That indicates that you might buy it if it’s good. The person I replied to implied they would never have purchased it at all.

If you were never going to buy it, why pirate it?

Something I’m not seeing here is many people in the cyber and info security spaces will have a homelab capable of complex configurations in order to mimic enterprise environments for their research.

This could be as simple as a single VM or as complex as multiple segregated networks to try to traverse.

This works for me. So long as you have a Kindle device registered on Amazon, you should be able to download directly to a desktop. The DeDRM plugin mentioned removes the DRM during ingestion into Calibre and requires an actual token from Amazon which is linked to the Kindle device you downloaded from.

I use this to get Amazon eBooks into my Remarkable 2 which requires DRM free.

I left the decision to wether or not my wife would want the old one.

Forking doesn’t imply control. A forked version of chromium would still want to keep up to date with the upstream project.

You seem to view this public option with an unrealistic view of how software development works. Especially in the public sector.

Somebody comes in with a requirement to do something in the fastest and cheapest way possible. In this case, make a public browser option. The engineers go off and fork chromium and simply reskin it because that meets the brief. They might even go so far as to set up a CI pipeline that auto pulls new features from upstream.

The public sector isn’t going to be interested in trying to make the optimal browser if they are forced to create one. They are going to be interested in meeting the brief in the fastest and easiest way possible.

I’ll get even more specific to what is likely to happen in that scenario. The governmental entity will reskin chromium. Google will own the open source project.

Your arguments are all over the place. It’s not the governments responsibility to ensure that a law suit is profitable.

And a new browser isn’t going to do what you think it is. Any attempt by a government to create a browser is just going to use Blink anyways. The reason so many browsers are using it (including browsers made by tech giants) is that rendering engines are incredibly difficult to maintain. Especially as the Web continues to evolve.

Yes, these things are inconvenient. Meaning they are achievable items but at some personal cost and effort. They are not insurmountable.

And a new browser isn’t going to change anything. I’m honestly not even sure what you’re arguing anymore.

I think you’re struggling with the difference of convenience and difficulty. Doing things without the web implies you are going to do them in the same way you’d have to pre-web. That makes the web more convenient.

I can walk in to the library of Congress and make a face to face request.

The web is a convenience for any public need in the US.

That sounds like your government has an issue. That isn’t the same as governments as a whole using the web.

In the US, we still have the option to do things in person. The online presence is a convenience. That’s how it should work everywhere.

In principle, if a government is going to distribute content to the public, they also have a duty to equip the public to be able to consume the content. Telling people to come up with their own private sector tools to reach the public sector is a bit off.

This statement is a rearrangement of events. The governments of the world didn’t create an online presence and then tell the private sector to create browsers. Governments joined in an already existing method of communication because it was convenient, popular, and browsers already existed to view the content.

Stardew Valley is probably the best recommendation being made. 85 percent of the game happens with zero combat and the combat that does happen is pretty simple.

I will say that doing something interactive to try to get to sleep can easily back fire on you if you find the activity too engaging. You may be better off trying to read a book or taking a small dose of melatonin about an hour before bed.

Melatonin is the chemical your body produces to help you go to sleep. If you go this route just be careful to start with a small dose and work your way up if you find you need more. And also, don’t take it too late because it will make it difficult to get up on time if you do.

Yeah. That’s a different problem. 😁

I was more referring to the idea that subscriptions themselves are the problem.

I’m also ok with subscription prices increasing over time as costs increase. But I completely agree with removing services being a bad thing.

“Cloud” based services I genuinely understand the need for a recurring service model. They are paying for hosting of infrastructure on a recurring basis and a one time fee wouldn’t cover that.

Generally, though. I agree. If I’m running the software locally, I want to own my license fully.

I don’t have numbers to offer but the initial pricing may have been losing them money. Some big companies will offer a service at a loss to get more customers to bite, then when the price hikes hit many of the customers will be used to the service and just sign up for the hike.