FriendOfDeSoto
@FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website
Joined the Mayqueeze.
- Comment on [deleted] 3 days ago:
I’m not sure what point that is. My inkling is that OP doesn’t live in the States.
- Comment on [deleted] 3 days ago:
No, you’re not overreacting. You know you and you can point at serious consequences now. Keep the license valid if you can - you don’t know what life still has in store for you and you want to keep your options open. But by all means toss the keys to somebody else.
- Comment on [deleted] 5 days ago:
I think both Apple and fictitious closed Android would be way more interchangeable and data from within would be more portable. Developers would get more of a cut. The saving grace for Google in the real world is that they can do Apple shenanigans while pointing at the open-source availability of Android and not get dumped in hotter antitrust water. If we only had two OSs and both were closed especially regulators in Europe would hit both of them much harder. And like tougher environmental restrictions on cars became the de facto US standard for everyone, the forced equal playing field (the EU guys LOVE an equal playing field) would over time make shit better for all users everywhere.
If there was no Android I think we would have a long list of failed attempts to build one that all fail because every company wanted to build their own walled gardens, and didn’t get enough traction. iOS probably would have succeeded thanks to Apple marketing budgets and their somewhat cultish follower base. But I suspect it would have followed more the initial Steve Jobs idea of doing most stuff in browser; the app revolution wouldn’t have happened. So there would be a big iOS share and then the lower 30% or so would be fractured into other walled gardens for poor people. One result of that would be an earlier agreement on a RCS-like texting solution and not just in the States but everywhere. Because more players would have a stake in seamless communication because stuff like WhatsApp (a reaction to high texting rates, mostly in Europe) and blue/green bubblr iMessage did not happen.
- Comment on [deleted] 1 week ago:
We know nothing about your kid. We don’t know if he’s an angel or a little shit.
Without knowing more I think the bedtime rules are alright. Structure is good. If he doesn’t throw bucketloads of ice water on him still snoozing 6:01I don’t see a huge problem.
As for smartphone and screen time, every kid is different. These restrictions strike me more as he’s been a little shit punitive. If he’s never known different and doesn’t mercilessly gets teased for it in school, it might be okay. Our opinion doesn’t really matter as much as yours and you asked the question. So I’m sensing you may be dissatisfied with both these rules and perhaps their unilateral implementation. I would just advise you not to talk to hubby like hey I asked a bunch of strangers on the internet about your rules and here’s what they thought.
- Comment on [deleted] 1 week ago:
The music industry has a problem. Only the cream of the crop earn any significant money from streaming. Not enough people buy to own music. Lily Allen famously said she earns more money from here foot pictures on OnlyFans than her music on streaming. The only thing artists can earn a bit of money from is concerts. Be it tours or rich people gigs (incl. corporate ones). There are plenty of big budgets available in the top 5%.
And it’s not a new phenomenon. Artists have gotten into how water for performing for Gaddafi’s son, the Chechen strongman, or at the Indian richest guy daughter’s wedding. These stories bubble up and down because there’s controversy. A kpop band performing for the daughter of a run of the mill millionaire is causing yawns in the newsrooms. Now, if he was an arms dealer we’d be in business.
- Comment on How do you charge an electric car without a credit card? 1 week ago:
If you have a garage, at home. You might want you drop more details to get better answers. E.g. location.
- Comment on Hello, non-Americans, do you have any Chinese language classes in your education system? 1 week ago:
I’m criticizing the use of the phrase “new global language.” And I’ve laid out my reasons why I think that’s wrong. I didn’t think I was grilling OP, just the perception of Mandarin being the new global language. So I’m a little taken aback that you read it that way; that wasn’t my intention.
- Comment on Hello, non-Americans, do you have any Chinese language classes in your education system? 1 week ago:
… how pervasive the new Global Language already is …
I’m going to challenge you on this point. First of all, what’s Chinese? I’m guessing you refer to Putonghua aka Mandarin, the erstwhile variant of Beijingnese prescribed for official use within the PRC by their political leadership.
And second, how “global” is it? It’s useful primarily in one contiguous area of the world. Even there a large chunk of people kind of learn it as a first semi-foreign language because they speak something different at home. Cantonese, Shanghainese, or a language that cannot be written in Chinese characters.
