find anybody else using, and yet you still called it “the” definition and not “your” definition.

    If nothing else that means you’re not someone it’s worth trying to talk to, because you’re not even trying to communicate effectively. I don’t care if you have your reasons, they’re not good reasons but I feel like in the spirit of this conversation I just shouldn’t fucking bother to explain why, because based on precedent you’ll just insist I’m wrong for your own inscrutable reasons and carry on as you were, and if I try to wrest those reasons out of you they’ll be nonsensical. Also you’re not worth trying to convince because you’re not somebody anyone else will listen to for long before they realise you’re completely full of shit.

    Goodbye.


  • That definition of authority is so immediately, obviously wrong that I don’t even know where to start dealing with it.

    It’s so uselessly broad. I literally said at the start that authority isn’t just any inqeuality, and you didn’t address it. You should have if you thought that was wrong, because that’s literally the definition of the thing that we’re talking about.

    I would like to see you justify this incrsdibly broad definition. If you want to see my justification for my definition, I would invite you to look it up in any dictionary.


  • I need you to define the word “authority” in that case. I’ve given my definition, so what is yours and how does it differ, please? Because I already addressed the fact that an imbalance doesn’t create a hierarchy, and your description of imbalance does not fit my definition of authority.

    Power imbalance doesn’t automatically create the conditions for domination. For that you would need both expertise and monopoly.

    And the solution to a misunderstanding isn’t to concede the definition of the word “state” but to educate. The state is any entity that has a monopoly of the legitimate use of violence in a region. That applies regardless of the system of government that rules it.

    Your definition isn’t a definition, it’s just a collection of categories that gives no useful information.

    We don’t need to be dominated in order to clean up our garbage. And the state is often really bad at collecting garbage, so just teach people that.


  • I honestly hate the concept of “bootmaker authority”, because it’s exactly the same wrong conflation that Engels makes. Not every inequality is a form of authority. Expertise is not authority, it is expertise.

    Authority is the socially-recognised power to dominate. Getting a bootmaker to advise on or perform bootmaking tasks is not domination. The bootmaker can’t hold you at gunpoint and command you to wear a certain kind of boot, nobody would allow that. There aren’t bootmaking cops.

    Like what exactly does the bootmaker’s “authority” entail in this theory? Giving consent does not confer authority. Authority operates regardless of consent, that’s what makes it bad.




  • Excrubulent@slrpnk.nettoProgrammer Humor@programming.devSpecifying file paths
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    2 months ago

    I’d just like to interject for a moment. What you’re refering to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.

    Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called Linux, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project.

    There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine’s resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called Linux distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux!



  • Only if it’s performance sensitive. Otherwise you’re wasting programmer time both writing and reading the code, and you’ve made it less maintainable with more complexities where bugs can creep in.

    The vast majority of the time you can afford a few wasted bits.

    Honestly though I don’t quite understand why a compiler couldn’t optimise this process. Like it knows what a boolean is, surely it could reduce them down to bits.



  • I probably said it too dramatically, the kinds of people that need to hear it will just knee-jerk dismiss me, but seriously think about the phrase “normal names are required for the functioning of society”. What a wild-ass thing to say. Required why? Is society really that fragile? Sounds like maybe it should be replaced by something that can handle the occasional mildly spicy letter. Mine isn’t even that spicy, it’s like whole-egg-mayo levels of spice.


  • Excrubulent@slrpnk.nettoProgrammer Humor@programming.devAsking the real questions
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    5 months ago

    No they’re not. They’re required for us to be catalogued and managed by a state, to our detriment and the enrichment of the ruling class.

    “Normality” is a fucking scam that keeps your imagination in check, so you never look outside your assigned box and realise you don’t have to belong to anyone.

    You have no idea how much genocidal violence has been done to condition our society to accept a dystopic phrase like “normal names are required for the functioning of society”.

    Your mind has been caged.



  • As someone with a very mildly unusual name, I can tell you that it doesn’t matter whether a system could or could not meaningfully represent the name. Often the people or systems just refuse to acknowledge any deviation from what’s expected. Sometimes databases are written to enforce arbitrary grammatical rules that make my name impossible to write, or the people using the systems will just “correct” the “error” without telling me. I don’t mind that much but our normative systems just love to homogenise us.