what happened here? Looks like you tried summons an autotldr bot, but it did not do its job, correct? That’s kind of a shame. Indeed theregister.com is an exclusive website and direct links to it should not be shared. A privacy-respecting infrastructure would block such links or replace them with archive.org variants.

I’m not on a good enough connection to watch videos but when I read “How the Religion called Atheism…” I know it cannot be coming from any sort of credible source. Atheism is absence of religion, not a religion in itself. It includes both agnostics and gnostics (both those who are convinced there is no god and those who are unconvinced either way). So I don’t suppose it’s worth it to note the URL and try to fetch the video when I have a good connection.

Are those heuristics low bandwidth or is audio involved?

I disable images because of bandwidth consumption. So I’m wondering if it makes sense to install a screen reader in my case.

I’ve been out of the loop on games for a while but ReactOS may be worth a look.

The 1st ½ of your comment sounds accurate. But…

And also in Foss there are highly opinionated software where the devs completely ignore users, ban them from GitHub when they post issues,

Right, but to be clear non-free s/w is worse - you can’t even reach the devs, generally, and there is no public bug tracker. FOSS is an improvement in this regard because at least there is a reasonable nuclear option (forking). The nuclear option for non-free software is writing it yourself from scratch.

That all sounds accurate enough to me… but thought I should comment on this:

However - in larger enterprises there’s so much more, you get the whole SDL maturity thing going - money is invested into raising the quality of the whole development lifecycle and you get things like code reviews, architects, product planning, external security testing etc. Things that cost time, money and resources.

It should be mentioned that many see testing as a cost, but in fact testing is a cost savings. In most situations, you only spend some money on testing in order to dodge a bigger cost: customers getting burnt in a costly way that backfires on the supplier. Apart from safety-critical products, this is the only business justification to test. Yet when budgets get tightened, one of the first cuts many companies make is testing – which is foolish assuming they are doing testing right (in a way that saves money by catching bugs early).

Since the common/general case with FOSS projects is there is no income that’s attached to a quality expectation (thus testing generates no cost savings) - the users are part of the QA process as free labor, in effect :)

Linux won’t be viable for blind people unless major distros have full time accessibility folks, and refuse to accept inaccessible packages and patches.

Sure, but you need to read what I quoted. I purely addressed the flawed claim that better code comes from those paid to write it. The opposite is true. It’s unclear to what extent that bias has influenced @noahcarver@rblind.com’s thesis. Though I have no notable issues with anything else @noahcarver@rblind.com wrote (much of which is beyond my expertise w.r.t accessibility).

And to be clear, “better code” strictly refers to quality, not accessibility. Accessibility is a design factor.

But that code you write at home is probably not accessible.

That’s right. But then neither is the commercial code I worked on. That would be outside of my domain. I do backends for the most part. The rare UI work I did was for a tiny user base of internal developers within the org and accessibility was not part of the requirements. I worked on a UI for external users briefly but again no requirements for accessibility (which would be very unlikely for that particular product).

In any case, this sidetrack is irrelevant to what you replied to. It’s important to correct bogus claims that being paid to write code is conducive to quality. Some right-wingers I know never miss the opportunity to use the phrase “good enough for government work” because they want to push the mentality that capitalism promotes superior quality. It’s a widespread misconception that needs correction whenever it manifests.

Paying someone to write accessible code should theoretically work on both free software and non-free software. AFAICT the reason non-free software would accommodate blind users is that the market share is large enough to justify the profit-driven bottom line and those users are forced to pay for it (as all users are). In the FOSS domain, payments (“bounties”) are optional. Has this been tried? If not, then you’re relying on blind FOSS developers to suit their own needs in a way that benefits all blind users.

and that someone who is paid to write accessible software is generally going to produce and maintain better code.

In my day job I’m paid to write code. Then I go home write code I was not paid for. My best work is done without pay.

