Art is an endeavor that seeks discovery and creation of [beauty](beauty.md) and primarily relies on intuition, its value is in feelings it gives rise to. While the most immediate examples of art that come to mind are for example [music](music.md) and painting, even the most [scientific](science.md) and rigorous effort like [math](math.md) and [programming](programming.md) becomes art when pushed to the highest level, to the boundaries of current knowledge where intuition becomes important for further development.
**Good art always needs time**, usually a lot of time, and you cannot predict how much time it will need, **art cannot be made on schedule** or as a product. By definition creating true art is never a routine (though it requires well trained skills in routine tasks), it always invents something new, something no one has done before (otherwise it's just copying that doesn't need an artist) -- in this sense the effort is the same as that of research and science or exploring previously unwalked land, you can absolutely never know how long it will take you to invent something, what complications you will encounter or what you will find in an unknown land. You simply do it, fail many times, mostly find nothing, you repeat and repeat until you find the good thing. For this art also requires a lot of effort -- yes, there are cases of masterpieces that came to be very casually, but those are as rare as someone finding a treasure by accident. Art is to a great degree a matter of chance, trial and error, the artist himself doesn't understand his own creation when he makes it, he is only skilled at searching and spotting the good, but in the end he is just someone who invests a lot of time into searching, many times blindly.
@ -18,7 +18,7 @@ I dunno, I don't do anything like that now, remember this isn't a blog, tho you
### How does LRS differ from [suckless](suckless.md), [KISS](kiss.md), [free software](free_software.md) and similar types of software?
Sometimes these sets may greatly overlap and LRS is at times just a slightly different angle of looking at the same things, but in short LRS cherry-picks the best of other things and is much greater in scope (it focuses on the big picture of whole society). I have invented LRS as my own take on suckless software and then expanded its scope to encompass not just technology but the whole society -- as I cannot speak on behalf of the whole suckless community (and sometimes disagree with them a lot), I have created my own "fork" and simply set my own definitions without worrying about misinterpreting, misquoting or contradicting someone else. LRS advocates very similar technology to that advocated by suckless, but it furthermore has its specific ideas and areas of focus. The main point is that **LRS is derived from an unconditional love of all life** rather than some shallow idea such as "[productivity](productivity_cult.md)". In practice this leads to such things as a high stress put on [public domain](public_domain.md) and legal safety, [altruism](altruism.md), selflessness, anti-[capitalism](capitalism.md), accepting [games](game.md) as desirable type of software, NOT subscribing to the [productivity cult](productivity_cult.md), rejecting [privacy](privacy.md), [cryptocurrencies](crypto.md) etc. While suckless is apolitical and its scope is mostly limited to software and its use for "getting job done", LRS speaks not just about technology but about the whole society -- there are two main parts of LRS: [less retarded software](lrs.md) and [less retarded society](less_retarded_society.md).
Sometimes these sets may greatly overlap and LRS is at times just a slightly different angle of looking at the same things, but in short LRS cherry-picks the best of other things and is much greater in scope (it focuses on the big picture of whole society). I have invented LRS as my own take on suckless software and then modified it a bit and expanded its scope to encompass not just technology but the whole society -- as I cannot speak on behalf of the whole suckless community (and sometimes disagree with them a lot), I have created my own "fork" and simply set my own definitions without worrying about misinterpreting, misquoting or contradicting someone else. LRS advocates very similar technology to that advocated by suckless, but it furthermore has its specific ideas and areas of focus. The main point is that **LRS is derived from an unconditional love of all life** rather than some shallow idea such as "[productivity](productivity_cult.md)". In practice this leads to such things as a high stress put on [public domain](public_domain.md) and legal safety, [altruism](altruism.md), selflessness, anti-[capitalism](capitalism.md), accepting [games](game.md) as desirable type of software, **NOT subscribing to the [productivity cult](productivity_cult.md), rejecting [security](security.md), [privacy](privacy.md), [cryptocurrencies](crypto.md) etc.** While suckless is apolitical and its scope is mostly limited to software and its use for "getting job done", LRS speaks not just about technology but about the whole society -- there are two main parts of LRS: [less retarded software](lrs.md) and [less retarded society](less_retarded_society.md).
