Silent Bob wrote on Feb 8, 2021, 13:33:
I need to do the same thing. It's scary enough thinking about the fallout from losing Gmail alone if they locked me out of my account. I have too much invested in a company that I don't trust.

What did you end up moving mail, search, drive, etc to instead?

Search - DuckDuckGo, returns 99% same results as Google anyway without all of the nonsense. Google itself is far less useful these days thanks to commercial manipulation by SEO firms
Storage - NextCloud but there are many third party services if you don't want to self host
Email - Hey.com for my personal email, we self host our email at work. I love the hey screener, it makes personal email so much easier to manage. I've self hosted mail in the past but have no desire to do outside of the office anymore.
Phone - I went to an iPhone, much better experience all around but that's subjective obviously. It's been much better since Apple eased restrictions on default apps and customization, I don't really miss Android at all anymore and the app quality is heads and tails better. Amusingly even some of Google's own apps are better on iOS.
News - nytimes, etc, I don't use Google News anymore or news aggregators in general. I'm just very choosy with what I read and where I get my news.

I had gotten too used to everything being free as a consumer and obviously there is no such thing. Paying for services, whether directly in cash or in my own time, has reminded me to appreciate the true value of these things. You also become more discerning about your time and money, demanding more for it and not just tolerating nonsense.

I completed my break up with Google in December. Gmail, search, drive etc. The only Google resource I use now is Youtube due to the lack of viable competitors. I don't really miss Google services, DDG search is great these days and self hosted for everything else.

They just debuted the program three weeks ago, I'm sure that's coming after the phase in period. Obviously the app makers can't be trusted so the honor system isn't going to work. There's already been legal pushback from advertisers so I suspect that's why they went with the "give them enough rope to hang themselves" approach.

Read the article, not just the headline. The disclosures come from the app developers.

Cutter wrote on Feb 3, 2021, 13:57:
My Kia Niro is Android or Apple carplay. The article is unclear, are they doing this to make Kia vehicles exclusively Apple? If so I won't be buying one next time.

The information is in the article:

Apple's funds will be used to build exclusive facilities for the production and development of Apple Car.

Apple is just subcontracting Kia to make them a car that they can sell. 3.6 billion would be nowhere near enough money to make all of Kia's fleet be Apple Carplay exclusive. Obviously the car itself will be an Apple Car and probably won't support Android Auto but it will not affect your Kia Niro. They are just building an Apple branded car, probably with some Apple developed self driving stuff and its own interface.

Darks wrote on Feb 3, 2021, 16:22:
Pointless to make a number 3. once you played both previous games, you pretty much played them all. rinse and repeat!!!

The whole point of making a third is to extend the gameplay, much like they did with the second. The second game was a massive iteration over the first, they are not even close to the same experience except on a surface level.

Really looking forward to this and expecting a lot of improvements in the siege area.

I mean. .hype.. but it's coming in what.. 6 months? Early release announcement or what?

Many, if not most games announce over a year or more in advance now. 6 months is actually fairly conservative.

It's not really the touch screen itself, it's the eMMC chip they used and didn't bother to properly wear level test. And they really had to be pushed into it by lawsuits and the government. Tesla needs to do better, especially considering these were ~100k USD vehicles. Just fixing it silently in newer models is not good enough. Hopefully they learned a lesson on this.

Glad to hear they are touching up the gameplay in ME1, its pretty rough these days. Looking forward to it, definitely picking it up.

Mr. Tact wrote on Jan 22, 2021, 13:58:
*meh* I don't completely oppose regulation of digital currencies, but it needs to be done reasonably and fairly. For instance, there was this in the article:

"Under the new rules, cryptocurrency-based exchanges would need to file transaction reports with FinCEN any time a customer made a cryptocurrency transaction worth more than $10,000. This would mirror existing rules requiring conventional banks to report when customers make cash withdrawals or deposits worth more than $10,000".

I'm guessing that isn't true for stock transactions. If it isn't required for stock transactions I don't see why it would be for Bitcoin transactions.

Stocks are already heavily regulated and trades are tracked on the back end by your financial provider which in turn reports them to tax authorities and regulators. They also have separate FinCEN guidelines for reporting suspicious trades already. Bitcoin proclaims to be a currency, not just a trading vehicle. The goal of the legislation is to ensure that taxes are paid and that is not easy to launder money. Bitcoin has been a haven for criminal organizations and tax dodgers so it seems pretty reasonable to me, I don't really see an issue or any unfairness here. Just some much needed transparency.

Jivaro wrote on Jan 19, 2021, 15:04:
Brady wins the Super Bowl and anybody still arguing he is not the best is going to be pointed at and laughed at as a bitter troll. Even without that it's hard to make an argument that can be taken seriously.