Which brings me to my third point: a language that requires study of a script this idiosyncratic will not rise to a global language. Vietnam has gotten rid of hanzi, Korean pretty much as well. Ironically, the north has already completely abandoned it. By comparison, the Latin alphabet was spread by cavalry and cannon boat into all parts of the world for centuries. It spread so far that it is now used to teach pinyin to PRC schoolchildren. And while it is not without its own problems, the simplicity and adaptability of this phonetic alphabet to any language makes it far more useful than Chinese characters. And I’m not shitting on the cultural value of them: that’s unimpeachable. It’s just too complicated.
The alphabet spread with English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese all over the world. I’m not saying that’s a good thing but it’s already happened. Mandarin cannot have a similar success today unless the PRC starts colonizing at gunpoint fast.
Most Chinese as a foreign language speakers outside the PRC learned it for economic reasons. Economic ties have become somewhat dicey. If anything I suspect interest in learning Mandarin to wane.
There is also the tonal aspect. Any atonal-native language learner is going to have a much harder time than trying to remember the non-sensical English orthography.
More people on this planet learn English as their first and possibly only foreign language - if they learn one at all. The forum you asked this question on is in English. The internet cements the use of the alphabet.
I’m in Japan where foreign language education is notoriously sub-par overall. English is the first foreign language. Some private high schools offer Mandarin as an optional, I haven’t seen anything substantial in state-run schools. At college level, most people chose between French and German as a second foreign language. Like we’re still in the Meiji Era. I’m a big proponent that they abandon this tradition in favor of Russian, Korean, and Mandarin. It always helps to learn the language of your neighbors. Language schools advertize k-pop-trendy Korean more.
- Comment on where are worker rights parades? why are we focusing on very limited issues? 1 week ago:
You ask a lot of legitimate questions there, causes that you and I could come to an agreement over. I would erase the starting point though. Pride movements and workers movements might both look like similar demonstrations. They are borne out of very different motivations. People might look down on manual laborers but you wouldn’t have to fear for your safety in certain parts of your city for being one. LGBTQ+ folks can’t say the same. Pride movements bring awareness that we have discriminated or are still discriminating against whole swaths of the population - mostly for silly reasons. That’s different from a disagreement about how exploitative capitalism should be permitted to be.
Another negative connotation is that this “why are there LGBTQ+ pride parades but not …?” is the leading question of people who think straight people need to have a pride parade as well. Like you couldn’t live a heteronormative life every day without fear of retribution. And I’m hoping that you don’t think along those lines and therefore would not want to be this close to that argumentative train of thought.
- Comment on What would it take to make Gemini suitable to be president of the world? 1 week ago:
Extinction of the human race.
- Comment on [deleted] 1 week ago:
The absolute worst airports to navigate are all in the US. Fort Worth, Atlanta, just to shame two.
Most other airports are easy to navigate, even on your first trip. It’s basically walking to a door with a number following huge signs with arrows and numbers. If you need help, you just ask staff working there. The Lufthansa people will be delighted to take a biz class passenger by the hand. Make sure your suitcase gets sent to Korea directly, pick a seat you like (aisle is better if you ask me), and don’t forget your passport. You’ll be fine!
- Comment on How come most news shows say a person got hit by a car? And they are in decent condition. While the same networks says the same thing about someone who got "ranover" 1 week ago:
Dictionary definition to run over:
1 : to go over, examine, repeat, or rehearse quickly 2 : to collide with, knock down, and often drive over
IIRC “attack” used to be originally a charge by the cavalry. And now terrorists and air forces also attack. Meanings shift. The victim needn’t see the undercarriage in person to classify as being run over. Language is literally imprecise.
- Comment on If we replace most plastic with a non plastic alternative and would that really be better? 1 week ago:
The scenario is a bit misleading. We didn’t arrive at everything being wrapped in single-use plastic overnight so we cannot switch the other way that quickly either.
Perishable or hygienic reasons must allow for continued use for some products. But there are plenty of things that don’t fall under that umbrella where waxed paper or single-use bamboo could make sense. You have correctly identified cost as an issue. The reason why everything is still wrapped in plastic like a corpse in Twin Peaks is it’s cheaper. Plastic packaging is also more resistant to damage on the way to the consumer. So the calculations need to change. We need to raise the cost on plastic and lower it on other more quickly biodegradable items. That’s a political decision, one that would be heavily lobbied against by the big boys in packaging. Yet another reason why overnight simply won’t work.
