fwiw, here is an emacs version:

https://codeberg.org/martianh/lem.el#headline-11

I think what would be most useful would be a usenet→lemmy gateway, so that rich catalog of usenet clients can be leveraged on Lemmy.

If that’s a lossy compression, then yeah that would surely blow the fax over voice GSM option. Although in principle a well-designed system would detect the fax/modem handshake and disable compression.

What kind of a mattress do they use for leveling roads?

I should have said box springs since some mattresses don’t have springs. I’ve not seen it myself just heard about it.

I wonder if using 2 chains instead of one would help restrict the movement. You could perhaps also put the chains through a pipe to prevent slack, but then I guess it’d be tricky because you would need a plate on the axle so it doesn’t batter the axle.

I wonder if it would help to drag a mattress. In an area with gravel roads, over time the strips of the road where the tires roll gets pressed down and the gravel builds up in the middle and sides. So someone periodically pulls an old mattress with the fabric removed and springs exposed along the road to even out the surface… effectively raking the road. I wonder if that same thing might help loosen and make the snow easier to plow.

It’s perhaps fair enough to say some Amish communities have some hypocrisy, but I think as outsiders we perceive hypocrisy largely out of misunderstanding their goals. We tend to think they are anti-tech but IIUC that’s not their end game, it just turns out that their real goals incidentally appear to manifest into anti-tech ends. They are increasingly forced to compromise in some situations.

Amish w/phones

They won’t have a phone or electric lights in the house but will in their workshop.

W.r.t the phone, the Amish oppose phones for the same reason as the electric grid: having a phone line creates a permanent dependency and connection to the outside world which undermines self-reliance. Some Amish workers need to sell their goods to customers outside their community. Having no phone can reduce or kill their sales especially if they produce the kind of product that someone orders to spec in advance. So some make an exception and use a mobile phone for work. A mobile phone is less ethically problematic to them than a landline… which sounds bizarre. But I suspect what’s happening there is you can get a prepaid plan and turn off the phone when not working, thus limiting outside contact/dependency to worktime, whereas a landline is always connected to that “sinful city”. And since each call is billed individually, I get the impression that transactional nature of it is more conducive to their way of thinking. They pay X amount to carrier Y to facilitate transaction Z. Whereas with an unlimited service there is that idea that you are costing the service provider more with each call but results in no particular compensation and perhaps a feeling of taking advantage of the phone carrier, or owing them in some way.

I’m guessing on some of this. Part of my understanding comes from this article.

Amish in cars

They won’t drive a car but will gladly get rides from their neighbors.

I haven’t pinned down why that is but consider that car ownership requires insurance and registration, which must be renewed annually and ultimately creates an outside world dependency with continuous interaction. I wonder if a car rental service were to drop off a car to use for a day, perhaps that would be within their moral code to use?

They have no problem with bicycles, but what about e-bikes? It would be interesting to see if e-bikes are accepted because it would involve a motor but no reg or insurance needed. I guess since they would need to charge the batteries off-grid, it would somewhat defeat the point. I suppose a bicycle with a tiny gas-fueled engine would be classed as a moped and all the paperwork would be a show stopper.

EDIT: This article confirms that insurance is a problem in general (they have no health insurance), but the problem with car ownership is more about income inequality & status symbols. Not everyone can afford a car. When robo-taxis take hold, we’ll need to setup a system where they can request one using a carrier pidgin.

Amish banking

Note as well the Amish oppose the idea of being tagged with numbers. So banking is a problem for them after the US Patriot Act was pushed down everyone’s throat because they can no longer have a bank account without establishing a social security number. Perhaps the opposition to being numbered carries over to car registration. IDK. W.r.t. banking, if you kick the Amish out of the banks that greatly harms their livelihood. So some of them have been forced to compromise and get an SSN. Their arms were twisted. I wonder if being forced perhaps makes it acceptable because maybe they would see that as God’s will being forced on them. I can only guess.

batteries

They use battery powered lights instead of lanterns and also put them on their buggy.

I see no contradiction there. They cannot charge those batteries from the grid but they can use a hand crank to charge them. Perhaps some prefer oil lanterns because they don’t like having to get up and turn a hand crank when the battery hits 0%.

EDIT: Buggy lights are a legal obligation. The Amish also hold safety in high regard (use a text browser for that link).

solar

They have a fit about people putting solar arrays on their adjacent property.

Not sure why that would be. Maybe it’s not about moral code but a matter of unsightliness. Solar energy from the sun is fine to them… it’s power given to them by god, AFAICT.

fossil fuel → electricity

They use gas powered engines to power their washing machines.

AFAIK, fossil fuels are not a problem. Nor is grid-free electricity.

What bug report? There’s no bug single report in particular to speak of. I’ve filed hundreds if not thousands of bug reports over the years. The post is a reflection of a subset of those experiences.

When a developer asks a tester to look at a module in the source code, that is not a consequence of a “half assed bug report”. It’s the contrary. When a dev knows a particular module of code is suspect, the bug report served well in giving a detailed idea of what the issue is.

Did I say incomplete? You’ll have to quote where you get that from.

Compare like with like. You can have incomplete code, and you can have incomplete bug reports. Neither are relevant here.

So you did not pay,

And? Of course testers do not pay money. Why would they? Devs do not pay for the tester’s work either. Both developers and testers are volunteers who do not pay the other for their work. On free software projects testers and devs pay with their own labor.

much larger contributions of the developers.

It is not “much larger” for a dev to task the tester to implement the fix. The dev is no more than a manager in this case.

Are you a paying customer?

Testers and bug reporters are not paying customers. They are volunteer CONTRIBUTORS.

If so, I understand completely.

Obviously not.

The dev is a bigger volunteer than you.

Nonsense. Contributors are equals. Exceptionally, devs who demand that testers also fix the software are notably smaller (managers, effectively).

That’s fair enough, but it’s a bit of both (satire and reality). It’s actually a true account (details withheld because I have a bit of respect for the developer in the recent case). This is something that really happens. Not often, but occasionally there are devs & others who expect bug reporters to do a fix. There’s a poor attitude that bug reporters are in some way a beneficiary/consumer and the false idea that the devs are working for the bug reporter. There’s also an assumption that the bug reporter is in some way in need of a fix. When in fact the bug reporter is a volunteer contributor, performing work for the project just like the dev. It’s just as wrong for a dev to demand work a bug reporter work on the code as it is for a bug reporter to demand work from a dev. Everyone gives what they can or wants to. A bug report is not an individual support request. It’s a community bug – one that may or may not even affect the bug reporter.

Someone tasking someone else without paying them is indeed being not where they belong. In the case of the OP, that’s the dev tasking the bug reporter.

Of course… The reaction shows how seriously wound tight people are. Obviously not much sense of humor in this community.

There are a couple rare cases where devs have tried to coerce me into a fix. Sometimes they outright say they expect the bug reporter to fix it, strangely enough. It never happened in a language that I knew, and weird that bug reporters would be expected to know how to program at all. But it’s far from the norm.

I wondered what that article would say about Ada. No mention. But certainly Ada gives you the ability to have the issues that are listed so apparently Ada is memory unsafe (despite it being highly regarded as a safe language overall).

Also worth noting that Ada developers generally consider rust a watered down lesser alternative. OTOH, rust has memory safety and Ada does not, correct?

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