Organized crime has negative consequences for consumers and society as a whole

Organised crime like Google, Meta, Microsoft, the entertainment and music industries, Microsoft, most politicians… right?

I’m a long time Arch user (10 years) and I love EndeavourOS + Pamac (from Manjaro) as a simple install that I can easily maintain on family members computers or on our Laptop if I’m feeling lazy.

I think some amount of it is apathy, or modern-life time-poor induced apathy where people just want something to work and work quickly without much effort or time and so they just pony up. And with so many people not keeping a budget, $10 a month here and there or $30 once a month doesn’t seem like much if you’re not adding up all those subs combined over a month or a year or 5 years. Really, some subs could fall into the category of a dark pattern because $10 a month doesn’t seem like much compared to say $100 up front even though over the course of a year (or 2, 3, 5+ years) that sub costs you more than just buying software up front. (Think also Sam Vines Boot Theory).

I see some people are getting fed up (I’m one of them) but sadly plenty more who mindlessly keep paying more and more.

I dunno, I was pretty stoked installing Arch almost a decade ago after my spouse surprised me with a brand new PC he built for my birthday. Was also stoked installing Arch, in more recent years, on the PC I built.

And I’ve been at my most miserable in life while being a Windows user 🫠

Good luck getting anywhere in this country’s judicial system. The Courts here have repeatedly shown they kiss government arse and the NZ government has shown they kiss corporate arse.

New Zealand is no longer the land of no. 8 wire and protesting to stand up for rights, the environment, etc. but I fast becoming another western country beholden to apathy and consumerism. 😔

Its been a while since I used a Kindle but AFAIK its still this - using Calibre + the deDRM plugin. I don’t know if linking directly to stuff here is OK so just do an internet search for github noDRM deDRM_tools and you should find the plugin you need for Calibre.

For reference, this was the article I first read about this on: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/bank-problems-reports-bnz-asb-kiwibank-anz-visa-paywave-services-down/R2EY42QKQBALXNF33G5PA6U3TQ/

WTF does someone’s spiritual beliefs and practices have to do with how well they are able to run an organisation? That’s an ad hominem argument. My country has a Christian prime minister at the moment but oh noes, I’m a non-religious hippy ‘witch’ so I guess our prime minister should step down because he believes in a pseudoscientific giant bearded man that lives in the sky and goes to an expensive building every week to speak magic words in unison with other cult members to call a special spirit to bless everyone that believe the exact same doctrines…