I’ll develop my own browser before using an ad-infested internet. Luckily I don’t have to do that, because there are alternatives and also because it would be a damn time consuming project to put it mildly 😅

They might be academics, but definitely not scientists

Mostly the same. I tried ChatGPT a few times to get it to generate some code, but mostly it produced code that didn’t even compile and when I asked it to fix it, it created code that didn’t compile in a different way. I enjoy writing code on my own a lot more than having to review some pre-generated code.

Though I use it as a glorified Google sometimes and that is not even so bad.

Just give me a Linux client for proton drive please. I’m tired of manually uploading/downloading files 😐

And last time I checked they wanted to change the law so the overachievement over other sectors can excuse the failure in others. So no need to do something in the traffic sector, if other areas performed better. Not sure what the current state of this plan is, but I would assume they didn’t take it back, which would seem the only reasonable thing to do🤷‍♂️

Just relax and make some tea at 4:18 :) No coffee though!

Honestly I would probably just stop using YouTube altogether if I was forced to use it unmodified.

I never understood how a chatroom took off as a tool to document stuff. Who seriously thinks this is a good idea? 😵

My takeaway is more like: This one almost made it through and was caught by accident. How much more backdoors actually were not caught and made it through? I would bet some money on it being more than 0 :(

I guess it is impossible to say what would have happened if Google never used XMPP. To me it mostly looks like google joined XMPP and made it way bigger than it was before and eventually left it again, making it small again. But is it worse than before Google even joined?

Maybe, but can we say for sure?

Maybe the lesson is not “don’t let the big corporate players in”, but rather “make sure the development of the underlying protocol itself is done in an open way”. If Google/Meta adds proprietary extensions, just don’t add them to the main protocol. If they leave the protocol again or changed their implementation in a way that is largely incompatible with the open version, nothing is lost than what they brought in initially. Doesn’t that make sense?

I’m actually curious about “Embrace Extend Extinguish”: What can they do? They “extend” the ActivityPub protocol in a proprietary way, ok. Doesn’t mean any other instance has to use that, no? Ok, that would mean if an instance doesn’t follow that extension, it can’t interact optimally with Threads, but how does it matter? To me it seems all that can be lost by that is the content/user base that Threads brings into the Fediverse and then we are at the same point as we would be if we defederated immediately. Maybe I’m missing something here?

A rigged justice system is TIGHT!

I would argue this wasn’t planned. If you want to cause damage, why do it in the middle of the night? Not sure how full this bridge is during rush hour, but I would imagine quite a lot more than it was when it collapsed now.

But it couldn’t be easier to just set up a second remote, that isn’t GitHub with just vanilla Git, if you don’t trust Microsoft (Or even fully switching to a different remote). Why is there a need for something else in addition?

I had a printer from HP but rarely had to print anything. It happened way too often, that I had to buy a new cartridge, because the old one dried up. Soo annoying… Now I have a laser printer from brother and it’s much better! No more drying up! I guess this is more about technology than it is brand, but it somehow was fitting here😄

I don’t have a ton of experience with it yet, but I don’t have to scroll through a bunch of actual ads, followed by a bunch of not-really-but-basically-still ads, before finding what I’m looking for.

I’m paying for the service, not because I just fell for their marketing, but because I actually have the impression of getting noticeably less “polluted” results, especially when searching for something easily advertisable (e.g. “best X to buy 2023”). I don’t need to convert anyone else. Everyone can just try it themselves and judge whether they feel it’s worth their money or not. As of now, for me it seems to be the case.

I started using Kagi. By paying for the search engine, at least I can ensure the search engine’s goals align with mine, instead of with whoever pays most for advertisement. I haven’t used it for a long time yet, but so far I’m satisfied with its results!

Revanced isn’t in an app store (at least not a legit version), you have to build it yourself. Otherwise it would probably end like Vanced. Take care of scam websites, this is the real one: https://revanced.app/

Or check this guide: https://www.reddit.com/r/revancedapp/comments/xlcny9/revanced_manager_guide_for_dummies/ (yes, it’s Reddit, but the guide was really useful to me 🤷‍♂️)

I watched some video some time ago where they put that in perspective: If I stopped causing any climate negative emissions now and for the rest of my life, it would amount to like 1 second emitted by the top 100 companies (not 100% sure about the numbers exactly, but it’s basically the same order of magnitude).

I’m not saying that we should stop caring about it at all, but it’s much much more important to try and steer politics into the right direction, than it is to change personally. Still, do all you can personally, but imo it’s fine to “cheat” here and there.

“Schrank” is not really a drawer. Translating it as “cupboard” would be more appropriate, I think.