Oh was that why they threw the tomato sauce on that one painting? Now it all makes sense

Plus firefox mostly exists because google pays them, probably so there’s no anti-trust action against them.

Don’t know about the second point, but on the first, there’s a online newspaper here that does it pretty well. It’s like 240$ a year, but with the option to pay however little/much you want. the articles can be shared freely (no paywall, though i think since a year ago you need to enter your email to read, used to be completely free to share), but can’t be discovered/found unless you’re subscibed. it’s split into two legal entities, the newspaper that employs the journalists and a second non-profit that actually collects the payments and that every subscriber is allowed to vote in, elect leadership for etc. that works out guidelines for the newspaper part to follow.

has been working pretty well for several years now and it’s one of the last few places of quality, independent journalism in my country

Ah but don’t worry, there’s also skills for scanning skills for security risks, so all good /s

They also have a ‘skill’ sharing page (a skill is just a text document with instructions) and depending on config, the bot can search for and ‘install’ new skills on its own. and agyone can upload a skill. So supply chain attacks are an option, too.

I got mine from kultofathena.com 20 years ago for 40 bucks (though with fancier blade), but just checked and don’t think they sell it anymore.

You can have it if you want, it’s just laying in my basement.

I’m sorry, that came off very passive-aggressive, I really shouldn’t post at 3 am when I can sleep.

The whole dark ages, and golden ages thing is just very annoying, made up during the renaissance, in part as a useful tool to go “look how shit everything is, I will make it great and amazing like it was before”, still a favorite to use by populists (in reference to whatever time is most suitable) and it’s been repeated so much, it actually works, everyone kinda just accepted it. But then when you dig into it, the middle ages weren’t really worse in terms of invention/art/etc. than the renaissance, nor was there this big stagnation after the decline of the roman empire, and people always made art, new inventions and great achievements, along with cruelty, bloodshed and other awful things. But then this has been a relatively recent shift in historical research, so not that well known

In other news, dark ages are a myth disproven by science.