It’s everywhere. Been looking at moving to Latin America (Uruguay or Panama specifically) and many businesses there don’t even have/publish regular phone numbers. The tour companies I traveled with said you can’t get anything done without whatsapp.

This is not at all surprising. We got rid of prime about a year ago and generally have avoided buying through Amazon, but on a few occasions, it’s been the only option so we bit the bullet. It was awful.

Prices and shipping listed were for prime members (autoselected of course) with small print nonprime member prices selectable. Their once famously easy purchase process was multiple screens full of “don’t you want to rejoin prime??” pages with the option “join” already checked. Even after selecting the nonmember price and saying no to prime, going to the checkout page revealed an option auto checked for ‘faster shipping’ that was actually an option for rejoining prime. In buying multiple items this was autoselected on each of them separately, so you’re agreeing to prime if you miss changing one.

Even if I have to order from them periodically (which I avoid like the plague), I have no intention of paying for prime again. The whole purchase process is an indicator that dropping prime is making an impact and I want that message to sink in.

For those who have Alexa, downgrading the plan, or even better-- finding an alternative home assistant, will send an equally powerful message, even if Amazon isn’t ready to hear it.

I think it was something like that, though its been about 6 weeks so Im a little fuzzy on it now. I was following a guide I’d found online and reached something different from what the guide said, so I aborted install to check on somethings and that apparently set something that when i tried to restart installation it kept throwing an error. Something about starting the installation without completing it messed something else up that I havent been able to fix. I spent an hour or so looking through stuff, even wiped the PC and it still wouldn’t work. I’ve been meaning to go back to it but haven’t gotten around to it.

Agreed. We are in an age where tech is spoonfed to people with slick UIs and automated installs. Linux needs that–some kind of easy onramp to get people comfortable and familiar with it–in order to have a chance of getting broad acceptance. It’s not particularly accessible even for people with a small amount of tech knowledge and skill.

I tried to set up mint on an old laptop recently and immediately hit a roadblock before I could even get an install going. I did some research and found some options to troubleshoot it but gave up because the guidance I found online was a bit more complex than I felt comfortable acting on.

I really want to try out Linux, but if someone like me (with some technology knowledge and comfort) still gets this easily tripped up on installing it, I can’t imagine the average person taking the leap successfully.

So true. As a kid a was in a booklovers’ mail club where I’d get a couple books appropriate for my age and I loved it. I always was working through something up through high school and college.

But grad school required reading hundreds of pages of research for class every week and I was just exhausted from it. I think I only made it through the Harry Potter books throughout my PhD. I go through periods where I’ll get through a couple books, and there’s a few writers I follow, but I haven’t gotten back to loving reading the way I used to.

Yes! Here’s a nice summary of the recovery. https://www.thearchaeologist.org/blog/the-discovery-of-king-richard-iiis-burial-site

If youre a history buff, I highly recommend History Calling’s video on Richard III and the loss and recovery of his body. It’s lengthy but well researched and has lots of interesting context.

I feel like any time there is a headline about a Waco man it’s something ridiculous like this.

Has anybody heard any news on the HDMI issue Valve has been working on? I really want one but I use my PC connected to my TV so HDMI is pretty necessary.

Awesome, thanks!

I started that process and hit a road block after getting all the books downloaded to my pc. Can you recommend any tutorials or guides that might help get everything converted?

The guy was suing for $50K +expenses. That is not even a drop in the bucket for Disney and they fought it. That says plenty about the culture over there.

Yep, I managed to find a license for 2019 several years aho and have just transferred it to my computers and I’ve upgraded. No copilot or prompts to upgrade.

I’m still testdriving libreoffice to try to dump ms entirely but I like having a backup available.

What bothers me is that I’m getting all this “upgrade to windows 11” crap from other companies, like my antivirus. I get that eset reason to tell me about possible security risks to my computer, but I’d prefer if they give me options for addressing it that don’t involve dealing with a new OS, especially the win 11 dumpster fire.

Important to note that the article says it can save to Onedrive or cloud drive of your choice. Its not clear exactly how that works if you want to save to Box, or Dropbox or something else but it looks like the option is there and it seems like you may even be able to turn that off if you want.

If it’s still not your preference, I’ve seen licenses for office 2019 for sale on the web, which predates a lot of the cloud integration and AI tool nonsense. Between that and libre office there are ways to avoid using this service if you’re so inclined.

I’m not getting too excited yet. All class action lawsuits I’ve heard of end up netting individual members only a few bucks each. Unless the settlement specifically grants authors right to opt out of AI scraping, it’s only a small victory. Hopefully settlement details will come out soon.

GM was talking pretty publicly about doing this a couple years ago and there was a mild dust up over it. They also mentioned enthusiasm over the potential revenue to come from mining and selling driver data (which got them sued) . Last I heard about it was late 2023 or early 2024, so it seems their new data team.has been busy.

Don kid yourselves though, if GM is doing it, everyone else is or will be.

Oh lol cool TIL thanks

I mean, that’s shitty, but there’s no way in hell it’s the worst thing she’s had tweeted to or about her during her tenure. If all the insanity spewing from Grok and X users up to now didn’t phase her, I’m guessing she’s not bothered by this either.

(Not to say she or any other women deserves to be talked to or about like this. But by now people working at or using X know what they’re involved with and have made a choice to be there, so they must be okay with it at some level.)

I would actually be okay with libraries having those AI services. Even if they were available only for a fee it would be absurdly low and still waived for people with low or no income.

Had IUDs inserted twice in two different hospital systems in different states, but it was the same kind of awful both times.

Both times I was told to take ibuprofen beforehand, and that did absolutely nothing. But because it had been so bad the first time, with the second one I thought I’d be smart and took a vicodin I had from a prior procedure.

I still to lay in the room for 15 min after, trying not to vomit, and I nearly passed out. After , I walked to my car where I just sat there for 30 more min to rest. Even with vicodin it is the worst pain I have ever experienced in my life.

Not one ounce of sympathy or concern from anyone on staff.

It’s nice there are new guidelines, but I feel like it’s going to take more than that to make healthcare workers give a shit about this.