I have a PC with a version of Ameliorated Windows 10 on it. At a glance the project seemed promising, but then after install it did this thing where the lockscreen background is supposedly a blurred picture of the guy who made it. No matter how much I dug through the settings apparently I, as the owner of my PC, do not have high enough admin privileges to get rid of that despite my account being the administrator...? Pretty sus.
On top of that the update process takes more effort, so I haven't updated the system in literally years. The whole situation overall leaves me unable to trust my own computer, but even that feels more trustworthy than the default Windows-is-malware experience.
Next time I turn that PC on will be to install Debian.
This is a good point. I was also thinking that alternatives to the internet itself might become more important. We need more meshnets.
A Short List of Links to Remind that Free File Sharing, Including Piracy, is Good
Tl;dr: skip to the bottom for links.
I originally posted this here, and linked to it in a subreddit where evidently a community of pirates hates piracy.
This post is intended specifically for the retro gaming communities, though it's applicable for anything related to information sharing. In these spaces there's a strange kind of self-harm going on circa 2024, in which a nontrivial amount of people(sock puppets?) are fomenting anti-piracy sentiment, and defending aggressive industry juggernauts, as if these corporations aren't actively harming and seeking to eliminate these very same communities.
This is strange since retro gaming is all but founded and completely dependent on the free sharing of information and culture, which often includes piracy for better or worse.