Notepad++ and Don Ho: A story of software, activism, and defiance
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Just a note on the efficacy of activist messages in FOSS.
In the Aughts, I was learning to play with microcontrollers. PIC microcontrollers were free as well as the JAL language. I ordered a hardware programmer from the Dutch guy who created JAL: Wouter van Ooijen. Probably my first purchase online. There was a statement in the license, to the effect of, the language could not be used to develop arms.
Looking back, that was a turning point for me. I was machining arms for a living and continued to do so for years. It got me to thinking about what it was that I was producing with my hands. Weapons for killing people.
I thought about it a lot. All these things I was making with blood and sweat being used to kill people. Running machines on night shift gives you time to think.
His statement was, at minimum, at least partially responsible for me changing my mind. I grew past the bad religion and far right ideology that I was taught.
I'm going to send him a thank you note.
I'm just an internet stranger, but I'm proud of your growth. Many people in similar positions would've spent those years digging themselves deeper, because confronting the cognitive dissonance is not easy (you may well have spent some of that time digging deeper, but you made it out, and I'm glad you're here with us)
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Interesting piece. Thanks for sharing
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What browser and adblocker?
Vivaldi, no adblocker, it seems it has one integrated… maybe?
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Hopely he doesn't put the political messaging into the software.
He did. A notable update for Notepad++ compulsory had a support message for Charlie Hebdo. Its his right to do so, and he's not wrong.
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Notepad++ is still the second thing I install after
ChromeFirefoxwhatever the fuck i'm gonna use now -
Notepad++ is still the second thing I install after
ChromeFirefoxwhatever the fuck i'm gonna use nowLibreWolf ( https://librewolf.net/ )
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Having switched to linux, np++ is one of the programs I miss the most.
Inb4 'just use [insert software here] instead'; yes I know alternatives to np++ exist.Yep same here. I've tried Notepad Next, Notepadqq, and notepad++ with wine. Each had their own quirks/issues (no dark mode, crashes, GUI glicthes). Now I'm just using vscodium for everything. While vscodium isn't as simple as np++, (there are a lot of extra features you'll never need when editing a simple txt) it gets the job done without any issues
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I'm just an internet stranger, but I'm proud of your growth. Many people in similar positions would've spent those years digging themselves deeper, because confronting the cognitive dissonance is not easy (you may well have spent some of that time digging deeper, but you made it out, and I'm glad you're here with us)
I dug into 'Creation Science' for a while as a result of the cognitive dissonance. Trying to square reason and science with religion and belief in an inerrant Bible. Ultimately, I lost my religion and had an existential crisis that lasted about a year.
It was terrible. Panic attacks and circular thinking. An existential crisis is depression's cousin. Painful, frightening, and eventually exciting. I'm free now. I got rid of the slavery that was pushed into me as a child. Still have to fight the guilt and bad thought patterns.
I was not successful in bringing any friends or family with me from before. I tried. I have regrets, but would do it again.
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Just a note on the efficacy of activist messages in FOSS.
In the Aughts, I was learning to play with microcontrollers. PIC microcontrollers were free as well as the JAL language. I ordered a hardware programmer from the Dutch guy who created JAL: Wouter van Ooijen. Probably my first purchase online. There was a statement in the license, to the effect of, the language could not be used to develop arms.
Looking back, that was a turning point for me. I was machining arms for a living and continued to do so for years. It got me to thinking about what it was that I was producing with my hands. Weapons for killing people.
I thought about it a lot. All these things I was making with blood and sweat being used to kill people. Running machines on night shift gives you time to think.
His statement was, at minimum, at least partially responsible for me changing my mind. I grew past the bad religion and far right ideology that I was taught.
I'm going to send him a thank you note.
Not an easy thing to change about oneself. Good job and thanks for sharing
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Used to be alt+space. But I haven't used wine in a while...
Thanks for the suggestion. That combo seems to bring up window options for Wine's workspace. I've purged and reinstalled the snap now which does skirt the problem.
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Last time I checked out Notepadqq, it was nothing like Notepad++, if what you want from Notepad++ are the features. Maybe it's improved though. Personally I've found that with the right combination of settings and add-ons, the closest editors on Linux to Notepad++ are Geany (GTK) or Kate (KDE).
In my first two years of Linux, I struggled between using Notepad++ through Wine and trying the many different editors out there (including the three you mentioned), never feeling fully satisfied. Until I found a little-known one that I would use today even in a Windows machine where Np++ is a native option: CudaText.
Just like Np++, you can get extra useful features by installing plugins. And you should dig into available settings to adjust to your taste.
In the end, CudaText is a more advanced editor than Np++, while it still feels welcoming for editing non-code text, unlike VSCode or Sublime.
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Vivaldi, no adblocker, it seems it has one integrated… maybe?
If you want to consistently block ads, you can't use a chromium based browser since they don't support ublock origin
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