The choice of init system is up to the distro maintainers because init scripts are usually created and maintained by the packager of a given application. Debian for example chose its init system via a democratic vote. Distros that focus on different init systems exist, like the Debian fork Devuan.

Its hard to give you something concrete. The topics you gave as examples are vast. For my own purposes I add feeds to my rss reader based on what I come across by reading other articles in my reader.

Maybe checkout some communities about the topics you are interested. Lemmy has for example a large and enthusiastic Linux community. Brodie Robertson also covers a lot of different Linux topics. You can also take a look at recordings of developer conferences. The people that give talks often write a blog as well.

HN is hosted by ycombinator, a VC, and represents only a tiny fraction of the IT industry. Its mainly the silicon valley startup side of things. So you can expect a motley crew of ai and crypto bros, musk fanboys and JavaScript prophets.

The articles and especially the comments there might lead you to belief that in software development there isn’t anything outside of Cloud-native Web Applications. For example, two of the most popular programming languages that are currently used are Java and C#. Yet you wont find much discussion about them on HN because it is presumably unfashionable to use these languages in a startup.

This extends to most topics from operating systems to open source programs. Largely hype based discussion around new and shiny things.

There is also a very strong libertarian bias on HN. Look at the comments of any article that relates to a EU regulation like the DMA, CRA or GDPR and you will see what I mean. Its mostly libertarian pearl clutching and not much actual discussion.

I just use Nextcloud News since I am already using Nextcloud. It works well and installs in just a few clicks.

For feeds I can only recommend to get rid of HN, its gives you a skewed perspective and is a huge waste of time. The only thing its good for is begging for support when Google deactivates your account.

I really tried to like silverbullet but the VI mode is too bare bones for me. The worst thing about it is that Ctrl+W closes the browser tab instead of deleting one word left of the cursor and there is no way around that. I think I closed the silverbullet tab 20 times while typing a single note.

If you are willing to pay that much you can also just employ someone to clean and dust for you.

Teledildonics is a thing so I wouldn’t be to sure if they don’t fell anything.

I am sure they don’t want this information published, my fear is that your blog article about that company might spark further articles about them. This engagement might outweigh the negative effects of your investigation.

I simply consider what these AI fraudsters do trolling. They want to make people angry so they complain about them. Hopefully your investigation gave them more than what they bargained for.

I thought about that a bit but I am unsure if the kind of response, whether emotional or factual, matters much. How much can you control the conversation if the entity you are discussing only wants their name published? Sure there will be a few GDPR letters and maybe an inquiry by some regulatory body. Satisfyingly annoying to them, but compared to the cost of an advertising campaign; would this not be just a drop in the bucket? I don’t think it would have been entirely out of the question for your blog post to be at the top of hackernews for the day, and this is exactly the crowd that company wants to reach. In fact, I would wager that the HN crowd approves of these methods.

It’s good that you don’t link to their website but in my opinion not engaging with that spam at all is the more effective strategy. Just don’t feed the trolls, report their spam and move on.

I fear you played right into their hands by writing about them. Any engagement is of benefit to these AI grifters.

Until I read a proper interpretation of the law by a lawyer, I will consider these just knee-jerk reactions by forum owners who can’t fathom being held responsible for the things their forum members post if they don’t moderate. There was similar hand-wringing when GDPR and Article 13 passed. Things are probably going to be fine.

edit: After a bit of more research, shit like this is why small forums aren’t excluded.