He's undoubtedly the best. The Patriots were notoriously stingy for years and outside of 1-2 marquee players, people went there to make their name and then get a big payday elsewhere. They often made do with draft ignored players and second stringers. Brady at 43 is still playing football at a playoff level, that's just amazing on it's own. His record speaks for itself and he's one of the toughest competitors under pressure to ever play the sport. Who can ever forget Superbowl LI? No one can read the field like that guy, he's super human.

He's not the best athlete and he can't run to save his life but that's probably helped him avoid serious injury to keep his career and health intact. He's not my favorite player and his personality feels like PR firm pastiche but he's definitely the best overall QB to ever play.

Pros:

- cheaper price
- better under display finger sensor
- Samsung bloat is the least shitty bloat in the Android world these days, they've come a long way from the S7 fiasco.
- 120hz standard on all models (cant remember if S20 had this or not)

Cons:

- less ram except on the Ultra model
- no charger (Didn't they mock Apple for this?)
- no headphone jack (see above)
- no SD card slot
- plastic back except on Ultra
- lower resolution/PPI except Ultra
- Heavier

Seems like a step backwards from the S20. I'm pretty happy with my iPhone so I wasn't seriously considering this but the missus wants to update her S10+ which is pretty beaten up. Unfortunately it looks like she'll be waiting another year.

I think it's pretty telling that EA came back to Steam after dumping a few hundred million into Origin.

I have nothing against the EGS, it's just a really lackluster client by comparison. I get free games on there and never play them, its become a game unto itself. I've noticed many developers say DLC sales are abysmal on the platform and that many hold back DLC after their exclusivity period passes for the Steam release. I wonder how many devs will bother with exclusivity when they aren't being paid for it, probably none I would imagine. I think it's really hard to hit that feature/integration level that Steam has, its really robust and well done. Every time I play a multiplayer game on EGS I end up thinking how much better it would be with Steam instead.

But I'm glad for competition and all that. Good to keep Valve honest.

wtf_man wrote on Jan 11, 2021, 16:52:
A whole platform was silenced by 3 tech companies.

A dangerous platform hosting illegal content that it made little to no effort to police. And the platform wasn't silenced, they built their stack around AWS and that's on them. They can self-host like Gab, no one is stopping them. I don't care if it's 2 app providers or 20, none of them should be forced to host content that could make them liable or that violates their TOS. Parler was given multiple warnings and shrugged them off. That's on them.

The slippery slope arguments might make sense around here if we weren't already tumbling down the mountainside, pushed by idiots who do not care about laws and rules.

When we silence dialogue and see our own neighbors as the enemy we have lost our way.

You can't have a dialogue when one side refuses to engage and chooses alternate realities and violence. I made the same arguments four years ago when Hillary spoke about deplorables. I was wrong.

Tomas wrote on Jan 11, 2021, 15:00:
I understand what you're trying to say, but what you said is just wrong. It's 100% censorship, but done by entities other than government. Sure, it's legal, but it's not necessarily good for our republic.

Intentions do matter, but there's a reason even that bastion of conservatism, the ACLU, is worried about what's going on. If what is taking place regarding suppression of voices doesn't cause a little panic in your heart (even if met by a measure of relief) you aren't really that concerned with the intent of the first amendment. Many people seem ecstatic to paint everything as black and white when it suits their political leanings, but the world is far more grey.

Things could be going lord of the flies out there and some of your would be cheering it as a victory.

Censorship is a trigger word. You can call it censorship that other companies do not want to do business with a platform that literally hosts dangerous and illegal content. I call it smart business. I don't see how that's dangerous to our republic, it's been that way for as long as I can remember. You know what is more dangerous to our republic? Those that do not care about its tenets interfering with or overthrowing government. That's a much more existential threat to the republic in my mind. I'm not worried about Amazon booting Verno's Right Wing Musings Blog from AWS.

Likewise I'm unworried that the most powerful man in the world will find another avenue of spreading his message.

Agent.X7 wrote on Jan 11, 2021, 13:56:
I know, right? Which means Twitter and Facebook and all the other social media apps should have been shut down this summer as well.

Everyone is OK with censoring people they disagree with. Just wait until it's your opinion they disagree with and you get censored. I don't agree with either side, since they are both full of self-serving politicians just looking to get rich and powerful off the backs of the people. The logic defying twists both sides play trying to redefine reality is just mind blowing.

The first amendment does not guarantee people the right to be an asshole on corporations platforms on the internet. It guarantees you the right to speak your opinion, free from government interference and oppression. It does not guarantee that a corporation can host a titanic amount of hate speech under the guise of "conservative views" and that other corporations have to do business with them. Parler is dangerous and companies do not want any part of a platform that doesn't even make a modicum of effort to police itself.

