Why is the official Nextcloud help community so combative? I've been working with Nextcloud for about 3 months in various configurations and every time I've had to seek assistance there it has been an unwelcome experience.

Even when I say something to the effect of "I'm having this problem with "X", I think I've done something wrong in configuration, where should I look first?" I almost always get a sharp response at best, and most often a response akin to: "You're wrong, that problem doesn't exist. I've tested it on my server." This latest time, I've found a problem in 3 different installations, 2 other users confirmed they also experience the problem and my thread is just hijacked with "Well we don't see it, so it doesn't exist." and "You should have told us "X" if you wanted any real help." or "Why are you asking here instead of somewhere else?" Every time I post there, I find myself backing away cautiously while vitreol just erupts.

I'm not one of the users who just willy nilly starts posting questions everywhere - I go through lot of self-help effort, investigating, researching and looking at official documentation and searching online to try and figure it out myself before I post, but I'm always faced with a "You're so stupid for posting here." vibe over there. I've experienced this same or similar behavior over at least a half a dozen attempts to get help with something. In my 20+ years of hosting experience, participating in countless communities, I have never experienced such an unwelcoming, hostile "help community". What's the deal?

Journalists are the unloved heroes of democracy. Some people love to attack them. They confuse television talking figures and actual journalism. There are so many great journalists out there. Without them, democracy perishes.

more mergers, just what we needed

...the conflict in Ukraine is unfolding similarly to others in Russia’s long history of failed or inconclusive imperial wars. Several times in the past few centuries, Russian leaders launched wars of conquest against foes they misunderstood and underestimated, and with little appreciation of the larger international context...

...The Crimean War (1853-56), the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05), World War I (1914-18), and the Soviet-Afghan War (1979-88) offer the most relevant analogies. All were wars of choice for territorial aggrandizement or other imperial interventions, which ended in military defeat followed by political upheaval.

Russia’s failure in these wars stemmed from common mistakes and shortcomings that also afflict Putin’s war in Ukraine. One common failing was to underestimate their foes’ military capabilities and societal resilience. Emperor Nicholas I expected the Ottoman Empire to quickly give way on his demand for a protectorate over Orthodox Christians in what is now Moldova and part of Romania, while Emperor Nicholas II and his commanders believed that the Japanese military could never stand up to a European great power. Similar hubris colored their assessment of the Ottomans in 1914-15, when they settled on seizing Constantinople and the Black Sea Straits as a war aim. Nor did Soviet commanders have much respect for the ragtag mujahedeen in Afghanistan.

Second, Russian leaders frequently downplayed the risks and impacts of foreign (i.e., Western) involvement that ended up prolonging the war and increasing the costs Russia was forced to bear. The landing of French and British troops in Crimea in 1854 forced Russia to fight on multiple fronts against better-equipped armies. British intelligence support enabled Tokyo to remain a step ahead of Russian plans throughout the Russo-Japanese War. While Russia declared war against Austria-Hungary in August 1914, it soon found itself at war with Germany, the Ottomans, and Bulgaria as well. A German-Ottoman blockade of the Black Sea Straits choked off Allied support, exacerbating the tsarist government’s inability to mobilize defense production. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan prompted the United States, in uneasy alliance with Saudia Arabia and Pakistan, to arm the mujahedeen forces that ground down the Soviet army until General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev ordered their withdrawal nearly a decade later.

With an economy far less dynamic that those of its Western rivals, Russia in each case found itself at an increasing disadvantage the longer these wars went on. As economic burdens and personnel losses mounted, so too did opposition not just to the war, but to the regime prosecuting it...

Cuban Ambassador to Australia has conveyed the Cuban government's and people's condolences for the terrorist attack in Sydney

[https://misiones.cubaminrex.cu/en/articulo/cuban-ambassador-australia-has-conveyed-cuban-governments-and-peoples-condolences-terrorist]

Dec. 17, 2025

#news #politics #Cuba #Palestine #Australia #BondiBeach #terrorism
@cuba

My mate Paul says girding your loins once a day can protect you from Hittites. He's not the brightest though. Anyone have any experience with this? is this another silly trend like circumcision or anointing?

