dangeresque's recent activity

  1. Comment on Satire publication The Onion buys Alex Jones' Infowars at auction with help from Sandy Hook families in ~society

    dangeresque
    Link Parent
    That link now redirects to a different domain. Just straight-up blatant bankruptcy fraud, and they will never be held accountable for their crimes.

    That link now redirects to a different domain.

    Just straight-up blatant bankruptcy fraud, and they will never be held accountable for their crimes.

  2. Comment on Satire publication The Onion buys Alex Jones' Infowars at auction with help from Sandy Hook families in ~society

  3. Comment on Google is testing the ‘impact’ of removing EU news from search results in ~tech

    dangeresque
    Link Parent
    I mean, Google has essentially committing large-scale copyright infringement for a good decade (longer?) at this point. Ever since they started putting substantive information and answers directly...

    I mean, Google has essentially committing large-scale copyright infringement for a good decade (longer?) at this point. Ever since they started putting substantive information and answers directly into the search results page, thus depriving the sources from which they scraped that information of any of the clicks and revenue that everyone so craves. Now with the proliferation of LLMs, that's only getting worse.

    Google's shunning of EU publishers during this test will probably hurt EU publishers in the short term until the test is over. And yes, that might very well scare everybody into complying with Google's whims. But Google thinks that the internet is nothing without them... when actually the opposite is true. Google is nothing without the rest of the internet feeding them information.

    Google doesn't produce anything of actual value. Perhaps Google Maps (especially Street View) have a good amount of content that Google actually directly invested in producing... and even that isn't so much "original content" as it is simply original documentation of things in the world built by others. But I think every other part of their business is in providing a vehicle for one to find and ingest information and content produced by others. They keep getting greedier and greedier with presenting content directly to users while obfuscating where that content actually came from and preventing people from supporting those who actually produced that content using their own resources... and eventually those sources of information are going to wither, and Google will have no one left to steal from.

    You gotta take care of your plug.

    10 votes
  4. Comment on Is ADHD really that debilitating? in ~health.mental

    dangeresque
    Link
    Men gotta have an opinion about everything, even when they don't fucking get it. You don't need to white knight for ADHD women when somebody is recommending against the use a period tracking app...

    Someone ( a man ) replied back to tell me that ADHD women have enough to deal with these days and proceeded to list all the ways something like that could fail.

    Men gotta have an opinion about everything, even when they don't fucking get it. You don't need to white knight for ADHD women when somebody is recommending against the use a period tracking app lmao.

    The message is not that women don't deserve to use an app. The message is not even that a menstruation tracking app is inherently bad. The message is that these apps are made by companies who have a lot to gain from receiving and sharing information about this private part of one's life. There is absolutely no technical reason why these apps could not keep all their data locally... there is absolutely no technical reason why these apps must share this information with their author.

    The message is find and use an app that doesn't send your private data to some server to be analyzed and sold (and quite possibly be used for oppression). Open-source apps are not usually as pretty, because they're mostly made by passionate nerds in their free time who don't have the budget to create some fancy slick UI, but they can provide the functionality you need.

    I don't menstruate, so I have no opinions on which to use, but there are 5 apps currently actively maintained on F-Droid: https://search.f-droid.org/?q=period&lang=en

    iOS users are probably out of luck on this front.

    8 votes
  5. Comment on LGBTQ folks check-in thread - how're you all doing? in ~lgbt

    dangeresque
    Link Parent
    To be clear, per current estimates from AP, there's still around 7 million votes left to count. About 4 and a half million of those are from California. If the remaining ballots in all 12 states...

    The numbers for 2024 are still getting trued up

    To be clear, per current estimates from AP, there's still around 7 million votes left to count. About 4 and a half million of those are from California. If the remaining ballots in all 12 states with <98% counted come in at the same ratio for each state, Harris should wind up with ~75.5M votes, beating Trump's 2020 total.

    1 vote
  6. Comment on Understanding the leftist that didn't vote: "Everybody else gets one, but not me" in ~society

    dangeresque
    Link Parent
    I 100% agree. Unfortunately, here in the United States we've built a political system that maintains a very distinct left/right divide. Since we have a winner-takes-all system of geographical...

    I 100% agree. Unfortunately, here in the United States we've built a political system that maintains a very distinct left/right divide. Since we have a winner-takes-all system of geographical representation at basically all levels of government (except for in a couple cities and states which are experimenting with ranked-choice voting in the last few years), there is currently no chance for a third-party candidate to pull things in another direction, because any vote for a third party requires you to choose not to vote for the one of two major party candidates which you could maybe stomach. It's even worse in some D (and I'd assume R) stronghold cities where local elections are basically won during the primary because it's a given that their party will win the general.

    It really is a two-team sport right now. But you don't win by playing the best game, just by having the most fans. And the center-left team has been taking their loudest fans for granted and act like they can win by attracting fans from the other team.

