SterlingVapor

They are indeed building huge bunkers in large numbers

They made a bunch of mistakes that were callous and might've smothered a couple guys starting out.

But then the lack of empathy - "it was a bad product, no one should ever buy it, and so my fundamentally flawed testing is actually valid", "yeah they asked for it back multiple times and we auctioned it, but it was for charity so it's fine", "we agreed to compensate them, but it's been months and we did that real quick after we got called out, but we're going to make it seem like we didn't need a scandal to do the bare minimum"

It's all excuses, it's all justification for why "this looks worse than it is, and actually we're still the good guys". It's narcissist mental gymnastics, he still just doesn't understand what he did wrong - besides being mostly excuses, every "apology" is totally off base on what they did wrong

Some estimates put the number of vacant homes upwards of 30% a few months back, and it's been climbing

It's not about a lack of supply, it's about homes being both an investment and a basic need - someone like Black Rock can go into a small town in Georgia, snap up every property that goes on the market, then dictate rental prices while jacking up the house prices by bidding on everything. Even if they greatly overpay, by doing it a few times it drives up the valuation of the entire area, overall making their net profit grow

And it's not just Black Rock, it's a bunch of investment companies doing this everywhere. They have the same goal and their interests are aligned - they're not competing for tenants, they just want to jack up the values and use homes like stock investments

My favorite is the ones where programmers are like "they wanted someone with 5 years experience with ? Guess I'm unqualified, I wrote it 3 years ago"

Because you're on the "told how to live" side

The world bank and the imf are the ones who told most of the world that they're poor, and the only solution is to take loans... Pulling them into our craptastic system that cuts down a forest full of food for the taking in order to harvest something that can be sold overseas

I think I've got it! So on install, we make a checkbox that says:

• do not install web search in the start menu, but also I consent to Microsoft collecting creepy levels of data about me

Yes and no - prism and related programs weren't that big a deal (besides morally and legally) - the NSA was collecting far more data than they could use at scale. It was a problem, but realistically it wouldn't affect normal people - you'd have to catch a lot of attention first to even be searched in that system. It couldn't be used for law enforcement or anything wide scale - the collection was there, but the analysis didn't scale

It was a problem because of where we are now - AI advancement means not only can they now process the insane amount of data they ingest and make terrifying associations, they can use the ridiculous amount of compute they've been building out to actually use all this data

We're most of the way down the slippery slope now, and still accelerating fast. The capability makes 1984 look quaint, and having the ability to flick on systems China drools over is pretty concerning

People don't even know they're trying to make us use id to use sites "to protect the children". Any site that might be inappropriate (of which, social media fits under the current definitions of) would be responsible for children getting access to their services - storing driver's licenses seems to be the popular idea for compliance. Google's web DRM might be pushed out so fast to offer this kind of service too

Kosa has bipartisan support, the president has come out strongly supporting it, and it's insane to me that people still don't care

Yes, most definitely. Dry and tasteless are not words I associate with falafel, it sounds like something went horribly wrong there

The base taste is pretty mild, like a baked potato, but then you add spices and eat it along with other things

Some estimates put the number of vacant homes upwards of 30% a few months back, and it's been climbing

It's not about a lack of supply, it's about homes being both an investment and a basic need - someone like Black Rock can go into a small town in Georgia, snap up every property that goes on the market, then dictate rental prices while jacking up the house prices by bidding on everything. Even if they greatly overpay, by doing it a few times it drives up the valuation of the entire area, overall making their net profit grow

And it's not just Black Rock, it's a bunch of investment companies doing this everywhere. They have the same goal and their interests are aligned - they're not competing for tenants, they just want to jack up the values and use homes like stock investments

It all comes down to "well, sure we might have plenty, but if not for capitalism how could we decide how to divide it?"

But any solution has to promote self-interest as a virtue and can't take things away from people who currently own them, and also must conform to a bunch of myths we have about "how the world works"

That's a courtesy you can extend, but mostly it's a protection against libel - if they take you to court about a claim they dispute, being able to say "your honor, we gave them a chance to respond before going public"

In this case, there's no dispute over facts - they didn't bring up any accusations, they just took what LTT posted publicly and presented criticisms of it

For example, if you report on the president being accused of misconduct you might ask the white house for comment, but if you are criticizing a speech they made or their public actions you probably wouldn't (unless you think they'll give you something that improves the story)

Ummm... Has he not been making it public? He hasn't seemed too subtle to me

Yes and no - prism and related programs weren't that big a deal (besides morally and legally) - the NSA was collecting far more data than they could use at scale. It was a problem, but realistically it wouldn't affect normal people - you'd have to catch a lot of attention first to even be searched in that system. It couldn't be used for law enforcement or anything wide scale - the collection was there, but the analysis didn't scale