Archive link

France is probing possible foreign interference after a Latvian national was arrested and charged over the discovery on a passenger ferry of malware capable of allowing the vessel's operating systems to be controlled remotely, the Interior Minister said Wednesday.

The malware was found on the Fantastic passenger ferry with a capacity of over 2,000 passengers, belonging to Italian shipping company GNV while it was docked in France's Mediterranean port of Sete, Paris prosecutors said. Italian authorities had warned France that the operating system of the vessel could have been infected by a malware known as a Remote Access Trojan (RAT), which allows a hacker to gain remote control of a system.

Two crew members, a Latvian and a Bulgarian, whose identities had been signalled to France by the Italian authorities, were detained last week. The Bulgarian was freed but the Latvian was charged and placed under arrest in the investigation.

...

France and other European governments have warned that Russia is stepping up a campaign of interference more than three and a half years into its war against Ukraine. "This is a very serious matter (...) individuals tried to hack into a ship's data-processing system," Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez told France Info radio early Wednesday. "Investigators are obviously looking into interference. Yes, foreign interference," he said.

...

Hi everyone!

I’ve been trying to use HRConvert2, which looks like a fantastic tool for converting all kinds of files. However, I’m struggling to get it working properly with Docker. Specifically, I can’t figure out how to correctly bind volumes to retrieve my converted files. I’m using Portainer to deploy my containers, and while I can get HRConvert2 up and running, the lack of clear documentation for volume mounting is a roadblock for me.

Additionally, it seems HRConvert2 hasn’t been updated in over a year, which makes me a bit hesitant to rely on it long-term.

Does anyone know of a good self-hosted alternative that can handle a wide range of file conversions similar to HRConvert2 ?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions or insights !

Annual amount is almost twice that paid before Brexit.

Paywall? https://archive.is/w4WkC

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/43815995

• Former Permanent Secretary Philip Rycroft will assess finance and bribery rules and how to reduce risk of foreign interference
• Builds on new rules set out in Elections Strategy to guard against foreign political interference

Gill was jailed in November, after admitting to taking bribes for pro-Russian interviews and speeches when he was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP).

Announcing the review, Communities Secretary Steve Reed said the government must "learn the lessons" from the case so "this can never happen again".

The review will be led by former senior civil servant Philip Rycroft and will report back in March.

...

Is it when you use capital letters properly?

May Beanis smile upon you

In a high-security Shenzhen laboratory, Chinese scientists have built what Washington has spent years trying to prevent: a prototype of a machine capable of producing the cutting-edge semiconductor chips that power artificial intelligence, smartphones and weapons central to Western military dominance, Reuters has learned

Completed in early 2025 and now undergoing testing, the prototype fills nearly an entire factory floor. It was built by a team of former engineers from Dutch semiconductor giant ASML (ASML.AS), opens new tab who reverse-engineered the company's extreme ultraviolet lithography machines or EUVs, according to two people with knowledge of the project.

Add: Arch

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/43814573

One of the leaders of the pro-Russian Koos party and Estonian citizen Aivo Peterson was sentenced to 14 years in prison for treason by Harju District Court on Thursday.

Web archive link

The trial, which began in November 2023, dealt with allegations of treason against Estonian citizens Peterson and Dmitri Rootsi, as well as claims that Peterson and Russian citizen Andrei Andronov acted to undermine Estonia's independence.

The charges were connected to meetings with Russian politicians, aligning policy positions, the organization of an independent civil defense organization, and a Russian-funded press trip to occupied Ukraine.

According to the indictment, Peterson and Rootsi, based on instructions received from Russia, knowingly and in an organized manner assisted Russia and people acting on behalf of Russian authorities in non-violent activities directed against the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Republic of Estonia from October 2022 to March 10, 2023.

...

• Release Date: March 27, 2026
• Price: $39.99