Seen this sentiment that green bubbles = bad a few times online but never it's never come up for me. I assume this is a teen - early adult specific issue where the idea is mostly to be part of the group
It’s been happening in high schools, to the point teens are bullied and pushed out of peer groups if they have Androids. It’s frankly disgusting that apple willingly creates this division to profit off teenagers bullying each other, and they don’t get called out for it enough.
But in the larger picture, it’s definitely going to be more common among the young, because iPhones themselves are ubiquitous among the younger. It’s something the tech space is slowly starting realize: Apple has almost total market dominance among the rising demographic, and this has led to increasing tech illiteracy due to the way Apple designs its software, and inability/refusal to learn anything else. That is a huge problem for the tech industry when the only thing they can do to find customers is dumb their software down to appeal to people that don’t know how to use anything other than iOS
About that, yes. Not in-depth and not each day, obviously, but I have quite a sizable crowd I deal with on a regular basis. Comes from having a lot of former students I keep in touch with.
It’s still about 30% here in Germany. It is rising though. And I think this is because of “clever” marketing. The highschools here in Germany started forcing parents to buy Ipads for their children a couple of years ago. Children with low income parents get it from the city for free. Nominally it is, because it is “easier to maintain”, but I honestly really doubt this.
These schools are using iPads in place of computer labs. I’m old enough to have actually managed a computer lab, and I can tell you that a fleet of managed iPads is way easier to maintain than a computer lab.
Everyone 30 and under at my office prefers Macs, to the point of bringing in their own machines to do 90% of their work and falling back to the Windows laptops issued by IT for the remainder.
To be fair, as a work machine, I far prefer macs. And there’s a reason why Windows has been implementing steadily more and more MacOS features into their OS over time.
I’m a software developer. MacOS is my choice for corporate dev (cause Linux isn’t an option) because it’s Unix based and has a working command line. Windows causes so many problems around dependency installs and frameworks.
Windows is still on my home machines, but they’re edging closer to going linux too.
They could be accessing virtual workspaces using a company VPN client. Or perhaps logging into a Citrix Receiver Workspace. Could probably access a VDI environment as well. 2FA with a work cell etc
Lots of ways for personal devices to be used in the work setting. Would I recommend it or do it myself? Nah. But it can be done.
If you think that the reason Apple makes the bubbles different colors is “to profit of teen bullying” then I think perhaps you might want to go back to reddit or Twitter.
Oh c’mon now, Apple and iOS apps have too good of a user experience? That’s the issue? You call it “dumbing down software”, I call it implementing user experience research and design.
I am an Android user but this comment should be taken very lightly. As this is not the cause the truth is that Apple is at fault here for still using SMS as the default messaging protocol. However, with that being said, SMS breaks messages on iPhone and the devices have been geared towards iPhone users in away that makes it seem like Android is the issue with image quality and texting. The marketing is excellent on Apple’s end towards the competition and it is working.
However, that doesn’t mean iPhone isn’t the problem. I have a sibling who got bullied for having an iPhone. Apple’s answer to these problems is just, “get an iPhone.” This is equivalent to, “can’t figure it out? Just Google it.” The problem with this mentality is it gives more power to monopolizing platforms. Apple is a growing giant and if they had their way you would just have an iPhone and if Apple has expressed anything in the past 8 years it’s that they aren’t exactly the innovators with mobile devices anymore. To me the problem is on an iPhone nothing would change.
A little irrelevant rant but my point is that the average iPhone consumer has been given a marketing ploy so it is a deal breaker because they think it is an issue and in all fairness it is one but only Google is trying to fix. Issue is that Google should have tried to fix it years ago. You can’t blame iPhone users for wanting to use other platforms to message you if your message is compressed heavily by Apple’s shitty and stupid fucking decision to keep using SMS to control the market. The care about user experience is overshadowed by the desire to use that as a means to make money off of a user that doesn’t understand messaging protocols. Fuck Apple.
Keep using SMS? What are Apple’s other alternatives, exactly? RCS is still a mess, the only way it has e2ee is if you use Google’s messaging app, and there’s no way you will see Apple adopting Google’s standard without having a say in it, and rightfully so - Google locks tons of proprietary features out of their APIs - EXIF data for Photos, Categories in Gmail, etc.
I think this is actually more of a comment on Google’s lack of direction with messaging - how many different messaging apps have they sunset by now? Half dozen or so? Messaging has always been a cluster on Android. WhatsApp is supposedly e2ee, but they have backdoor bugs being patched on a nearly basis - ask Jeff Bezos how his dick pics got hacked.
I mean you can install Google messaging apps on iOS (not that I would want to use them…). But try that the other way around. Apples option to not using SMS would simply be to provide iMessage for Android. Problem solved. They would very likely become the main messaging platform by doing so. Currently the majority of the market is likely split between WhatsApp, Telegram and WeChat.
But obviously they fear that this would hurt iPhone sales. At the same time this also leads to iMessage being irrelevant in the majority of markets where iPhone isn’t as dominating as in the US.
Problem are the Android users as well that refuse to adopt messaging apps just as much.
Standard protocol on Android is SMS as well. RCS behaves differently from carrier to carrier and many Android phones still don’t support it by default.
Even if RCS worked perfectly fine, if Apple doesn’t want to use it, than RCS is just as worthless as iMessage, when it comes to cross-platform communication.
If anybody wants to judge me based on the brand of electronics I use, my favorite band or the brand of clothes I wear, I have no interest in interacting with them lol. This whole consumerist worship-culture is just toxic.
If they don’t want to text you because they care what your device is, they’re not friends you want to have.
(this goes both ways. Lots of apple hate in this thread but, wtf, just get on with life folks. if you give a shit what hardware I run, or think i care about your choices, we’re probably not going to be friends).
Basically, it’s a conflict that had been running for a really long time.
Before WW1, the area of Israel/Palestine was inhabited by Arabs and controlled by the Ottomans.
During WW1, the Brits promised the Arabs that they’d back an independent arab state there, if the Arabs revolted and successfully kicked out the Ottomans.
The Arabs did their part, so Britain, being as trustworthy as ever, turned around and divvied the Ottoman empire up between them, and Britain got control over what was then called Mandatory Palestine, which the Arabs saw as a betrayal. The official plan was for the Brits to rule the Mandate “until such time as they are able to stand alone”.
At the same time, the Zionist Jews wanted to have a national state, where they could live without persecution, and many European nations, where antisemitism was rampant, wanted them gone from Europe, so they kinda had an agreement there. The original plan was to move them to a part of Uganda, but that fell through so Palestine was chosen.
Already long before the national state was created, lots of Jews moved there and created settlements. The Arabs there weren’t exactly happy about that massive influx of settlers and the Jews also weren’t happy about the natives. Each of them started an uprising over the following years, and with tensions rising, the UN drafted a partition plan.
While the opinion of the Jews over that partition plan was ambivalent, though leaning towards being happy about it, the Arabs were decidedly unhappy about it. They thought, that the UN was overstepping it’s rights and that the partition plan was violating the principles of self-determinism set forth by the UN charter.
So a war broke out between the Arabs (including surrounding arab countries) and the Jews there, which resulted in a victory for the Jews. After that, the area was divided up between Jewish Israel, the west bank area controlled by Jordan and inhabited by Arabs, and the tiny area called Gaza strip, controlled by Egypt and inhabited by Palestinians.
The area the Palestinians received after the war was significantly smaller than what was outlined in the UN partition plan.
In 1967, during the six-day war, Israel captured the Gaza strip and it’s been under Israeli occupation ever since. In 1993, Israel granted the Gaza strip limited self-government over the area. Basically, Gaza was allowed to self-government about matters of the populated areas, but Israel remained in control in regards to the airspace, the territorial waters and all border crossings except the one towards Egypt, which is controlled by Egypt.
