My brother used to work for an SEO company. They charged clients to have their web sites on directories which would improve their Google pagerank… until Google updated the algorithm to penalize sites listed in these directories. The company quickly pivoted to charging the same clients to have them removed from the directories they had just charged them to be listed in.

Oh, that’s helpful. Thank you for sharing that!

Turns out this was my goof. I was trying to set up auto-login on my user account. In doing so, I set it to automatically log in to Plasma (X11) instead of Plasma (Wayland). Odd that the default option in that dropdown is not the one you’re currently using, but 🤷‍♂️.

What I’m now trying to figure out is why I can’t set auto-login for Plasma (Wayland). The Apply button is disabled. 🤔

Thanks to everyone who shared ideas.

HDMI switcher is an interesting idea. Will it do more than just forward on the EDID? (Hope I have that right. 😅) Will it sorta translate it and push out its own EDID?

The cable is one of the two cables that previously completed the chain between the display and computer. Could it still be a problem in spite of that?

The monitor definitely is. Like I said, it was working when connected through the soundbar. It seems to be that it isn’t reporting capabilities the same way the soundbar did when connected directly to the computer.

Yeah, I get it, but I figure if someone doesn’t understand why it’s a problem to blame someone for having their content stolen, they probably won’t understand why it’s wrong to blame them for having other intangibles stolen either. The transition to tangible object was intentional in hopes of bridging that gap. The only right that is exactly the same as copyright is copyright, but that analogy wouldn’t really work for someone who doesn’t understand how copyright works. 😅 It’s kinda the point of an analogy: to highlight the similarities between two things that are similar in some ways but necessarily different in others for the benefit of someone who understand the subject but not the object of the analogy.

But again, the point isn’t that car ownership is the same as copyright. That’s a (intentional, I think) misunderstanding of how analogies work. They don’t claim that every attribute of the two things being compared is the same; only that there may be enough similarity to bridge a gap in understanding. I can’t see anything so wrong with this analogy that it invalidates the point I was making with it. The point was that having the law commonly ignored doesn’t open the door for victim blaming if they don’t jump through all the hoops armchair lawyers define for them. That’s often the case when the law grants us rights: we just have them at a certain point and don’t have to do anything else. I have a right to continue owning a car that I bought. I have a right not to be punched in the face. I have a right to be involved in my children’s lives. I have a right to continue to own the works I create. These are different rights which apply to different sorts of things, but the principle is the same. If I had made any of these analogies (or any analogy period), a bad faith argument could certainly have found a trivial difference between the two… but it would have been just that: a bad faith argument based on a trivial (for the purposes of this analogy) difference.

Is stealing a Reddit post the same as stealing a car? No, because as everyone has pointed out, the car cannot easily be copied, but is violating someone’s copyright the same as violating their ownership rights over some item they purchased? Yes. When you violate someone’s right to own the car, they do not retain an identical un-violated copy of their right to own it, just the same that way when you violate their copyright, they cannot retain an identical un-violated copy of that right somehow. Both of these rights have been violated equally, and the tangibility of the object they applied to doesn’t change that.

I guess my example is that, isn’t it? 😅 My point is that you generally don’t have to remind people of your rights in order to enjoy them, and that’s true for copyright. Pick your own favorite right and replace my car analogy with it.

Now, I just need to find a way to compare cross-posting Reddit content without permission to the Nazis and describe Lemmy as “the Uber of ,” and I’ll have achieved the triple crown of cliche analogies. 😆

Cars are frequently stolen when parked outside. Private ownership of cars is ignored if not openly mocked by car thieves. If you park your own car outside, you should assume it will be stolen. So make sure to always post a sign on your car whenever you park it outside reading “This car is mine. Please do not steal it,” if you don’t want it to be stolen, or better yet, don’t park it outside at all.

It’s a bad take. It’s not how ownership works. You have copyright protection by nature of the fact that you created a piece of content. You’re not required to remind people of that fact in order to be protected, even if random internet person asserts that you should in their social media post.

That’s not the only reason it’s bad though. The idea that “I don’t like the way Reddit is treating their users, so to get back at Reddit… I’m going to violate the rights of the very same users I claim have been wronged by copying their content and posting it somewhere without their consent” is just baffling to me. You’re banking on the fact that random internet user probably won’t sue you… and you’re probably right! By taking advantage of that situation, you’re not “pwning Reddit.” You’re taking advantage of the person who created it in the first place. Ironically, if Reddit had further abused the situation by not just creating the honeypot where people would create free content for them but also by claiming ownership of that content, you’d have a cease and desist in a matter of days once your bot went live and we wouldn’t have to see this same question posted 2-3x a week on Lemmy.

I’m no intellectual property crusader. It’s messed up that corporations can consolidate intellectual property to the extent they have and extend copyrights for generations. It’s wild that we grant trademarks on vague ideas and then allow trolls to build businesses that do nothing but hold them and use them as weapons against people trying to actually make things. But if anyone should have the benefit of copyright protection, it’s the lowly internet user who posts content for free on social media for your entertainment.

Could this future give me glasses that can’t be smudged? If so, sign me up!

Pogs

I pick up something new almost every time I watch Memento.

Drop will continue to operate independently

In the case of an acquisition, this sentence always has an implied “for a little while” at the end of it.

I loved having a personal web site when I was a teenager… but then the internet became all about commerce and I sorta jumped on that bandwagon. I got fed up a few months back and needed a creative outlet so I launched a new personal web site, part of that being a blog.

I love writing for it! It’s different from journaling because someone else could find it. I know the feeling of discovering someone else’s personal blog, and it’s incredible. I love knowing that I’m writing and creating things that could do that for others.

I have no idea if anyone else is reading and, if so, how many people are reading. I don’t have any analytics set up, and that’s intentional. I don’t want to track people, and I don’t ever want to make a decision about my web site based on that data.

The old web was magical. There was something special about discovering a new web site and knowing that it only existed because someone’s passion was too much to contain and had to spill out onto the internet. That’s what I’m trying to recreate with my site.

• Sip- samples colors on the screen
• TripMode- lets you decide which apps can access the internet. Great to conserve bandwidth when you’re tethered.
• SideNotes- adds a drawer on the side of the screen you can pull out to make some quick notes
• Espanso- cross-platform text replacement
• Amphetamine- keep the computer awake on a schedule or under certain conditions
• FreeTube- privacy-minded YouTube client
• Mona- Mastodon client
• Session- best pomodoro app I’ve found

Every movement, subculture, whatever is just about fashion for 98% of the people involved. Fashion is easy. Values are hard.

The elephant one is one of my favorites. Brings some levity to what might otherwise be a serious situation.

For uncertainty:

• Try to imagine the worst thing that could happen. Usually, it’s not catastrophic enough to warrant the anxiety you feel about it.
• Figure out all the levers you can pull on to make things go your way. When there’s uncertainty, that means there are big factors you can’t control, but there are usually still some factors you can control.

For going through a hard time:

• Think about another hard time you’ve gone through that seems like it’s now in the very distant past. Someday, this thing will feel that distant too.

Never underestimate the power of denial

Nice try, but I refuse to use any toothpaste that isn’t 3D and HD.

I replaced Reddit with the satisfaction of knowing I won’t be a pawn in Reddit’s plans to monetize the community’s free labor. 😉