Oh yeah, hardware prices are what’s preventing HL3 from coming out. Sure.

Why can’t they just ask copilot to program that for them?

My take on this is a little more fundamental than the whole ID/age thing. We all knew this would happen, and why? Because nobody has addressed the first problem. Security is only as strong as the weakest link, and companies are not transparent with customers.

Companies spell out in their Terms and Privacy statements that they have Affiliates that data gets shared with. And they want you to accept them all blindly, without clarifying who they are and what they do.

Even here, with a reported breach, they are not naming them and just calling them “third party”. So they screwed up and many people have their information and IDs out in the wild because if them, but we don’t even get to know who they are?

His are we to trust a company of we don’t know who they’re in bed with? How are we to rate their security and assess our risk of using their service without all the information?

As far as I can tell Discord handled it pretty well as far as breaches go. But maybe if I know they are using a shit company as one of their vendors I might think twice about using them.

Its the same logic as the next article in my feed, where crunchyroll is getting pushback from the subtitle service they are using. And that’s not even their own security in mind. People make choices based on what companies do, so be transparent with it all and we will have the warm fuzzies if things match up. If they don’t then the company gets customer feedback so they can adjust.

If 12 modems simultaneously handshake and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound? You’re damn right it does and probably shattered glass too.

Oh definitely. Xlookup and sumifs are probably my most common formulas. But I also source and combine data sources on a regular basis which is the real hitch in my use.

LibreOffice is great, but one of the problems is its not a business product. So sure, most everyone can do basic stuff and its fine. But if you’re a business, it really won’t cut it. And if you’re a power user of any of the app types, shifting away might not be possible.

But yes, my goal is 100% shift from MS. I just can’t shake excel until there’s a better alternative (or I stop having the need).

To be fair, I use excel (2019, not 365) frequently and I’m never prompted for anything. I had to jerry rig the installation so only excel installed and not the full suite of products, but other than that it’s been clean and perfect. Sure, I’m missing some features from 365, but one of those missing features is copilot. Everything else is perfect (and I need data sources and some other functions that aren’t in Calc which is why I still use it)

It could be viewed as reasonable if viewed alone. I think that its fine and could make a lot of sense for control over their platform.

The history of reddit sheds a different context in my mind though. Mods are volunteers. Subreddits were established to moderate themselves, implementing nuanced rules for their specific topics that might differ from other subs that need completely different rules and approaches. Its part of what made reddit unique compared to alternate sites.

Then they made moderating much more difficult by eliminating third party apps. Then they started implementing their plans to take the platform where they wanted it, which is fine because its their platform, but they wanted all their mods to do a bunch of work and in a certain manner to make it so. Very demanding on free labor.

So there’s mods still around and they want to restrict them more? Who knows, maybe that’s a great idea but they made the mess they’re in. This decision isn’t a single on on its own, its part of a stack of them.

I wholeheartedly agree with this perspective.

I started on a privacy journey because I didn’t like that I’m being tracked (by basically everybody) and feel that the technology that I pay for should be service to me, not me as a service to it (and its related parties).

Anyways, along the way I did a few things. Namely, I turned off mail notifications (this was an inadvertent feature since my mail service couldn’t send notifications without google services that I removed). I also removed my sim and use data only via a hotspot, to which I don’t always have on. These sound like crazy things, and admittedly they aren’t for everyone, but the resulting mental shifts are exactly to this point.

Just because I have a device that let’s me be available to anybody in any place at any time, doesn’t mean I should be, or even need to be, available unless I want to be.

Now I protect my time, and the mental clarity that comes with it. I never was a doom scroller, but even now that concept is even more reduced. The phone is my tool, and I use when needed.

insurance companies need to be holding the car manufacturer’s feet to the fire by not insuring cars

I agree with the sentiment, but unfortunately that screws over the owners far more and for far longer before it even impacts the car manufacturers.

Maybe a better attack (aside from government regulations) would be banks to not provide financing for loans to buy those cars. In the end, if the car is stolen they are at a loss so that makes sense.

People can’t get loans, so don’t buy the risky vehicle. It hurts a little in the now to direct them towards cars that will not be a problem in the future. And the car companies feel the sting of lost sales right away.

This company needs to get shut down. Invasive. Illegal. Immoral. They are ushering in a police state and anti privacy world, and of course profiting from it.

You can piss on us, but don’t tell us it’s rain.

Well, I was trying to bring a little humor to the conversation by just saying at least as a silver lining is that this other stupid crap is gone now.

If the AI “revolution” never came, I bet a thread just like this one would exist for metaverse or whatever saying how it’s destroying the internet. And think about it, entering an entire world just to hold this conversation where all users are known and conversations recorded…kind of like AI scraping.

You can see his it could get just as bad or worse. Hint: its not the technology that’s the problem, its the companies behind them - those wouldn’t be any different.

I’m not trying to downplay AI, I’m just being realistic of the world we live in and trying to not be so doom and gloom every second of the day.

But can we at least be thankful that it shifted focus from augmented reality? Prior to AI, the buzz was around things like the metaverse and digital avatars in your teams meetings.

Even crap AI is more useful than avatars in teams.

Reminds me of Don’t F*ck With Cats. Good watch if you haven’t seen it.

Sometimes in the darkness of the internet where all our worst sides come out and I get trampled by the evil of governments, corporations, and people in general…a small beam of light shines through illuminating the beauty of this world.

Today, your comment is that beam of light. You didn’t mean it to be, but sometimes little things have bigger impacts. Thank you. Have a great day.

I dont agree with every point made, but agree with the overall sentinent. My problem is that the same thing can be said about other retailers, especially the brick and mortar ones. Walmart, Target, Home Depot, …whoever. They’ve all done it, and continue to do it.

Small business? Yeah, those essentially don’t exist in this context.

I have always said, ecommerce isn’t killing brick and mortar retail. They are killing themselves. Why? Because I’ve never felt like a valued customer at any of the retailers out there. I’ve been absolutely shit on by all the big retailers out there. And that’s not even getting into their policies, politics, and other behind the scenes stuff that I do care about, but it doesn’t directly impact my shopping experience.

So then I can buy something online, from a wide selection, with competitive prices, have it delivered to my door quickly, and if there’s any issues have zero problem with returns? That works for me.

Now in modern times I can argue that they don’t always have great customer service, don’t always have great pricing (for what you get), and its not all sunshine and roses. But I don’t see a viable alternative.

Find me another retailer online or brick and mortar that can supply me well and treat me well and I’ll go. But small business cant compete. And big retailers when they had all the money and power they didn’t do that so now that they are the underdogs why would they do it? So it’s just not happening.

I agree with your general statement, but in theory since all ChatGPT does is regurgitate information back and a lot of chess is memorization of historical games and types, it might actually perform well. No, it can’t think, but it can remember everything so at some point that might tip the results in it’s favor.

Oh, what’s that in the corner? A random Uzi mag and health pack. Cool.

I like that idea bit it’ll never fly. That software is an asset. A bankrupt company needs every asset to be sold to cover as much percentage of their debt to their vendors as possible. I’ve been in a company that went bankrupt and I’ve been the vendor of a company that went bankrupt. Being the vendor was the harder experience.

Absolutely. Companies have every right to control what tools are authorized to use on their hardware, and what touches their data or users data. It could be as complex as security or as simple as don’t use a competing service, but it all makes sense. Don’t tell me how use my stuff and I won’t tell you how to use yours.

If it’s BYOD then that’s another multiple layers of cans of worms not worth getting into.