Using the long name (it’s actually GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a good idea, but I have never actually had anyone press for the actual name Not giving the name also means I don’t have to explain anything if I later used Inkscape or something else as those would also more or less fit the description I gave.

BBSes did have a weirdly prominent Star Trek thing going on in the late 80s/early 90s. I never thought about it enough to see how weird it was other than figuring it was mostly nerds being nerds (in a good way).

I usually just say things like “I used an open source image editing tool. It’s like Photoshop, but free!” and then don’t elaborate further heh

IRCv3 seems pretty broadly supported by most of the relevant IRC client and server makers, and should be backwards compatible with clients that support it. That being said, I’m with you on being cynical.

Pixar are such douches. Uniracers was a god damned masterpiece and one of the most fun, if rarely heard of, games on the SNES.

TIL, thanks for the etymology/entomology!

If they said and meant it like that, there wouldn’t be a problem. It is more like: “I got this from Aldis”, “I’m going to Aldis”, etc.

I have, and am, selfhosting Matrix, and it isn’t that big of a deal if you’re someone that, you know , self hosts things. That is just outside of what most people can or are willing to do. That’s totally fine, but finding a FOSS platform that will host a VoIP/video server for you and not try to monetize you is almost certainly going to be rare or short lived.

This is spot on. Discord and Matrix are, IMO, quite different. Matrix is more like Slack or Teams. You can do voice and video calls, if you configure it to do so, but it isn’t like Discord in that regard at all. If you don’t use Discord for that and mostly just chat with your friends then sure, but you have a lot of choices in that case.

I had a legit argument with my FIL about puce being a color. He still doesn’t believe it.

I think it is more like the unrelated, and annoying, phenomenon where people inexplicably add an ‘s’ to brand names. I swear if I hear my in-laws tell me about their stuff from “Aldis” one more time I’ll lose it.

Probably two distinct circles that don’t touch if I base it on people I know and myself.

I should say that Element looks like it was heavily inspired by the OG Slack UI as it was at a specific point in time probably 7-8 years ago. Slack’s UI started getting tweaked and enshittified quite a bit, especially after Salesforce bought them. So I can totally get not seeing the direct resemblance, but as someone that was forced to be on Slack for a decade, Element felt like “ahh old Slack” in a good way, though obviously not exact.

It’s not a Discord replacement, full stop. Someone could make a Matrix client that was a Discord replacement, but no one has even attempted to do so as far as I know. Element (the reference client) was very clearly a Slack replacement. I know because I literally moved my small company to it from Slack. I think that Discord’s continued enshittification could lead to someone making such a client either for Matrix or XMPP. That being said, making something like this isn’t a small project and I wouldn’t expect one soon if one comes at all.

Discord hating rant here: Discord is kind of weird as far as these sorts of services go tbh. Its “weirdness” is part of why I have always has a dislike of it (the bigger part of why is the jerky users and company, just like Telegram). It focuses heavily on VoIP and video screen sharing in a way that most chat services so not, but is also a heavily emoji/sticker/whatever filled chat service. It was clearly made for the shit talking gamer crowd and it honestly excels there. If it had stayed there in that niche, I’d think nothing of it. Then many FOSS projects and small companies then decided to use it in lieu of a proper support forum, probably because they were already were, or had previously been, shit talking gamers and used it all the time.

Sure, no problem. I’m sure you’ll get a basic server up and running, it isn’t too bad.

A little too poetic for Sherman anyway. “War is hell” was definitely one of his quotes though.

If you just need a chat server for your and some friends and family, that is almost certainly will work for you.

I’m not trying to say that you can’t/shouldn’t federate with others. You don’t need to federate everything, all channels, etc, nor should you IMO. I found out really quickly that the small server I had set aside for it was not up to the task when I decided to sync up the matrix.org main channels. You need lots of ram, FAST storage, and a good internet connection at bare minimum.

If you plan on federating, it can end up being pretty resource heavy, so consider either not federating or planning ahead.

Yeah, the lack of distractions is the man draw I believe (also the qwerty keyboard on it is pretty nice), but it had rough edges that prevent me from recommending it. I had a feeling it would be like that since it is the first and only phone that company had made, but hope springs eternal.