funny that nobody argued opposite: all the new services are primarily streaming/hosted and otherwise “not here”. New crop of tech solutions requires crap-ton of bandwidth. So caps prevent those companies from doing ripping off customers in other areas. How un-Republican is that? They are getting in the way of enterprises making a living! So the most Republican thing to do would be to let foxes watch the henhouse. Ask ISPs to regulate themselves so that “everybody”'s (and I mean every enterprise) happy. In other words getting in the way of this proposal is very much just “polid’ticking” trying to undo what dems are doing regardless whether it’s actually a conservative thing to do or not.

lack of “social intelligence”. They mostly rose through the ranks because their technical (or business) skill. They never had to act for benefit of others to advanve

I agree with cause and effect argument. I’m dealing more with present situation as-is. You have (indirectly) confirmed that it’s in Hamas’ interest to keep conflict alive to exist as an entity. (Note: I did not disregard points on Israel being the oppressor)

he tries to walk in Zelensky’s footsteps but fails on so many fronts: while Ukraine was the victim of oppression, Israel state is the source of it, ICC issued warrant for Putin and… Netanyahu (it’s interesting how US chose to ignore court order).

Hamas and Israel state work towards the same goal - maintain instability for their personal gain. Anybody glorifying Hamas is either stupidd or naive, so are people glorifying Israely army. To be solved this conflict requires new powers to arise on both sides that are ready for dialog and tired of fighting and able to sidestep existing powrr structures (or demolish them).

Best AI rant hands-down. I can agree with every word there.

that’s "disaster capitalism (read N. Klein for full understanding of what that entails) mixed with a real sh#tty situation in Gaza that was brewing for a long time. For all I can tell selected elite (on both sides) lines their pockets nicely while people are bring brainwashed and dying on both sides. On some days I really despise humanity…

not at all

I’m in the same boat. So I kill two birds with one stone when I shop for used dumb TVs - they are cheap and available as general population craves “smart”. Can’t loose there. I got 42" for $25 and larger ones can be had for under $100. So even if you’ll buy a lemon once or twice you’re still ahead

manufacturer may very well integrate add and update endpoints so that it’s rather hard to distinguish. For example, say Samsung decides to serve adds and updates. Doing so through https://serives.samsung.com/{ads,updares} they leave you with 0 handle on what’s going on, since the only thing your routers and proxies can see is “samsung.com” and differentiator is “hidden” after that. So TLDR; is: you either allow internet access or you do not, there’s no “a little bit”

don’t stress out about it - you’re on the right path, so just keep exploring. For music, depending on your location, there are various internet stations that broadcast indie and other stuff that is not mainstream. Also go to local concerts and buy CDs from artists - they actually need it. You should’ve been prepared to forfeit ownership of anything on amazon prime, kindle etc, for amazon has long history of denying people access to stuff they assumed they owned. For movies we collect DVD/Bluray disks as I don’t trust any of the streaming providers, nor do I want to share with them my viewing habbits (downside: you need storage space for those). For podcasts I love AntennaPod on Android. For books we always opt for unencumbered epubs, sometimes pdf which are abundant. Audiobooks through librivox are a thing as well. I will repeat myself: don’t stress out. Take it as a wild safari and go hunting for new and exciting things that are not entangled with big corps that suck the soul out of everything : artists, consumers, employees, shareholders, etc.

depending on where you are in phone replacement/upgrade cycle I would recommend Fairphone or looking into e/OS.

Like others mentioned don’t expect to do a wholesale jump. Slowly replace services with alternatives: Proton mail, NextCloud, Box, Dropbox, Lemmy, Mastodon to name a few services. There are numerous apps that can interact with those services so you’ll be spending some time going over those sorting what works for you.

To get the apps FDroid coupled with Aurora you can get most apps (that do not have explicit dependency on Googleware). Amazon App store is a possibility too for some commercial apps. For Youtube there are several alternatives like LibrePipe and NewPipe (but there are more). For existing social media site apps there are thin wrapper browsers that would “sandbox” each site allowing you to still use them while you slowly detach yourself: SlimSocial, RedReader, etc.