In 2007, Hamas took over the government of Gaza. Most of the world classify them as a terror organisation, and they have been e.g. shooting home-build missiles into Israel and also have mounted a few small-scale insurrections and attacks against Israel.
Israel on the other hand has been casually bombarding and killing Palestinians for a very long time. Also, they let Israeli settlers illegally settle in occupied Palestinian territories, which the Palestinians are not so happy about.
From 2008 until 2020, roughly 5600 Palestinians and 250 Israelis (including many civilians on both sides) have been killed, and 115 000 Pakistanis and 5600 Israelis have been injured (source: statista.com/…/israeli-palestinian-casualties-by-…).
The Gaza strip is pretty much an outdoor prison, with a massive population density, low life expectency and abysmal living standards. People are generally not allowed to leave from there. Israel routinely cuts water/electricity, which are both supplied by Israel in response to attacks from Palestine.
All in all, it’s a right mess that’s been brewing for over 100 years, with no easy solutions. By now, everyone who has been responsible for causing the original mess is dead. Of the leadership neither side is in the right, both sides are making everything worse. There is no solution in sight.
The Palestinians fight the oppression by killing civilians, the Israelis counter by killing civilians and making life even more hell for the people in the occupied territories, who in turn fight even harder and kill more civilians.
Reducing oppression is hardly possible, since that would allow the Palestinians to mount bigger attacks.
Which brings us to the current situation. Palestinians managed to break out of Gaza, at many places even destroying the perimeter fence. They then invaded some towns and a music festival in the border regions, killing a few hundred Israeli civilians and taking some more hostage. Israel countered by bombarding the Gaza strip, killing a few hundred Palestinian civilians. They also, again, cut power and electricity, and the whole western world then responded with cutting food supply.
This in turn will radicalize the Palestinians even more, who will fight harder, and who knows where it ends. Probably with the Israelis finally finding the same answer to “the Palestinian Question” that Germany found for the “Jewish Question” in the 1940s.
I mean, I do know the difference between Pakistani and Palestinians. It’s just that I know significantly more Pakistanis than Palestinians, so my brain autocompleted wrong.
Sorry to all Palestinians/Pakistanis I might have offended here!
Having said that, the Palestine territory was not chosen arbitrarily, but probably because of the significance Jerusalem has to the Jews, where their ancient kingdom and temple had been.
Reducing oppression is hardly possible, since that would allow the Palestinians to mount bigger attacks.
I feel like there are many things Israel does that are not useful in stopping attacks and ending them should be possible. Intentionally killing civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure are among those.
It’s totally true that killing civilians means you radicalize all their family and friends.
In 2006, the newly elected Hamas government actually stepped down during a negotiated cease fire and agreed to a unity government.
Then the Israelis accidentally (at least according to their statements) bombed a residential building, killing 24 civilians including children and injuring many more.
That’s when the Hamas took back the government (some would point out, illegally, since there was no official election after they stepped down) and resumed the attacks on Israel.
But all in all, it’s a prisoner’s dilemma situation. The current situation sucks, but for both sides it would probably be worse, at least in short-term, to unilaterally reduce aggressions without the other side doing the same.
Understandably (after all this bloodshed over such a long period), there are quite a few people on both sides who will stop at nothing short but the eradication of the other side. That’s not exactly a viable basis for negotiations.
And with every attack, every uprising, every repression and every civilian killed, this gets worse.
Hamas intentionally uses civilian buildings and schools as ammo warehouses. Israel aims for the ammunition and ignores the civilian casualties. Neither side wants to avoid civilian deaths in Gaza.
Pretty good summary, but I would object, that “Hamas” is something like a “government” in Gaza. It’s a terrorist group that took control of the Gaza territory and it’s people without ever having been elected by someone (in fact, they are suppressing any kind of election since they took over the power from the Palestinian authorities). They are also using the Gaza population as “living shields” against counter strikes to their terror attacks. Nowadays they also have international hostages, which would make a counter-offensive even more difficult.
A possible - although very unlikely - solution to the conflict could be a de-radicaiisation on both sides and the Palestinians finally overthrowing the Hamas-regime and any other terrorist groups, because those are not fighting for Palestinian freedom, but for some crappy “Jihad” ideas and the destruction of Israel.
Just came to say thanks for the elaborated summary. Was already informed about the greater outlinings, but this adds some interesting details about the conflict.
This will be a ‘thing’ for many more decades. The hatred on both sides is so deeply grounded…quite depressing to see.
The really difficult thing is that nobody who caused the situation in the first place is still alive. Almost every Israeli or Palestinian alive today was born into this inherited conflict. So everyone there can argue that they have the right to be there in their own way. And everyone there has decades of inherited conflict and trauma. This is not going to get better any time soon.
A majority, but to say almost every is an exaggeration. There are lots of Israelis who were not born into the conflict but choose to migrate into it. That said they tend to move in from places that have an antisemitism problem like the US and Ukraine, and in the case of Ukraine there are obviously additional factors for leaving, so I find it hard to blame individuals though they are fueling a colonial project even if they don’t vocalize support for it.
Fair point. I put the immigrants into the “born into the conflict” category, because they, too, didn’t create the conflict to begin with. But you are right, they willingly moved into the situation, for whatever reason that made sense to them.
your summary is excellent but I think you have a typo re: Pakistanis, did you mean Palestinians? it’s hard to terrorize the people 6 countries and 3500km to the west.
From 2008 until 2020, roughly 5600 Palestinians and 250 Israelis (including many civilians on both sides) have been killed, and 115 000 Pakistanis and 5600 Israelis have been injured (source: statista.com/…/israeli-palestinian-casualties-by-…).
Yeah, that’s a typo. I edited it already, but there’s a long standing lemmy bug that causes edits to not be propagated to all instances. So if you view it from the instance I am on, it’s ok, but on other instances you still see the typo.
Isaac Asimov, a very intelligent person, wrote a lengthy essay to the effect that he had no idea what intelligence was. He talked about how society would generally consider him more intelligent than the nearly illiterate man who repaired his car, and yet whenever something went wrong with his car he would go to his mechanic and listen to his advice as if it was being handed down from the mountaintop by Moses himself, because Isaac Asimov knew fuck all about car repair. He talked about how he thought that supposedly objective IQ tests were generally a series of gates designed by people already considered intelligent to keep themselves in power, and that they totally disregarded huge swaths of indispensable human knowledge and talent. Isaac Asimov, who has been published in literally every section of the Dewey Decimal System, concluded that he had no firm idea as to what exactly “intelligence” even was.
In short, how could one even define “the dumbest 50%”?
And that’s why Thanos should have made everybody half as large as they once were.
He talked about how he thought that supposedly objective IQ tests were generally a series of gates designed by people already considered intelligent to keep themselves in power, and that they totally disregarded huge swaths of indispensable human knowledge and talent.
Modern psychology supports this, too. IQ tests are bullshit, and intelligence is not something that can be reasonably quantified in any meaningful sense without an insane amount of asterisks.
Also…are we counting kids? Because you’d probably find kids are consistently beneath the 50% line on any generic intelligence measuring criteria someone makes up.
I agree, I took a few IQ tests and scored high and initially it made me wonder is if everyone else was as concerned as I was watching our species being driven into early graves for yearly profit projections.
Suffice to say, most people I met who scored high lacked the foresight to even think we might be screwed. Which led me to a swift conclusion that your IQ doesn’t mean jack squat, it was a biased system that was simply a biased form of dick measuring.
Perhaps I’m disillusioned, but the best summary of our species is that old video of a chimpanzee in a zoo pissing in its mouth.
Many IQ tests, even ones that claim to be scientific, and especially free ones, artificially inflate the scores they give, to encourage the people taking them to purchase an in-depth analysis of their results.
Like, “Your IQ is 135! That’s well above average! For $39.99, we’ll give you this in-depth, 18 page question by question analysis showing how you stacked up against everyone else, and what your answers mean!”
