that's a nice company, but parent comment had a really important point about depending on Whatsapp for basic social interaction.
most informal social groups, parents included, now communicate mainly on whatsapp. You can naturally say no (i did) but then your kid is left out of most social events unless you're actively syncing with other parents every week to be in the loop (which is what i do and it's excruciating).
Whatsapp as a platform is extremely convenient, which is why other people will have a hard time understanding your reluctance to adhere, it's not uncommon to be seen as eccentric.
so again, congratulations on finding a great company, but there are real issues with the general social dependence on a single invasive platform.
Yeah, I totally understand your point. I had to be the stubborn one to leave WhatsApp and refuse any communication unless they contact me on Telegram.
Some didn't like it at first, but thankfully most of them now love Telegram. I have a “My way or the highway” kinda attitude when it comes to WhatsApp, it has certainly caused problems once or twice, but I'm very firm on my stance against Facebook apps.
Their track record is excellent. Pavel moved away from Russia (and his team of 20 something members too!) only because the Russian government pressured them into giving access to their servers.
WhatsApp is anything but privacy preserving. You have 0 transparency. You can't even prove if the E2EE exists for 100% of the time or just 50% of the time because the binaries are obfuscated. On top of that, their privacy policy and being owned by Facebook says everything one needs to know.
Telegram, IMHO, is the only app that does not compromise on user experience and still provides fantastic privacy control and respects the user data. Sure, it's not E2EE, but no E2EE app can ever do what Telegram is doing at this scale.
I get where you're coming from but Telegram is objectively better than WhatsApp due to several reasons:
- Privacy controls for each user.
- No hard requirement for a phone number.
- Cloud encryption.
- Open Source clients.
- Telegram's track record.
- Business model not revolving around selling user data.
WhatsApp is a black box and nobody has any good arguments for it other than 'supposed' E2EE that nobody knows anything about. The fact that WhatsApp's T&C forbid you from even reverse engineering the obfuscated binaries and Facebook being the force behind WhatsApp, I'm still surprised that people take their E2EE claim seriously.
It's like me promising you that I'm not looking at you, while I stand facing you, right behind you.
> With Telegram you have a guarantee that it is not E2EE in group chats and single chats if you don't opt into a way worse UX/features.
You're saying this as if you have a guarantee that WhatsApp's E2EE is 100% correct. At least with Telegram, I know what data the app is collecting, where it's going and how it's being stored on the device.
> True for Whatsapp as well, it's funded by business accounts and perhaps other parts of facebook
> I'm sorry, but that's not a good example. It doesn't even count as a legitimate client.
why not?
After all the client uses the multi-device API like the official client does
> You're saying this as if you have a guarantee that WhatsApp's E2EE is 100% correct.
I am not saying it like that. I am explicitly saying that with Telegram you have the guarantee that it is not E2EE, while there at least exist the possibility of WhatsApp being E2EE.
I do wonder about that: moving from WhatsApp to Telegram appears to be a case of moving from the frying pan into the fire. To Signal seems somewhere more reasonable.
I would say from the frying pan into the kitchen bench. It's not perfect but it's not yet being cooked.
Telegram is a good compromise. Yeah it's not e2ee.
Signal isn't even a good compromise for most people. I don't know anyone who has stuck with signal in my circles. They've nearly all reverted back their previous service or find a new one.
Personally I treat everything that is sent over networks as public data. So I would never comm anything that needed e2ee via a message service full stop.
I don't think Signal has what it takes to combat Facebook's monopoly. It's more inconvenient than WhatsApp, why would people even switch?
Telegram on the other hand does not compromise on features and user experience and still is able to deliver a system that doesn't disrespect the user data.
I perhaps don't know what I'm missing with WhatsApp, but I use Signal with Android-owning friends (iMessage for everyone else), and no-one has voiced displeasure - indeed it was _suggested_ by many of them, both technical and non-technical as preferable to SMS, so I don't think it can be that bad.
