Can you change your DNS again to test? Just pick Cloudflare (1.1.1.1) or google (8.8.8.8) or something. It’s plausable that you actually can connect to the internet and are instead just unable to perform name resolution. Presumably the vpn is using a different dns server, hence it solves your problems when connected.

Or I guess you could try to ping a known good ip to see if the dns is the problem. I just pinged google and got this if you want to try it. 142.250.72.14

I’ve got my beliefs sorted, I want to be able to express myself however I choose. Including using censored curse words if I so choose.

And my point is, as I’ve said a few times, that I find it funny how censorship has gone from “polite” to “offensive”.

What if I don’t “not want to swear”, what if I want to used self-censored curse words? Should I sacrifice my freedom of speech to appease others?

Depending on the circumstance, I completely agree. There are certainly many cases where censoring yourself is giving away your power and freedom of expression.

However, it’s not disingenuous to say that if I want to censor myself, for any reason, on the internet I will likely be shamed by folks who want to assert their values over mine. And in such I am once again giving away my power to the people who want to dictate what I do with my life.

Perhaps I want to do it because I find it funny. Or perhaps I want to do it because I’m trying to emulate a classic comic book speech style, which often had to use censorship because they were being controlled, but now has become a recognizable convention. Or perhaps I want to do it simply to assert my right to speak how I choose, as I already mentioned, despite the “higher authority” of the crowd. For whatever reason, giving up my freedom of expression, as you already mentioned, f*%king sucks actually.

For example, take this post. OP didn’t care if it was censored or not, they just wanted to share something funny and didn’t want to work to do it. Yet most of the comments are about the rage felt by folks who wanted OP to do more work so they didn’t have to see a black bar.

I always find it funny how cursing used to be “contrary to polite speech”, and in doing so you were asserting your freedom of speech.

But now, on the internet, self-censorship is considered “uncouth”, freedom of expression be damned. So now you will be attacked if you say “I’ll F*%Kin talk however the f$$k I wan’t Sh*thead!”

a barely functioning windows environment…that’s only useful for very specific things.

Sounds like a full Windows install to me.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Does Hiren’s BootCD PE count?

Can speak to this slightly. I tried to get their app to run via Wine, and it did not work just “plug and play” at least. Tried to find a guide or some alternative option. After about 15 min of searching, I decided that “eh, it works great out of the box” and started using easy effects for an EQ instead.

you only think otherwise because liberals were engaging in mass genocide denial and apologia when it was their team doing it.

Well, no. Actually I think it is accelerated because the Dems engaged in performative humanitarian efforts, which while largely ineffective still presented a minor barrier to the complete genocide. Trump on the other hand has called for Israel to “finish the problem”, and said that the Gaza strip just needs to be “cleaned out”. Beyond that Trump has said things to the effect of “US will own the Gaza Strip”, and is pushing for the displacement all remaining Palestinians, which is by definition escalating the situation to a declared ethnic cleansing, which Trump has attempted to mitigate by saying is only “a small number of people relative to things that have taken place over the decades and centuries.”. His administration has even been directly consulted regarding airstrikes and said that “All hell will break loose” on the enemies of Israel and the United States

And given all of that, it is fairly clear that he is throwing the full weight of the US government behind the genocide, without even the faintest facade of decency or “humanitarian efforts”. So while it’s obvious that the Dems were still allowing the genocide to move forward, it was being ever so slightly hampered by their desire to “appear humane”. Trump has removed those final barriers and now it is accelerating.

And you don’t have to take my opinion for it, you can take it from the warmongers mouth. Israel’s far-right former national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who quit Netanyahu’s war cabinet earlier this year to protest the Gaza ceasefire deal, confirmed the synergy between Trump’s thinking and extreme conservatives in Israel, saying on Xitter “Donald, this looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship” in response to Trump’s proposed plans for Gaza.

Beyond that, in the United States, Trump has attempted to silence dissent against the genocide. From attempting to strong arm colleges into forcibly stopping protests on campus, to deporting any foreign nationals who speak out, to instructing the Justice department to “aggressively prosecute pro-Palestinian activists”.

Which kinda torpedoes the claim that “Trump has been better for Palestine”, especially on the ground of “now liberals are actually acknowledging what’s happening.” I don’t really see how a group of people who have no political power, and are actively being silenced from using their freedom of speech and assembly, could be an improvement at all. Doubly so when the Trump administration isn’t even asking Israel to pretend to not be committing a genocide, but rather encouraging it.

Which kind of puts us at an impasse. Because the logic of your claim that “Trump is actually better for Gaza” sounds… insane to me. And even if your logic was correct, I don’t see the value in promoting Trump now, given that he is still perpetrating and encouraging genocide and needs to be stopped just as urgently.

