Imnebuddy - pronounced “I am any buddy”
Techie, hippie, commie nerd
The Great Firewall serves as a protectionist policy to encourage Chinese citizens to use China’s own platforms to help build China’s technological sovereignty while also filtering out a lot of reactionary crap. The Chinese people use VPNs to access YouTube and such all the time. I recommend watching Ben Norton’s video on his experience living in China as he does talk about the Great Firewall and its purpose.
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/07/10/why-are-there-no-slums-in-china/
What is the “hukou” system and what does it have to do with socialism?
One unique characteristic of China’s urbanization process is that, although policies encouraged migration to cities for industrial and service jobs, rural residents never lost their access to land in the countryside. In the 1950s, the Communist Party of China (CPC) led a nationwide land reform process, abolishing private land ownership and transforming it into collective ownership. During the economic reform period, beginning in 1978, a “Household Responsibility System” (家庭联产承包责任制 jiātíng lián chǎn chéngbāo zérèn zhì) was created, which reallocated rural agricultural land into the hands of individual households. Though agricultural production was deeply impacted, collective land ownership remained and land was never privatized.
Today, China has one of the highest homeownership rates in the world, surpassing 90 percent, and this includes the millions of migrant workers who rent homes in other cities. This means that when encountering economic troubles, such as unemployment, urban migrant workers can return to their hometowns, where they own a home, can engage in agricultural production, and search for work locally. This structural buffer plays a critical role in absorbing the impacts of major economic and social crises. For example, during the 2008 global financial crisis, China’s export-oriented economy, especially of manufactured goods, was severely hit, causing about 30 million migrant workers to lose their jobs. Similarly, during the COVID-19 pandemic, when service and manufacturing jobs were seriously impacted, many migrant workers returned to their homes and land in the countryside.
Beyond land reform, a system was created to manage the mass migration of people from the countryside to the cities, to ensure that the movement of people aligned with the national planning needs of such a populous country. Though China has had some form of migration restriction for over 2,000 years, in the late 1950s, the country established a new “household registration system” (户口 or hùkǒu) to regulate rural-to-urban migration. Every Chinese person has an assigned urban or rural hukou status that grants them access to social welfare benefits (subsidized public housing, education, health care, pension, and unemployment insurance, etc.) in their hometown, but which are restricted in the cities they move to for work. While reformation of the hukou system is ongoing, the lack of urban hukou status forces many migrant parents to spend long periods away from their families and they must leave their children in their grandparents’ care in their hometowns, referred to as “left-behind children” (留守儿童 liúshǒu értóng). Though the number has been decreasing over the years, there are still an estimated seven million children in this situation. Today, 65.22 percent of China’s population lives in cities, but only 45.4 percent have urban hukou. Although this system deterred the creation of large urban slums, it also reinforced serious inequities of social welfare between urban and rural areas, and between residents within a city based on their hukou status.
In 2024, home ownership in China is 93%, where in the US it is 65%.
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/07/10/why-are-there-no-slums-in-china/
How does the Chinese government deal with homelessness?
In the early 2000s, the issues of residential status, rights of migrant workers, and treatment of urban homeless people became a national matter. In 2003, the State Council – the highest executive organ of state power – issued the “Measures for the Rescue and Management of Itinerant and Homeless in Urban Areas”. The new regulation created urban relief stations providing food rations and temporary shelters, abolished the mandatory detention system of people without hukou status or housing, and placed the responsibility on the local authorities for finding housing for homeless people in their hometowns.
Under these measures, cities like Shanghai have set up relief stations for homeless people. When public security – the local police – and urban management officials encounter homeless people, they must assist them in accessing nearby relief stations. All costs are covered by the city’s fiscal budget. For example, the relief management station in Putuo District (with the fourth lowest per capita GDP of Shanghai’s 16 districts and a resident population of 1.24 million), provided shelter and relief to an average of 24.3 homeless people a month from June 2022 to April 2023, which could include repeated cases.
Relief stations provide homeless people with food and basic accommodations, help those who are seriously ill access healthcare, assist them to return to the locations of their household registration by contacting their relatives or the local government, and arrange free transportation home when needed.
Upon returning home, the local county-level government is responsible to help the homeless people, including contacting relatives for care and finding local employment. For a very small number of people who are elderly, have disabilities, or do not have relatives nor the ability to work, the local township people’s government, or the Party-run street office, will provide national support for them in accordance with the “method of providing for extremely impoverished persons”, which is stipulated in the 2014 “Interim Measures for Social Assistance”. The content of the support includes providing basic living conditions, giving care to impoverished individuals who cannot take care of themselves, providing treatment for diseases, and handling funeral affairs, etc.