I can’t get past how weirdly horny Niven was… had to stop reading the second ringworld. That being said Asimov gets weirdly horny in the later foundation novels too. Both of them really liked writing in way older men dating way younger women that just comes off as creepy now.
Ahhhh the GOAT. Seriously, as a smart kid everything else about me was ignored. Something wrong at school? You CAN do it, so just do it. D&D breaks up mental stats, but there’s even more out there. Int, Wis, Cha to start. Then there’s motivation, happiness, and empathy, and more. The mind is super complex and an int score of 18 being all that matters is like the saying “this hammer solves my nail problem, it will surely solve my window problem.”
sorry to stop the circlejerk, but this is dumb. an intelligent person could learn to repair the car more easily and have more insight than a moron. intelligence exists and we all experience it everyday. the wais-r is a relatively good test, but no there is never going to be a perfect way to measure intelligence. you can say intelligence is just what the test measures which is really pretty non biased, but that’s reducing things too much. y’all know morons and people that are crazy fucking smart. experience in different subjects is distributed, but the ability to gain experience quickly is the biggest difference.
Good questions from Asimov. But just like with car repair, he didn’t know this subject. It has been a field of study for a while, and researchers have worked directly on this core problem defining general intelligence distinct from specific knowledge.
IQ of someone is not stable: it changes depending on how much you train to do it or the mental/psychological state you are in when you pass it. Thus it is not a sound scale to measure anything.
The fact that it is merely a ranking of people further push it in the realm of straight bullshit.
The definition for intelligence changed over the last 2 centuries because we keep discovering how an animal can fit the definition, and intelligence was used to separate humans from animals. Now it’s even worse because people are trying to separate AI from humans.
I like the concept laid out by Delany: in a novel he describe 3 levels of intelligence based on the understanding of various point of views, but it’s not a ranking.
The first stage is simplex: people don’t understand the science of the world, so everything is kind of magical but this concept of magic make the world hold itself and they can grasp everything and use everything with this conception of magic.
Second stage is complex: people have an understanding of science and they can explain many things, but not everything. And when they can’t explain something, they can’t cope with it, because they don’t have the conceptual tools for it. Thus they will either deny this thing existence of plug it into their existing concepts by ignoring the feature that can’t fit.
Third and last stage is multiplex : people can accept that there are theories different than the ones they know, ideas also. Point of views can shape the way you see the world, and even the scientific theories you have to explain the world can be seen as a point of view on the world, so changing this point of view can bring a new or different understanding of a phenomenon or thing or person. These points of view all coexist at the same time, none of them is more true than the other. Like the concept of magic, this allows to grasp, use or accept even the ununderstandable and the unknown, but with a better ability to understand than the simplex stage.
I like this model. But it’s more a model for open-mindedness than intelligence. But maybe that’s the thing.
I really appreciate Asimov’s thoughts. Ethical hat off for a second - I would suggest removing the most destructive 50%. If someone is truly stupid they might just as well be harmless. However, removing the swathe of the population that engage in violence, greed, etc. would be a far better use of the finger snap than some metric of stupidity.
Multiverse Thanos where he tries to wipe out the 50% most destructive, but snaps himself out of existence first because even by trying he made himself the most destructive person in the universe.
The Hot timeline becomes stale if the lemmy server isn’t restarted every 6 hours or so, which takes 10 seconds but can’t be done on larger instances such as lemmy.world because it kills the queue of outgoing activity.
This is a known bug and is being worked on. For the time being you should try with “top 6 hours” and “top 12 hours” sorting.
I appreciate the sorting suggestion! I’ll try that. I understand that Lemmy isn’t as big as Reddit, but I swear there are more people than my feed is leading me to believe.
It’s been hard to look at all these posts about how big lemmy is and how fast it’s growing, to watch the scale-up issues, and keep in mind just how much smaller it still is than reddit. According to lemmy.fediverse.observer/stats the lemmyverse is just now closing in on 2M users (from 750k last month), but only 70,000 of them are “active.” Reddit claims 50,000,000+ daily users and 400M monthly. That’s essentially 1000x larger than lemmy - that’s the difference between seeing your favorite band at a stadium concert or your local pub.
I saw motorhead at sxsw and it awesome. A power circuit cut out on stage and only Lemmy’s amp and mic worked. As the crew troubleshooted, he walked up to the mic and was like, “does anyone know any jokes?” He then proceeded to noodle a shitty walking bass line like every other bass player in the world when that shit happens
I’d be curious to see what the comment/post rate is for “active users” per platform.
It’s an open secret that it’s a very small percentage of users who engage in comments, and a MINISCULE fraction of a percent who post content… Tinier still the percentage of accounts that post the things that end up in the “all” feed. A boggling percentage of Reddit front page content comes from like, 100 user accounts.
Well that’s the beauty of the fediverse. If you are the minority that want to keep your lemmy small niche content then you can freely do that in the instance of your choice that defederates the popular ones. Most users like the variety of reddit content.
I get that. And reddit had tools so that you could create your own groups of subs. I guess I just am not the target of the kinds of crap posts that were just constantly force fed to the main feed by the relatively few mentioned above. Quantity doesn’t equate to quality.
I have a friend with similar mindset and he likes Mastadon a lot more. Because there he can research which people to follow and make sure they post quality stuff. Quality over quantity. But it takes time to know who to follow. Once you have though, it can be a goldmine.
I think that’s largely happened… I mean look at the top comment. Almost 200 upvotes. On Reddit this post/comment would definitely not get 1000x that - so clearly it seems the participation rate is significantly higher.
The comment/post ratio for active users on Lemmy is 100%. An active user on Lemmy is defined as someone who has made a comment or post within the last month.
No wonder everything on the hivemind-that-must-not-be-named sounds and feels like it’s being regurgitated by the same people, from the low-effort memes to the armchair city planners, atheist circlejerks and very enlightened political/economic views.
They’re spread all around. The ‘big’ lemmy communities have 2-5,000 monthly users, which probably means a few hundred to a thousand daily users. In the more active communities I follow c/[email protected] or c/[email protected] I’ll see a half dozen or so posts a day and up to 50-ish comments on a super popular topic. Most of them get just a handful of replies. That feels about right to me: the vast majority of people are lurkers, and the vast majority of accounts are abandoned.
It’s why the commercial sites fought so hard for market share and why being The site for microblogging/link aggregation/image sharing is so important. People go to those sites because everyone is there, and everyone is there because that’s just where you go.
There’s no lemmy-wide algorithm making sure you have shiny new topics to look at. The lemmy “all” page is not at all equivalent to r/all, especially on an instance as small as fediverse.boo. The “All” tab is only going to have content from communities that at least one person on the instance has subscribed to, and with only 6 active users ( fedidb.org/network/instance/fediverse.boo ) that’s not likely to be a large set. It’s also possible that the federation mechanics result in you seeing less or delayed content from other instances. Maybe try browsing, even without an account, lemmy.world or sh.itjust.works
All of us reading this post feeling the same way can do our part by posting and commenting. If everyone who thinks they’re the only ones here start talking the emptyness disappears
I’m definitely more active here than I am\was on reddit, and there’s definitely less activity here… but I can accept that, just to get away from the firehose of nonsense that reddit has become.
That was my main reason for posting this question, to see if I’m alone in this site with just a bunch of bots posting. All these responses have given me hope!
Because this needs to be done 1000% right, there is no margin for error, everything has to be done in an iron clad manner that cannot be dismantled by half-assing it. Indicting a former president is a first in the history of this country, and this former president is nothing short of a cult leader with millions of unshakable followers, many of whom are armed to the teeth and ready to burn this country to the ground for him. So this has to be done very friggin carefully.
If it was really that bad the cia would have him killed. It’s just because he had a good team of lawyers to make sure that when he did anything he did it was either defendable or on someone else so it’s hard to get him.