One way to see LRS is as a philosophy that takes only the [good](good.md) out of existing philosophies/movements/ideologies/etc. and adds them to a single unique [idealist](idealism.md) mix, without including [cancer](cancer.md), [bullshit](bullshit.md), errors, propaganda and other negative phenomena plaguing basically all existing philosophies/movements/ideologies/etc.
@ -56,7 +56,7 @@ I don't know, this is not so easy to answer because I came up with the name back
Now that the project has evolved a bit the name actually seems to have been a great choice and I'm pretty happy about it, not just for the above mentioned reasons but also because it is NOT some generic boring name that politicians, PR people and other tryhard populists would come up with. In a way it's trying to stimulate thought and make you think (if only by making you ask WHY anyone would choose such a name). Yes, in a way it's a small protest and showing we stay away from the rotten mainstream, but it's definitely NOT an attempt at catching attention at any cost or trying to look like cool rebels -- such mentality goes against our basic principles. Perhaps the greatest reason for the name is to serve as a test -- truth should prevail no matter what name it is given and we try to test and prove this, or rather maybe prevent succeeding for wrong reasons -- we are not interested in success (which is what mere politicians do); if our ideas are to become accepted, they have to be accepted for the right reasons. And if you refuse to accept truth because you don't like its name, you are retarded and by own ignorance doom yourself to live in a shit society with shit technology.
### Who writes this wiki? Can I contribute.
### Who writes this wiki? Can I contribute?
You can only contribute to this wiki if you're a straight [white](white.md) male. Just kidding, you can't contribute even if you're a straight white male :)
@ -66,7 +66,7 @@ If you want to contribute to the cause, just create your own website, spread the
### Why is it called a wiki when it's written just by one guy? Is it to deceive people into thinking there's a whole movement rather than just one weirdo?
Yes.
Yes.
No, of course not you dumbo. There is no intention of deception, this project started as a collaborative wiki with multiple contributors, named *Based Wiki*, however I (drummyfish) forked my contributions (most of the original Wiki) into my own Wiki and renamed it to *Less Retarded Wiki* because I didn't like the direction of the original wiki. At that point I was still allowing and looking for more contributors, but somehow none of the original people came to contribute and meanwhile I've expanded my LRS Wiki to the point at which I decided it's simply a snapshot of my own views and so I decided to keep it my own project and kept the name that I established, the *LRS Wiki*. Even though at the moment it's missing the main feature of a wiki, i.e. collaboration of multiple people, it is still a project that most people would likely call a "wiki" naturally (even if only a personal one) due to having all the other features of wikis (separate articles linked via hypertext, non-linear structure etc.) and simply looking like a wiki -- nowadays there are many wikis that are mostly written by a single man (see e.g. small fandom wikis) and people still call them wikis because culturally the term has simply taken a wider meaning, people don't expect a wiki to absolutely necessarily be collaborative and so there is no deception. Additionally I am still open to the idea to possibly allowing contributions, so I'm simply keeping this a wiki, the wiki is in a sense waiting for a larger community to come. Finally the ideas I present here are not just mine but really do reflect existing movements/philosophies with significant numbers of supporters (suckless, free software, ...).
Fascist (from Latin *fasces*, "bundle") groups are subgroups of society that strongly pursue [self interest](self_interest.md) on the detriment of others (those who are not part of said group). Fascism is a [rightist](left_right.md), [competitive](competition.md) tendency, very much connected to [identity politics](identity_politics.md) (being or rather feeling to be part of some group, e.g. nation, sex, [race](race.md) etc.); fascists aim to make themselves as strong, as powerful and as rich as possible, i.e. to weaken and possibly eliminate competing groups, to have power over them, enslave them and to seize their resources. The means of their operation are almost exclusively [evil](evil.md), including [violence](violence.md), [bullying](bully.md), [wars](war.md), [propaganda](propaganda.md), [eye for an eye](revenge.md), [slavery](slavery.md) etc.
