Long term, why would it be limited to $1000?

This is honestly an issue about the long term prospects of our species. More and more production is becoming automated, resources owned by a small proportion of the population, and complex work likely going to AIs. This causes a fundamental breakdown of our current system - people working is largely “redundant” in a world of automation; people are less and less of a “resource” and capitalism begins to make less and less sense.

We’re playing with the idea of UBI now, but we’re going to need solutions to this problem. Whoever owns the robots, AIs, land/resources owns everything. Either we let this be concentrated in the hands of an arisocratic class of billionaires, or we rebuild the system and accept capitalism is over. If people can’t “sell” their time through work, then how are people going to live. UBI is not a single solution in itself - it could allow a utopia or it could be a dystopia to that enables more control by those who want to own everything.

I know it all sounds very science-fiction but this is the reality our world is sleep walking into. Instead of coming up with plans to face this, our politicians are unsurprisingly pissing about focusing on nonsense and tinkering at the fringes of the problem at best.

I don’t have a Mac but I can offer you a viewpoint: in general it is better to compartmentalise your data and if you’re using products by the big tech companies (Apple, Google, Microsoft, Meta etc) then to separate date between them as much as possible. In other words, don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

If you’re on a Mac, you’re in Apple’s ecosystem. In some ways they provide better privacy as they’re not as dependent on advertising like Google for example, however they do have advertising buisness and are still mining your data and profiling you as it’s their business to sell you stuff whether that’s more Apple hardware or digital content.

So I personally wouldn’t be using all their various apps without knowing in detail what data is going to them. Web browsers, email and calendars are data gold mines, as are anywhere you shop for content such as App stores, music, video etc.

If I were on Apple, I would be using Firefox so as to wall off as much as my data from Apple as possible. I’d also consider Thunderbird for email & calendar to remove Apple from that data trove. I personally also pay for my email service rather than using anything bundled in (i.e. iCloud) - the reason being you’re not beholden to one provider longterm and can access and migrate your data on other devices (e.g. not Apple in the case of iCloud).

Apple tries to sell itself as a bastion of privacy. It’s not - it’s probably a bit better than some of it’s competitors but it still is involved in user tracking and selling data to advertisers. They made a fanfare about letting users disable advertiser tracking on iPhones but what they didn’t make as much noise about is that they actually built the tracking tools in the first place, and they’ve been building their advertising business as the services side of Apple is big money (it’s app store, it’s content etc)

I’m not sure how much better privacy Chromium has; it is “degoogled” by default but that doesn’t mean it’s necessairly more private.

If you wanted better privacy and control then Librewolf is probably the better option - it is Firefox stripped of the telemetry tools, default google search links (which are minimal in Firefox, just default search engine) and privacy hardened (including HTTPS only & default install of Ublock Origin extension)

I’ve not read the series but similar to you it’s one that’s caught my interest. However I have been told it’s better to start with Startide Rising and come back to the first book Sundivers later on as it’s a different style of book and not essential to the rest of the series.

I hope you recover soon. I’ve been depressed in the past and convinced that suicide is the right path. It is not - when you’re mentally ill you lose perspective and people telling you “it’ll get better” or “life is worth living” but thay will seem hollow.

If you find it difficult to understand why people want you to live then maybe think of it this way: what have you got to lose? If you’ve decided it’s over and there is no point, then you might as well try the support and the medication because you’ve got nothing left to lose.

I’m glad I took the support and the meds. It did get better, and that was the route for me to heal and change the direction of my life.

I hope you try, and maybe realise that it wouldn’t be a true decision if you’re too mentally unwell to make a rational decision.

Two reasons.

One is to ensure people do not come to harm or allow harm to others. As harsh as it seems, the whole point is to stop people from killing themselves or enabling someone else to kill themselves.

The other is to prevent illegal drugs coming in to mental health units. Unfortunately mental health services are also overwhelmed by social issues and drug use is rife. The units don’t want to deal with high patients who can be aggressive or even OD.

It can seem harsh but it’s not like a prison. A prison is punishment, while a mental health unit is often a place to hold someone in a crisis so they can’t harm themselves. The loss of freedom and dignity can feel like punishment, particularly on over stretched understaffed units but they’re trying to save lives. It’s a blunt tool as a last resort.

This sort of makes sense but not for quite the same reasons. This may be an attempt to simplify their licensing arrangements so they can resell them or bring them in house. It’s easier to cancel all the licensing agreements in one go so they can then make a fresh exclusive arrangement with a single company.