Absolutely. You can estimate the number of true followers he has by looking at how many people use truth social (it’s still a thing) in comparison to pre-musk twitter. It’s a vocal minority. The only reason trump was able to get where he did was by getting the electoral college to believe he was the lesser evil (not gonna get into voter fraud) (and being really, really rich). They have him killed in such a way that it seems like it wasn’t them and he is still viewed as a martyr by few, but not all. Even if they truly believe that he was what they said he was, it won’t matter because no one rich enough exists that would want to replace him. They would be okay to do that.
The CIA really isn’t going to assasinate a prominent politician, let alone a former president. It would have massive consequences from delegitimizing the democratic system to causing riots all around the country.
Muller half assed the investigation, on top of that corrupt Barr hid all the important findings, and Bitch McConnell swept the whole treason under the rug - that all lead Orange Man to be even bolder with his treason and rise of blatant lawlessness within the Republican Party.
I don’t disagree with what you said but I just wanted to point out how entire republican machinery is responsible for the imminent death of democracy in this country. Not just Muller’s half assed investigation.
Mueller didn’t half ass anything. He conducted his investigation and determined that crimes were likely committed, but that he didn’t have the power to bring charges in his position as special counsel and it would be up to the AG.
Which is true. A DOJ special counsel is not the same thing as the independent counsel that used to exist, which was what Ken Starr was when he investigated Clinton.
A DOJ special counsel is completely beholden to the AG and DOJ policies and can’t bring charges without the AG signing off on them.
If you actually read the mueller report, it’s extremely damning and he turned it over to the AG and Congress to do something about it. The AG declined to bring any charges based on a DOJ memorandum that says a sitting POTUS cannot be charged. The House impeached Trump over the findings and the Senate failed to convict and remove him.
The current AG could still bring criminal charges over the conclusion of the report, but at this point it’s been so highly politicized that it would be impossible to get a conviction on.
@Earthwormjim91 I am wondering if that is the reason we are not seeing any of the Trump kinds getting indicted To not make it look like justice is hunting them and legitimize the poplitical lies?
It was the only thing that could have been done when republicans controlled the DOJ and the Senate.
Maybe if people in the Midwest weren’t complete idiots we would have had Clinton instead and not had four years of irreversible damage plus a generation of scotus that is hell bent on dismantling everything.
Just because it didn’t lead to the right conclusion doesn’t mean it accomplished nothing.
Plus the evidence discovered during te investigation stillnexists and is still part of the official record, meaning it can be used to support any future legal actions. And will serve as information for future historians looking back at this era.
Hopefully it can be used as part of some future “those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it” systemic improvements.
Stop saying “the AG”. Say his fucking traitor name. William Barr. Who only got cold feet at the 11th hour when the groundwork for the coup was already being made.
The Mueller report - as you say, damning - was completed and then given to this scum, who withheld it, released a “summary”, claimed it found no wrongdoing whatsoever, eventually released a heavily redacted version…
I mean I remember it happening. This slimy fuck. He got a report that said the many ways Trump did illegal shit, but since he was the one who could choose when and how to release it, he was able to get ahead of the media by saying all kinds of bullshit lies. By the time he was finally forced to release the real report, it was too late, the “Trump did nothing wrong” story was already too far out there.
Look, I’m glad he finally, barely, by the skin of his teeth did the right thing and said there was no fraud in the 2020 election. But we should not forget that brazen bullshit he pulled in front of Congress and the American people.
I would kind of agree with you but I think it’s more that there are Republicans blocking any way they can and the ominous shadow of a compromised SCOTUS:
this former president is nothing short of a cult leader with millions of unshakable followers, many of whom are armed to the teeth and ready to burn this country to the ground for him
They didn’t show up for the last coup, and I don’t think he’s gonna have another one.
So why do we have to be so afraid of his followers that we are giving him special treatment to dissuade their violence? Instead of, you know, fighting back or having them jailed too. 🤦
In addition to being done right, he has to be pampered. I hate him passionately, but I really mean that. Subjecting him to the indignities of stuff like handcuffs, a mugshot, an orange suit, etc will turn him into a martyr in the eyes of his cult followers. And while the rest of us would enjoy seeing it, that’s not necessarily bringing out the best in us either. Donald Trump is an enormous pot-stirrer and unless you really want the pot to boil over you need to tiptoe around him, as unfair as that is.
Choosing not to aggravate them is not bowing to them. Remember we’re talking about how we’ll prosecute Dear Leader. Get him where it counts, even if it has to be done quietly.
Even if he was indicted, those millions of followers will burn the country down anyways. Because they’re all self-fulfilling, selfish, egotistical, narcissistic, irresponsible and demented people.
It’s also because Burning Man, at least in the last decade or more, just turned into another affluent, rich white people and influencer event. Whatever it was to start, it’s effectively glamping now.
Sure, there are definitely some genuinely good people there, lower middle class, saved up and took their only vacation time they get all year to spend a few days there, and it sucks this happened to them. If those people end up in the hospital and the shitty insurance they get from work does fuck all to help mitigate the expenses, I’ll even get angry on their behalf.
But the majority of them? They spent a lot of money, money most people don’t have the luxury of getting to spend, on a pointless self-indulgent festival in the fucking desert, and this time it’s come back to bite them. My sympathy is extremely limited.
They’ll be miserable for a few days, get out, dry off, and go back to their easy lives. Their affairs are taken care of back home, they can miss days of work, their hospital stays will be covered, etc.
It’s kind of like the Fyre Festival. Those people got fucked over hard, but those people were also not the kind I particularly pitty. Spending a lot of money on an experience only to be miserable for a few days is not a tragedy. What happened to the poor people that lived there is the tragedy.
Edit: Also just want to point out OP is trying to call this a “tragedy” when there’s only been one suspected death, the cause of which is unknown as it hasn’t even been confirmed yet, but the overall mood is positive, and by all accounts everything is being managed. They’re trapped, not dying.
I went a couple of times years ago when it was just starting to turn into what you describe. Had a great time, but it quickly priced me out. Now, it sounds like an influencer-laden hellscape. The addition of premium plug and play sites was the nail in the coffin. That said, a lot of the old time Burners are fucking amazing, creative, resourceful, and helpful people.
It’s also because Burning Man, at least in the last decade or more, just turned into another affluent, rich white people and influencer event.
I'm pretty sure it's been that way for at least 20 years...
The only people I've personally known to go to Burning Man was a rich kid in high school who went with his dad who was a marketing high-up at a very big tech company. Always came back talking about trying drugs and seeing some crazy shit, but then on Tuesday it's right back to full days of pointless meetings I guess. I've never been and I frankly don't ever care to, but that alone gave me the feeling that Burning Man is where tech suits go to play hippie for the weekend, and that always felt lame as fuck.
It’s kind of like the Fyre Festival. Those people got fucked over hard, but those people were also not the kind I particularly pitty. Spending a lot of money on an experience only to be miserable for a few days is not a tragedy.
Blame sensationalist media on this one, but it’s a misconception. Very few victims spent a lot of money on Fyre Festival. Most got tickets which were purported to be “all inclusive” for <$1500 USD (a pretty good deal, had it not been fraudulent). A handful of tickets sold for the $12K price which ended up in the headlines, but the standard price was a fraction of that. There’s a good summary of this discrepancy here: youtu.be/UBPg5ftCMv8
One of the things I’ve learned over time is people can have vastly different perceptions of what being “poor” is, and I suspect that’s what’s happening here.
I think there are those who could not afford to put down the 1.5k you’re quoting.
Well yes of course, but there are lots of “poor” people who have maybe been saving up for a vacation and could make $1500 appear for an opportunity if the value seemed good enough. My family wasn’t rich growing up, but we would still go on one frugal vacation a year, which probably ended up costing a similar amount. It’s definitely not a demographic that I would feel “deserved” getting defrauded and left in a FEMA tent with no food and water for a weekend.
