Unrelated, but I just found out there’s a .youtube TLD. Not sure how to feel about this.

Some features of premium actually sound really interesting, but I find myself struggling to reconcile my interest in both those features and the general idea of an internet that isn’t built upon ads with my strong dislike of Google and a sincere wish to give them as little money as possible.

We need to get our politicians to do a lot more, a lot faster.

So we’re still doomed, then? I’m sorry, I’m sure lots of this is meant to be incredibly uplifting, but it reads an awful lot like “green is cheaper, trust the market! Numbers go up, up, up!” when you consider that:

• Climate change is impacting countless people in horrible ways
• Climate change is still getting worse

The important thing to note here being that, even if a brighter future awaits beyond, the worst is yet to come. I’ll get back to this in a moment.

Yes, that the science to save the human race exists is nice. Really nice. There was a period in which I genuinely wondered if there was any chance humans wouldn’t extinct themselves. But that was years ago. I’ve since learned that “saving the human species” is a terrible, disgusting metric. The future of what I consider humanity remains grim.

Now, if the worst is yet to come, and we can’t yet even accurately predict how much worse the worst really will be, take a moment to reflect on this: which part of humanity is better prepared to weather the incoming changes, and which part is more likely to be labeled “climate change refugees?”

Humanity isn’t only the richest. It’s not merely the wealthiest and most developed nations. Humanity is also a lot of people who will suffer, people who I’m unconvinced will receive the aid and support they need and deserve.

Because the root cause of these issues, the systems that govern our society, have led us here and are unlikely to go away anytime soon. Because these systems have shown incredible prowess at protecting select groups of people from certain issues, while failing at completely fixing them, despite not struggling due to a lack of resources and continuous technological advances. If the pattern holds…

Then humans will survive. Many will live well.

Humanity is still pretty screwed.

TL;DR:

“The tools are here, we’ll be alright, just need political will!”

Who’s we? And if getting politicians to do what’s right was that simple, we wouldn’t be in this mess.

P.S. I’m not advocating for doom here, I just wish more people understood that Americans buying cheap Chinese electric cars won’t save the people living nearby the mine in Africa where the cobalt for those batteries was extracted.

“The elephant in the room – and the opportunity – is how to solve for the industry-created problem that people don’t like and don’t trust advertising,” said Garcia. “Privacy-enhancing tech doesn’t make creepy and disruptive ads less creepy or disruptive in the eyes of the average user.”

Emphasis mine.

Betting on your reputation that users will trust you to adequately handle an issue that really seems like it’d end up with a conflict of interest seems like a fancier manner of saying you’re risking taking a dump on your reputation.

No way through but forwards now, eh. Not feeling particularly optimistic, but I’m cheering for them all the same. Their concerns and observations about the direction the industry is headed in are valid.

Am I missing something?

Firefox is Mozilla’s most profitable product. Its millions of users enable Mozilla to make deals for sponsored content (e.g. shortcuts), integrations, and biggest of all: the default search option with Google.

I stand corrected, I see your argument about the comparative difficulty and effect of banning a browser vs an extension. The discoverability of the extension alone is a big point.

Not sure I agree with how you seemingly downplay the damage banning the browser could cause and fail to consider consider other ways people could organize to distribute extensions (even as you mention various ways to get Firefox, I’m a bit confused on this one). Others have already talked about this in the thread, so I won’t repeat it here.

With all that said, it appears we were both fools. Mozilla has returned the extensions already. It was neither about protecting Firefox in Russia, nor a case of “Fuck Mozilla.”

Would you be happier if they ignored the demands and possibly got Firefox banned in Russia? Because if so, it’s not that we disagree over our views of the Russian government. Probably neither do Mozilla.

We have different priorities. I want the average Russian to be easily able to use Firefox, even if it takes more work to load some extensions. From where I’m sitting, you seem to want to cut off your nose to spite your face.

I’m genuinely curious why.

You’re right, regarding Mastodon. I won’t edit my other comment, though, both to preserve the original chain of thought and because that brings up another discussion.

To quote the EFF:

We feel that the intended usage of the feature will not determine people’s expectation of privacy while using it.

Offering people a feature with preexisting expectations, similar to other things that fulfill those expectations, then telling people “We know it looks like a duck but don’t expect it to quack!”

…It begs the question: was the feature really a good idea?

And it’s also damming for private messaging on mastodon.

I once read vague complaints about it being a rushed implementation. While I won’t trust those without evidence, I for sure wouldn’t trust mastodon with my PMs. At least, not until how this was allowed to happen is figured out and fixed if necessary.

P.S. I’m still not sure I believe in PMs in the fediverse. If I need to share something and care about keeping it private, I’d rather move the conversation elsewhere.

Wrong Conway.

