metabagel

The EU forced Apple to use USB-C on iPhones, because it was stupid and wasteful for people to have two different types of chargers in their home for their small electronic rechargeable devices. Government does have the power to regulate things like this. They would need to be educated to understand the importance and benefit of it.

Facebook is cluttered with ads and distracting posts (not from your friends and family). If you use it often enough, you probably stop seeing how terrible it is. Try looking at it with fresh eyes sometime.

Twitter boosts Elon Musk and the things he is interested in.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/feb/15/elon-musk...

I don't have specific complaints about Instagram or TikTok, other than the algorithm is controlled by oligarchs.

I usually find out much later, and possibly never. This is how things were before the internet. We didn't know everything going on in everyone's life.

In the case of major events, my brother usually lets me know, for example the death of an aunt. Everyone close to me knows I don't use FB, so if they want me to be aware of something in particular, they can text or call me.

They need to reach people where they are, so basically all the platforms where people hang out. It's not the activists who are lazy - it's people in general, who continue to use FB even though it is cluttered with ads and other distractions.

I miss out on all the big and little announcements. Sometimes, a family member will forward information to me about a death or a graduation. I find out about these things when I find out about them, just like we used to before the internet.

I dropped Facebook when I realized that their app was snooping on who I called and who called me.

They run their own website, but they need to reach people where they are, which is on Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, and Elon Musk's Feed.

https://www.nokings.org

I tried to get a family member to use Signal, and she eventually gave up on it, because she couldn't handle switching back and forth between Messages and Signal. It's very difficult to get people to migrate to better platforms when they have that mindset.

I found it to be an absolute chore to find people that I had been following on Twitter.

I don't use Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or TikTok. I feel like people at least need to go on strike once in a while. Stop using those shitty services for a few days or a week so the landlords will make them slightly less shitty.

Mastodon has a serious discovery problem. IIRC, searches are only within your own instance, except for hashtag searches. This appears to have been an intentional design decision to prevent brigading / pile-ons.

For me, I found it too difficult to locate "my peeps" on other instances, so I switched to Bluesky.

I wouldn't recommend visiting the U.S. right now. There isn't the concept of fairness or due process. You don't have rights here. It is now extremely important to be a U.S. citizen. Everyone else is at the mercy of the Trump administration.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/03/ice-german-t...

Did you look at the charts? The U.S. dropped precipitously, while other countries mostly stayed in the same range.

It’s a flying squirrel.

Yeah, I think they are arguing that white collar crimes should not result in prison sentences.

This wasn't a dispute though. This was clearly fraud, and I think it becomes criminal due to wire fraud (fraud crossing state or national borders).

To me, this falls under the category of white collar crime. I'm OK with white collar criminals serving time. It's not like this case is in a gray area. It's clearly a conspiracy to commit fraud on a large scale.

I get where you're coming from. It's not stealing. But, setting up fake accounts in order to trick Spotify into sending him money is clearly fraud.

> Juicing some streaming numbers hurt who?

He used fraud to get a payout from Spotify. It's analogous to forging a check to get the bank to pay you money which you aren't owed.

Love the inline footnotes!

It wasn't junkies. It was probably stemming from local opposition to the project.

https://www.pbssocal.org/redefine/antelope-valley-solar-ranc...

From the article:

=====

Should you go branchless?

Most of the time, no. Branchless code is harder to read and easier to get wrong. Besides, compilers know a lot of tricks and already do a lot of this work for us.

Only when a profiler points at a hot loop, and the loop contains a branch on unpredictable data this technique can pay off big.

OK, or maybe...

  total = calculateOrderTotal(user.order);
  total = total * user.discount;

I rather think the opposite. People who share tips and hacks are genuinely trying to help others, while people who hoard information are competing on an individual basis without regard for team.

OK, but the code with the branch is easier to understand.

In what context can you avoid branches?

Sorry this seems to have ruined your day. /s

I think you're off by at least an order of magnitude.

There will always be creative superstars.

They are in the process of getting their accreditation.

It seems like authorities determined there was no threat, but she was fired anyway.