Fascist (from Latin *fasces*, "bundle", "group", ancient symbol of power to punish) groups are subgroups of society that strongly pursue [self interest](self_interest.md) on the detriment of others (those who are not part of said group). Fascism is a [rightist](left_right.md), [competitive](competition.md) tendency, very much connected to [identity politics](identity_politics.md) (being or rather feeling to be part of some group, e.g. nation, sex, [race](race.md) etc.); fascists aim to make themselves as strong, as powerful and as rich as possible, i.e. to weaken and possibly eliminate competing groups, to have power over them, enslave them and to seize their resources. The means of their operation are almost exclusively [evil](evil.md), including [violence](violence.md), [bullying](bully.md), [wars](war.md), [propaganda](propaganda.md), [eye for an eye](revenge.md), [slavery](slavery.md) etc.
A few examples of fascist groups are [corporations](corporation.md), [nations](nationalism.md), NSDAP ([Nazis](nazi.md)), [LGBT](lgbt.md), [feminists](feminism.md), [Antifa](antifa.md), [KKK](kkk.md), [Marxists](marxism.md) and, of course, the infamous Italian fascist party of Benito Mussolini. Some famous fascists include Alexander the Great, [Napoleon](napoleon.md), [Churchill](churchill.md), [Julius Caesar](caesar.md), [Hitler](hitler.md), Mussolini, [Stalin](stalin.md), Henry Ford, [Steve Jobs](steve_jobs.md) and all [American](usa.md) presidents (basically any so called "great leader" can be included).
@ -8,15 +8,47 @@ Internet is built on top of [protocols](protocol.md) (such as [IP](ip.md), [HTTP
Access to the Internet is offered by [ISPs](isp.md) (internet service providers) but it's pretty easy to connect to the Internet even for free, e.g. via free [wifis](wifi.md) in public places, or in libraries. By 2020 more than half of world's population had access to the Internet -- most people in the first world have practically constant, unlimited access to it via their [smartphones](smartphone.md), and even in [poor countries](shithole.md) [capitalism](capitalism.md) makes these devices along with Internet access cheap as people constantly carrying around devices that display [ads](ad.md) and spy on them is what allows their easy [exploitation](leading_the_pig_to_the_slaughterhouse.md).
The following are some stats about the Internet as of 2022: there are over 5 billion users world-wide (more than half of them from Asia and mostly young people) and over 50 billion individual devices connected, about 2 billion websites (over 60% in [English](english.md)) on the web, hundreds of billions of emails are sent every day, average connection speed is 24 Mbps, there are over 370 million registered [domain](domain.md) names (most popular [TLD](tld.md) is .com), [Google](google.com) performs about 7 billion web searches daily (over 90% of all search engines).
The following are some **statistics** about the Internet as of early 2020s: there are over 5 billion users world-wide (more than half of them from Asia and mostly young people),it is estimated 63% people worldwide use the Internet with the number being as high as 90% in the developed countries. Most Internet users are English speakers (27%), followed by Chinese speakers (25%). It's also estimated over 50 billion individual devices connected, about 2 billion websites (over 60% in [English](english.md)) on the web, hundreds of billions of emails are sent every day, average connection speed is 24 Mbps, there are over 370 million registered [domain](domain.md) names (most popular [TLD](tld.md) is .com), [Google](google.com) performs about 7 billion web searches daily (over 90% of all search engines).
PRO TIP: **you should print your own offline Internet** (or maybe we should rather say offline [web](www.md)). Collect your favorite websites and other resources (gopher holes, Usenet threads, images, ...) and make a single dense [PDF](pdf.md) out of them. Process each page so that it's just plain text, remove all graphics and colors, unify the font, make the font small and decrease margins so that you fit as much as possible on a single page to not waste paper. For many pages, like Wikipedia, a small script will be able to do this automatically; the uglier pages may just be edited manually. An easy approach is for example to convert the pages to plain HTML that just contains paragraphs and heading of different levels, then copy-pasting this to LibreOffice, globally editing the font and auto-generate things like table of contents and page numbers, then exporting as PDF. You can even make a script that contains the list of pages you want to scrap so that you can make a newer print a few years later. Once you have the PDF, print it out and have your own tiny offline net :) It will be useful [when the lights go out](collapse.md), it's a physical backup of your favorite sites (the PDF, as a byproduct, is also a single-file backup in electronic form), something no one will be silently censoring under your hands, and it's also just nice to read through printed pages, the experience is better than reading stuff on the screen -- this will be like your own 100% personalized book with stuff you find most interesting, in a form that's comfortable to read.