I won’t know if any of the linked resources are any good until I have time to look them over, but if nothing else I appreciate you taking the time to answer.

Re: whitewashing, fair point. I’d already read about the issue, but maybe I still need to rethink how I look at computing history.

If you’re serious, please elaborate on your points. I genuinely don’t understand.

Going by Wikipedia here,

She was a huge part

Please define huge part. She was a “key architect” in the starting years of a project that fell short of its goals.

her entire work has to be viewed through that lens

Why? It was, relatively speaking, an almost small part of her career. She didn’t stay until the end of the project. You even admit that her contributions to the field were many and meaningful.

is every explicit way connected to modern conflicts where military misuses AI to murder children

This feels like such a huge leap, that I don’t even know where to begin tackling it. Is Tim Berners Lee in every explicit way connected to the modern privacy hellscape that is the modern internet?

Make no mistake, if she really did want to help develop artificial intelligence for the military’s sake, fuck her. I can respect someone’s achievements while also thinking they’re trash as a person.

But I don’t think that’s the case here, and I’m lost as to what point, exactly, you’re trying to make.

It seems less anti-theft and more “data protection in case of theft.”

I’m not sure that’s a fair assessment (after all, what should a proper anti-theft measure even look like, then?), but that’s the best way I can describe it. From what I can tell, it’s more tech that attempts to lock the screen when it believes your phone isn’t safe.

More data protection is always nice, provided it works. Was AI the best way to do it? No idea. Don’t know if it’ll help with the actual theft any, since I believe the stolen phones are usually factory reset and then resold all over. User data was never the main appeal.

It’s mildly funny that this will be tested in Brazil. Something that is a bit fitting, a bit sad, yet I can’t help snorting at.

Don’t feel too jelly though, the actual profile manager has been in need of some care for a while, now…

…and it’s apparently getting it soon! No way they’ll hide the button after they polish it up, right? Happy times to come for all, I hope :⁠^⁠)

That’s unnecessarily dismissive. Unfortunately, even the best extensions have their downsides. Some used a browser that suited their preferences better instead, which is a shame for both Firefox and the user, in my opinion.

Mozilla recognizes this and is finally taking action to integrate highly requested features into Firefox. Many “who really care” are glad for this, because it is a good thing.

That’s a weird way to look at the projects, in my opinion (“if only X had Y, it would kill Z…”).

Helix and Neovim have different approaches to editing, configuration, etc. They don’t need to be competing for users. Neovim can exist for the people who want an editor with Neovim’s ideas, same for Helix, and that’s just fine.

Had a sound issue: output device options only listed “Dummy Output” and nothing was listed for input devices. I eventually got my headset to be recognized again, but sadly couldn’t tell you what did it, since I tried so many things and I lack proper understanding of the Linux sound scene.

Just in case it’s useful to someone, here’s a collection of ideas I found while working through the issue:

• Make sure wireplumber service is enabled and running OK
• Plug in an HDMI device and reboot (some people said this permanently fixed a similar issue)
• Backup, then delete $XDG_STATE_HOME/wireplumber and reboot
• Check if you have installed the packages:
  • kernel-modules
  • alsa-sof-firmware

Note, however, that I really don’t understand what some of these do. You should be very wary of taking suggestions from people who don’t know what they’re talking about… unless you’re desperate enough and want your sound back, perhaps.

…Also, here’s a gentle reminder to test your sound device with other equipment and try different ports/adapters, if available. Wasn’t my case, but sometimes stuff simply breaks at inopportune times.

That’s funny, same thing here. I’m very thankful to the stranger on a forum who suggested “blasting the motherboard with a blow-dryer.” Now sometimes I joke that my PC is diesel-powered.

Generally, I agree, but there’s some nuance.

Discussions are better when those who intend to participate read the content first. Realistically, though, we know many read the headline and jump straight into comments. I think that’s a culture issue, and that’s difficult to fix.

The bot can alleviate its impact by giving these people more context. Without changing culture, however, removing the bot from these discussions could ironically make them worse. At least, that’s how I see it.

I don’t really like it, but I believe it helps.

What actually confused me, though, is that if you lump in some privacy/accessibility/convenience concerns, I could kinda see the point of a “Saved 0%” tldr.

But, on a phoronix article? They’re one of the few tech journalism websites I still trust and am grateful for, that I turn uBlock off for. It’s like I’m missing some context, I need more info.

Yeah, that’s funny.

I considered opening an issue, having assumed that this was a bug and in such cases the bot might as well not comment at all, but apparently part of its intended purpose is saving people from having to open articles.

Not sure how I feel about that, to be honest.

That’s a shame, thank you for the input. I guess I could try Bluesky instead.

Not sure how up to date you are on Bluesky’s situation, but it might interest you to know they’ve recently started doing early-access federation. It’s… not ideal (opinion), but it’s moving along (fact).