We have no free speech at all if we allow our democracy to be overthrown by those that have no interest in it. What exactly are you upset about here? I don't think you're using the word censorship properly to describe this situation and you seem to be purposely ignoring some pretty important context. Amazon isn't deplatforming my personal site which has some political commentary on it because I am not hosting content that breaks their TOS. So I don't worry about it.

I just wish Blue would stop posting Political Headlines... unless directly related to gaming, like the Jack Thompson asshat.

Is this fair though? Generally speaking the stories are labeled appropriately and most of the time they're sectioned off. No one makes me click on this stuff, I choose to do so. I don't think anyone clicked this comment thread expecting a discussion on GPUs. What I dislike is when people derail existing threads with political comments and the silly quote cheerleading, the latter of which I would love to clamp down on.

This comment was edited on Jan 11, 2021, 14:34.

D-Rock wrote on Jan 11, 2021, 08:42:

Saboth wrote on Jan 10, 2021, 14:14:
If we go that route, then I'd also argue Fox, Newsmax, OANN, and the others need massive oversight and regulation. If you purport to be news, you should employ journalists with actual degrees and experience in journalism, be held to some kind of journalistic standards, have to provide at least some kind of sources for your "stories" (other than "some people believe"), etc. Hell, we also need to bring back the Fairness Doctrine that Reagan scrapped that paved the way for these political propaganda outlets.

What you've described is an issue that applies to all media. Prior to the election the left media constantly cited 'anonymous sources' for their big 'stories'. An anonymous source is not a source. That's just one example of the left's integrity issues. If you want to regulate it has to apply to everyone.

Good luck finding actual fact checkers that are not biased though...

There is nothing wrong with anonymous sources, they are a career check for the journalist, the editor and fact checking. There is a process involved and it is one we have trusted for a long time. The reputation of the organization is on the line and it is taken seriously by real news organizations. Your distrust of it is unreasonable unless you getting your information from places you do not trust and if that's the case, I think you need to ask yourself where the problem really lies.

You talk about integrity issues on the left as well which is kind of disingenuous when most of the right wing media in this country has descended into fantasy fiction. As a nearly lifetime Conservative I am very careful where I get my news. I tend to pay for reputable news from real organizations like the New York Times. I don't go there expecting my ego to be stroked or my opinion to be coddled, I read it for the news. People cry about bias but I see opposition editorials in every reputable newspaper I read. And if I am really feeling sensitive I just avoid the op-eds. I get very little news from television. Fox News has few reputable journalists on staff and is mostly a glorified op-ed/propaganda machine. Likewise I find CNN to be a glorified entertainment network. I don't even need to mention OAN or Newsmax, if you think those are reputable sources of information then you need to further educate yourself. The idea that "conservative news" is somehow even different than regular news is silly to me. News is news.

We've allowed the demonization of journalism which has destroyed trust in an institution that is a critical pillar of society. We also have too many people in this country who do not use their critical thinking skills or lack them entirely. I get relatives sending or telling me the most ridiculous things that do not survive even a cursory credulity check, let alone a fact check. The overwhelming majority of the time when I ask them where they heard it, it is from right wing media sources. Most of them never bother to source what they hear which is also distressing. People claim they don't have time to look things up yet they always seem to have time to endlessly regurgitate crap online.

Capitan wrote on Jan 10, 2021, 01:10:
I have to say I feel sorry for you in the United States. Now that Trump is gone, you can already now see that countries like North Korea, China, Iran will take advantage of you again.

Is this supposed to be funny? Trump couldn't even get adequate trade concessions from Canada.

TriggleDiggle wrote on Jan 8, 2021, 21:44:
For hundreds of years you Americans all had the freedom to publicly dissent, question your government and each other. Even promote conspiracies, People on all sides complained that their opponents were wrong and shouldn't be permitted to speak but they were protected and in the end your country was more stable and stronger for it.
And now in just 20 years almost all public discourse has moved online, And because those protections don't "technically" apply in the same way the people with power get their wish and are able to silence their opposition

Twitter is a not government institution, it owes no one a voice. "Free speech" does not mean you can say whatever you want without consequence either. It means free from government censorship and interference. Twitter is not the government, though Donald himself appears to be confused about this too. Given his conduct on the platform it's a miracle he lasted as long as he did, many others wouldn't be so lucky. The idea that the president is somehow a victim who is unable to reach people in many other ways is ludicrous.

Likewise comparing social media platforms with incredible reach and amplification potential to traditional forms of discourse is disingenuous. You also don't reason with the sort of people who storm the Capitol building threatening to hang the VP.

I don't know. When you have Guliani saying "lets have trial by combat" and Trump himself offering them praise and "love" afterwards, I think there was intent. He cannot hold high office again, the risk is too great.

Happy Birthday Frans! Thanks for all of the behind the scenes stuff you do in your free time.