Commercial software development

When I have to satisfy an employer, they don’t want quality code. They want fast code. They want band-aid fixes. The corporate structure is very short-sighted. I was once back-roomed by a manager and lectured for “gold plating”. That means I was producing code that was higher quality than what management perceives as the economic sweet spot. I was also caught once fixing bugs as I spotted them when I happened to have a piece of code checked out in Clearcase. I was told I was “cheating the company out of profits” because they prefer if the bug goes through a documentation procedure so the customer can ultimately be made to pay separately for the bug fix. Nevermind the fact that my time was already compensated by the customer anyway - but they can get more money if there’s a bigger paper trail involving more staff. So when you say you get what you pay for, that’s what you pay for – busy work (aka working hard not smart). They also want “consistent quality”. So if one module is higher quality than another, there is pressure to lower the quality of the better module because improving the style or design pattern of the lower quality piece is “gold plating”. When I make full use of the language constructs (as intended by the language designers), I am often forced by an employer to use more basic constructs. Employers are worried that junior engineers or early senior engineers who might have to maintain my code will encounter language constructs that are less common and it will slow them down to have to look up the syntax they encounter. Employers under-estimate the value of developers learning on the job. So I am often forced avoid using the more advanced constructs to accommodate some subset of perceived lowest common denominator. E.g. if I were to use an array in bash, an employer might object because some bash maintainers may not be familiar with an array.

Non-commercial software development

Free software developers have zero schedule pressure. They are not forced to haphazardly rush some sloppy work into an integration in order to meet some deadline that was promised to a customer by a manager who was pressured to give an overly optimistic timeline. #FOSS devs are free to gold plate all they want. And because it’s a labor of love and not labor for a paycheck, FOSS devs naturally take more pride in their work. I’m often not proud of the commercial software I was forced to write by a corporation fixated on the bottom line. When I’m consistently pressured to write poor quality code for a profit-driven project, I hit a breaking point and leave the company. I’ve left 3 employers for this reason.

Commercial software from a user PoV

Whenever I encounter a bug in commercial software, there is almost never a publicly accessible bug tracker and it’s rare that the vendor has the slightest interest in passing along my bug report to the devs. The devs are unreachable by design (cost). I’m just one user so my UX is unimportant. Obviously when I cannot even communicate a bug to a commercial vendor, I am wholly at the mercy of their testers eventually rediscovering the bug I found, which is unlikely when there are complex circumstances.

Non-commercial software from a user PoV

Almost every FOSS app has a bug tracker, forum, or IRC channel where bugs can be reported and treated. I once wrote a feature request whereby the unpaid FOSS developer implemented my feature request and sent me a patch the same day I reported it. It was the best service I ever encountered and certainly impossible in the COTS software world for anyone who is not a multi-millionaire.

I agree.

One of the reasons no one gives a shit is there is never news about CF making use of that MitM position. But I know they hire data scientists and what corp can resist the urge to monetize data they have access to? So I think it’s just a matter of time before they get caught abusing the vast amount of valuable data they have visibility on.

Sorry I do not know if BBC interviews are transcribed.

But FWIW it will air again on BBC World Service at 02:32 GMT tomorrow and the next day (which could be useful for those on limited internet connections)

Regarding the two suggested search services which are both Microsoft syndicates:

• #DuckDuckGo: hosted by Microsoft and searches are outsourced to Microsoft, so MS gets to see your queries and your IP, among other DDG problems

• #Qwant: tor-hostile (CAPTCHAs), MS profits from your searches.

Yes, but to be clear my test may or may not be valid in terms of what a blind person would experience. Unlike a blind person I do not use a screen reader. I merely disabled images and saw no visual indicator of an audio option. I would expect blind people to disable images as well because they would only slow them down for no benefit. But someone else said that they bypassed the CAPTCHA completely due to having a screen reader.

Specifically in the case of Protonmail? That was part of my question. I saw no audio CAPTCHA option.

Thanks for the tip!

Although it’s a tricky decision because if the server can detect that you use a screen reader, then your browser fingerprint uniqueness would increase quite a bit.

Indeed it saves bandwidth – which is particularly important for those with a limited connection. I like it as well because so many images actually downgrade the UX anyway.