I don't have special insight into either WhatsApp or Telegram, but I think given the founders and jurisdictions in which they operate, Telegram deserves at least the same level of scepticism and scrutiny as TikTok.
I don't think Telegram deserves scrutiny. Not after what they've been able to accomplish and follow.
> indeed it was _suggested_ by many of them, both technical and non-technical as preferable to SMS, so I don't think it can be that bad.
It's not bad of course, but it's extremely hard to get WhatsApp users to switch to Signal than Telegram. Both because of missing WhatsApp features in Signal and the additional hoops like PIN.
I'm Just speaking from personal experience. Signal was also my first choice.
Since there's no mention yet: this was done by eBoy, a long-running design agency famous for their gigantic and quirky pixel cityscapes (among many other beautiful pieces)
The opposite exercise, treating proprietary software naming in such an un-generous way, is pretty easy too:
- Fireworks: you'll make bitmaps so good they'll blow up in colors?
- Dreamweaver: you can weave... dreams? I get the 90s web enthusiasm but come on
- Illustrator: there's bitmap illustration and vector illustration; Illustrator focuses on the latter, so good job on picking the wrong word in "vector illustration"
- InDesign: this name is a marketing dept playing it safe to a point that only a beige puddle of non-meaning remains
- GoLive: crappy subscription 1995 online service
- ColdFusion: lol
I'd love to see people taking such critical takes into the bigger guys for once. Especially because they have marketing departments. F/LOSS project naming reflects their often-personal origins and ways of expressing identity. Some do sound clunky, but give me the clumsy Inkscape any day (the "ksk" is hard to get used to, but you forget quickly) than any of the sad corporate names above.
I'm being snarkier that warranted, but man i'm crestfallen with all the unbridled hate on free software project naming around here.
All of the examples you gave are either real words or composites of real words, making them 10-100x more memorable and brandable than “Kdenlive.”
I agree that expectations should be different for FOSS, but the bar is literally at “pick one or two short + commonly used words and mush them together”…
You're right, but I don't think memorability and brandability are universal priorities that F/LOSS projects must also be measured from. Sure they can go for that (and many do), but it's unfair to hold them to that very specific standard.
I'm reminded of Debian Linux and its origins (the combination of names of the OS author and his partner). Ended up being pretty memorable, and brand-wise it works. And yet the motivations behind Debian's naming were unusually human for a software world full of empty buzznames.
Just to be clear, from me at least, this isn’t intended as unbridled hate. The names are bad. So what? Anyone who’s named a software project knows it is an annoying task. And it isn’t very important. I think open source names are often somewhat sarcastic or lampshade-y, and I like it that way.
I'll take it, not much to praise. It reads well (kayden live) unlike other names I have to grudgingly pronounce (postgresql, qjackctl, systemctl come to mind).
But cheers, now I see I was reactive towards a generalised view of your point; I now understand where you're coming from, I'm with you there.
This is its killer feature! I've had compliments from multiple pro printers regarding my print PDFs produced with Scribus. Even though most usual PDF pipelines are Adobe based, Scribus PDF files are superior.
This is not true. Dont forget PDF is format developed by Adobe. There is no reason Scribus output would be superior.
Its probably simply that you are more mindful, experienced, systematic user where adobe gets used by complete amateurs more often who have no idea about output.
Thank you for sharing this, it's a beautiful writing experience. And so easy to install, it was straightforward to make it available on a Tilde server for others to try.
(one suggestion for the docs: the included man page can be installed systemwide, with "sudo cp fri.1 /usr/share/man/man1/" on Debian systems)
Edit: having Hemingway/typewriter mode (disable backspace) available as a shell flag would be wonderful :)
As for the man page, I don't want to recommend anyone to install files manually in /usr. The man page is there mostly in case anybody would want to package fri for a distribution.
I'm a father and you're spot on. It's easy to project what you would like children to get into and just tell them to try it, but it's essential to show that you're into it as well (even -- and especially -- if you're not!)