I’ve heard smaller, local burns are better experiences now and are less wasteful. Just like most things, the original spirit and intent of an event gets lost when it becomes bigger and commercialized.
Well it being in the middle of a desert makes it more wasteful.
But yes giant festivals that encourage a lot of travel and needlessly burning things are in general wasteful and potentially excessive. There are other leisure activities, so discouraging festivals is not equivalent to working nonstop.
People always judge personal waste as something they don’t enjoy. It’s fun to hate on people who enjoy things.
I have never went but the people I know who go have been going so long that their kids are bringing their kids. It sounds like a great community event where most of the point is to meet the people who go there.
The desert is usually a good place to host a mass event since it is a flat large area. By definition rain is rare in a desert.
Hilariously, this exact thing happened to Alchemy in Georgia in 2015. The year of Alchemud. Got us kicked out of the county for a bit. Had Alchemy in Wakanda one year, but far too many fire ants.
Alchemy is usually the second largest burn in the US. Though it’s Alchemy’s ~3.5k people, vs Burning Man’s 75k. Still, ton of fun for the art, music, and psychedelic crowds.
I like this answer, and had not considered it. Good insight. I knew people would have specific situations like certain parking areas or certain street parking, but I really wanted “general” answers, and this is a good one. Thanks.
My grandfather had two habits drilled into him in the Army: never put your hands in your pockets so they’re always ready for action, and always park your vehicle so it’s ready to go.
This means he always backed in, and always parked as close to the exit as possible. And he did post-drive checks to ensure fluids, lights, brakes etc. were as they should be and the vehicle was ready for immediate use.
And he wasn’t even a getaway driver after the war.
Yep I’m all about setting myself up for success. And backing into parking spaces does that. Also it’s drilled into my head from the oilfield that you will always back in because it’s safer.
It’s actually kind of inconvenient to be behind someone doing this. It takes longer than pulling in and sometimes it’s unexpected. Like I thought this one guy was turning but he was just lining up to back into a spot. He got mad when I pulled up behind him lol
Takes about the same amount of time as someone backing out when leaving, so it’s balanced out eventually. It’s a little unexpected but I don’t put my car anywhere I’m not 100% sure is safe, and backwards parking isn’t particularly rare, so I’m never really taken aback that much
You can just pull out of the spot and go, no need to change direction etc.
In a tight car park I have almost got stuck once because there wasn’t enough room for me to back out and get my nose out from between the cars on either side to move forward
Apart from the visibility argument. With this kind of parking spot you have to leave the spot in the other direction than you came in. So you’ll only get the enhanced agility for one of the moves.
Would you rather have more agility when getting into the tight parking spot or when leaving onto a larger street?
But you get a ridiculous bill, then likely “settle” for a much lower amount of if you’re truly pennyless, you just never pay it and eventually the hospital gives up and uses it as a tax write off.
It’ll also wreck your credit, and if you’re unlucky they’ll sell your debt off to debt collectors to harass you and your family. Even if they’ve died. And then the truly desperate will sometimes commit heath insurance fraud making the system even more immensely fucked for everyone except for the hospitals and insurance companies
Not exactly. Medical debt is different compared to retail debt like credit cards. It still sucks but the rules are different to protect people at least a little bit.
It’s somewhat in the credit agencies best interests to ignore or heavily discount medical debt. Because so many people have it, and not by choice, to destroy everybody’s credit rating because of medical debt would decimate a significant portion of the country’s ability to get credit. That would have a domino effect on a great many things, and cause enough of an issue that it’s likely there would be further regulations on the credit agencies.
Yep. Medical debt is often not calculated into your credit score by the credit agencies, either, though not in all cases. Or if it is calculated in, it is heavily weighted against so it doesn’t cause much damage.
And it makes sense. Credit score is supposed to be a judge of your credit worthniess based on your history seeking credit and repaying debts. While medical debt is legitimate debt, it isn’t credit seeking behavior in the way an auto loan is. You didn’t choose to take it on, it would be inaccurate to take a trip to the ER into account when determining your credit seeking habits.
I sustained a workplace injury (working on a movie set) and the production company never filed the paperwork, so their insurance would not cover me. I refused to pay the bill and it showed up on my credit report and caused issues for three years. Eventually i found my wrap gift from movie and inside the set medic had put a copy of the paperwork. I scanned it and emailed it to the hospital and within 72 hours it was taken care of and like a month later it was off my credit report. (Time frames may be off as this transpired in 2015)
About five or six years ago, most creditors started using a different FICO model which doesn’t include medical debt. Basically, the idea is that being unable to pay medical debt says very little about how well you can handle debt.
There are also models that don’t consider student loans, but those aren’t used as often.
The big story in my city a while back was a shitty debt collector that stole money from a guy’s bank account.
‘It is like robbery’: A debt collector wrongly wiped out an Oregon man’s entire bank account
According to court records, the debt collector said Salazar owed money for treatment at Providence Portland Medical Center in late 2007 and 2008. Providence claimed it sent 26 billing statements and six financial assistance applications to the home address provided by the patient. The unpaid bills for six emergency room visits originally totaled $4,750 but have since ballooned to more than $14,000 after costs, fees and interests associated with the debt collection.
Salazar tried explaining to Professional Credit Service that he didn’t have the money to pay, but a customer service representative seemed unsympathetic.
“They did not care if my brother is sick and this is going to put us on the street,” explained Salazar. “They did not care.”
In April, Salazar filled out court papers challenging the garnishment. It temporarily froze his bank account, preventing the debt collector from taking any more money. At the same time, it kept Salazar from accessing much needed funds, including his paycheck, which is electronically deposited into the account.
I feel like a lot of people ignore collection agencies when they advise others to “just not pay.” Yeah you could probably get away without paying, but you and your entire family will be harassed nonstop. There’s been few things more chilling to me than a stranger calling me out of the blue with my sister’s name and info telling me to get her to settle up (thankfully just a small amount).
Part of the reason it’s like this is because insurance companies try their very hardest to avoid paying, but that means you have to do the same if paying yourself.
Essentially no watering. Only works with places with some mild temps, a 20 inches of rain per year, and some morning fog etc.
Where appropriate climate and soil conditions exist, growing dry-farmed tomatoes can be a good option for specialty crops growers. Dry farming generates an intensely flavored crop much prized by consumers and retailers.
A limited number of geographic regions are suited to dry farming, which requires adequate winter rainfall and—in the case of annual crops—a summer-time marine influence that generates cool mornings and warm afternoons. These climatic conditions, combined with careful soil preparation, appropriate variety selection, adequate plant spacing, and vigilant weed control are all required to successfully produce dry-farmed crops.
Thanks for your reply. I haven’t heard about this directly, but I have noticed that birds-eye-chilly plants(don’t know if this is the right name for it) get chillies that are so much more eye-watering-throat-burning-ass-blastingly spicy in the summer than other seasons. It even seems to do better when it’s NOT watered than when it is.
It seems to me like there are 5 places the grocery store has tomatoes and and you need to check all 5 places before you know which place you should buy from. Then, maybe next time you’re at the grocery store, a different spot will have the better tomatoes and there are also 3 other new tomato stands in the store.
I’m definitely grateful for lemmy or kbin or mastodon or wherever the fuck I am right now as a reddit replacement, but this shit is confusing and annoying
Sure, and if you choose the correct place in the grocery store to get your tomatoes, you have all the fixings for a nice pico de gallo or guacamole all in one place. But why don’t they ever have chips there? I know this has to connect somewhere …… yeah
I think the idea is people coming from a grocery store where all the fruit and vegetables were centralized in a “produce” section and then going to a Farmers’ Market and complaining that multiple stalls sell tomatoes and having to visit all of them to go tomato shopping.
At least that’s what I’m getting from these comments. I’m new here too, and getting used to it, but I get a Farmers’ Market vibe.
I go to two different grocery stores to get different vegetables because they have varying quality. For example, if I want tomatoes I go to store 1 and for onions I go to store 2. For carrots I go to either because they are fine at both.