    How do we reconcile the fact that our political system assumes, and even tries to impose, that the world is as simple as right vs left; when that has no basis in reality?

    3 votes
  7. Comment on Understanding the leftist that didn't vote: "Everybody else gets one, but not me" in ~society

    dangeresque
    Link Parent
    Here in the United States, the Republicans have branded Biden and Harris as the most radical leftist democrat communists this nation has ever seen, in spite of the fact that they have outright...

    But again, if OP's opinions are as wildly unpopular as they claim, then that will actively cause the politician doing so to LOSE other votes. Even if it gains them OP's. There is nothing to be gained for the politician to do that.

    Here in the United States, the Republicans have branded Biden and Harris as the most radical leftist democrat communists this nation has ever seen, in spite of the fact that they have outright milquetoast centrist pro-capitalism policies. Democrats have already lost the votes of most who fear left-wing politics, but since they don't actually take left-wing stances, they also lose the votes and enthusiasm of those in favor of left-wing politics. If the right is just going to lie and lie and lie and lie by claiming that Democrats are these radical leftists anyway, why not try making it true for once?

    5 votes
  8. Comment on Understanding the leftist that didn't vote: "Everybody else gets one, but not me" in ~society

    dangeresque
    Link Parent
    I don't think it really does. It'll vary by state, if anything. Maryland, for instance, does not report a total number of ballots received, just the number of votes tallied in each race. If the...

    I don't think it really does. It'll vary by state, if anything. Maryland, for instance, does not report a total number of ballots received, just the number of votes tallied in each race. If the total votes tallied in one race exceeds the total votes tallied in another, you can be sure that some people chose not to vote in one of them. You can also vote Write-In and usually be lumped with "Other Write-Ins" which can be construed as a protest vote, but doesn't explicitly mean that. There is no statistic that says "I showed up and dropped a blank ballot in the box because fuck all of you people".

    7 votes
  9. Comment on The Browser Company announces Arc Browser will no longer be their flagship product in ~tech

    dangeresque
    Link Parent
    Honestly I've never even heard of Arc, and the fact that it's proprietary would have kept me from trying it out anyway. Because no matter how good it is or was, a free web browser released by a...

    Honestly I've never even heard of Arc, and the fact that it's proprietary would have kept me from trying it out anyway. Because no matter how good it is or was, a free web browser released by a for-profit company will eventually need to do some anti-consumer shit to become profitable, and there'd be not a damn thing you can do about it.

    I've been Firefox-only for years. I'm not that interested in a Chromium-based browser which is chained to Google's vision for the web. The only reason I'm even considering looking for alternatives now is that Mozilla Foundation has laid off a third of their staff, and I'm worried they're past the point of no return. If they're that worried, why haven't I heard any appeals for donations, etc? They're just kinda quietly corporatizing and finding a path to profitability, which will surely damage their social mission.

    The good news is that Firefox is open-source and something new can rise from the ashes of Mozilla if/when they drive themselves into the ground. Chromium is open-source, too, but you'll never be able to fork it and cut your own path as long as it's in Google's clutches... and seeing that Google is one of the biggest companies in the world, and controlling how you access the web is one of the things that keeps them in that position, I don't see that changing any time soon.

    4 votes
  10. Comment on Hewlett-Packard wants you to pay up to $36/month to rent a printer that it monitors in ~tech

    dangeresque
    Link Parent
    You get the overpriced ink for "free". Also, I'm curious (but not curious enough to spend any time looking into it) whether they extend warranty and provide service in the event of breakage, like...

    Is there something in these subscription printers that a non-enterprise consumer would need?

    You get the overpriced ink for "free". Also, I'm curious (but not curious enough to spend any time looking into it) whether they extend warranty and provide service in the event of breakage, like you get in a typical corporate copier lease.

    3 votes
  11. Comment on <deleted topic> in ~tech

    dangeresque
    Link
    Dan and Jordan covered this on Knowledge Fight because they cover Alex Jones and Alex Jones covered this. It's a fascinating episode.

    Dan and Jordan covered this on Knowledge Fight because they cover Alex Jones and Alex Jones covered this. It's a fascinating episode.

    3 votes
  12. Comment on Subaru cars phone home to 3G cellular network that no longer exists - drains battery in ~transport

    dangeresque
    Link Parent
    This probably varies widely by make and model.

    This probably varies widely by make and model.

  13. Comment on Why is Popeyes so good? in ~food

    dangeresque
    Link Parent
    One way to ease a guilty conscience is that any time you give money to those Chick-fil-A fucks, donate the same amount of money to The Trevor Project. Everybody has a vice. Just try to minimize...

    One way to ease a guilty conscience is that any time you give money to those Chick-fil-A fucks, donate the same amount of money to The Trevor Project. Everybody has a vice. Just try to minimize the damage.