It’s less about competing with the existing games (which they already control through licensing) and more to do with being able to sell or use the licensing cleanly without worrying about pre-existinf commitments.

Like, for each new game either you do legal compliance to make sure you’re not breaching your previous agreements OR you cancel all the agreements in one go and you never have to bother worrying about it. Saves money but also makes you the sort of company businesses will be wary doing deals with. But they probably have a deal with a big publisher lined up or intend to take the whole thing in house.

It’s the first expensive iteration of something that could become viable if costs come down as production scales up.

In fairness to Apple, it’s a powerful device and is the sort of device VR manufacturers are trying to converging towards. Their’s is an all in one unit, with powerful on board processing so it gives high quality VR without tethering. It also has a lot of sensors built in, both negating the need for external sensors and hand control devices.

Compare that to other high end VR, and the competition remains high end tethered devices such as the Valve Index which is an expensive headset, limited to a room with sensors, tethered to a decent gaming PC, and requiring hand controllers to interact with the world. At the other end you have cheaper all-in-one devices like the Quest 2 which try to do what the Vision Pro does to an extent but are too limited techwise due to the price point they’re targetting.

A valve index is about £1k, and a decent gaming PC is about £1-2k depending on how high end you go. The Vision Pro is £2.7k ($3.5k, but pre-tax); more expensive and perhaps offering less than the PC would beyond VR but still not crazy far away numbers wise. And it is offering a paradigm shift towards how VR is likely to be in the future.

All the stuff about it being a “new” device type (“spatial computing”) is marketing nonsense - this is an AR/VR headset but it is one that’s ahead of it’s time as an expensive gamble by Apple to take a stake in the future. Expect a Vision Pro 2 in the next year or two with similar power but a lower price, but also I’d expect other manufacturers such as Meta and Valve to be converging on the same type of device from the other direction. But I’d honestly expect it to be more like 5+ years before such devices with similar specs to the Vision Pro are mass market and “affordable”. Like, £3k for a headset would be a no to me; but £1.5k for something that did that… that’d be expensive but getting into an affordable luxury for me. And is they were convincing around some of the “spatial computing” type productivity apps missing from game centred VR being a UIP, then it’s more like considering a new lap top and a £1.5-2k devices starts becoming a real consideration.

And as an expensive gamble it seems to be paying off. Supposedly 200,000 sold so far at $3.5k a pop - thats $700m in revenue. Even if it’s not massively profitable per device, thats a good user base for such an expensive product and hints this could be something that does well as the price comes down. This is well away from mass market appeal, but I can see a trajectory where this becomes affordable as a luxury computing device first before eventually becoming mass market.

Yeah it really is. It’s apparently pissing off Germany in particular within the EU - versus it’s size and other nations, France has provided relatively little in aid compared to Germany, UK, US, and Macron initially undermined the joint front being put forward as you say. Now he is grandstanding and seemingly trying to “lead” while also seemingly advocating escalation.

Everyone else is treading a fine line between confronting Putin and not escalating things further.

For what it’s worth, I actually do think we should be doing more because Putin is a dangerous tyrant and appeasement over the past 20 years hasn’t worked. He invaded Georgia and now Ukraine twice, he interferes in global elections undermining democracy and he is an authoritarian dictator who wants to expand his influence further into his neighbours. But Macron is not a credible leader for that, and whatever happens needs to be co-ordinated and carefully actioned - where there is more sanctions, or targeted military support.

Sadly the US, UK and Germany are also all led by weak leaders and for now there is no credible leader to galvanise western democracies to work better together. I don’t see any strong up and coming leaders in the forthcoming UK and US elections (barring a surprise in the US elections given the age of the candidates; and even then it’d likely be Kamala Harris or Nikki Haley, neither of whom seem likely to be much difference), Germany is unlikely to yield a leader in the near future. That does ironically leave the next French presidential election as the best opportunity for someone better to emerge, but I suspect it will degenerate into another “anyone but Le Pen” election.

Yeah, although if the American state were sponsoring said crazy preacher it would be an issue. The Rabbi and his Yashiva are sponsored by the Israeli government as the article makes clear.

It’s good to be self aware and self critical but I think you’re over analysing yourself and putting negative labels on you.

A true psychopath wouldn’t care or have the ability to care.