It’s a better carbon footprint to nix images but then we get punished for it by anti-bot websites. Bots also neglect to fetch images so I get hit with false positives for robots more frequently.

(Not sure if mentions work on Lemmy… mentioning @aibler@lemmy.world for good measure)

Ah, well then I would guess you’re not using Tor and perhaps Protonmail is discriminating against Tor users. I used to access protonmail’s clearnet site over Tor and got the CAPTCHAs. Then started using PM’s onion service (in fact I was told the onion service avoided CAPTCHAs) but in fact it still gets CAPTCHAs.

Apparently I’m wrong about this… the preview is said to be created by the server:

https://links.hackliberty.org/comment/1068761

EDIT: well, apparently it’s questionable. No one knows with confidence.

So does that mean jlai.lu is blocked by lecho.be? I figured it was more likely that lecho.be was blocking Tor, thus blocking my connection.

To be against the Republican Party does not automatically make you a Democrat,

It does. You’re not accepting the reality of a 2-party system. Democrats encompass the green party voters as well, in effect, because it’s a 2 party system. Democrats broadly have extensive variation united in opposition to the republican platform. Democrats do not have a single org or two that sums up the whole party. The closest notable org that embodies the values of democrats would be the ACLU. But the ACLU is much more narrow to dem’s values than ALEC & NRA are to the republicans. But since you’re complexity averse, I suggest just looking at ACLU’s campaigns and missions compared to ALEC to understand the differences you’re trying to grasp between the parties.

yet you still could not credibly defend the Democratic Party.

Altruism in not compatible with the basic core agenda of the republican platform. Opposing the positions I listed is a sufficient defense for the party of any republican opposition with respect to campaign financing in a two party system. If you’re Sam Bankman-Fried claiming to spend money on altruism, the republican party is a clear antithesis of that endeavor, thus not a credible recipient. As unfavorable as it is to be trapped in a 2-party system, you’re lost on the simplicity of this.

For instance, communists staunchly attack republicans, yet they equally attack the democrats, arguing (rightfully, in my opinion) that both are two sides of the same coin which is capitalism/liberalism.

You’re not grasping the basic political framework of the US. You can finance communists in the US but the results are no different than setting your money on fire. They are not a viable party (assuming they even exist - they may be operating under a different name). Furthermore, bringing communists up only muddies the waters because SBF did not contribute to them. He only contributed to Ds and Rs.

I want to go back to the roots of our debate in order to recalibrate, and that is the fact that you’ve created quite the frail and unnecessarily complicated moral compass which, ironically, adds no philosophical value.

The 2-party system is not complicated. It’s the contrary. It’s simple to a detrimental fault. And because the republican values are what they are, it’s actually trivially simple to work out which party an altruistic philanthropist would favor. They have no choice.

Instead of basing your evaluation of SBF on a shallow criterion of political funding (which leads to many problematic conclusions due to the ideological indeterminacy which plagues American political parties), you can directly employ, like any sane person would, a humanist compass (granted that humanism has its caveats). You should then be asking whether EA conforms to the conceptions of humanism, on the short but also long term, and should future generations be prioritised over present beings?

You’ve misunderstood the thesis. It was not an overall appraisal of Sam Bankman-Fried. There are a lot topics we can discuss and countless approaches to solving the world’s social problems. The topic is specifically about Sam Bankman-Fried’s claim to adhere to effective altruism. If that does not interest you, you should not have entered the thread. You can create threads about whatever you find more interesting than SBF EA.

has there been a consensus among these self-style altruists what defines altruism?

I’m not sure that consensus would be needed, but apparently it’s defined as one person’s vision. Altruism itself is selfless behavior but (TIL) effective altruism is apparently an anti-poverty mission specifically.

I heard vague claims about impact on generations in the far future and I kind of tuned out at that point.

A charitable movement can impact people the day of the donation, or far in the future. Guardian mentions GiveDirectly, which is a program to distribute directly to poor people.