Well, the way we “went back to normal” after an intense election campaign in 2015-2016 was just…not. Not letting it end for the last nine years. This is essentially still the same campaign that started with the stupid escalator ride. I hope it actually does go back to some semblance of normal in a few months, and we can see how that works then.

Fun fact: that was the original idea behind VLC! You could connect to video (and audio) streams. Hence, “VideoLAN.”

No, you can’t. You can pretend to, but I can pretend to trade things with anyone without paying any money. The only thing stored on the Blockchain is a URL to an image which everyone just agrees to pretend that you own; if that server goes down, you have nothing.

No, when beanie babies were new you could play with them. When basketball cards were new you could trade them with your friends. They had inherent value first, and then they gained speculative value on the secondary market. Trump’s grift has no inherent value now or ever.

Do you honestly think that, on the off chance that the Trump family sells out of these things, they won’t immediately mint more? It’s “limited” in the same way Marvel movies are limited.

• What color was the ball?

I didn’t see a color in my visualization, but I know it was red.

• What gender was the person that pushed the ball?

They were genderless; more of a concept of a person than an image of one.

• What did they look like?

Like…an area of visual space that my mind attached the identifier “Person” to.

• What size is the ball? Like a marble, or a baseball, or a basketball, or something else?

A little smaller than a tennis ball, but bigger than a ping pong ball.

• What about the table, what shape was it? What is it made of?

I didn’t see either property in my visualization, but it’s wooden and round.

And now the important question: Did you already know, or did you have to choose a color/gender/size, etc. after being asked these questions?

Lol. Well, I guess I botched that one. Obviously I did not know before being asked these questions, for most of the answers.

For now. And Google super mega promises to never rug pull that one.

For me, it was multi-account containers. All Meta properties open in their own independent, sandboxed tabs now. Xwitter opens in a different independent, sandboxed tab. It makes their tracking cookies useless, plus it also lets you be logged into the same service with multiple accounts simultaneously.

Cool. Glad we agree on that, at least. Cheers!

Please clarify.

Nah, honestly, by now the length of this conversation is way out of proportion to my interest in it. I’m not convinced by your argument even a little bit, but I’m really not compelled by talking about it anymore. Have a good one.

Whether or not it will be prosecuted is immaterial to whether or not it is legal.

• Wohl and Burkman were sentenced to community service.

• The charge they pled guilty to was fraud; that they “falsely claimed that mail-in voting would put voters into a database that would be used to collect outstanding debt, track down warrants or enforce mandatory vaccinations.” It doesn’t matter what the outcome was (intimidation or something else), the fraud was the crime.

• Fox is a slightly different case, as they’re technically press and thus have a first amendment protection that automatically makes any case against them harder. But either way, the lack of prosecution is far from evidence that a crime was not committed.

• I already identified exactly which law Musk is breaking and with what action. 52 USC 20511 and 52 USC 30101, if you find it particularly important.

• Xwitter is definitely promoting disinformation, which is election interference and can be committed by American citizens. Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman pled guilty in 2022 to hiring a firm to make calls spreading disinformation during the run-up to the 2020 election.

• Xwitter is providing a measurable, financial benefit to the Trump campaign. That’s soft money, and using soft money to exceed individual campaign contribution limits is against the law.

As far as I can tell (not as an expert), the pitfalls and unforeseen issues are probably pretty much what they’d be for every new battery chemistry: how safe is it? Does it have really bad self-discharge? Is the supply consistent? How does it do at low charging levels? How long/how many cycles does such a cell last? Does it require an unsustainable amount of exotic minerals?

As well as what they are for any new technology: what is the replacement cost? Can they be installed in existing technology via drop-in or with a simple retrofit, or do you have to replace the entire unit? How long before they come to market? Can they maintain supply to match demand?

Probably a lot of those questions are business-related rather than technology-related (i.e. “will the companies developing this stuff put enough into R&D to solve these problems before releasing them?” not “do the laws of the universe allow this?”). I am not an expert, but before I put all my chips on solid-state batteries (something I’m pretty confident will be the norm eventually), I would want those answered.

It really do be like that. But also, cars are too big and drivers are too selfish.

I’m gonna start checking out Ghost, at this point. This is ridiculous.

And if Ghost doesn’t work, then ClassicPress it is.

Actually, since the hurricane season keeps starting earlier and earlier, that would benefit the top of the list (since early-season hurricanes tend to be weaker) because the ones that everyone hears about will almost certainly be several names down the list. For instance, the only ones that anybody’s heard about this year are Beryl (second named storm), Helene (eighth named storm), and Milton (thirteenth named storm). Even Kirk (eleventh named storm and a category 4) went by without a fuss, because it never made landfall.

So my suggestion is, we keep going with the naming system we have, but go with your list–maybe use the Carbon Majors report–and apply the company’s name when they make landfall as a Category 3 or higher, when they cause more than ten fatalities, or when they prompt the evacuation of more than 5,000 people. At that point, the storm gets a tag: “Hurricane Chinese-Coal Beryl.” “Hurricane Saudi-Oil Helene.” “Hurricane Russian-Oil Milton.”

I think we understand each other, and disagree. And that’s fine. I don’t need to convince you. Though I would suggest that you start from a more neutral perspective (at least outwardly) when interacting with someone who needs assistance in the future.

Anyway, I don’t think I have anything more to add to the conversation that hasn’t already been said, so I’ll wish you luck.

Thank you for your calm and level-headed discussion. Those are frustratingly rare online. I look forward to talking with you again.

I agree with your conclusion, but as long as they’re offering data up for download to your machine, they really can’t control how you access it or what application you use for it. That doesn’t mean it’ll be easy, but even if it requires reverse-engineering some website DRM, somebody’s going to do it. And if Chromium remains FOSS, it won’t even be terribly difficult.

Remember, they tried to defeat ad blockers on YouTube, and they gave up because it wasn’t worth it. uBO was updating to block their attempts within hours. They’ve tested inserting the ads in the video stream, but that’s probably also not going to last for long.

They’re trying to assert an ownership over the Web; and yes, the best way to defeat it is to build a strong and united resistance against it. But even if we don’t, there are ways to quietly refuse to comply.

A plugin could very easily have Firefox claim to support WebUSB, but return no devices or junk devices. Some of the anti-fingerprinting add-ons already do, iirc.