So if two instances have tomato, onion, and carrot magazines/communities with similar quality patterns I might want to sub tomatoes at one, onions at the other, and carrots at both.
I just want an easier way to find all of the instances that have onions so I know what I might be missing at the local farmer's market. Or find out that a new farmer's market opened up!
What is a “better” onion? More variety, maybe? Onions come in two kinds for me (other than type) edible and not; not a lot of spectrum on onion quality for me I guess.
Just about any other fruit or vegetable I can accept the varying quality of produce but onions and potatoes are either firm and good or mushy and not for me.
Or I could be overthinking what was probably an arbitrarily pulled example for an explanatory analogy.
Fresh, not bruised, the size I like, in stock. Just better quality overall. Same with the tomatoes at the other store.
I have no idea why there is such a difference in quality consistently for those two vegetables, but it has been consistent for a couple of years.
Since the two stores are within 5 minutes of each other and there are other reasons to go to each (brands, deli, bakery,etc.) I split the vegetables while I'm at it.
Cool! I’m not growing as many tomatoes this year as some years — we’ve gone in heavily for strawberries and herbs this spring, and potatoes this summer — but I’ve got a Brad’s Atomic Grape and an Indigo Ruby starting to set fruit.
Longer real answer: The current Chinese calendar is not 4721 years old. It was developed right at the end of the Ming Dynasty, in the 17th century AD. The current calendar is based on direct observations of the exact positions of the sun and the moon, and so it is inherently precise and future-proof.
Since I am a massive calendar nerd, I will now delve into the gory details.
The civil day runs from midnight to midnight, Chinese Standard Time.
Each month begins on the day of the new moon. It doesn't matter if the new moon happens one second after midnight or one second before the day ends, if it falls on that day, then that day is the start of the month.
A year usually has 12 months, but sometimes has 13 to keep things aligned with the sun. The ecliptic is divided into 24 equal parts called solar terms (jieqi), of which the even-numbered ones are called major solar terms (zhongqi). The zhongqi include the instants of the solstices and equinoxes. A month normally contains a zhongqi within it; if a year has a leap month, the leap month is the first month without a zhongqi. The leap month has the same name and number as the preceding regular month. (If the Gregorian calendar did leap month, it would be like going January, February, March, Extra March, April...)
The 11th month of the year, by definition, is the one that contains the southern solstice (which in China is the winter solstice). If there are 12 months between that month and the 11th month of the next year, then the year to come is a normal year with 12 months; if there are 13, then one of those 13 months is a leap month. Most commonly, the leap month is part of the year to come, but occasionally it falls after the 11th or 12th month of the year coming to an end.
The calendar year has nothing to do with the age of the calendar; it is the number of years since some important event. The Gregorian calendar, for example is on year 2023 as of this writing, but it is not 2,023 years old; it was introduced in 1568, but counts years from the birth of Jesus (or rather the nominal birth; historians and Bible scholars generally agree that Jesus was actually born closer to 4BC). The earliest known Chinese calendars date to the Shang dynasty, and assumed a tropical year of 365¼ days. Under the influence of Indian astronomical treatises, calendars were designed that closely matched the length of the sidereal year, but Chinese astronomers noticed in the early Han dynasty that the tropical year is slightly shorter than the sidereal year, and adjusted their values to match.
Calendar reform was seen as a duty of the emperor, as it was right and proper to make timekeeping accord ever closer with the seasons. To this end, every emperor was expected to commission at least one calendar refinement, though not all of them did so. Such was the importance of accurate timekeeping that foreigners were invited to bring astronomical knowledge and methods to China. Muslims astronomers in particular were sought-after due to the impressive astronomical knowledge of the Muslim world.
Jesuit missionaries arrived in China during the reign of Emperor Deyue, and impressed court officials with European mathematical and engineering insights. The emperor heard about this and decided to put them to a test. He tasked the Christians with predicting the exact time of the next eclipse, and also tasked the Buddhist and Muslim astronomers in his court with the same task. The Christians were naturally eager to impress the emperor, and quite reasonably figured that converting him would do a great deal to Christianise the rest of China. The Christians knew about the mighty logarithm, and their calculation of the time of the eclipse was most accurate. The emperor was impressed, and tasked them with designing the latest iteration of the calendar, which is still in use today. He was also initially receptive to Christianity until they got to the part where he would only be allowed to have one wife at a time, and no concubines. Upon hearing this, he decided that Christianity wasn't for him, and Buddhism was really more his speed.
So if I got this right, instead of defining the number of days in a year like Julian calendar, the Chinese calendar goes off lunar cycles with extra months as necessary (according to lunar and solstice cycle). Thus it naturally didn’t run into the problem the Julian calendar had with defined number of days. Right?
Same way you get to be any other kind of nerd - by getting really interesting in something.
In my case, I'd had some interest in calendars for a while, ever since I came across this converter. I'd also always wanted to learn programming, but my previous efforts just kind of fizzled out.
In 2020, I had some COVID-related downtime, and decided to use it to learn programming again. I worked my way through a book on Python, and when I finished, decided that the best way to practice was to write a real programme. I figured an extensive calendar converter would be a good way to learn, since it's all just maths. Writing a converter involved doing research to learn how various calendars work, writing code, and comparing it to existing converters and historical data. This in turn led to finding out about more and more obscure calendars, and I just became obsessed with tracking down vague hints and references.
The Chinese calendar in particular took me about a year of admittedly sporadic work, plus a lot of frustration, to figure out, because while there are plenty of descriptions, most of them are poorly-worded and not very descriptive. I also ended up having to write a whole library in Fortran to calculate the position of the sun and the moon. Yes, Fortran.
Right now I'm trying to figure out how traditional Indian calendars work, which is a whole challenge because they're even less-well documented than the Chinese calendars, and what documentation I can find tends to result in dates that don't match official dates.
I've put my notes on the calendars I've so far implemented here, with sources. Some sources are sketchy, but were all I could find.
I’m really trying to not make this a way to mess up with my mental state, but instead a search on how to achieve the best of myself. I just want to know how these people are waking up in the morning and do the stuff they do.
Some people are just wired differently, those people are programmed in a way that just so happens to be congruent with our society. It’s not that something is wrong with you, it’s just that society is “more right” for them.
It’s also worth mentioning that I’ve been on the other side of this fence. It’s something that can be learned with time and dedication. If you feel like your life is unfulfilling and you want to change, you are never locked into the life you have right now.
I think some people just have different perspectives on life, different motivations. As an elderly millennial I empathize with you OP, I’ve felt much the same myself. I’m coming to terms with the fact that some people are just really focused and ambitious, while others (like me), really aren’t - and that’s perfectly okay.
Man, that doesn’t resonate with me at all. I don’t think there is any point to living other than just enjoying your time here. Sure, work when necessary to be able to afford the necessities, develop some skills to be able to afford a few luxuries, but honestly just do things that make you happy. Self-improvement as a reason to live seems awful. If you’re unable to improve, are you a failure? If you’re already happy as you are, should you just end it?
Living like that sounds very harmful to ones mental health. Sometimes people can’t improve despite trying and trying, and being told there’s no point in living without improvement would just help people that are already depressed justify their thoughts on not being alive any more.
A bit of a scale issue. You’re seeing the top 0.001% of people. And they derive some kind of pleasure from their passions (probably) and are really specifically wired to chase this thing. It’s ok to be mortal. The only thing you should excel at is being you and finding satisfaction in your own life. For every person with a world changing invention, or what have you, there are millions of people just living, and that’s ok.
Just remember that because the face you see is always smiling doesn't mean they truly enjoy their life. For all you know they're so burned out and miserable, over the stress, and would kill to go back to a less stressful life.
We all have a tendency to see the grass as greener on the other side.