The question about resources also hinges on the time frame. If the switch had to occur today, the answer is probably no. There aren’t enough paper mills and bamboo nurseries in the world to meet demand. But there weren’t a gazillion plastic factories from the start, they grew over time in numbers. One should also not forget that paper mills aren’t without environmental impact. And neither would bamboo toothbrushes be. Also if we increase the amount of arable land to grow bamboo, are we decreasing land for food or animal feed? What are the effects of growing bamboo on the land without fellow periods? What fertilizer would be used? What toxic insect killer chemicals would need to be in use to guarantee sustainable levels of production? It’s not like one option is the perfect solution to fix the problems with the other option.
A holistic aporoach would also have to include us consumers changing our behavior. That’s definitely not happening overnight.
- Comment on Why is having a lawyer present during police interviews "opt in" rather than "opt out"? 1 week ago:
I was listening to a podcast about a Danish murder investigation that included an interview by Danish police of a prisoner suspect in Finland in cooperation with the Finns. They went ahead with the interview without the lawyer present, which seemed normal to the Danes and wrong to their Finnish colleagues. It was one of the reasons why the content of the interview was inadmissible on court. That’s the first thing I thought about regarding a lawyer opt-out.
As a fan of the Nordic Noir genre of crime shows, it’s a great booster for extras. Whenever a person of interest has become an actual suspect, there will be a lawyer present in the show. In 99% of the cases it’s an extra without any lines. So there appears to be a legal requirement to have a lawyer present or the interview cannot or should not proceed.
I think in general it is a hard thing to operate under a system where a lawyer must be present for any interview. There may not be enough lawyers to man every police interview with opt-out rules. They require remuneration as well. This may explain why the rules are so fishy. Case law is caught between not hanstringing police investigations with an opt-out system on the one hand and preventing overreach and abuse by the cops on the other.
Just as a thought experiment: if you required a lawyer being present for any interview at the station, apart from finding a way to pay these poor lawyers you’d also have to come up with a system where enough lawyers are readily available to sit in. Kind of like not all Parisian bakers can go on holiday at the same time. What if there aren’t enough lawyers in your hamlet? Do we maybe need to create a hired function to satisfy the legal requirements? An office in the police station where a lawyer or a rotation of usual suspects of lawyers serve? Wouldn’t this create a proximity where lawyers and cops become too chummy and possibly collude? The interests of the interviewee are best served by cops and lawyers hating each other’s guts but working alongside they’ve become pals. I think there may be an unintended consequence that the course of justice gets more perverted by the opt-out systen than in the current fishy US system.
- Comment on [deleted] 1 week ago:
Weather is expressed in different ways in different languages. The fact that English, like many other European languages, uses a mysterious “it” as a subject to say what’s going on is actually the outlier. More languages use a formula more like “rain falls, snow falls, sun shines, etc.”
So you tell him the “it” stands for “the weather” although that isn’t true. You could more truthfully say it’s a convention and English sentences need a subject. And then you add that “is raining” also transports the idea that it is in the process of happening right now. Don’t question it, accept it.
Learn a bit of Russian. That language is full of colorful images, irregularities, and inexplicable grammar. More so than English, probably. So you can put him in his place when he complains. Like, dude, y’all don’t even know what blue is!
- Comment on Why do some people say "I wouldn't want a government to dictate what I eat"? This would mean they'd be against food safety regulations, would it not? 2 weeks ago:
Most people who say that do so for dogmatic reasons, not because they arrived at this conclusion after careful analysis. It’s the political point of small government.
These are the same people who will probably be first in line shouting for government intervention when their drinking water is full of chemical waste.
You can try to reason with folks like that but you probably won’t change their mind. Just try not to shout at them.
- Comment on What would be the political effect of St Petersburg declaring independence from Russia? 2 weeks ago:
But FSBhub is!
- Comment on What would be the political effect of St Petersburg declaring independence from Russia? 2 weeks ago:
I would think the sandwiches would be delivered before any declaration of independence.
- Comment on Why is it ok to replace -ed at the end of a word with -t in some cases? For example, why are "vexed" and "vext" both acceptable, but "thrilled" and "thrilt" aren't? 2 weeks ago:
Language isn’t logical in a mathematical sense. Every language develops its own logic over time as an unspoken consensus that only after the fact gets codified as orthography and grammar.
The big mother language to most languages in Europe, Protoindoeuropean, has its origins millennia ago somewhere in Ukraine. Linguists have pieced together what this language most likely sounded like. It’s a game of probabilities and good educated guesses but it’s fascinating. If you’re a nerd. One theory is that at the earliest time when this language was formed, most if not all verbs were what we would call today irregular, think know-knew-known or sing-sang-sung etc. Small language communities have no problem with insane and arbitrary grammar like that. You learn it with your mother’s milk so to speak. Very few outsiders have to deal with it. And life just goes on.