## History
*see also [history](history.md)*
*See also [history](history.md) and [www](www.md).*
{ Some sites with Internet history: https://www.zakon.org/robert/internet/timeline/, https://www.freesoft.org/CIE/Topics/57.htm. ~drummyfish }
It goes without saying that even though in retrospect it looks like the Internet just came to be one day, it wasn't indeed so -- we have to remember large communication networks existed for a long time and were often used in ways very similar to the Internet, even for silly things like playing [games](game.md) (e.g. [chess](chess.md) used to be played over snail mail and even telegraph). Before electronic networks there were networks such as paper mail and optical telegraphs. With electricity a great number of new, much improved networks appeared, such as the electrical [telegraph](telegraph.md) (~1840), phone and [fax](fax.md) networks (~1880), radio broadcasts (circa first half of 20th century) and [TV](tv.md) broadcasts (~1930). Some of the later networks were very similar to the World Wide Web from user perspective, and they were quite advanced and widely used at the time when Internet was just in its infancy -- for example [teletext](teletext.md) (~1970) allowed people to browse graphical pages on their TVs, [BBS](bbs.md) and [Usenet](usenet.md) networks were already [digital](digital.md) computer networks (accessed through dialup [modems](modem.md)) allowed people to chat, discuss on forums, roleplay, play games and share files, [Minitel](minitel.md) was the most successful Internet like network that worked in France in the 1980s etc.
The Internet itself evolved from **[ARPANET](arpanet.md)**, a network designed by [US](usa.md) department of defense; ARPANET started to be developed in 1969 (with first plans appearing in 1966), fueled by Cold War rivalry with the Soviet Union. Of course, this network wasn't intended to become what the Internet is today, no one could probably have foreseen the future, it was just another [military](military.md) project -- as such, ARPANET was designed to be **[decentralized](decentralization.md)** so as to be robust, i.e. there was no central node of the network which would be an easy target for enemies in a war. ARPANET was revolutionary by utilizing so called **[packet switching](packet_switching.md)** (idea published in a paper in 1961), i.e. any data sent over the network were split into small data [packets](packet.md) that would travel through the network independently, each one possibly by different path, and would be reassembled into the whole once they all arrived at the destination (again, this helped keep the network robust -- if one path was destroyed, packets would just find another path). This is in contrast to traditional [circuit switching](circuit_switching.md) used until then e.g. in telephone networks (circuit switching basically just means that direct connections are established between nodes that want to communicate at given time).
In April 1969 the first **[RFC](rfc.md)** ("request for comments") document was published (back then wrote with typewriter) -- RFCs would become a standard type of documents for discussing the design and improvements of ARPANET and later the Internet between the network engineers and scientists -- in RFCs new standards and [protocols](protocol.md) would be suggested, defined and discussed. 29 October 1969 is seen as a historical moment for ARPANET because at that day first data were sent through it from University of California -- it was a letter "L" (a whole word "LOGIN" was supposed to be sent but the computer crashed somewhere at "G"). In November of this year the first permanent ARPANET connection was established between University of California and Stanford Research Institute and shortly after a 4 node network was established.
By 1971 there were 15 ARPANET nodes. In 1974 allegedly the **first use of the word "Internet"** appeared in the specification of the TCP protocol by Cerf et al. The [TCP/IP](tcp_ip.md) protocol they published would become a key part of the Internet -- even today these protocols are the foundation of the Internet. By 1977 ARPANET had about 60 nodes.
