Opinions
This page is a list of some opinions I have. Should give you an idea of what I think about things that I can't write a full blog post about.
Technology
- Full disk encryption should be standard
- Software with a steep learning curve is usually better
- Gatekeeping is necessary to keep the idiots away
- Never give people the answer to a question asked in a support channel
Full disk encryption should be a standard. While it should still be optional, GNU/Linux distributions and even nonfree operating systems like Windows and Mac should encourage its users to install the operating system with full disk encryption.
Most of the software I use and/or recommend has a steep learning curve. Usually, this is for the better though. When you don't limit yourself to what's familiar, you think out of the box and instead of trying to design something you are already familiar with that usually is more inefficient than it needs to be, you design something efficient that gets the job done as quick as possible. Vim is a great example of this, and I strongly encourage everyone to learn it. Same goes for Emacs as well but I haven't gotten into it yet.
I believe "gatekeeping" or filtering people is necessary sometimes. Let's take the GNU/Linux community for example. Filtering out the people who are not willing to learn how their computer works is required to make sure our software is kept simple and well made. If we adopt all the design decisions that users are already familiar with, we're going to end up with a piece of crap that doesn't meet people's requirements, because all the failures of that inferior software are now brought over to our platform.
Never just give people the answer. Instead give people instructions on how to find the answer, how the answer works, and why problem X happened.
Society
- Free health care does not exist
- Cyberbullying is not a real thing
Americans who are totally clueless may say something along the lines of "Insulin should be free" but free health care does not exist and it cannot exist. The money always has to come from somewhere, and in every country that has "free" health care the money comes from people who pay taxes. Therefore, outside of this page, you will never unironically hear me use the term "free health care" because it simply isn't a real thing in the real world.
I don't believe cyberbullying is a real thing. When you get bullied in real life, you pretty much have no escape and you have to face the bully. With cyberbullying on the other hand (god I hate this term so much) you can just turn off your computer and the problem goes away, or I guess if you're using social media just block the person. Unless you are a celebrity, there really isn't more to it than that. If you cannot understand this then you are terminally online and desperately need to check yourself.