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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 13th, 2023

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  • They can get fucked. A while ago O was like you know what let’s give them money, seems only fair. So I finally subscribed, and then like a month later they sent me an email they’re raising the prices effective immediately - basically changing the deal on me without any delay.

    So I unsubscribed, because fuck that.

    More recently I looked into sharing the family plan with …my family, but it turna out they consider family only in a single household, and I’m not gonna try to give them money while also potentially having to prove how much of a family we are, so yeah…

    Fuck them, either take my money when I’m actually trying, or I guess they didn’t need it that bad. I’m over YouTube, and would probably ditch it earlier than ever watching an ad there.




  • No, it’s not “Windows-like” in anything but some basic appearance (and that would be Windows from the previous decade). It’s not similar in anything else, and from my experience the similarity in appearance only confuses users.

    I really wish people stopped recommending Mint as if it was some proper Windows replacement because it’s overall a very mediocre distro that’s IMO more likely to detract users from using Linux than anything else.


  • Protecting innovative stuff is literally the point of patents and why the system exists. Anything “new” is by definition innovation, except the bar is really low currently, with very little research being done into prior art.

    Patented stuff should be non-obvious, and not a simple derivative of existing stuff (i.e. when there are square buttons and circle buttons you shouldn’t be able to patent a button that has 2 corners square and 2 circle just because it’s “novel” because it’s just a very simple and logical step).

    So basically, make the bar for a patent much higher, and require some proof into the research of prior art and explaining why/how your patent is different.

    Also, patents should expire early/not be renewable if you don’t actually use them (so move a certain number of units / generate some amount of revenue using your patents). So you couldn’t patent random BS in the hopes someone else will break your patent by accident.

    Or even better, just outright punish patent trolls.










  • Wouldn’t be surprised if it also did automatic scans for CSAM or some other BS like that. The article’s conclusion is really funny, too:

    In any case, it’s nice to see Google delivering some new safety features in its Messages app. Hopefully the company publishes documentation on how Android System SafetyCore works so other messaging apps can implement their own version of Sensitive Content Warnings. Google Messages is popular, but there are certainly other messaging platforms that could benefit from this tool.

    They are quite the optimitsts. Oh and yes please, put the spyware in more apps! We aren’t tracked enough!



  • My point is, don’t get causation and correlation mixed up. Sure, in this case, it also happens to be somewhat better for the environment. But it would never happen if it also wasn’t more profitable, which it undoubtedly is.

    It’s partly not even about the price of the chargers themselves; it saves even more in “hidden costs” like just the fact that now you can have a single SKU for the whole world (or large parts of it at least) instead of keeping 10 different ones (per phone variant). Stuff like having to keep way less stock variants for RMAs, much simplified shipping, etc.





  • Since arbitrations are charged a fee per customer someone figured out that you can do an effective “class action” against valve by having many people submit the same arbitration claim against valve and costing them so much through the arbitration fees that it it was almost impossible for them to cone out on top regardless of the outcome of the arbitration (iirc).

    It’s not even that they’d have to pay for it; usually the filing party has to pay. Valve tried to be the good guys and while they did push for arbitration they said that they’d pay your arbitration fee for you, basically allowing you to file a legal complaint against them at their expense.

    And then some fucking legal company figured out it’s a neat loophole on how to bleed them through arbitration where the point isn’t really the result but the costly process. Guess that’ll teach Valve to try to be better than others. :|