In 1983 there were more than 500 registered hosts and in 1984 the number surpassed 1000. Also in 1984 the **[DNS](dns.md)** (domain name system) was introduced -- this would allow network nodes to have "human friendly names" like *mycomputer.com* instead of just numeric addresses. In 1985 the first domain name was registered -- it was symbolics.com. In 1987 the number of hosts was around 10000. In 1989 this was already 100000.
In 1990 ARPANET project was officially ended to let the network, now mostly known as the Internet, live and be developed further mostly by the private sector. In this year [EFF](eff.md) (Electronic Frontier Foundation), a major international non-profit that would help overlooking the Internet, was also founded. Due to the exploding popularity the Internet started to run out of IP addresses in early 1990s which was temporarily fixed by so called [CIDR](cidr.md) with long term plans to transition to bigger [IPv6](ipv6.md) addresses.
Probably the biggest milestone in Internet history was the emergence of the **[World Wide Web](www.md)** -- also www or just "the web" -- in 1989 by [Tim Berners-Lee](berners_lee.md) who was at the time working at [CERN](cern.md) in [Europe](europe.md) (i.e. if we see the [US](usa.md) as the inventor of the Internet, the Europe is who made it widespread and famous). The Web was based on the idea of documents (webpages) written in a special language ([HTML](html.md)), all interconnected via clickable links (so called [hypertext](hypertext.md)) viewed with a program called [web browser](web_browser.md). Web's popularity was also helped by the fact that the programs made by Berners-Lee were released to the [public domain](public_domain.md) so that anyone could jump on the web for free, even use it commercially without any fees and so on. And of course, a prerequisite for wide popularity was the presence of the cheap [personal computer](pc.md). Shortly after its invention web competed with other similar services based on similar ideas, most notably [gopher](gopher.md), however some time in the mid 1990s the web took over and would quickly became by far the most prominent Internet service which would go on to make the Internet mainstream. In 1994 [w3c](w3c.md) (World Wide Web Consortium) was established to be the main organization standardizing the web. The web would gradually push all other networks and competing service -- such as [BBS](bbs.md)es, [Usenet](usenet.md) and [gopher](gopher.md) -- to the deepest underground. Of course, having become the [Earth](earth.md)'s largest public forum, the web would also ultimately become what would kill the Internet because all the major powers (read [corporations](corporation.md) and [states](state.md)) would quickly jump in to abuse it for their own propaganda, [marketing](marketing.md), spying, manipulation, crowd control, cyberattacks and so on. This would still take some time, until around 2005 the web was great, very decentralized with plethora of useful personal web pages, however after this -- with the onset of so called web 2.0 (more [bloated](blot.md) web) and so called [social networks](social_network.md) -- the downhill ride would start. It would still take around anther decade for the web to die completely, until 2010 the web still kept part of its original glory, but after 2015 it all shattered. After 2020 the web is but a corpse inhabited by grandma's playing games on facebook while being bombarded by ads and the corpse of what used to be the web is just being kicked further to the ground by new capitalist cyberweapons such as the "[AI](ai.md)".
Nowadays not only the web but the Internet as a whole is dying by hardcore [capitalism](capitalism.md), becoming greatly [censored](censorship.md), regulated, split (so called [splinternet](splinternet.md)) and controlled by [corporations](corporation.md) who are absolutely killing the old decentralized, [free as in freedom](free_software.md) Internet that was developed by [free software](free_software.md) enthusiasts, nerds, oldschool [hackers](hacking.md), [free speech](free_speech.md) promoters, by universities, scientists and researches in transparent ways, through the RFCs. It is important to remember what it once used to be so that perhaps one day we can see the true Internet return.
Here is the Internet over time in numbers:
| year |~inet servers|~websites |~domains |~% inet users (glob.)|
Less [retarded](retard.md) software (LRS) is a specific kind of [software](software.md) aiming to be a truly good technology maximally benefiting and respecting its users, following the philosophy of extreme [minimalism](minimalism.md) ([Unix philosophy](unix_philosophy.md), [suckless](suckless.md), [KISS](kiss.md), ...), [anarcho pacifism](anpac.md), [communism](communism.md) and [freedom](free_software.md). The term was invented by [drummyfish](drummyfish.md).
