I think it’s mostly people talking about the Phoronix posts. The Lemmy stuff is fairly neutral and HN seems to be fairly solidly on the side of being horrified.

There are various definitions of synonymity with varying degrees of strictness. Whether something is considered synonymous depends both on how strictly one defines synonymity and on which context one operates in.

I assumed a relatively strict definition: Two terms are synonymous if and only if they can be used interchangeably in most contexts, e.g. “bigger” and “larger”. Under that definition, “tax” and “tariff” are not synonymous; “tariff” usually implies something crossing a border while “tax” doesn’t.

However, an equally correct definition is that two terms are synonymous if they have similar or related meanings within a context. Under this definition, “tax” and “tariff” are synonymous since they describe similar things – even if they aren’t interchangeable. This definition is usually used by synonym lists because it makes it a lot easier to write those lists. Annoyingly, this means that two words that are listed as synonymous in such a list aren’t necessarily synonymous in the context you’re using them in.

For example, Collins lists “tariff” and “tithe” as synonymous. Do you know anyone who pays a tariff to a church? The synonym list for “tithe” doesn’t even mention a church-specific reading; it just assumes that a tithe is some kind of tax and that’s close enough. You can write like that but your style would be seen as very flowery and wouldn’t be suitable e.g. in a scientific context.

Another correct definition, by the way, is that the two words must have exactly the same meaning in all possible readings. That one is so strict it’s practically useless for natural languages but can be use in different contexts.

Let’s look at how Merriam-Webster describes synonyms:

1: one of two or more words or expressions of the same language that have the same or nearly the same meaning in some or all senses

2a: a word or phrase that by association is held to embody something (such as a concept or quality)
“a tyrant whose name has become a synonym for oppression”

2b: metonym

3: one of two or more scientific names used to designate the same taxonomic group
→ compare homonym

All three definitions I gave above match Merriam-Webster’s first definition, depending on whether one chooses “the same” vs. “nearly the same” and “some” vs. “all”.

Interestingly, Collins’s definition of “synonym” is very strict due to excessive brevity:

A synonym is a word or expression which means the same as another word or expression.

This doesn’t allow for similar meanings (which their own synonym lists heavily rely upon as illustrated above), which is probably not intended.

I didn’t check Thesauris since you messed up that link but so far one dictionary says “it depends” and the other one says “the meaning must be the same” (and then completely ignores its own definition). “It depends” is the best we can do.

According to Merriam-Webster, “income tax” is a synonym of “value-added tax” and “property tax”. And it can be, depending on context, but few people would argue that they are always synonymous. It’s the same with “tariff” and “tax”. Whether or not they are synonymous depends on context.

My point exactly. The bet was about whether “tariff” and “tax” are synonymous. They aren’t synonymous if they describe different things, even if one of those things is a subset of the other. (This is complicated a bit by the fact that synonymity is context-dependent so in some contexts they can be synonymous. I’m assuming a general context.)

To give a different example, every iPhone is a smartphone but not every smartphone is an iPhone. The two terms aren’t synonymous except in specific contexts like when discussing the inventory of an Apple store.

In a general context, I would argue that the bet is lost – tariffs are taxes but taxes encompass more than just tariffs. The definition of synonymity is not fulfilled.

The actual point of the bet, namely to illustrate that tariffs are paid by people in the country that raised them (because they are taxes on imported goods and services), remains valid.

I would’ve made you pay him. Every tariff is a tax but not every tax is a tariff. Of course your actual point still stands.

Someone ziptied the ring to a 10 mm wrench socket. Wrench sockets have a reputation for inexplicably getting lost, never to be found again.

I know someone who bought one after the first FSD debacles because at the time it was the only available electric car rated to pull his trailer when fully loaded; most electrics wouldn’t do more than 750 kg. He doesn’t give a shit about FSD but he does have a big trailer.

Probably a bit of a bad look these days, though, given that he’s politically active for the local Green Party.

That does make encryption was less appealing to me. On one of my machines / and /home are on different drives and parts of ~ are on yet another one.

I consider the ability to mount file systems in random folders or to replace directories with symlinks at will to be absolutely core features of unixoid systems. If the current encryption toolset can’t easily facilitate that then it’s not quite RTM for my use case.

If you use a .local domain, your device MUST ask the mDNS address (224.0.0.251 or FF02::FB) and MAY ask another DNS provider. Successful resolution without mDNS is not an intended feature but something that just happens to work sometimes. There’s a reason why the user interfaces of devices like Ubiquiti gateways warn against assigning a name ending in .local to any device.

I personally have all of my locally-assigned names end with .lan, although I’m considering switching to a sub-subdomain of a domain I own (so instead of mycomputer.lan I’d have mycomputer.home.mydomain.tld). That would make the names much longer but would protect me against some asshat buying .lan as a new gTLD.

Same. The default desktop style is a bit tacky but changing the style is not exactly difficult. Other than that it’s just a more convenient Arch.

It is a well-designed system font. Say what you will about Microsoft but they do know how to make a good font or two.

There is one metric where Intel is better and that’s Thunderbolt. You typically get more full-featured Thunderbolt ports with an Intel CPU. Of course whether that point is relevant is highly dependent on your use case.

A second computer with a password manager, duh. Of course to unlock that you need a third computer…

Because if you have a gun and no scruples it becomes easy to take the things of people with no gun. Positions of power attract people with no scruples and can provide guns (that you don’t even have to fire yourself). The only known effective means of defending against them is by making sure your country has guns (on the national level) and a government with scruples.

Does it suck? Yes. Do we have an alternative? None that works.

Good idea. Losing them in there would be a hassle.

Ah, so they actually got that implemented. Nice.

Garuda for me. The reasons are similar; just replace some optimization with some convenience. It’s a bit garish by default but pleasant to use.

Flatpak has its benefits, but there are tradeoffs as well. I think it makes a lot of sense for proprietary software.

For everything else I do prefer native packages since they have fewer issues with interop. The space efficiency isn’t even that important to me; even if space issues should arise, those are relatively easy to work around. But if your password manager can’t talk to your browser because the security model has no solution for safe arbitrary IPC, you’re SOL.

I agree that going for wages in the traditional sense doesn’t catch many of the most relevant income streams. However, I think that a “maximum wage” makes sense as a theoretical construct used to create a sensible income tax scheme.

Essentially, tax brackets and rates could be defined in relation to the median income. Go too far above that (hitting the “maximum wage”) and your tax rate rapidly increases, maybe even going as high as 90%. Of course this would have to cover all sorts of income, not just plain money.

This scheme would effectively box people into a certain band of acceptable wealth and would create an incentive to raise wages – after all, if the average worker makes more, so can the most wealthy.

(Also, full agreement on needing to talk about better labor protections. American labor law is really lax.)