The last time Google pulled out all the stops to fight ad blockers, I had to update uBlock Origin every now and then until the whole thing passed. That’s all.
So I’m not worried. But I am amused that they keep making ads more obnoxious, which pushes more people to use ad blockers. I didn’t even use sponsorblock until a particularly egregious bit of native advertising. They could probably gain ground by just making ads less irritating, but they absolutely will not.
A buddy of mine in NYC was offered a $14k bonus to move to Texas, closer to his employer. He declined for a bunch of obvious reasons, but one was that he and his girlfriend would each need a car to get around. That would quickly eat into that bonus, if not use it up entirely.
As others have said, “in-ear monitors.” However, it’s not technically about the quality. Earphones sit in the outer ear, while IEMs go at least a little bit into the ear canal. They do better with blocking out sound, which is better for audio quality, but sometimes you want to be able to hear things around you, so it’s a matter of context.
Also, while audiophiles can get wild with it (and there’s a lot of snake oil in that area), I just got some Salnotes Zeros for <$20 and they’re great.
even apart from audio quality, Spotify is just plain terrible as a music library.
For someone who lives in playlists, it might be fine. But I like to pick and choose albums and songs, and be able to sort the whole collection on the fly. Spotify, and unfortunately a whole bunch of the competition, will have three separate lists for “liked” songs, albums, and artists. Only want to save the studio tracks, and not the demos and live versions? Fuck you, you can like the album or not, it’s all or nothing! And the special edition is the only version we have! enjoy the solid hour of shittier versions of the songs you actually wanted!
I do appreciate the fact that the Cybertruck was so clearly designed by someone who had no idea how to design a car, and that it’s Musk’s pet project. It really drives another nail in the coffin of the idea that he deserves all the credit for the work his companies do.
Then again, his most die-hard supporters draw no distinction between ownership and labor. They’re also somehow able to look at a Cybertruck and think “Wow!” rather than “Wow, is this some kind of a joke?”
And will get stained by tree sap. You should avoid the extreme use-case of parking near trees.
It’s also why I love the fact that it has a tent accessory, despite being a car that can’t handle being outside.
Yeah. It can be simultaneously true that voting is a fundamentally broken system that will only allow for so much change, and that elections have life-or-death consequences. It can also be simultaneously true that both the parties are terrible, and that the Democrats are less bad.
I would give them more credit if they ever did any organizing, or even talked about organizing, but it’s just crabs in a bucket.
Oh, and in another thread, they were complaining about “theft.” It was the seizure of Russian assets to fund the defense of Ukraine. They were defending the foreign bank accounts of billionaires. Real clown shit.
Preach. Those people drive me up the fucking wall. And especially since their idea of praxis is being a dick on the internet and not voting, then claim to be the only true leftists.
You can also check the modlogs. They can be really revealing.
Love it.
In a similar way, I also like to pull out “capitalism only works on paper.”
Seriously. If someone’s support is transactional, it isn’t worth shit. It’s not like having an okay position on some issues means you “get” to call for a little extermination, as a treat.
You don’t have to be perfect on every issue, but for fuck’s sake, there are hard lines when it comes to people’s right to exist, and live free. And even any decent takes she had are long past, since nearly ALL she does nowadays is rage tweet about trans people from her fucking castle.
Everyone. Everyone. The article is five SENTENCES long.
Two climate activists on Tuesday targeted Botticelli’s masterpiece “The Birth of Venus” hanging at Florence’s Uffizi Gallery, attaching images of recent flood damage in the Tuscany region on the protective glass.
(Emphasis mine. I also wanted to pause to mention that this is likely a sentence you wouldn’t have to click through to read, because it’s in the preview on Lemmy.)
Authorities immediately cleared the room and the two protesters were brought by carabinieri for questioning. Under a new law, the protesters risk up to six months of jail time.
The protest materials were easily removed from the glass without leaving a trace, and the room where the painting hangs was reopened within 15 minutes.
The activists from the Last Generation climate movement said they were protesting the Italian government’s failure to address climate issues that result in more frequent floods and landslides, including severe flooding in Tuscany last year that left at least six people dead and caused widespread damage.
I’m sorry, but complaints about any damage done by this protest aren’t exactly serious arguments.
I never said that, to be fair.
Of course there are conspiracies. People in power want to stay in power, and they’ll do shady things to get what they want.
That’s not the same as conspiracist ideation, which is a tendency to believe in conspiracy theories. Even as the article I quoted said, it can be harmful or pathological, but isn’t necessarily. It’s just when it happens to an extreme level. There’s a difference between rational fears and phobias; intrusive thoughts are normal, but can be frequent, uncontrollable, and distressing; conspiracies can be true, but then there’s buck wild nonsense like Q, “Cultural Marxism,” and this shit about the Superbowl. It’s not recognizing conspiracies when presented with evidence, it’s spinning conspiracy theories out of nothing, and viewing everything as part of a master plot, even if it doesn’t make any goddamn sense.
Research suggests, on a psychological level, conspiracist ideation—belief in conspiracy theories—can be harmful or pathological, and is highly correlated with psychological projection, as well as with paranoia, which is predicted by the degree of a person’s Machiavellianism.
I feel like a large majority of AI problems are really just systemic economic problems below the surface. Not all, but most.
Oh, this’ll be fun in the future when people try to whitewash it. We’ll have another chance to follow up by asking, “a state’s right to what, specifically?”
I quit Spotify when the “New Library Experience” completely fucked the music library side of the app. If you mostly use playlists, it was a lateral change. If you used it to collect some songs here, and album there, and keep them all sorted, it’s like it dumped your entire collection on the floor and expected a thank-you for the new organization system.
My guess, as others have mentioned, is that Spotify tries to squeeze more profits by pushing certain songs, whether because they get paid to promote them, or the royalties are lower. That’s easier to do with their playlists and recommendations, so they pushed people to that side of the app by making everything else dogshit. And now, apparently, the curated side took it too far and is awful, too.
I still use Apple Music, which is one of like two services that actually let you organize your music in a sensible way outside of playlists. That said, after I cut cords with video streaming services and set up my own library, I think I might do the same with music.
And their recommendation engine sucks.
Netflix used to be famously good at suggesting films. Articles were written about it, and there was even a cash reward for anyone who could contribute to its performance. Then it just turned to shit.
And the funny thing is that it would have helped counteract the shrinking library. Sure, there would be fewer films on the platform, so you’d be less likely to find a specific title, but at least you could select a film Netflix recommended based on your past ratings and be fairly confident you’d enjoy it. Now? Absolutely not.
I’ve been doing some research for the last few days on setting up a home server/NAS. If anyone’s going to ruin my entertainment, it’s going to be ME
It might even be simpler than that. Capitalism just doesn’t care past the next quarter. And when ownership is disconnected from labor or even from customer, than it’s just a really rudimentary collective intelligence. The shareholders just want the line to go up, and everyone in the corporate structure is accountable to the shareholders, so they all do their part, big or little, to make that happen. It completely dispenses with personal responsibility, whether for negative externalities, direct harm, or even the future as close as months from now.