“afford fewer and fewer things” needs correction: most “things” are being turned into “services” so people end up owning nothing and being forced to overpay for “service” they never asked for

you’d be one of few. Most people don’t mind compensating others for services, but when services turn to extortion and lock-in with sub-par digital content players piracy becomes a lot more attractive. Not many can afford 4-5 subscriptions (with Prime you need sun-subscriptions too) and all of it’s expense and complexity. Singular aggregate platform with a cost equaling today’s single subscription cost would probably eliminate good chunk of “piracy”. We can only watch so much in a day so given that streaming companies price things out and provision for that there’s no more impact on them if multi-service subscription costs the same as a single-service and it will reduce need for piracy, as it’s also a hassle to look for content and get all twitchy whether you going to get trojaned or swatted for doing so.

Biden could’ve used Trump’s own tool - presidential impunity and either fired judges or plain locked up Trump or worse, first: forcing republicans repeal the law, two eliminating threat, and three - potentially painted as villain in history. I still marvel at how little Dems care for “the idea” and how much they care about their own bottom line 🙁

“Appall the supreme Court” . There, I fixed it for ya

depending on where you are in phone replacement/upgrade cycle I would recommend Fairphone or looking into e/OS.

Like others mentioned don’t expect to do a wholesale jump. Slowly replace services with alternatives: Proton mail, NextCloud, Box, Dropbox, Lemmy, Mastodon to name a few services. There are numerous apps that can interact with those services so you’ll be spending some time going over those sorting what works for you.

To get the apps FDroid coupled with Aurora you can get most apps (that do not have explicit dependency on Googleware). Amazon App store is a possibility too for some commercial apps. For Youtube there are several alternatives like LibrePipe and NewPipe (but there are more). For existing social media site apps there are thin wrapper browsers that would “sandbox” each site allowing you to still use them while you slowly detach yourself: SlimSocial, RedReader, etc.

I’ve been Google-free for a bit now but I went with LineageOS+microG setup which may be challenging for you at this stage.

Treat it less as a crusade and more like multilevel challenge when upon completion of one challenge you get to complete another. It could be fun and liberating.

Trouble is: Koch brothers are very much into the same things as Trump is but they want to be able to control POTUS not having to deal with lose cannon that shoots everything and everyone and is only predictable in his unpredictability. So I’d think that the same policies would be pushed forward but without as much drama and publicity. In the end everyone will end up just as screwed.

Your optimism is inspiring, but IMO misplaced 🙁 Here in Canada conservatives like to use the same trick election after election: they strip “safety net” bare all until ~6mo before election. Then they throw a few one-time cheques before election and… voila: all is forgotten and forgiven. Same here in reverse: any downfalls just before election would define voter behaviour, not the systemic view at ability to govern.

Either it’s my client or my eyes but I did not see mentions of “Gaza strip” in your previous messages in this thread. Sorry.

yeah, recent revelations seem to point that way

gigantomania is a thing in Austin, so, yeah, oversized gavel comes with the territory

Ars posted that there’s some evidence to suggest board wanted to chase profit over ethics or somesuch. Altman apparently did not listen.

deleted by creator

not quite. Palestine never got it’s independence and never had government concerned with Palestine development rather than external threats. I do not recall anybody attempting to aid Palestine to become independent. Israel’s “aid” was used as means of control.

I’m talking about two countries going their own way. That never happened.

form Ars

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/11/openai-president-greg-brockman-quits-as-nervous-employees-hold-all-hands-meeting/

According to reporting from Kara Swisher and The Information, it’s looking like the ouster of Altman stemmed from an internal disagreement over the direction of the company with regard to a focus on profits over safety… wasn’t too far off

The problem is that I do not see solution with Hamas and current right wing government in Israel in power.

agreed

Unfortunately adding “2 + 2” I come to the same conclusion. The only chance for this to stop is external force. Whether it’s weapon supply to Hamas or them getting ostracized by Arab world (I mean Hamas, not Palestinians). Democratic shift in Israel is a necessary prerequisite too however it can’t come with a weakening of Israel or we’ll be witnessing Holocaust v2. Most of my life I despised Israel for what they did to Palestine however in light of recent events I believe militarily they ought to be strong to prevent any further attempts at genocide of Israelis and they should stay within their own borders

All kinds of conspiracy theories are running through my head in light of further departures.

1. Board has asked Altman to do something shady, he said he’d do it but really he didn’t and they’ve got pissed firing him. Folks who were viewed as his “clique” naturally got worried and left before their names get tarnished.
2. Altman and a group of supporters were up to no good, board got a whiff of it and fired him, and everyone involved saw the writing on the wall and resigned
3. Board was shaping things up for acquisition, Altman opposed and was shown the door. Folks close enough to him understood the consequence and quit with their resumes clean of what’s to come. …

so many things will remain unknown for the nearest future it’s hard to tell who’s lying about what.

Right now every participant in conflict has committed numerous crimes. There is ho moral high ground for anybody. Every side is lying through their teeth to achieve their goals. People of Israel and Palestine are dying while selected few in Israeli and Palestinians get richer and consolidate power in their hands. Both sides have been solidly brainwashed against each other. It’d take enormous effort to stabilize things. I have not seed anyone fitting the bill.

can someone enlighten me what prompted those threats?

surprised to see how everyone is up in arms for this and not for other sh@t going on?

So folks seem to be screaming “make me a lab rat”, then bemoan the treatment from government that takes them for idiots. Folks, time to grow up and deal with real issues. Artificial meat is neither a problem nor a solution to a problem. It’s an income line on someone’s spreadsheet. In Victorian era arsenic was very much en vougue, lead and radioactive pills were viewed as health boosters at some point. So there’s that. Someone’s getting rich and it ain’t one of us. Somebody is being experimented on and it’s most of us.

self-hosting is great but that still means datacenter someplace. I’ve been using GitLab for some time now and CodeBerg “feels weird” to me. But then it could be my biases and “muscle memory”. I’d say whatever feels right for you.

Unlike other big name Git hosting company who chose to use AI to “steal” from hosted projects other two did not stoop that low. So there’s that.