This series of relief management measures ensure that administrative law enforcement personnel in the city do not simply expel homeless people from the city, but must guarantee that they receive proper assistance, in terms of housing, work, and support systems.
I was able to get some Linksys E8450 routers for cheap (~$40 each) on eBay a couple years ago, but they are more expensive atm (but $70 each, which is cheaper than a lot of other options). They require a bit of work to get OpenWRT installed, but it’s not bad once the work is done (I have received nearly 400 Mb/s when I am close to the wireless connection sometimes, which is what my internet is capped at). I have used them as a mesh with one as a main gateway and the rest as access points with additional Ethernet ports. They do have the OKD issue fixed now, too, and they’re also Wi-Fi 6. I’m looking into getting a Banana Pi BPI-R3 or R4, though I am not sure how well they are with mesh specifically, but have seen a few forum threads of people having some issues with mesh on these specific routers. I hope to switch to fast roaming (wired backhaul) eventually.
"I have never really understood exactly what a ‘liberal’ is, since I have heard ‘liberals’ express every conceivable opinion on every conceivable subject. As far as I can tell, you have the extreme right, who are fascist racist capitalist dogs like Ronald Reagan, who come right out and let you know where they’re coming from. And on the opposite end, you have the left, who are supposed to be committed to justice, equality, and human rights. And somewhere between those two points is the liberal.
As far as I’m concerned, ‘liberal’ is the most meaningless word in the dictionary. History has shown me that as long as some white middle-class people can live high on the hog, take vacations to Europe, send their children to private schools, and reap the benefits of their white skin privilege, then they are ‘liberal’. But when times get hard and money gets tight, they pull off that liberal mask and you think you’re talking to Adolf Hitler. They feel sorry for the so-called underprivileged just as long as they can maintain their own privileges."
—Assata: An Autobiography
https://github.com/exander77/proton-bridge-android
There is a way to do it locally on an Android device using Termux.
I hope there will be native Linux support, even if it comes a few years after it is released. CrossCode is supported on various platforms, and it even has a web version for its demo.
$0/month for unlimited domains and catch-all aliases (only email forwarding)
$3/month for unlimited domains and aliases for a “single user”
$9/month for teams:
Have you tried one of these providers? https://providers.xmpp.net/
I didn’t have an issue with registration on macaw.me or monocles.de, but I haven’t used those accounts yet.
I will be honest, I haven’t came around to using XMPP myself yet, but I am pretty sure you are able to do all of those things, at least with the help of extensions. Here’s the XMPP standards that are currently stable or experimental:
Files/Images:
Emojis/Stickers:
Looking at clients, I see various ones that have at least some of the features you are looking for (especially file and image sharing, I haven’t found a client that has explicitly implemented the stickers specification yet, but Movim seems to have them):
I would give it some more time. It seems those features are in development, but this is essentially an alternative to Matrix that is more standardized. It’s a widely adopted and integrated protocol, so I don’t doubt the features you are looking for will become more fleshed out some day.
That’s like saying you can use email if you like living in the 70s-80s. XMPP is a pretty healthy and active project that is standardized like email and ActivityPub. I would consider XMPP pretty modern, especially considering its features, extensions, etc., as well as the numerous applications it is integrated in.
XMPP is also used in very popular games, consoles, and clients.
XMPP it is, then.
Windows: What is my purpose?
User: You are a bootloader to install Linux.
I would probably suggest Mint. When I first started Linux, I was adept with computers, but I still struggled using Linux for the first time. I tried Fedora around 2015 as my first distro, and I really struggled to install it. So I started with Ubuntu. I spent time doing some courses for Linux, and it was quite a journey for me to figure out this new environment. Then I would distro hop so much because I was dissatisfied with missing packages and issues with my new laptop (which wasn’t running well on many distributions because it required a newer kernel), and then I landed on Kubuntu for a little while. Then Manjaro, which I don’t recommend anymore for these reasons (plus I had to reinstall Manjaro a few times when it broke, especially due to NVIDIA driver issues, but today that shouldn’t be as much of a problem, I believe). I was able to install Manjaro with Manjaro Architect at one point, which made it easier for me to figure out how to install Arch Linux. I was breaking my Linux machine so much when I was using Ubuntu because I didn’t understand what I was doing, thus it is difficult for me to recommend a Linux distro to a new user with full 100% certainty they would not break their system if they wanted to do some tinkering or try to do any niche thing like gaming. I know you want to leave Windows ASAP, but it may be easier to first run Linux in a virtual machine. It’s going to take a while to figure it out, and a virtual machine will help make the journey less painful so you don’t risk wiping your drive or having periods where you are stuck without a machine when you need to get work done and you are sitting in front of your computer for hours trying to install and configure Linux or figure out why you are booting into emergency mode. For a tip, I really recommend not installing everything you want under the sun. This was the reason for 90% of the time I broke my Linux installations. Install only a few packages at a time, and backup your data.