The symbol of LRS is a heart ([love](love.md)), the peace symbol (pacifism, nonviolence) and A in circle ([anarchism](anarchism.md)).
By extension LRS can also stand for *[less retarded society](less_retarded_society.md)*, a kind of ideal society which we aim to achieve with our technology.
LRS is a set of ideas and kind of a mindset, a philosophy, though it tries to not become a traditional movement or even something akin a centrally organized group; by [anarchist](anarchism.md) principles it sees following people and groups of people as harmful, it always advocates to only follow ideas and to associate loosely. Therefore it tries to only be a concept that will remain pure, such as for example that of [free software](free_software.md), but NOT an organization, such as for example the [FSF](fsf.md), which will always become corrupt.
As a symbol of LRS we sometimes use heart ([love](love.md)), the peace symbol (pacifism, nonviolence) and A in circle ([anarchism](anarchism.md)), but these only serve as a universal identifier of the philosophy, not as a flag or anything similar -- as flags are a sign of [fascism](fascism.md), the official LRS flag is defined to be a completely transparent square which has side length of one billion light years -- this is so that the flag cannot practically be manufactured and even scaled down versions will hardly serve the purpose of a flag (ideal LRS flag would be invisible). The official international LRS day is every day in the year and it always takes precedence over any other cause whose day it is supposed to be.
{ TODO: official currency? }
## Definition
The definition here is not strict but rather [fuzzy](fuzzy.md), it is in a form of ideas, style and common practices that together help us subjectively identify software as less retarded.
@ -55,11 +55,11 @@ We have a **[C tutorial](c_tutorial.md)**! It [rocks](rock.md). We also now have
Pay us a visit on the [Island](island.md) and pet our [dog](dog.md)! Come mourn to the [graveyard](graveyard.md) because **technology is dead**. Want a **muh [webring](webring.md)** experience? Come board our [boat](boat.md). [Modern](modern.md) age is a pile of [shit](shit.md) extending to another galaxy. The future is dark but we do our best to bring the light, even knowing it is futile.
LRS Wiki is [collapse](collapse.md) ready! Feel free to print it out, take it to your prep shelter. You may also print copies of this wiki and throw it from a plane into the streets. Thanks.
LRS Wiki is [collapse](collapse.md) ready! Feel free to print it out (there is now a complete pdf book download up there), take it to your prep shelter. You may also print copies of this wiki and throw it from a plane into the streets. Thanks.
If you're new here, you may want to read answers to [frequently asked questions](faq.md) (**FAQ**), including "Are you a fascist?" (spoiler: no) and "Do you love Hitler?".
@ -87,6 +87,7 @@ Are you a noob but see our ideas as appealing and would like to join us? Say no
- That [capitalism](capitalism.md) is probably the most [retarded](retard.md) and dangerous idea in [history](history.md)?
- Thanks to [quantum computing](quantum.md) you can use a computer to [carry out computation](counterfactual_computing.md) without actually running the computer?
- You can mathematically [prove you don't know some information](no_knowledge_proof.md)?
- That some early [telephones](telephone.md) used a water microphone (a microphone that uses a needle submerged in water)?
- That in [capitalism](capitalism.md) low end [CPUs](cpu.md) are made by manufacturing a high end CPU and then purposefully crippling it, just for economic reasons? See e.g. [core unlocking](core_unlocking.md). This also goes for car engines etc.
- That back in the times of black and white TVs they sold colored transparent plastic sheets to put over the screen to add fake [color](color.md) to it? It was blue on top (for sky), green at the bottom (for grass) and orange in the middle (for people, which would nowadays be seen as "[racist](racism.md)").
- That a complement of a [formal language](formal_language.md) can be computationally simpler than the original -- for example that a [pushdown automaton](pushdown_automaton.md) cannot tell which strings are of form a^(n)b^(n)c^(n), but it can tell exactly which ones are not?