But given your world views, I think you kind of need your rational to be true just to protect your sense of self. Because if it isn’t, then you would have to reconcile the fact that your efforts may have played a part in making things worse for the LGBTQ+ community, women, minorities, the world economy, the education system in the US, privacy laws, and the few Palestinians in Gaza that otherwise could have been saved (if only so the Dems could save face), to name just a few.

Here is the kicker however, despite your rather colorful accusations towards my character, I don’t think you are out to intentionally cause harm. We are both limited in our abilities to affect change, and (I hope) are doing the best we can with the knowledge we have to make the world a better place.

So maybe instead of assuming that “lesser evil voters” are “untrustworthy” and seeing them as your enemies, recognize that many of them share the same goal as you. Recognize that we need to work collectively towards these goals. And if you think there is a better way, speak up! I’d be glad to listen, especially if you have a good plan moving forward instead of trying to rehash decisions long since cast. But don’t think listening is somehow admitting defeat either. As far as I’m concerned, we are not enemies and we are not competing to prove who is “more responsible for the world’s problems”. We are all going to need to work together if we are serious about making this world a better place for everyone.

I get why you are pissed off, and have every right to be. How both parties of the American government have treated the Palestinian genocide is beyond reprehensible, immoral, inhumane, and frankly disgusting. And that is only a small slice of the harm caused by the US across the globe. All of which I condemn wholeheartedly.

But Trump is actively making it harder for anyone to help slow, stop, or otherwise prevent additional unnecessary death and suffering. So while yes, the genocide would have continued under the Dems, there may yet have been innocent lives that could have been saved that will now be lost. When faced with saving 1 out of a 100, or 0, I believe that 1 life is worth saving. I even have the audacity to hope we could have saved more than just 1 out of 100.

I don’t intend to give up on anyone, but I also have to accept that my power is limited. So doing what I can to prevent the genocide from accelerating, in the hopes that it gives even one more child a chance to escape, is worth it to me. Maybe it isn’t the best strategy, but it is the best I could do with my time and ability to affect change to the best of my knowledge. I certainly would have preferred if the US electorate had united to solve these problems long ago, and we could have used our collective force for unambiguous good, but when even my parents won’t listen to me on the changes I think the country needs to make, steering the entire country in the right direction is beyond me at this point. Despite that fact, I still can’t just bury my head in the sand and say “sorry Palestinian child, I could have done everything in my power, kicking and screaming, to give you a snowballs chance in hell. But instead I felt it was more important to give up to the feelings of despair”.

I get that a lot of folks, yourself included I assume(?), believe that abstaining from voting or voting 3rd party would send a strong message that we will not be complicit in the countries support of a genocidal regime. And I can see why that would be your strategy, maybe in 100+ years that kind of strategy would actually amount to more saved lives, I can’t say for sure. But what I do know is that in the short term, our collective inability to keep Trump out of office has made many things worse for many people, minority groups most of all, and has made sure that the Palestinian genocide has only accelerated with the enthusiastic support of the US government under the Trump administration.

But with all that said, I hope that you haven’t given up either, and are with me in doing the best you can to help anyone you can to the best of your abilities.

You’re not wrong. But if I had cancer, and a doctor gave me a way to delay the inevitable, I would take it. Maybe it can’t be fixed, maybe it’s totally fubar. But I don’t have it in me to just give up and willingly let people suffer without a fight.

I mean… I’m not in love with the idea of “blocking movement to the left”, but I sure as fuck would take that over the freespin to the right we are on for now. Like, I get that Dem’s need to step their game way the fuck up because you don’t win elections by being the “second worst choice”… but still. If we didn’t want accelerated fascism…

I own a pair of these. Depending on the game, they add a lot of value to my Steamdeck. But for everyday computing, they are actually very impractical.

Just like Lemmy more.

I do miss the ability to find conversations about any niche topic I want.

But the conversations on Lemmy are more genuine/authentic and the platform is run on principal/morals. An enshittified platform based on greed and inundated with bots could never compete.

Put another way, Reddit feels like I’m talking to the ‘‘internet’’, Lemmy feels like I’m talking to people.

100%

That being said, dogmatic belief systems, which tend to be common in religion, seem to act as force multipliers in this regard.

A community, forged by a shared desire to see software and technology be free, open, and driven by passion.

With members who usually find their way here fleeing the profit driven enshittification that so often stifles this pursuit.

And for some unknown reason, they are mad at a company that pursues aggressive litigation against free and open passion projects that were the very embodiment of the community’s shared values…

Well that’s just a fucking mystery if I’ve ever seen one!

I dunno, if you can laugh at yourself, I think Johnny Bravo is far from the worst comparison someone could make about you.

It’s an odd sort of evangelism. They almost never try to convince you Windows is good, just that everything else is worse.

That’s the king. You’re thinking of Bruce Willis.