FriendOfDeSoto

but nobody is discussing this initiative

Well, go ahead. Discuss it. I don’t know what it is.

Not everything but a lot. The short answer is cost. This will be long and simplified simultaneously:

Ever since the latter half of the last century companies have really loved one way to reduce cost in manufacturing. And that’s labor. Go to a place where the cost of living is low and work those people to the bone for a pittance.

After WW2 a lot of stuff was made in Japan, then in South Korea and Taiwan, and then China. We have since moved on to places like Vietnam, Myanmar (when politically palatable), and India. All of these stories are different and the same. Japan’s industrial heartland was bombed to smithereens and had to be rebuilt, top of the line. People needed jobs, those people were good at it too, and manufacturing jobs went there. The economy grew, wages grew with them, and it became too costly again. Enter South Korea, after successfully democratizing in the 80s (I think). They looked at what Japan had done and did a version of that. The economy grew, wages along with it, and it also became too expensive. Enter the People’s Republic of China in the 90s, ready to blend communist political power with Manchester red capitalism. A billion people who need jobs. So they looked at what the other so-called tiger states had done and did a version of their own. The economy grew, wages grew with it, and they are teetering on the edge of being to expensive again. But their sheer size, both geographically and inhabitants-wise, keeps them in the game longer. Because the policies the communists implemented to grow and steer the economy are quite unique and perhaps the lack of having to explain everything (i.e. democratic oversight) puts them in quite a strong position. And over the last 30 years anybody who is somebody has gone to China. Big market to sell goods to, big labor force to make stuff, somebody else’s rivers to pollute. It was so tempting a deal that both the US and Europe blindly became very dependent on China. Certain base chemicals, e.g. for medicine, were almost exclusively produced there. I think there world’s entire canned mandarin industry is one village in the middle of nowhere. It takes time to change this. 47 is trying to do it the impulsive, not so thought through way (tariffs). But he may yet learn that you cannot make an iPhone in the States for the price suicidal youths put it together in Shenzhen. At the heart is always cost. Labor is expensive in Ohio, cheap in Guangdong. Slightly cheaper in greater Hanoi. If we could just stop the genocide and coups, Myanmar. India has a harder time catching up because - at least for the time being - there is democratic oversight. But the gravy train will move on. Subsaharan Africa will be the next big thing. Capitalism.

No. This is how the legal system works. When you appeal to a higher court, they can make a call themselves when massive mistakes were made at the lower level or they can say the lower court overlooked something and then make them redo their work. It’s a convenient choice for the higher judges not to have to do more work themselves. But it’s part of the process.

Loosely defined legal terms. A “computer program” can be copyrighted. You can write your own that does the same thing but you cannot copy the other code and slap your label on it. With a lot of imagination and bending the words of the shitty outdated law, you could say a website is also a “computer program.” You cannot just go into the code and change it, e.g. by blocking ads. The lower court ruling didn’t take this possible interpretation into account and now has to rule again with this in mind. Nothing’s been decided yet. We’re running a little hot in this thread on misleading headlines.

You would be building it on pretty much the same legal foundations. So it will just be history repeating.

Let’s take a deep breath and consider what’s happened. The Federal Court of Justice has sent the case back to the lower court. They have not ruled on anything. They have not said ad blocking is piracy. They have essentially said: lower court, you had 25 boxes to tick but you only ticked 24 in your ruling. Go back and do one that ticks all of them.

It’s entirely possible that the lower court will change its ruling based on the intricacies of German copyright law, which is shit. But it’s not very likely if you ask me. Regardless, whoever loses will appeal it again. This rodeo is far from over. And when it’s eventually over the technology will have moved on, with any luck the law along with it, and the only beneficiaries will have been the lawyers.

So the headline should read more like “German court does not rule out that ad blocking could be a copyright infringement.”

The argument that Axel Springer is just doing it for their love of democracy is also comical. Media pluralism is important, I agree with them that far, but they are stuck in an outdated mindset. They launched a silly tabloid Fox News wannabe TV channel and failed. They are trying to force eyeballs on their content like you are at a news agent. Meanwhile, news is happening on TikTok and so-called AI is going to reduce their page views to dust. By the time we get a final ruling they will have pivoted strategy 10 times to keep the c-suite in caviar while the established media business that made them successful is rotting away under their assess.

[Find in Page:] “Parent”=0 “Parents”=0 “Father”=0 “Mother”=0

It’s their job to guard their kids from this content first and foremost. It’s their job to put it into context for their children. But the article doesn’t even mention that any of this is a humongous failing of parents.

