Touch screens also seem like they would be easier to integrate with subscription services. Auto manufacturers are looking to make things like heated seats a subscription.

Cars have been getting steadily worse. There doesn’t seem to be any enforcement of recalls (has anyone satisfactorily had the Honda Civic 2016-2021 air conditioning resolved? How much did you spend?)

If they can take cars away from us entirely, and move to us renting self driving cars, that’s what they would really want to do. Pay for your radio, pay for heat and AC…

He’s just saying the quiet part out loud. Billion dollar corporations have never had any interest in doing anything to solve the climate crisis. Lots of the failure of late stage capitalism is that companies are driving off the cliff. It’s about extracting as much now so that CEOs can live large and hope their progeny gets to colonize Mars (which won’t happen.)

What’s really fascinating is how many of the advice communities for certain sexual practices are run by bona fide rapists.

The only time that account has ever been used on that computer had been to log into YouTube, once.

I’ve just never had this happen with any other service. Usually you are expected to click through something to log in with google. The fact that Reddit is looking at every google account your computer is logged into, and then forcibly logging in any that are associated feels like a serious violation of privacy.

Charity can serve as a means of control. This is way Republicans advocate against social services.

The government cannot mandate that you attend church to receive EBT. A church can require you attend a service to feed you.

I’ve heard from friends in Utah, for example, that access to many social services is through the church. Friend was trying to rescue a girl from FLDS - pretty much all job training/housing required she play along with mainstream Mormonism.

Orgs like the Salvation Army are known to require trans people to detransition to recieve services as well.

Another benefit is the rent seeking - Goodwill is a good example. You can still turn a profit with the right combination of PR, and tying access to services based on things that’ll make you profit (Goodwill “provides employment” for disabled people - they are legally allowed to pay them far below minimum wage.)

It’s the two pillars of the contemporary Right - control and grifting.

I played whatever version was easily accessible on Ubuntu’s repository in 2009, and once managed to get a ton of bitches and effectively infinite money. I have no idea how I did it.

[W]e found a loophole. Their systems were programmed in such a way that you didn’t have to receive 10 books, you only had to order 10 books. So we found an obscure book about lichens that they had in their system but was out of stock. We began ordering the one book we wanted and nine copies of the lichen book. They would ship out the book we needed and a note that said, “Sorry, but we’re out of the lichen book.” One of these days we’re going to get all those lichen books dumped onto our front lawn.

It’s frustrating, because you can tell they spent a lot of time making the words weaselly enough. The one about climate models especially enrages me, because yeah, they’re predictive tools with limitations (which I’ve discussed with students when I’ve taught with climate sims). But I know my old department head (who used to compliment kiddos for forgoing masks in 2020) is going to have those “uncertainties” do a lot of work.

The Franklin Standards need to be on everyone’s radar. They don’t want your kids to learn about climate change.

Explain how and why Earth’s climate changes over time.

Climate changes continually at all time scales and Earth’s climate has never remained constant.

The Earth’s climate has varied greatly between glacial advances and retreats that correlate with cyclical oscillations in Earth’s orbit around the Sun (Milankovitch Cycles, precession).

In addition to being affected by the climate, the biosphere also has a significant effect on the climate, including self-regulation and resiliency (carbon-oxygen cycle, hydrological cycle).

Humans are just one of the many influences on Earth’s climate (urban heat island effect, wetland drainage, deforestation, agriculture).

Computer models of climate are simplified simulations of the real world, and make prognostications that are inherently uncertain.

Global weather forecast models (short term) and climate models (long term) are quite different in their design, their strengths, weaknesses, value, limitations, and uncertainties.

The wording is subtle, but you can see how they are attacking the idea of anthropogenic climate change. (There’s similar fuckery with evolution and some subtle anti-trans stuff.) Oil and gas companies have a lot of money and can afford a lot of propaganda. No states have adopted these standards yet - we think Florida and Texas will go first, then Oklahoma will follow. But this information warfare.

I have to use a windows 11 machine for work, and it genuinely surprises me how terrible it is. I don’t understand the opposition to local accounts - if I’m working somewhere with public WiFi/capture portal, I have to use my phone as a hotspot first.

The PIN log in seems to roll a random number and decide each morning whether it is going to work or not.

I also got a laptop with 11 on it for gaming. So much spyware I’ve had to uninstall, configuring anything is a nightmare. I was trying to adjust my mouse sensitivity/figure out why the scroll wheel is either 0 or to the moon, but even when you dig into the control panel, half the settings are missing.

I also had to turn off my WiFi and google commands to make a local account, because otherwise Microsoft accounts are mandatory.

Every change seems to make the experience actively worse for the user.

I read this as talking about BadBIOS at first - did that ever turn out to be real, or was it just paranoia?

They don’t play well with Linux. Occasionally my HP laptop will turn back on SecureBoot with no warning. There’s also like a full minute of delay between opening the thing and keyboard strokes registering. (Iirc, HP is so Linux hostile it’s not really supported by Arch)

What even is a NPU, if it’s not necessary for the software to work?

I thought it was hilarious how redditors fell for some guys bait/fetish post. Iirc the guy admitted to making it all up in some dm’s

As can/do Facebook and every other social media platform. But I find it hard to take this idea that TikTok is an arm of the CCP seriously when I routinely discuss Ughyur Muslims and Tiananmen square with folks, and see depictions of Chairman Mao as Pooh Bear.

The more shady shit is the shop and how every third video is an unlabeled ad. TikTok wants to make money first and foremost. I don’t think TikTok is some force for good in the world, but what they are doing is no different from what Meta and Google are doing.

I use TikTok routinely. I actually spend time on Chinese parts of TikTok, because I know a little Chinese. I’ve seen content that the CCP would be very much opposed to - including discussions of the Tank Man from Tiananmen Square and homosexuality in Chinese history.

TikTok has censorship certainly, but it’s more targeted towards the Gaza conflict.