We’re concerned that your home doesn’t look soul crushing enough. Please upgrade your home office by installing fluorescent tube lights and covering your walls with rough faded blue grey cloth, or we’ll need you to come into the office.

So the robots are now more successful at proving they’re human than I am.

Adobe rn:

I will find text versions of everything I need to learn about and create my own video, and then watch it.

“We see you had it toggled on for 16 seconds when you first opened the app, so that still counts. Also we can legally kill you if we want.”

And in Apple’s case they’re just being forced to pay back taxes, not even any fines. They’re basically undoing an illegal tax break from Ireland, which has spent $10 million in legal fees to fight against receiving it. Technically the Irish government is the one that fucked up here. Apple will have to pay and move forward paying a normal tax rate.

Do you know if people still play galactic starfighter (GSF) in SWTOR? Or if it’s gotten any updates? It became my favorite thing to do in game, but it wasn’t very popular, and last time I tried I sat in queue for a while before giving up. (I liked Squadrons but that also tapered off quickly.)

The rest of the game is great too. I treat it like FFXIV - play every now and then to catch up on the story, though it’s been a while since I’ve played SWTOR. I don’t know if I agree the story content is better than FFXIV (after ARR at least - especially Shadowbringers and Endwalker), but I can see why some people would like it more. It’s consistently good from start to finish. Anyone who likes Star Wars and gaming is missing out on a huge variety of stories and fun if they don’t play it.

Anyway, might need to give it a go again.

“Free calls. Free internet. For everyone. Forever.”

They’ll be dead, but their descendants will build self-sustaining fortresses with robot guards in the 11th hour, eventually surrounded by slums full of slaves who will fight each other for their entertainment.

The app showed me a skyscraper and now I feel inadequate.

Imagine seeing that message and buying another product from them.

“It’s time to artificially create waste. Don’t worry, you won’t see this message again. Our new cookers are designed to not last 10 years.”

Google search has some features that alternative search engines don’t. I use DuckDuckGo for 99% of everything, but I occasionally use Google to see local busy hours, or sometimes any hours, reviews, phone numbers without navigating a shitty website, etc.

I think there are ways to break up Google search on its own, and make some of those features separate and accessible on other search engines.

Then there’s the matter of advertising, data collection, SEO, exclusivity with corporations like Reddit, etc.

Google is doing things with its search that seem to intentionally reduce the ability of other search engines to compete with them, and that’s really all that the antitrust laws are meant to prevent.

SmarterChild ‘24

This is such a wild departure from real beauty pageants, which have always been known for pushing realistic beauty standards and for making normal women feel good about their bodies.

Yes, but those policies don’t provide political cover to eliminate everyone’s encryption and privacy, so…

I can charge mine when I shower and get dressed, and sometimes when I brush my teeth and feed the pets at night - about 30-60 minutes a day total. I wear it the other 23-23.5 hours, including sleep with the AutoSleep app. It sometimes gets down to 20% before charging.

If it didn’t charge so fast then it would be an issue for me.

In 200 years, AI will hack it for you, but you’ll need a dozen antique dongles to get from USB-Z to A.

It’ll be interesting to see if it applies to facial recognition. In iOS, at least, you need to look at the phone to unlock it. That’s an intentional action. If you look to the side or close your eyes, it won’t work.

So if you’re conscious, you can’t easily be forced to unlock the phone with your face and eyes if you’re able to resist. But if you’re unconscious, then maybe they could use your face (assuming your eyes aren’t rolled back into your head because the cops gave you brain damage.)

Hardware that is supported by ads or requires a subscription should be free, or better yet, not exist at all. Fuck paying $800+ for a TV that leeches forced ad revenue on top of the sale.

And fuck the TV manufacturers for enabling this behavior. Bring back non-smart TVs. I’ll never use Roku or Google built-in streaming, so they shouldn’t be on my TV at all.

And they profit from it. That’s mentioned there too, and it makes it that much more infuriating. They know exactly what they’re doing, and they do it on purpose, for money.

And at the end of the day, they’ll settle (who are the plaintiffs? Article doesn’t say) or pay some relatively inconsequential amount, and they’ll still have gained a net benefit from it. Another case of cost-of-doing-business.

Would’ve been free without the lawsuit even. Lives lost certainly aren’t factored in otherwise.