Next this commissioner will want to outlaw computer mice because they’re used to click pornographic content without verifying the age of the finger on the button. And roads because adult content actors use them to get to jobs.

The way forward is not banning or making worse all sorts of useful tools as collateral damage in this “think of the children” campaign. It is to get all adult content everywhere behind a barrier toddlers cannot break. We were fine with porn mags partially obscured on the top shelf at a news agent when that was a thing. And the salesperson making sure the customer wasn’t a minor. The solution isn’t closing all digital news agents.

And it’s quite telling that the existence of VPNs didn’t play a bigger part in this UK online safety initiative. Like it wasn’t obvious that when the west entrance to porn central was closed off, people wouldn’t naturally look for the ones in east, north, and south.

Edited typo

Touché. If I were in your place I would still try and find another forum, even if you ended up giving all your data to Discord or something like that.

One of the reasons is adversarial policies. They will sniff out you’re using a VPN and they will throw stuff at you. Oh, weird activity from your account. Oh, change your password. Oh, we need to get a proper ID from you. Unless you’re getting $$$ betting info, it just doesn’t seem worth the effort.

Just out of interest: what’s on FB messenger that makes all the things you are willing to do to circumvent the grubby data tentacles worth it? I’m just asking because I came to the conclusion not to use FB a while ago and I haven’t looked back.

Everybody draws their own vague red lines in the sand. There is no universal law. If you like it and it doesn’t feel icky, go ahead and like it. If it feels icky, don’t. Or make sure they get no money out of your enjoyment.

Flip a coin or start both on Duolingo and see which one interests you more. This is only a hard decision in your head. If you’re not planning to move to somewhere where they speak either, this is just a hobby.

They are both romance languages so you’ll find mental handholds in either language that can help you with the other. Similar conjugations, spellings, irregularities, etc.

The French you’ll learn with internet resources or most text books will most likely be French French. As a learner, that will probably still make understanding the Quebecers an extremely hard task. It’s like somebody from a Louisiana bayou talking to a Scottish highlander. On paper, they are both able to speak English but there are accents and differences in vocabulary that increase the level of difficulty, even for native speakers.

Become active in your local politics. That’s where this urban design sausage is made. I’m gonna go ahead and doubt that your post here will reach many decision makers and urban designers.

The reason why you can’t angle that parasol is because it will cost more money. Anything the public can use will be abused and then broken. We cannot have nice things.

Fixed typo

Never accept a pasta served by an “Australian mushroom.”

This verification efforts were kicked off earlier this month; this app hasn’t really launched yet, has it? I think proper implementation after a test phase will maybe come next year. I think it is too early to complain that aftermarket OS’s are being excluded. It seems to me that nobody has tackled that problem yet rather than this being a willful exclusion. And while the EU lawmakers thought it was okay to put the Googles of the world in a position where they get to be judge, jury, and executioner for the right to be forgotten, I have a feeling that GDPR and the general vibe within the EU will not allow this to only work with the help of one American corporation on the continent’s most used OS. We need to be watchful but not despairing just yet.

I think you can trust the operational side of it. I don’t think they’ve had many detrimental oopsies, the services work. I used them for a year and then jumped ship. One reason is the favorable comments by their CEO about the 47 administration, which I didn’t like. Another reason is the nitty gritty - they don’t clearly advertize what’s part of what package and I felt that was by design to get you to upgrade. And they definitely see themselves as a basket for all of your eggs. If you are moving there because you want to degoogle your life you end up just protonizing it. It’s better to spread around your stuff so you’re not dependent on one provider. If you just want a good VPN and don’t care about the rest of their services and the politics, you could make worse choices.

Florida Man strikes again.

Das war Englisch.

No.

The rise of progressivism has nothing to do with corporations decorating themselves with the relevant messages where it suits them. That’s just marketing. You see that in companies who championed the marginalized during the previous administration and dropped it near instantly when 47 came in. That’s corporate opportunism.

We have seen the rise of representative democracy, of fascism, the rise of communism in the past. I don’t think we have seen anything that deserves a similar label with regard to progressivism. There is a general sine curve thru the ages of left-leaning and right-leaning politics. And thru the swings from one side to another we have still abolished slavery, enfranchised women, built social security nets, decriminalized abortion (or at least permitted it in some cases) and same sex relationships, etc. A lot of it was built on political movements but I dare say none that rose to the top and stayed there. So a rise of progressivism is as non-sensical to me as a rise of conservatism. They are just opposite ends on the political scale and we dance from one side to the other and back again.

I think it’s because these are people with the power to do more than thoughts and prayers. But they just stick with that while also taking health care off veterans and giving tax breaks to the rich.