I’ve been Google-free for a bit now but I went with LineageOS+microG setup which may be challenging for you at this stage.

Treat it less as a crusade and more like multilevel challenge when upon completion of one challenge you get to complete another. It could be fun and liberating.

yeah, recent revelations seem to point that way

Ars posted that there’s some evidence to suggest board wanted to chase profit over ethics or somesuch. Altman apparently did not listen.

deleted by creator

form Ars

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/11/openai-president-greg-brockman-quits-as-nervous-employees-hold-all-hands-meeting/

According to reporting from Kara Swisher and The Information, it’s looking like the ouster of Altman stemmed from an internal disagreement over the direction of the company with regard to a focus on profits over safety… wasn’t too far off

All kinds of conspiracy theories are running through my head in light of further departures.

1. Board has asked Altman to do something shady, he said he’d do it but really he didn’t and they’ve got pissed firing him. Folks who were viewed as his “clique” naturally got worried and left before their names get tarnished.
2. Altman and a group of supporters were up to no good, board got a whiff of it and fired him, and everyone involved saw the writing on the wall and resigned
3. Board was shaping things up for acquisition, Altman opposed and was shown the door. Folks close enough to him understood the consequence and quit with their resumes clean of what’s to come. …

so many things will remain unknown for the nearest future it’s hard to tell who’s lying about what.

Whatever you’ve done to UI must be some atrocity as I do not experience issues with FF. You’ve never specified which FF extension you’ve used that had slowed down your browser.

Chrome (and by extension) Chromium and all derivative browsers are Google’s lever to truly control and shape internet to their liking. Multiple people said it already.

Personally I find Chromium UI very cumbersome and dislike it a lot. Which is to say we all have our own preferences for UI.

In your case you’d have to weigh your repulsion with available performant FF UIs vs future of internet and choose which decision can you really live with.

Just came across HAMAS leader openly enumerating benefactors: https://www.memri.org/tv/hamas-leader-abroad-khaled-mashal-russia-october-seven-chine-taiwan

“For your information, Russia has benefitted from our [attack], because we distracted the U.S. from them and from Ukraine. China saw [our attack] as a dazzling example. The Russians told us that what happened on October 7 would be taught in military academies. The Chinese are thinking of carrying out a plan in Taiwan, doing what the Al-Qassam Brigades did on October 7. The Arabs are giving the world a master class.”

So lets put it all in perspective. Some established facts first:

• Russia is pretty open with it’s declaration of love to HAMAS
• Iran really wants to “give it” to US
• Russia is sanctioned and desperate in it’s war with Ukraine, hoping biggest weapon supplier would stop supplying weapons
• Russia is best buddies with Iran
• Iran wants nukes
• Russia used to be buddies with Israel (esp. military-wise, which was cited as one of the reasons no military assistance to Ukraine came from Israel)
• Israel has it’s internal political problems.
• all the nations that now so keenly support Palestine and violence towards Israel never sent any significant investments or humanitarian aid to Palestine to beat Israel economically
• Israel was behaving as an a-hole towards Palestine for quite some time
• HAMAS has not moved Israel-Palestine relationship an inch and needs to show some activity

So, to me all of the above kind of adds up to: Palestine was used by everybody else to achieve goals absolutely unrelated to Palestine survival or prosperity.

If I were to make up a conspiracy theory, I’d say: Russia needed diversion real bad, they talked to their Iran buddies to stir dhit up in Gaza. Mossad snifs it out and does… nothing, opening door to unspeakable acts that followed, but also giving a pretext for “outrage” and rallying the nation against existential threat. Arab world leaders quickly jump on a familiar train of antisrmitism boosting their ratings locally and doing diddly squat to help Palestine (I mean help, not entrench them further in conflict)

In sum: both sides were comfortable sacrificing their own people (without people’s consent) to achieve political goals.

How is it a farewell if you’re still consuming Youtube content? Only exodus of consumers from the platform will prompt content creators to look for a different platform and maybe, MAYBE, force google to rethink. If you don’t like their practices, move off the platfrom, not just change the client.