True, and then there’s the other side of the coin. Federation exposes you to trolls, nazis, and doxxing.

No we don’t. We need small instances, each with their own specific topics and communities that DO NOT share your information far and wide, like the fediverse does. I don’t think the fediverse model is the way forward.

I’m so sick of this discussion. Your opinions and feelings don’t matter. The reality is you have a binary choice. Do you want A or do you want B? That’s the reality.

Regarding Gaza, do you want A) the current genocide, or B) a much bigger one? If you vote for a third party, you’re tipping the result towards B, because you were never voting for B in the first place.

Instead of voting for A, perhaps you could think of it as voting against B? Because those are the only two possible outcomes. Pick one.

I honestly think people left of center have lost their minds with this stuff.

They should give MLS to the Mozilla Foundation in that case.

This sucks big time. Many users of custom mobile phone ROMs are concerned with privacy, and use Mozilla Location Services as an alternative to Google. Not sure what other options are available right now.

Edit: The more I’m reading about this, the more absolutely fucked up it is. There really are no viable alternatives. Mozilla is going to just take all its collected data offline, and that’s that. Given that they accept monetary donations from the public, they should make the information public for download even if they don’t want to host the service anymore. Unbelievable.

The Dems making mistakes and Greens being spoilers are not mutually exclusive.

Does this help?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Party_of_the_United_States#Criticism_and_controversies

US labor can’t really compete with the low cost of Chinese labor. On the other hand, it’s not like US automakers are making small affordable EVs, even though there is a demand for them. Imported Chinese EVs fill that niche and also contain things like strategic metals, rare earth magnets, and lithium battery tech. All of that is recyclable, and they want to sell it to America for super cheap prices. If we were smart, when these cars are done being cars, we’ll reuse and recycle these materials right here in the USA. That could be a growth industry unto itself.

Supposedly a Cisco software update went wrong and took everything down for a while. That’s the rumor.

FFS lay off the artificial intelligence bullshit. I don’t want or need machine learning in my fucking browser. I tell it where to go, and it goes there. This is not a problem that needs solving. There had better be a way to turn this garbage off.

Can’t find it now, but I believe I originally read about it in here: https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/1alzzep/exclusive_mozilla_names_new_ceo_as_it_pivots_to/

Probably. And that’s why I hesitate to use it.

They subcontract it out to a third party, who’s name I’m forgetting, that doesn’t have a great reputation.

And yet the fediverse has the opposite problem. You can never trust that something you deleted has actually been deleted on other servers.

I don’t use Facebook. Unfortunately, my neighbors use it to communicate. That’s the only reason I have it. I’ve also used the marketplace, but prefer Craigslist.

Both, plus failed connection something something…

Yes, there are errors related to fbcdn.net, which I guess is facebook’s content delivery network.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucus#In_the_United_States

Around this time of an election year, the political parties of each state get together and decide who their candidates are going to be. This story is about a small district in Iowa with a population of only 245 people. Their meeting was so small, it took place at someone’s house. It’s brutally cold there right now. Winter has nothing to do with it otherwise.

I know, it’s bad. I posted about it here: https://beehaw.org/post/10393316

I’m using Firefox w uBlock turned off for YouTube. It’s almost unusable for me. They’re not just degrading the experience of ad-blocking users. They’re also sabotaging users of non-Chrome web browsers.

I take my ill-gotten gains and fuck off to another country, perhaps the USA, and buy up a small little-known automotive start up that has some promising IP. When my car company is bigger than all the others combined, I don’t spread the love around, but instead allow them all to stew in the juices of their mistakes. While I’m at it, I might buy a social media company and do everything possible to run my entire empire into the ground.

https://langworth.com/

This is a good search engine for finding text-based small sites. https://search.marginalia.nu/

And there’s a few cool personal projects here: https://simone.computer/#/webdesktops

I have a fantasy where I’m a powerful executive at Volkswagen. I’m in a meeting where this idea is presented. I ask who thought of it. Someone raises their hand. I smile broadly. I ask who else thinks it’s a good idea. Others raise their hands. I call security and have all those people escorted out of the building. Those of us who remain set about manufacturing small, efficient & affordable electric vehicles with manual windows & door locks, and a not a single touchscreen anywhere. The End

…which is an epidemic right now

Yes, it fucking is.

https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/8/24027112/volkswagen-chatgpt-openai-voice-assistant-cars-ces

The conspiracy theory I’ve heard is that Mozilla is basically paid opposition to Google. Their leadership is being paid (by Google) to run Firefox into the ground without actually going out of business.

I’m absolutely with you. Having run face-first into MongoDB more than once, I finally learned not to trust the hype around these things.

What an absolute shitshow this is going to be. If I want a digital assistant, I’ll get one. Keeping concerns separate is what has always worked. This reads like Elon wanting X to be the “everything app”. That ship has already sailed. The web is the everything app. Back when the web was new, you had AOL and Yahoo wanting to be the “gateway” to everything. How did that work out? My gateway to everything is my bookmarks folder. I don’t want AI in anything I use locally unless I explicitly enable it and ask for assistance. IMHO, this is the reason so many digital assistants have failed (especially Microsoft’s); because they tried to anticipate your needs rather than STFU and stay out of the way.

I’m old.

/rant

Got it.

Didn’t know I could do that. Gonna change it now.

I use Brave Browser (with Ublock Origin and AdBlock) and rarely have any issues.

You don’t have issues because Brave is based on Chromium, which is basically Chrome.

I seem to remember reading that Google is purposely degrading the YouTube experience on Firefox. Don’t know if it’s true, but it sure seems that way.

an X-cretion.

I use cash all the time. It generates less data about my behavior than a digital transaction. Cash also helps me to budget myself. If I give myself $100 cash allowance per week, then I always know how much money I have left. If you’re always using plastic for purchases, spending becomes too easy. It’s important to physically hold something in your hand, and have to part with it in order to make a purchase.

And when support ends, if there is any sort of lock on the firmware, it must be removed so the aftermarket can service the device. They should do cars next.

I don’t doubt you, I just don’t need features like that. I’m not a gamer and don’t think I’ve ever run a monitor above 60Hz in my life.

I prefer HDMI because it’s simple and it just works. When I plugged my current monitor in via DisplayPort, if the PC was sleeping, the monitor would wake up every two minutes or so, look for a signal, then go back to sleep. Very annoying. I figured this was some poor implementation in the drivers (linux). Regardless, when I got rid of the DP cable and connected via an HDMI cable, everything worked fine. I’m not a gamer, btw.

I don’t like children and experience profound injury when they don’t shut the fuck up. Do I have standing in this case?

Exactly.