There is a new Arch-based distro in town that is meant to be user friendly, which is Crystal Linux, but I haven’t used it myself nor do I know if this is good to recommend to absolutely new users. The reason why I mention it is because I have had a lot of trouble with other distributions, and while Arch would break on me once in a while (which at that point in my Linux journey, I could fix Arch without needing to reinstall the entire OS)–usually for a specific package or two–as a noobish user it was a better experience for me working with the pacman package manager and having access to the Arch User Repository. I also had a better time working with rolling release distributions. With Crystal Linux, it gives you the option to install the Nix package manager and comes with a nice pacman wrapper called Amethyst, but I would consider yay the best pacman/AUR wrapper, imo. I haven’t tried Amethyst, though.
Here’s a video on Crystal Linux by DistroTube: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=Q_CXNtbsy74
Crystal Linux also has documentation on using a NVIDIA GPU with Wayland here: https://getcryst.al/site/docs/crystal-linux/nvidiawayland
Crystal Linux also uses the BTRFS filesystem utilizing snapshots with Timeshift, which if I had used this when I was first learning Linux, it would have saved me a lot of trouble.
Also, one last tip: when installing Linux or working with something you are unfamiliar with, take notes. It really helps to have something to look back at when you have to do the same task again and forgot the reason you did certain things.
I have done so (git clone) with Gentoo and it works.
I know developers are busy, and I don’t mean to berate them for their choices or work. I only have a two year Computer Information Systems degree and haven’t programmed a lot for a while, but supporting the XDG specification and remaining backwards compatible doesn’t seem to be very difficult or would cause so much breakage (of course, the amount of work would depend on the software and how the hardcoded path is implemented). I look up git repository issues for the software and tend to find ubiquitous examples like vim to be resistant to such change: https://github.com/vim/vim/issues/2034
This is really frustrating and leads me to find alternative software, such as neovim/doom emacs instead of vim, nushell instead of bash, etc., just to be able to clear up my home directory. I don’t mind if I have to wait for XDG to be supported, but many important projects just label the issue as “won’t fix”. I totally understand where you are coming from.
List of software with hardcoded paths at this time: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/XDG_Base_Directory#Hardcoded
This is not an Android phone, but I plan to get a PinePhone Pro and then maybe a flip phone for calls. I want to be able to tinker with Linux on my phone and have better access to Linux applications and utilities. It’s not the most secure option, but for me, I don’t need much from a phone, though it would be nice to have more freedom and capabilities with my device. Plus the physical keyboard accessory looks super nice. This may or may not help you, but I figured to share my thoughts just in case. I don’t know how knowledgeable you are with Linux, but you will need to be an intermediate Linux user (or willing and able to dedicate the time and effort to learn) and be willing to accept the limitations of the device, especially since it is not really meant for normal users yet. It’s meant for people that like to tinker and can contribute improvements and testing for the device. PINE64 makes a lot of cool tech, including the PineTime, Pinecil, PineNote, etc., and they are very focused on repairability as they sell individual parts for each of their devices and provide long-term support: https://www.pine64.org/
I have had a OnePlus 6T that I have installed LineageOS on and have replaced the battery even though it is “non-removable”.
You need a heat gun to heat the adhesive to open the phone case. Then you need some spludgers/opening picks and a suction cup to open the case, as well as a precision screwdriver kit (essentially, get an iFixit kit for the opening tools). You will need some adhesive tape or some B-7000 or T-8000 to reattach the back cover. Be careful with the back cover as it is made of glass; I cracked mine by bending it too much and still have to get around to replacing it with the transparent cover I bought (which will look ugly with the replacement battery, but I figured it would be very functional as it will help me keep an eye on the battery before it expands too much and breaks the phone like my previous LG G5).
I recommend this video to follow along for the battery replacement: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=KDJJ9FOQEXk
I have had this phone for about 4-5 years now. If I need Android for any reason, I plan to use this device for those purposes.
I also use a Unicorn Beetle belt holster case with the OnePlus 6T, and it’s survived so many falls because of it. It’s only around $10-20 on eBay (try getting an Otter for that price). You can still find a 256 GB model of the phone for less than $200 on eBay as well. I recommend any OnePlus phone up to the OnePlus 7T Pro. Their newer devices now have an encrypted battery, and the company itself sucks, but their older phones are good for rooting and custom ROMs and are pretty high powered and inexpensive for their flagship models, which is why I picked them when I was looking for a phone.
Creating a mesh would make sense in your instance. I recommend following this video.