The way you describe yourself you sound like you’re intelligent and insightful, and it’s unsurprising you would get on with older people if you’re more mature than others of your age.

You do need to be careful about inadvertently manipulating other people to your way of thinking - anyone needs to be careful of that, but particularly if they’re skilled in being persuasive. Just because you can persuade people to your way of thinking does not mean you are always right. I’m able to do the same in real life but have to frequently stop myself and think - it’s really important to learn to be open to other positions before you rush in and try to change people’s minds.

Having said all that, that is not “gaslighting”. You may need to understand what your friend is saying. It may be that actually you are doing a good thing in persuading them. Or it may be you’re inadvertently doing harm.

Or it may just be that your friend is very impressionable - some people are a bit like pillows - they will take on the opinion of the last person they spoke to much like a pillow takes an indent from the l last head they laid on. That’d be their problem, now yours.

But you probably need to understand what it is your friend is saying so you can reflect on whether they are right or wrong to blame you.

Overall though, you seem to take quite a negative view of yourself or are worrying you are a “bad person” (although a psychopath isn’t bad, they’re just built differently; but obviously that seems bad to a lot of people). The fact you worry about being a psychopath shows you are not one, but also it shows you seem to be feel bad or guilty about who you are. You should explore why that is. As others have said, therapy can be a good way to do that. But having self awareness and a degree of self criticism (within limits) is already a powerful thing; but it can be a bad thing when that is paired with low self esteem.

Yeah we’re in the middle of the idiocy of an AI speculative boom. People will try and bend anything to include AI for attention or to make money, and “journalists” will lap up this crap. Bring on the bust.

Yeah, Microsoft is trying to normalise the idea that your own personal email client should be open to them to access and steal your data so they can advertise at you.

Fuck windows and fuck outlook.

Thunderbird is free and entirely private on all platforms (And K9 mail on Android is also maintained by the Thunderbird team)

There are extensions for that.

In Firefox Consent-o-matic and Ghostry both do a good job in android and Linux/Windows.

I have no idea if they have that on iOS though given Apple forces browser makers to reskin Webkit.

This is not shrinkflation.

440ml is a UK variant. No one has a confirmed explanation for its existence alongside 500ml, but it’s been around for decades.

However 440ml of water would be 0.44kg which is just under one pound imperial weight (0.45kg). Presumably the fluid plus the aluminium can would weigh about 1lb which may explain the odd volume measure (given transport costs are often by weight and possibly even how customs costs may have used to work?).

440ml is a UK variant. No one has a confirmed explanation for its existence alongside 500ml.

However 440ml of water would be 0.44kg which is just under one pound imperial weight (0.45kg). Presumably the fluid plus the aluminium can would weight about 1lb which may explain the odd volume measure (given transport costs and possibly even how customs costs may have used to work?).

This to me sounds like a misuse of DMCA - it’s original open source code not stolen code, so the only “infringement” is dubious around whether you can clone a game or if a game belongs to whoever “owns” it. I can see they could have grounds to take the project to court to establish whether their copyright ownership of Wordle prevents anyone making their own version, but using DMCA for independently made code seems like a big overstep. Two corporations (Microsoft and the NYT) making decisions about whether software can be posted, and the poorly thought out DMCA rearing it’s head again.

That us a big red flag.

That tells you that people often want to leave that company, and they try to force people to stay. It also speaks volumes about the management culture that rather than entice people to stay they try to make it difficult to leave and punish people for doing so.

Also it’s likely illegal - if you work the hours it’s your money.

It depends what your situation is - I’d only take that job if absolutely desperate and no choice, and keep searching for something better. I’d write off the half month salary but consider options on making complaints to get the money after I had something better lined up.

Even if everything else about the company is fine, I’d be very wary of the management culture long term.

Weird, it’s marked as both Native and Proton compatible on Proton DB, which I find reliable. People are saying the native version can be broken but Proton works. You can run non steam games (e.g. GOG version) via Proton too by adding the game to steam as a “non steam title”.

For witcher 2: https://www.protondb.com/app/20920

I’ve been building a sharepoint site at work as that’s what we have “free”. It’s such a poor tool - so clumsy and blunt and it annoys me that all this information I’m putting in to it is essentially in a proprietary inaccessible format. Even the integrations with the rest of the office suite and teams are clunky and a bit shit.

I’d much rather use a separate CMS but Microsoft bundles everything together in Office that you can’t get a look in for something else.