It was a problem because of where we are now - AI advancement means not only can they now process the insane amount of data they ingest and make terrifying associations, they can use the ridiculous amount of compute they've been building out to actually use all this data

We're most of the way down the slippery slope now, and still accelerating fast. The capability makes 1984 look quaint, and having the ability to flick on systems China drools over is pretty concerning

People don't even know they're trying to make us use id to use sites "to protect the children". Any site that might be inappropriate (of which, social media fits under the current definitions of) would be responsible for children getting access to their services - storing driver's licenses seems to be the popular idea for compliance. Google's web DRM might be pushed out so fast to offer this kind of service too

Kosa has bipartisan support, the president has come out strongly supporting it, and it's insane to me that people still don't care

Yep, it's pretty amazing how much not destroying the environment helps it recover... although the closer we get to a collapse, the more that ability to bounce back diminishes

Literally every aspect of our world is in a balance... Everything wears down over time, so the current state is basically a homeostasis between biological, geological, and astrological forces. The problem is that humans act on a far shorter time scale - 100 humans could cut down trees faster than a forest can regrow, 8 billion can change the atmospheric composition in a decade or two

That's not the problem... The problem is Linux isn't "normal". Their work laptop comes with Windows or osx. Their home computer comes with the same.

Now go tell the average person to install Linux... To them, you might as well be telling them to open up their computer and snip a jumper to make their computer faster. To them, you're telling them to take their working computer and do something they don't really understand and is beyond their ability to undo.

It's an aftermarket modification to them. If you want to make Linux approachable, it's really damn simple. Hand them a computer running Linux, with a pretty desktop manager, and a GUI for everything you expect them to do with it. Better yet, add an app store so they can try out software and run updates without feeling intimidated

My point is, if manufacturers start selling Linux machines again, a lot of people will get on board

People aren't opposed to learning, they're just scared of breaking it, and they need to at least be able to use a web browser without going up a learning curve

I've found revanced to stop playing the video after a minute or two unless you frequently update it (which is a manual process)... I no longer listen to lectures while I run errands, because there's now no convenient way to do it. Ads are out of the question, and finding a video I want to watch only to have it cut out as I get on the road has killed the experience for me

I'm on Android, and open to suggestions

I'm not sure I agree that you have to give a chance to respond - I think context matters.

I think if you make an accusation or cover a specific incident, they should be able to give their context, not out of fairness but as this might give a more accurate view of the truth

In this case, they presented a specific series of events showing a pattern of behavior, and a timeline of communication they made with billet (including their public comments in the subject

What truth could they add here? They could add more details or make excuses, but that waters down the message - the point isn't "Linus did something bad and made factual mistakes", it's "Linus has shown a pattern of doing bad things, and frequently publishes factually incorrect figures"

I think you're coming at it from a place of "you have to give them a chance to respond out of fairness", but journalism isn't about fairness, it's about distilling an easily consumed message from the endless complicated facts that make up any situation. Journalistic integrity is about making every effort to give a "good take", and should put accuracy above all

Being fair to the people you're covering should follow naturally by pursuing the truth, doing the opposite is what we call "softball journalism"

Generative AI is definitely this. You can tell by how personally offended people got instantly. How they freaked out about what this could change, and how despite their strong feelings towards it, they don't learn to use it.

Also, it's a paradigm shift - it basically lets you grab a random high schooler and ask them to do any task at 1000x speed. Maybe it'll be great, maybe it'll be done all wrong and full of made up facts. It's a random high schooler, you're not sure what they know and you can't trust what they give you, and if you try to blame mistakes in your work on them no one is going to accept that as an excuse - but if you hand them appreciate tasks and properly check their work, you can accomplish tasks drastically faster

What's the conflict? They have to make you believe they care about you, they don't actually have any built in interest in your well being

Some have a strong sense of ethics, but those ethics are the only thing from them being a complete shill

It's checks and balances, not rock paper scissors

His power here is to set a direction and to nominate new appointees. He could write a bill to expand the bench and/or a constitutional amendment to require a code of ethics... Hell, he could even say "ok supreme Court, you say you can self-regulate... Publish your own code of conduct publicly or I'll lead the charge in imposing one on you"

Presidents have a lot of soft power. He can write executive orders to demand the problem be evaluated, or he can use his platform to rally support... He can even go to Thomas privately and suggest he resign with dignity while he can, even try to bluff him off the bench

There's a lot he could do - his hard power over the supreme Court is very limited, but soft power is how most everything works

Because it's a bullet without the bullet - it's still a directed explosion that could kill someone with air pressure alone if you're close enough

Now let's say there's something in the barrel, or in this case a chunk of glue from a home made blank propelled out at the speed of a bullet. It's a lot less force or energy than a piece of lead, but everything is pretty deadly when it's going faster than the speed of sound