This is such a short-sighted take. My wife was prom queen… 3 years before I met her. I forgot about it completely until I read your post and thought, “what a childish thing to say, no one cares about that.” Why? Because I have 20 years of history with my wife. 2 children, a good job, a good life, and a happy family. Exactly 0% of that has anything to do with a prom that happened years before we met.
I want to live a long and happy life, and have as many days as possible with my wife, my children, and maybe their children (if they decide to have any). The things that worry me aren’t whether or not I’m having sex with a former prom queen, but how can I stay healthy so I can have a chance to make as many memories with the people I love as possible. It’s about whether or not they feel loved, accepted, and fulfilled. High school popularity has no value whatsoever to healthy, adjusted adults.
Can we not do the whole "women are objects to be ranked based on physical appearance only and fought over as prizes" thing, please? That prom queen has agency of her own-- who's to say she's even into the "winner", let alone that their personalities are in any way compatible? Maybe (assuming she's interested in men and looking for a relationship) she'd rather be with a guy who isn't hypercompetitive, who's more laid back and easygoing?
Which brings me to the other problem with your metaphor: what's "winning"? Someone could be doing well by society's metrics and be miserable, because their current lifestyle isn't the right fit for them. Someone else could be a total failure by society's metrics, but perfectly content with their life the way it is. Who's the real winner there? (Spoiler alert: it's the second person).
I don't know; can we not do the whole "unduly overreacting to the use of metaphor" thing, please? Honestly, your comment sounds exactly like something from a ChatGPT bot.
Sorry I didn't put a ton of brainpower into spicing up the wording of a throwaway comment on an anonymous message board I wrote at near-midnight my time.
The format actually has a lot of benefits - it supports transparency, animation, and compresses very efficiently. So it could theoretically replace GIF, JPG, and PNG in one fell swoop.
The downsides are that many apps don’t currently support it and that it’s owned by Google.
Personally I use webp for images that are not intended to share (e.g. banners and images on my blog), but stick to JPG/PNG for sending to other people.
I mean yes, but it’s patent irrevocably royalty free (so long as you don’t sue people claiming WebM/P as your own/partially your own work), so it’s effectively owned by the public.
Google hereby grants to You a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable (except as stated in this section) patent license to make, have made, use, offer to sell, sell, import, and otherwise transfer implementations of the WebM Specifications, where such license applies only to those patent claims, both currently owned by Google and acquired in the future, licensable by Google that are necessarily infringed by implementation of the WebM Specifications. If You or your agent or exclusive licensee institute or order or agree to the institution of patent litigation against any entity (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit) alleging that any implementation of the WebM Specifications constitutes direct or contributory patent infringement, or inducement of patent infringement, then any rights granted to You under the License for the WebM Specifications shall terminate as of the date such litigation is filed. “WebM Specifications” means the specifications to the WebM codecs as embodied in the source code to the WebM codecs or any written description of such specifications, in either case as distributed by Google.
You could still be on the fence. It’s Google so for sure it has the possibility of tracking or some other user exploiting bullshit feature but we haven’t figure it out yet.
It’s also just an open file format. Anyone could implement it, and in fact I found dozens of completely independent implementations of webp decoders on GitHub in various languages.
There really is no secret ulterior motive in this case.
There really is no secret ulterior motive in this case.
Sort of. Smaller images mean it’s less work for Google to crawl and index them, if every image is 40% smaller then that’s potentially saving them millions a year in storage and bandwidth costs.
So, yea, it’s better for the web but it also massively benefits them.
Well, they crawl and index anyways. I see no harm done with .webp. One of my friends said with .webp you can’t save an image because it stops you from doing that somehow? I’m unsure, maybe true maybe not.
Chromium and Android really are open-source. There are hundreds of products like Electron and Fire OS built on top of them without any involvement or consent from Google.
Just because Google Chrome and Pixel phones have some proprietary code doesn’t mean that Android and Chromium aren’t open.
Well your right I wasn’t clear in my answer. They are open source but for the point of this discussion with open source software backed by an corporation the open source it’s just a mean of spreading “soft power” maybe gather inovation from the market and for sure to offer a way for FOSS creators to use their energies to build in the “correct” direction. The purpose it’s building a monopoly on certain aspects of the market.
Chromium is open source and a lot of small projects have sprouted from it but with the same undelying technology. Except for Firefox, Edge and Safary, everyone stems from the same roots controlled by google trough money and market share. So in this case Chrome dominates the market and decides the course of the industry. See mv3.
Android is open source and some projects are build on top of it but the big market share so the direction of the technology is controlled by Google.
Let them decide a stadard for pictures which has undeniable advantages and I bet you that tomorow they will decide how you share and visualise images and videos.
It’s not about being open source it’s about that project being a tool used by a company to spread their interests (which usually end up being predatory towards the common user).
Yes you can convert, it’s just that many existing tools may not presently support webp. If you just want a quick & dirty meme you can always screen cap.
The fun thing is heif is actually effectively single frame of h.265 video because the amount of work that’s gone into making h.265 space efficient also happens to work really well for efficienct compression of individual frames of video aka images
mozilla made it because it suited their needs; and libpng (the organisation behind png, and who make the standard png decoder[^1]) refused to add compatibility, insisting on mng instead. mng was bad, so nobody used it; and apng was great, but require mozillas version of the decoder so systems couldn’t use both the official version and the apng supporting version together
partly, i don’t think it was just that. mng did have considerable benefits over apng at the time; but it was a solution looking for a problem. i think they wanted it to succeed because they’d poured time into it, but nobody wanted to support it (mozilla, the only browser to support it to my knowledge, dropped support eventually because the mng decoder was bigger than every other image decoder in firefox put together)
Yeah I wouldn’t have an issue with them if they weren’t so incompatible with most of the programs and sites I like to use. It makes them super inconvenient to work with. I know some apps are catching up and supporting them, but it feels like the adaptation is slow and patchy which makes it difficult to know which programs will support webp at some point and when.
The Fediverse is home to a lot of young, tech-minded people distrustful of major corporations. The younger generations are more likely to come out as transgender due to greater awareness and acceptance of gender identity and dysphoria, and a decentralised, open platform is naturally going to appeal to communists, syndicalists and other left-wingers who don't want some billionaire buying the next website they get comfortable on. And funnily enough, there are a surprising number of trans people in the tech sector, to the point where trans-flag socks have become a meme among programmers.
This seems like the most straightforward answer. But it doesn’t explain why people on the right haven’t come to the fediverse in proportional numbers. I know a lot of right leaning Libertarian communities, and for some reason they like cryptocurrency and FOSS but not the fediverse.
There are right-wing instances of Mastodon (gab, truth, and others), not to mention many Pleroma ones, as well as Lemmy (exploding heads, and probably others). It’s just that they get quickly defederated by everyone else for various valid reasons (usually hate and abuse, sometimes even child porn), so you don’t get to interact with them much. They just get stuck in their own bubble.
Going by lemmy.sdf.org/instances, it seems that not yet. I haven’t run into any issues though, and have never seen a post from or noticed anyone from exploding heads, thankfully.
Isn’t this just a good indicator that there might not be a need to defederate? If they aren’t causing problems for your users than it doesn’t seem right to defed preemptively.
Yeah I thought that some people was asking to defederate but not from my instance, it was from beehaw iirc… I agree that if they are not spamming or trolling there’s no need to defederate, but some users don’t like their “if it’s not openly racist/transphobic it’s allowed because free speech”
Interesting. I wonder if the main community they spam in are just banned and not the instance. I got so much spam from one user who posted like several things an hour all day with no engagement on any posts when I would sort by new before we defederated. It was weird.
If no one on that instance subscribed to a community, doesn’t it not show up in your all feed? Maybe just no one on that instance subscribes to any explodingheads communities.
Maybe they just don’t have the actual numbers you’d expect from their outsized presence in the discourse, when they’re not being protected, or facilitated, or actively promoted by engagement algorithms or the individuals who own the other platforms.
