I used to get this a lot, until someone reversed it on me, and I’ve thought about it this way ever since: If you can’t let yourself suffer because others might have it worse, then you also can’t let yourself be happy, because others have it better.

It’s all about personal experience and perspective.

Yeah, I did say someone recently told me this was a feature. I’ll find some time at the weekend to make the switch, it’s really far past time now I think.

I use Chrome, but Firefox on my android phone. I have had ublock origin installed since the beginning. I only really use it because I manage my YouTube and Google accounts through it, and its handy for sending tabs between my macbook and PC, as well as the various other workflow features I’ve come to rely on over the last decade or so.

Though I recently heard this was a feature on Firefox now. I used to use Firefox prior to chrome, about 15 or so years ago. I’ve been intending to switch back recently but haven’t got round to it yet.

I remember reading that thread! Well, kindly asking my half-german wife to translate it for me. It was very helpful!

Oh my god, I’ve been using ublock for as long as I can remember and had no idea about this! Thank you, now I just have to figure out what I’m doing.

I just don’t feel comfortable having these big companies profiting from my information. If it’s that valuable to them, then they should be paying me for it.

“We believe in free speech, so you should let us sell your data.”

You’re not a musician, are you?

Because what you just described is just the classic: “Oh, we’re not going to pay you for this gig. You’re getting paid in exposure. Sorry kid, just business.”

Can do all of those things without premium if you have the right apps.

But besides that, absolutely not. I remember when YouTube was free with no ads, I remember when the adverts first started appearing, and that’s when it became obvious that they were trying to annoy you into a pay model. It took a little longer than expected, but sure enough, they ramped up the ads until “YOUTUBE PREMIUM! PAY FOR NO ADVERTS!”

Fuck that, I had no adverts before and they took that away. But the worst part is that they harvest my private data and make money from me already. As far as I’m concerned, that’s my subscription to their shit, in their perverse data selling.

No fucking way I’m going to also pay them for the privilege to have my private data sold.

Is this true? I was sure when Jeremy Corbyn criticised Israel, he was labelled as a terrorist sympathiser and anti-semite by the state media.

Just as a disclaimer, I can’t really remember and was never particularly interested in English politics at this time, so I have no opinions on Corbyn, or know if he really did make anti-semetic comments or not. I do remember the tabloid papers going wild on this, I was sure the BBC voiced this or allowed guests to voice this all the time.

Champ, I knew someone here would be able to improve on it!

Ah thanks, like I said, I don’t really know what I’m talking about! Good to know.

I’m not in the US, it’s a local council/regional thing. And most areas here have chromebooks for every student so that’s just become the default, I think. But yes, our IT tends to be a good 10-15 years behind the curve anyway. No money for resources either.

Firefox + ublock origin is the way forward.

However, as a teacher, my school IT system default browser is chrome, and adverts on YT videos when you’re trying to teach a lesson can really suck all the momentum and attention from the class.

Chrome allows you to save javascript as a bookmark URL called bookmarklets. I’m not so clued up on java, but I found this code that zips through the adverts super quickly. Someone can probably improve on this;

javascript: var v = document.querySelector(‘video’); var t = 16; v.playbackRate = parseFloat(t)

Oops, yes, this. A perceived doubling!

I wouldn’t imagine noise cancelling headphones would have the ability to output high enough for serious damage. But some people do experience discomfort and pressure when using noise cancelling headphones for the first time, this could be due to a number of factors though.

Yes, sorry, I didn’t phrase that well at all. The sound pressure is actually cancelled out, but with the hypothetical example of the jet engine, anything going wrong could double the dB level instead of cancelling, and because we’re talking milliseconds difference, it would be quite easy to go wrong in this sense.

Absolutely, this is spot on, but if they can find ways to work around this like with these microphone swarms they’re proposing, then there could be a lot more applications for it. Some quite scary.

I’ve always thought phase cancellation technology could potentially be crazy revolutionary. Seems these guys know what they’re doing, but the real challenges come with high decibel levels if I remember right.

If you tried to phase cancel out the sound of a jet engine, it would work and you wouldn’t hear it, but you could also have easily just burst your eardrums too, because the sound pressure level is still present, even if the actual sound is inaudible. It’s a crazy phenomena.

Edit: the sound pressure level IS cancelled out by destructive wave interference, but if this is knocked even by a matter of milliseconds, the wave is doubled and that’s not good for anyone.

Also, on retrospect, phenomena was poor word choice. It’s physics.

So many companies now collect our data, and sell it to advertisers, then want us to also pay for them to do this.

Fuck that, if you’re selling my information, then I’m already paying for your product.

We should be demanding royalty payments.