    4 votes
  14. Comment on Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s job is at risk after US House of Representatives votes to move ahead with hard-right effort to oust him in ~society

    dangeresque
    Link Parent
    Gaetz declared that he will "absolutely not" put himself forward for the position. He's a coward who wants to sit in the corner and shriek. He doesn't want to actually be responsible for anything.

    Gaetz declared that he will "absolutely not" put himself forward for the position. He's a coward who wants to sit in the corner and shriek. He doesn't want to actually be responsible for anything.

    21 votes
  15. Comment on Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California dies at 90 in ~society

    dangeresque
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    We've been brainwashed by corporate interests into believing that term limits are a good thing. Term limits are a bad thing. They reduce institutional knowledge and experience and keep the...

    We've been brainwashed by corporate interests into believing that term limits are a good thing. Term limits are a bad thing. They reduce institutional knowledge and experience and keep the revolving door a-spinning. This way, lobbyists are the only people in politics who know how the system works. Fresh-faced politicians have no chance against lobbyists when they don't have more experienced politicians who can show them the ropes, because they're all fresh-faced.

    Baltimore City recently passed a charter amendment to impose term limits on most elected officials in a question that was squeezed into the ballot at the last minute and was funded almost entirely by the executive chairman of Sinclair Broadcast Group... because if you have no chance to win in a hardcore Democratic stronghold, you can at least ban Democrats from electing the people that they think are doing a good job.

    The term limit initiative was coupled with a recall initiative as well, which failed to gather enough petition signatures for ballot placement. Because for some reason David Smith and his ilk wished they could recall the new mayor and return the chair to one of the corrupt bastards who have been running the city into the ground for the last few decades, who are exactly the type of people that we are told that term limits are supposed to kick out.

    We as a whole country need to be more willing to accept primary challenges and try to chip away at the ridiculous advantage that incumbency has in an election. But term limits are anti-democratic, as they remove the citizenry's choice to vote for the person that they like.

    4 votes
  16. Comment on Unlimited Kagi searches for $10 per month in ~tech

    dangeresque
    Link Parent
    @lux provided a lot more detail than I can come up with... but I'd like to add/reinforce that the results I've been getting from Kagi in the ~4 months (and 3,615 total queries) I've been using it...

    @lux provided a lot more detail than I can come up with... but I'd like to add/reinforce that the results I've been getting from Kagi in the ~4 months (and 3,615 total queries) I've been using it have been utterly fantastic. I've used DDG for a very long time, and I'd found myself needing to !g more and more in the last couple years... but even Google has been getting really bad at showing me what I'm actually looking for, and now just outright ignores you when you try to refine and specify your query. But I've only felt the need to try Google or DDG a handful of times in the last few months when I couldn't find what I was looking for on Kagi.... and in those cases, Google and DDG also didn't help. Kagi really has been that fantastic, even in some obscure and specific subjects that I wouldn't have expected their index to be complete enough to handle yet.

    I'd also like to add that while people here keep talking about the lack of ads, I want to de-emphasize the ads themselves and bring more attention to the clarity of the business model: Give money, receive services. It's straightforward. You don't need to worry about how they're paying for the free stuff they give you. The price is right there on the sticker.

    14 votes
  17. Comment on Hundreds of flying taxis to be made in Ohio, home of the Wright brothers and astronaut legends in ~engineering

  18. Comment on Hundreds of flying taxis to be made in Ohio, home of the Wright brothers and astronaut legends in ~engineering

    dangeresque
    Link Parent
    It's not so much that public transit budget was allocated to hyperloop, but that hyperloop pulled public and government interest away from real things, delaying the funding and approval of those...

    It's not so much that public transit budget was allocated to hyperloop, but that hyperloop pulled public and government interest away from real things, delaying the funding and approval of those real things.

    But, it also DID divert public money from competent public transit in Las Vegas. They could have decided to build a subway system, but instead they have a tube that Teslas get stuck in.

    2 votes
  19. Comment on It’s official: Cars are the worst product category we have ever reviewed for privacy in ~tech

    dangeresque
    Link Parent
    Perfect! I will have not received what I paid for, so I'll just take it back! When congress won't do their job, I feel like this is the only way to communicate displeasure to the manufacturers.

    Perfect! I will have not received what I paid for, so I'll just take it back! When congress won't do their job, I feel like this is the only way to communicate displeasure to the manufacturers.

    3 votes
  20. Comment on It’s official: Cars are the worst product category we have ever reviewed for privacy in ~tech

    dangeresque
    (edited )
    Link
    I'm about to buy a new Subaru. What happens when I read and do not consent to the privacy policies in the infotainment system after I've already bought the car? I can simply return it, right?

    I'm about to buy a new Subaru.

    What happens when I read and do not consent to the privacy policies in the infotainment system after I've already bought the car? I can simply return it, right?