English is a true mix of stuff. The Germanic invadors after the Romans left had to deal with the native celts. They were themselves invaded by Vikings from Scandinavia and some 300 years later by Vikings that had become French. Both brought their own languages with them and influenced English. Both invasions caused situations where adults were put in a situation of having to learn another language. What kids soak up like sponges, grownups have a harder time with. So they take shortcuts in their speech. They didn’t struggle too much with sing-sang-sung because that’s a typical protoindoeuropean vowel change that exists just like that in many European languages to this day in versions of this particular verb. But some of the other verbs were just too hard to remember! Let’s just whack a -t or -d sound at the end and Bob’s you uncle. And that’s how English lost a lot of its irregular verbs. Over time this became -ed in most cases. But, as I said, we don’t follow a mathematical Boolean logic here. It allowed for hangers-on, regional varieties, and new formations of irregular forms. Burnt/burned hung on, fucked/fuckt did not. The reason is the flow of history.
- Comment on Would AI replacing humans in every workplace eventually make it easier for an advanced civilization from outer space to colonize us? 2 weeks ago:
I would think the same so-called AI that told us to eat rocks regularly, or that thinks it’s still 2024, or that “hallucinates” other stuff will make conquering our planet harder. Particularly, if these aliens are unaware of the concept of deception.
- Comment on [deleted] 2 weeks ago:
I would say this system is safe until one password - through no fault of their own - gets leaked. Worse even, two of them. If a bored hacker sees them in a stolen list, they could go to town on all other accounts. So you should advise your acquaintance to change their system. Long passwords are great but if they repeat a lot of characters they are immediately less useful. If the repeating string is known it makes brute-forcing other accounts that much easier.
The best advice is to keep unique passwords for all accounts. And by unique I mean not following a system like that. Long, random, non-sensical crap is best (but also most annoying) - for now. Once quantum computers become a thing, all this probably won’t matter any more.
- Comment on Is there a more convenient way to do this? 2 weeks ago:
People who really want to communicate with each other will find a way.
I think English<>French is a language pair you could get instant translations with the help of Google. So there’s a tech solution that will cause humorous misunderstands but will make do. You could hire somebody who is bilingual for the first meeting to let the parents talk behind their kids’ backs.
If they are French, they may actually be able to have a simple conversation in English but the boyfriend wouldn’t know because they lose this ability the moment they cross the border back into France. That’s a silly stereotype but I like it.
- Comment on [deleted] 2 weeks ago:
So, as I said, we need to look at the legal situation at the same time. The assholery of the bank is possible due to the assholery of these OS restrictions and the duopoly of mobile OSs. Everybody wants to have a walled garden. Outlaw or at least restrict walled gardens.
One thing politicians like to say is that they want to protect consumers. Forcing consumers into walled, privacy-invading gardens for essential services such as banking should be a change item on their agenda.
So looking at the status quo you’re correct. I’m just hopeful we can change that. I’m also looking at these mobile compute devices in our pockets as universal ones. They can run any instruction set that doesn’t burn their hardware. All of these restrictions - chipped components, unaltered OSs, software only from one place - are man-made/big corp imposed. With a view to a walled garden. That’s where the law needs to intervene so you can bank safely from where you want.
- Comment on [deleted] 2 weeks ago:
Google has a vested interest in keeping Android open source. Because the moment they turn away from that more antitrust action is going to hit them like a ton of bricks.
What’s an “important app” to you here?
- Comment on [deleted] 2 weeks ago:
But that’s not all phones, is it. If you buy your phone directly from Google, you made a mistake. Like buying one from Apple. If Google want to continue to claim Android is open source, they have to allow for devices that forego any of this crap and boot vanilla non-Google-Services Android. And if you’re privacy oriented enough, you will give up on apps that are not.
And given enough time somebody is going to work out how you fool a modified system into booting. The problem is legal. Depending on where you are circumventing any digital locks can mean jail time at worst. We have to address the legal situation at the same time.
- Comment on [deleted] 2 weeks ago:
I think with PCs it will be harder to lock them down and not disgruntle consumers too much in the process. I’m also hopeful that over time right to repair will be the standard, so they have to allow for third party repair. So all these restrictions like chipped components and software only from our store will be phased out by incremental legislation. The EU is not perfect but it’s on this path. Even in the US people are thinking antitrust more often now. There is hope, however small.