Sorry, but Wikipedia also doesn't get to decide what words mean, nor you or I, at least not authoritatively.
Linguistically, tax evasion is: evasion of taxes. I can use the words to describe any action taken to evade paying a tax. The words simply do not imply a state of legality.
That there are domains that overload the terms with extended restrictive meaning is by definition arbitrary and has no priority over natural language.
Usually Wikipedia indicates this by explicitly naming the domain, e.g. "In US tax law, tax evasion is ...", but fails to do so here.
According to the oxford dictionary, tax evasion is "the illegal nonpayment or underpayment of tax." Dictionaries don't decide what words ought to mean, they list what people who use the words mean by them. Yes, taken on its own evasion does not require illegal activity (though it does have a much more nefarious connotation than synonyms like avoidance), but when you put the word tax in front of it, that changes the meaning. When the average person talks about tax evasion, they are talking about the crime, and when someone says something is not tax evasion, it is commonly understood to mean it is not an illegal nonpayment or underpayment of taxes. Similarly the word exploitation can mean a lot of things, many of which are not illegal, but when you put the word sexual in front of it then suddenly it refers to a definitely illegal thing.
Sorry, linguists don't get to decide what words mean. Yes, you read that right. Words' meanings transcend any given definition, and all of the linguists in the world working 24/7 are insufficient to describe all of what a word means, in all places, at a given instant in time.
This is why the court "reasonable person" standards: Sometimes definitions aren't enough. You need context.
If an accountant, under oath says you committed "tax evasion" and then later says "Oh I meant the LINGUISTIC meaning of the word, silly you, you thought I meant the TRADE TERM that fits my PROFESSION? How silly of you" that won't fly, probably.
Curiously, the interests which literally bankroll the making of laws and electing of legislators do get to define what words mean.
"U.S. Policies Favor The Wealthy, Interest Groups, Study Shows"
Gilens and Page analyzed 1,779 policy issues from 1981 to 2002 and compared changes to the preferences of median-income Americans, the top-earning 10 percent, and organized interest groups and industries.
"Not only do ordinary citizens not have uniquely substantial power over policy decisions; they have little or no independent influence on policy at all," the researchers write in the article titled, "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens."
Affluent Americans, however, "have a quite substantial, highly significant, independent impact on policy," Gilens and Page write. Organized interest groups also "have a large, positive, highly significant impact upon public policy."
Alphabet Inc. (Google LLC's parent corporation) spent $27.4 million in contributions and $12.8 million in lobbying (2019) according to OpenSecrets. That's slightly more than I've managed, personally.
Talking about the distinction between tax evasion and tax avoidance was when I really understood the power of controlling language, and why the ruling classes strive for getting their kids educated since the dawn of time.
There are two terms because they are different things: one is illegal and generally involves other illegal things such as fraud, while the other is legal 'gaming the system'. Gaming is not the same as cheating.
Go on, play games with your friends and abuse the tiniest rules and tell them "ah ah, it's not cheating". See how long you last.
Not respecting the spirit of the law is illegal in most of europe, and it's merely a matter of money being thrown around, preventing any legal action. But every time it happens, Google is found guilty. See their latest 5 billion fine, see what happened with Ireland.
It's "legal" because noone can spend the money to investigate them on their crimes.
As I said, I think it’s a fair question. But having shopped for a TV in the last 18 months, you get a worse TV if “dumb” is your goal. I mean the giant colorful thing showing your content is worse, in the products without smarts. It is what it is.
most informal social groups, parents included, now communicate mainly on whatsapp. You can naturally say no (i did) but then your kid is left out of most social events unless you're actively syncing with other parents every week to be in the loop (which is what i do and it's excruciating).
Whatsapp as a platform is extremely convenient, which is why other people will have a hard time understanding your reluctance to adhere, it's not uncommon to be seen as eccentric.
so again, congratulations on finding a great company, but there are real issues with the general social dependence on a single invasive platform.