(I’m pretty sure this is the case, but I’m too lazy to get sources just this minute)
And they have very few supporters here. If you allways get screemed at by everybody if you say anything you probably loose interest in posting. On those big platforms there are allways people who support you in what you say.
I am here and a big supporter of OSS, but many would call me right wing. I support living your life how you want privately and acknowledging different identities and sexualities, because if you aren’t flaunting it, how would I even know? But I also feel that sex, intimacy, etc should be private and should not be something discussed or displayed so openly, regardless of orientation, so many would label me as conservative.
You (and probably I) are going to get downvotes for this, but this is as reasonable a take as I’ve seen from any “conservative” so far. As long as you’re not actively promoting legislation to curtail or ban consenting adults from privately expressing their love for others in the ways they feel most comfortable. I hope you’re not against gender-affirmation therapies.
The issue I have with this is that publicly expressing their love for others is an extremely natural and normal thing to do. Talking openly about your opposite-gender spouse, kissing or holding hands with your partner, going out for a nice date - whatever. These are all totally normal things which people won’t blink at when a heterosexual couple is doing it, yet LGBT people can still be discriminated against for these behaviours. That’s not even getting into trans or gender-non-conforming people, who can be discriminated against simply for existing and presenting the way they do.
I don’t just want to ensure that LGBT people are free from explicit legislative discrimination. I want them to be free from social discrimination as well. Social consequences for being publicly gay are not acceptable, even if people aren’t in favour of more open forms of discrimination.
As long as your definition of keeping those things private includes heterosexual couples holding hands, giving each other a kiss, or showing off their pregnancy or kids.
But they have. It’s just they are so hateful and annoying that sooner than later they get banned or defederated. So they drop out of the face of the activity pub. Since no single entity can use an algo to force their views onto all users (ads or suggestion algos) they never resurface.
And of course crypto bros hate the fediverse, it doesn’t let them force their ponzi schemes with ads or SEOed posts. And most people here were initially pretty tech savvy individuals, almost all actively hostile against nfts and altcoins. As for Foss, they only like that the software is free, the freedom ideology is just lip service for them, they don’t actually believe. Case in point, Oracle. Foss? Free for me but not for thee.
People on the right don’t see the issue with neoliberalism. They are mostly fine with all the ads based system and corporate making billions out of the datas. Neoliberalism tend towards fascism with time. They will prefer fascism to redistribute profits to the workers.
The fediverse is a different point of view. You can defederate if it goes wrong with an instance what makes the profits by ad revenue impossible or too small. The big corps don’t have a huge interest in these platform without profits. People on the right will follow these corps and the platforms affiliated.
On the left, people will federate. I recommend to have a good read about the fondation of the unions in the 19th century. People of the diversity will historically be on the left rather than on the right. Again, for the profits, the neoliberals will prefer to oppress you as a minority for the profits than to have social and societal consideration for you.
You ends with the people of the left coming to the fediverse and the right on corps social media.
i think that’s why the fediverse is doomed to perpetual obscurity. my reddit-refugee addictions have taught me that only reddit has the content that i like and that i need to learn how to appreciate stuff i don’t like to get my fix; i wonder how people get started on furry stuff. lol
The Israel and Palestine situation is way too complicated to be left to “I support Israel.” Support in what way? Their existence? Their military campaigns? Their government? Their settlements? Everything they’ve ever done ever?
Do you then oppose everything done by people from Palestine? Do you then oppose the existence of Palestine?
In my opinion it’s not okay to leave your opinion as that simple. If that’s all you’ve got your opinion is bad because it’s simplistic, not because it supports a particular side.
I support Israel ownership of the Land they won in the War, their Settlements and their military campaigns. I dont support their goverment. (Sorry I thought that might be clear because i was talking about the Conflict itself not just about Israel as a State)
This is exactly my Question! I’ve never learnd anything about this conflict in School or elsewhere. Is it that simple like Russia/Ukraine or Nazi-Germany/Poland?
I think a big part of this is being open to having your opinions changed. This is true for me, even on topics that I know about and have years of experience with.
As for your main point, I’d like to reiterate again: You don’t need to pick a side, and you especially shouldn’t feel forced to pick a side when you have yet to learn more about the issue.
Nothing about the Ukrainian-Russian conflict is simple. This is based on decades of disagreements, and it’s only becoming more complicated, because history is written by the loudest asshole around
That I can’t deny. They are very clearly known for agitating their neighbors, and their nationalists causing mass chaos in places that they think belong to them
Yeah Russia are pretty good at kicking the dirt up and spreading a lot of propaganda, but if you look at the hard points it’s pretty clear cut.
The same isn’t true of Israel and Palestine. Going through what each side has done to the other and trying to weigh it and figure out which side is worse is a futile exercise that does nothing to stop further violence from happening.
People will claim it is, but it really isn't. Honestly, you'll read a lot of biased answers here.
The safest bet is to condemn the rape, murder and torture of civilians, but accept that there are no 'good' guys in this conflict.
To give you an idea:
You'll read a lot of comments about how Israelis stole land from the Palestinian Arabs. But Palestinains also stole land from Palestinian Jews.
Many middle-eastern countries had significant Jewish populations before that, but almost all were forced to flee to Israel. Something like a third of Israelis are 'Arab' Jews or Mizrahi as the prefer to be called. They're not 'foreign invaders'. They're (the family of) locals or refugees from neighbouring countries.
Also, recent right-wing Israeli governments have consistently undermined any hope of a peace deal, meaning there's no real alternative for Palestinians.
But, back in 2000 Israel did offer far reaching concessions to the Palestinians, so much so that IRC the Saudi ambassador said it would be a crime not to accept them or at least continue negotiating. But Arafat, the Palestinian leader at the time, did just that.
Also, neighbouring Arab countries claim to support Palestine, but often only on paper. When they accepted Palestinian refugees this caused them huge issues. For example in Lebanon:
Also, a lot of arab nationalist groups, including Palestinian ones, are virulently anti-semitic and have actual historical ties to the nazis who supported them in their fight against the colonial powers (Britain, France, etc.):
But then the current Israeli government contains ultra-nationalists. One of the ministers once belonged to a banned far right terrorist organisation, labeled as such by the US and Israel. They were openly racist and supported terrorist attacks against Palestinians.
Most of Israeli immigration has been from the former Soviet Union, not the middle East… Unless you count the FSU as the Middle East… Which depending on how you want to count things for displaced peoples may be valid… And it really kicked off in the early 70s.
If you re-read my comment, you'll note I said that something like a third of Israelis are (originally from) from the middle-east or arab countries.
Wikipedia:
Mizrahi Jews (Hebrew: יהודי המִזְרָח), also known as Mizrahim (מִזְרָחִים) or Mizrachi (מִזְרָחִי) and alternatively referred to as Oriental Jews or Edot HaMizrach (עֲדוֹת-הַמִּזְרָח, lit. 'Communities of the East'),[2] are a grouping of Jewish communities comprising those who remained in the Land of Israel and those who existed in diaspora throughout and around the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) from biblical times into the modern era. ... Regions with significant populations ... Israel ... 3,200,000
Ashkenazi(mainly Europe): 2.8 million / 9.5 = 29.4%
IRC the rest are non-Jews.
That took far too long to google, which is why most people debating the whole conflict simply don't bother. Why would they when they've already come to a conclusion and chosen a side? Why let the facts get in the way?
Honestly, this is why I'd rather swim in a septic tank, than spend too long debating the whole thing.
Uh... Since you seem new to the topic, I'd recommend you look up Israeli treatment of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, East Palestine and Israel proper (they're all bad for different reasons, but the order of badness goes like this), and how the settlement process works. Note: It usually involves Palestinians being forced off their homes.
Maybe think if by the same logic you also support Russia’s “ownership” of Crimea and Eastern Ukranine territory. If you don’t support that, then maybe you’ve been propaganded.
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