A quick web search for third-party coverage information tells me that Wanaque has good coverage from Verizon and poor coverage from T-Mobile. It’s easy to guess why T-Mobile might be motivated to change that situation.

Federated systems are one option for this. On one of my sites, the only way people can leave comments is with ActivityPub. They must have a (probably pseudonymous) account on a server to use that, and I hope that most servers have moderation I find acceptable. I can block those that do not.

More sophisticated options for sharing reputation between servers would help here. If, for example five servers I trust block another server as a source of harassment, I’d like to block it as well, automatically.

Much as I’d like to blame Trump for everything bad that happened during his term, the pandemic and surrounding craziness caused a spike in crime, and Trump did not cause the pandemic.

Biden did not end the pandemic or its social impacts. I’d argue the pandemic isn’t really over, but most of its social impacts are.

Google had the chance to make its Hangouts messaging app dominant when it was, briefly the default SMS client on Android devices. They threw that away following pushback from carriers.

I’m glad Google doesn’t have the dominant messaging service, but I find it bizarre anybody still uses SMS when there are so many internet-based options. I have six, and if somebody really wants to use another, I’ll probably add it.

I’m sure Apple shares a lot of the blame, but holy shit how is this not solved in 2024. I shouldn’t have to resort to spam filled shitware from Meta to get remotely modern messaging cross platform

There’s no shortage of options; the problem is getting the people you’re talking to to agree on one you like. I find Signal strikes a good balance between goodness and ease of use, and many people I know who aren’t tech or privacy nerds use it.

I’m guessing not a lot of users know about it. Their ActivityPub implementation is still only about half done.

It will be interesting to see of they promote it heavily when it’s more complete.

There’s nothing keeping them from scraping that kind of data now.

My (self-hosted) Mastodon server seems unable to view profiles on Threads. As far as I can tell, there’s nobody to talk to about that.

I don’t have high hopes about Meta having good intentions here, but I am eager to see platforms that would have previously been walled gardens open up to the federated model. I do think we have some work to do on the open source side to manage the potential massive increase in exposure once Threads users can follow users of other software.

Of course you can pick a server that blocks Threads if you just don’t want to deal with that.

The article has a weirdly alarmist tone to it.

Yes, there are a bunch of people claiming to know loopholes in the law through which they don’t need a license to drive and the county sheriff (who will absolutely arrest them for driving without a license) is the supreme authority. A few of them will resist the police with violence. People unsuccessfully advancing crackpot legal theories and a few isolated incidents of fighting the police are not a threat to the rule of law.

How democratic of them.

I am drinking port as I type this.

A sober teacher who is negligent in some other way resulting in an unreasonable danger to the children in their care also commits a crime.

TikTok is really popular operating on essentially the same principle. I, for one want nothing to do with that.

If a dangerous situation arose and the teacher failed to respond appropriately due to drunkenness, I’m sure that charge would be appropriate.

Alcohol is not a vice that adults are usually allowed to have at work. Most jobs will fire you for being drunk at work.

We probably don’t need a criminal law specifically for this though.

I’ve had this stuff before. It’s comparable in spice level to what you’d get from a good Indian or Thai restaurant if the staff actually believe you when you say you want extra-spicy.

The sauce packet itself contains “decolorized chili extract”, which is better known as oleoresin capsicum in some non-food products. Eating the sauce without mixing it into the soup as intended would be unpleasant for almost anyone, but only dangerous to people with allergies or certain pre-existing life-threatening health conditions.

27 CFR § 478.11 addresses that. The court is not making new law here.

Such use is not limited to the use of drugs on a particular day, or within a matter of days or weeks before, but rather that the unlawful use has occurred recently enough to indicate that the individual is actively engaged in such conduct. A person may be an unlawful current user of a controlled substance even though the substance is not being used at the precise time the person seeks to acquire a firearm or receives or possesses a firearm.

The charges are absurd

Why? Lying on the gun purchase background check form is a felony. It says so right above the signature line on the form. The evidence he lied on the form looks pretty strong.

I do realize the crime is not prosecuted often, but that seems like a mistake. The Charleston church shooter, for example should have failed his background check and been prosecuted for the same crime.

It’s also illegal in most jurisdictions. My point isn’t that anyone should drive without insurance, but that allowing insurance companies to offer discounts for accepting spying will lead to the spying being effectively mandatory for most people.

I’m inclined to think this should be illegal because it could lead to a situation where insurance is unavailable to or unaffordable for anyone who doesn’t opt in to fairly invasive tracking.

Why do you have an app for that?