You can run whatever you like in your Android phones. Jailbreaking iPhones is also possible. All these devices are just computers that can run anything within their hardware specs. Hacking some of these things may be against the Ts and Cs or even illegal. But technically possible. The restrictions are mote political, not technical.
Chromebooks are not the way to the future. They fill a niche in education for cheap hardware in connection with limited capabilities. They are not technical limitations, they are designed to limit users in what damage they can do. AFAIK you could technically wipe a chromebook and put Linux on it. It may violate the Ts and Cs and we’re right back at political. Google would like to develop future customers at an early age. They don’t care about the education so much as about their bottom line.
- Comment on Am I the only person who has a compulsive need to whistle the rest of I dream of Jeannie every time a door chimes on Voyager? 2 weeks ago:
Normally, when somebody on the internet starts a question with “Am I the only one …?” my first reaction is to say no, of course not. This is the first time that I really need to question that conviction. I think you just might be the only one!
- Comment on [deleted] 2 weeks ago:
Like the river finds the sea, people will find a way around it. Satellite connections, just as an idea.
Anything a chip does can be backwards engineered to fool it. People will break your proposed surveillance chip eventually.
Most of these companies are maybe US-owned to varying degrees but they don’t produce everything in the US. Also, they would put a very high price on these government mandated chips for two reasons: 1) government has deep pockets and 2) it would keep them away from very profitable so-called AI biz opportunities.
The pandy has shown us that with a few disruptions in the supply chain, any system that requires a cryptographic chip check to function can be sent to hell in a handbasket. I forgot if it was HP or Canon or some printer company had to teach its customers to bypass, i.e. hack their own cryptogtaphic chip checks because they couldn’t get more chips and otherwise the printers wouldn’t print. A few disruptions could also affect the censorship chip supply chain.
The great firewall of China has also shown how creative people get to get their message across. If it’s not just human censors but also so-called AI censors it will just take creativity to a new level. Necessity is the mother of invention.
So there are some reasons why you might be worrying too much. I think another one is much broader. The majority of Americans did not vote for the current president. If he started censoring the internet now there would be Civil War II - Now It’s Digital. The reason why Russia or North Korea can censor their people much easier is because they have never had or only on paper a brief period of liberty and rule of law. It will be much harder to control the US population. There isn’t just the one media outlet, the one ISP, the one judiciary to dominate. It’s splintered. And populated by feisty people, some of them armed. You couldn’t pull off what you suggested without much more support for 47. And he seems to be losing it more than gaining these days.
- Comment on How much has the ratio of accidental vs intentional pregnancies changed over time? 3 weeks ago:
Of course, I didn’t think far enough. Thanks for setting that straight.
- Comment on How much has the ratio of accidental vs intentional pregnancies changed over time? 3 weeks ago:
I think there is data on it. Back in school I remember looking at the population pyramid. It’s a visualization of the number of men and women (x-axis, going both left and right) per birthyear (y-axis). In ye olden days, that formed a triangle. Many babies at the bottom, fewer olds at the top. You could tell a lot from the shape this took. You’d get dents on the male side that will correspond with armed conflicts, like the world wars. And then in the 1960s the pyramid with war chips in it massively narrows. At least in countries where the pill became readily available. It turned the pyramid into a tree with a big head at the top and a wide but thinner stem growing under it. I suspect now 80 years later we’re at a much narrower elongated triangle shape again. So you can probably count the shift in numbers there and put a number on “prevented accidents.” But you would have to account for other factors as well, improvements in medicine, vaccinations, etc.
Were all births accidental? That’s a question you could only ask in hindsight. Humans have always looked for ways you prevent conception because we like to party but without reliable success. It’s only in the second half of the last century that we have come up with measures that the Catholic church really doesn’t approve of. Before that, children weren’t really planned in today’s sense. They just happened. They were expected to happen. And with most women being relegated to raising them and running the household, there wasn’t much else they could do. The concept that a wife could be raped by her husband is sadly fairly new. The patriarchy was strong. Abortion was a gamble and many women died from bad jobs of them. Most of the time, if she got pregnant, the decision was made, end of story. If you weren’t married yet, shotgun wedding. That’s how it went until we developed contraception that actually works. I wouldn’t call any kids before that accidental.
Sure, you could remain abstinent. But we like to party.