I’m pretty sure the traffic for the ads still gets sent to your device over the Internet, it’s just that the ad blocker keeps it from rendering in your browser.

I don’t think it would be correct to use the A in apple for any of the As in Kamala. It’s more of the A with an open mouth than constrained to the front. The A in calm is much closer imo

I should really be using the IPA to make my point here but I don’t know all the letters

I wonder if Fedora would have a toolchain for networked credential management, with its connection to RedHat and everything

Imo their issue was in not forming a broader union coalition before picking their workplace

Perhaps they are bad examples, but my point was more that I think those ecosystems thrive in spite of the company that owns the upstream at this point more than because of it. They did tremendously useful work getting the projects off the ground but it ostensibly seems like they get in the way more often than not; that said, I haven’t done any open source work on either of the two. I’d be interested to hear your take, I could be pretty far off the mark.

Honestly my main examples I’d point to right now are situations like manifest V3 and Android nitpicks like the recent Bluetooth 2-tap change; don’t get me wrong, they are easy to fork and have thriving ecosystems in terms of volunteer dedication, but those forks still primarily targeted towards technical users (with some exceptions) and companies selling devices like the Freedom Phone (and other, actually neat, useful, properly privacy focused devices which is awesome!). By far, however, most users are on the upstream branch due to “default choice” psychology and have to deal with the bullshit that’s increasingly integrated into the proprietary elements that Google seems to be making harder and harder to separate from the open source ones. I suppose that’s why education and getting the word out are all the more important though.

Could be the sensationalist end of the tech news cycle getting me spun up on an overall inaccurate view of things.

There is also the point I have to raise that security update support is always a very valuable asset that can be worth dealing with some downsides to get ahold of. I’m hoping a lot of those can be pulled into open source projects on more of a piecemeal basis where applicable?

I’d be happy to be proven wrong about my rudimentary assessment. I have enough things to be doomer about and honestly it would be nice to have one or two fewer!

Chromium is still open source, as is Android to some extent. I get that the two companies (Google and Proton) are in completely different size classes, but something being open source doesn’t necessarily mean it stays healthy. Sure people can fork it, but the issue tends to lie in continuous maintenance by volunteers against continuous maintenance by a large company that’s constantly adding in anti-features along with desired ones.

I’m not necessarily saying Proton will go down that route, but trying to become big and bundled as a value proposition opens the door for that behavior once they get enough people locked into the ecosystem.

A “privacy” company acquiring and centralizing various projects to be under its umbrella seems kind of worrisome to me even if it’s done with pure intentions.

Also, I’m not sure if this is the same in Canada as the US, but I’m pretty sure that in many cases, vandalism is considered a much lesser crime than unauthorized computer tampering/hacking

Except for phantoms, which you can’t turn off on Bedrock without bricking achievements

I don’t know anything about non-cartoon guy, but after confirming my guess, the sign behind says “Sneed’s Feed and Seed” at the top which is indeed a Simpsons reference. Apparently it has ties to 4chan culture as well, if the knowyourmeme page is anything to go by.

The Simpsons character is from the episode/scene in question, and I don’t know if he is given a name because I’ve never seen the full episode.

Edit: Additionally, the Simpsons character has been edited specifically to resemble a rule 34 rendition of Omni-man from Invincible, in which the artist depicted him with a suit on, but very skin tight and leaving very little to the imagination with everything visible through the suit. The original image was/is also shared around a lot in some spaces, mainly for shock value but there could be additional meaning. You can also find info for that on the knowyourmeme page for “Thicc Omni-Man” (potential NSFW warning)

No idea what the significance of the choking-with-buttcheeks is, but I’d imagine it’s not great.

I was thinking of a short lil bunny wearing a top hat and monocle with one ear sticking out of the center of the top hat but that works too

I could comment on the notion that one owns one’s girlfriend but regardless, you should definitely self host if you’re sharing deeply personal information with a program

Sounds like a Pal name lol

Opera has been in the web browser playing field for a long time at this point, but haven’t been super relevant until the last couple years due to GX

Do we really though? Don’t get me wrong it’s some of the most entertaining content I’ve seen on the Internet but I think it brings more harm than good on the whole, especially with the fervor around GME that spun off into being downright delusional. I’d prefer if we don’t end up bringing that over here tbh.

I think the ‘old’ wsb even would be sort of borderline with the egging on and memefication of gambling one’s life savings on weeklies

That makes sense. I always just used my email from the browser unless there’s something specific I need from an email client or the setup is employer-provided/mandated, but I guess a lot of people just go with whatever is put in front of their face first.

But if anyone tries to open a new thread on the issue it gets marked as a duplicate and removed

I mean, if it’s an Outlook email and not from another provider using Outlook as a frontend, it’s part of Microsoft’s ecosystem anyways. Unless your whole inbox is encrypted (and it’s probably not if it’s not being advertised as such lol), it’s on Microsoft’s servers and they have control over it anyways.

That said, definitely change the password if you just used Outlook as your email client at some point!

Something I don’t think anyone is talking about is that, if this is now considered a ToS violation, Google will probably decide at some point to start banning accounts over it. Oh, you use adblock? Now your email, Drive documents, and photos are gone.

Mine shows ads but doesn’t play audio. Plus the ads are just for like their Citi credit card, relatively unobtrusive.

Tangentially, I recently came to the unfortunate conclusion that it’s just not worth my time to get gas at Costco if there’s a line, especially if I’m out and about on a lunch break. The gas is good and it’s much cheaper, but if it’s like 6 cars back and a 15-20 minute wait, I actually save money by filling up elsewhere and just getting back to work sooner.