FriendOfDeSoto

If we are honest with ourselves, we all have biases that end in -phobia. They are on a siding scale and get more pronounced in certain situations. The assholes in society don’t gaf about their biases and don’t care if they say or do hurtful things as a result. The more enlightened people know about their lizard brain biases and try their best not to act on them.

Maybe you are a bit homophobic. But you are aware of your biases and you can make sure you don’t act on them in a way that is hurtful to other people. Knowing is half the battle. So don’t beat yourself up over it. From what I’ve been reading in your post you are doing it right.

Asterix

Is this happening even for their premium subscribers?

I think it’s the wrong label, anti-intellectualusm. Sense of reality might do it more justice. I think there are two factors at play. 1) how much does higher education cost you? Does it put you in debt you’ll be lucky to have paid off before you retire? Have other people gotten degrees and still ended up unemployed? Why get majorly in debt to get no job in the end? That’s more a North American specific problem. I’m in Asia and I haven’t heard anybody shit talking college degrees in favor of the trades. 2) We need plumbers and carpenters and welders and whatnot. And due to declining birth rates in many places and the fact that the numerous birth years of the boomers are retiring and will continue to retire in the short term, we are running out of sparkies, masons, and HVACs. So if you had to career advise people today, you’d be silly not to bring up a profession with near certainty of getting a job once you’re trained up.

Shitty work environments exist in more high brow professions as well.

I think there will be fork and there will be fork. A company like Samsung will continue to take what Google churns out, put their more proprietal stuff on it, and ship it. Probably not as Tyzen any more but who knows. I suspect a FOSS fork will never go back to Google after the last version that didn’t require this dev register check. They will find a way to maintain feature parity with it but it will be delayed.

Forks haven’t worked that well for Samsung Tyzen or Amazon because they never gained enough users, nor probably contributed they enough to the bottom line given the investment. It remains to be seen whether the more privacy conscious people can move the needle enough for a FOSS version.

It’s always nice to read Corey eating at the buffet of corporate shenanigans and leaving no crumbs.

If this developer registration really comes to pass and/or has staying power, I suspect there will be eff it we will just fork it movement. A FOSS Tyzen or Fire version of Android that would then not go back to whatever Google does with their Android updates. That would probably work better if all the privacy-friendly Android devs banded together, which probably won’t happen.

At the same time, I don’t think the last word has been spoken on Google’s plans here. They haven’t implemented it yet. And even if/when they do, I suspect there will one or two courtrooms that will hear about this shit in excruciating detail. If European devs could rally behind this flag there is a good chance the EU will use its golden formula of 50% good intentions and 50% wanting to eff American tech giants to intervene on privacy grounds.

People are mad. There are mad people on both sides.

Consumers can feel very empowered by a few hundred followers and one bad experience. And that translates more into a diss track, embelished and dramatized, than an honest review. Entrepreneurs justifiably fear this because this can hurt their businesses significantly. So they fight back with this legal retcon attempt. It’s most likely not enforceable - and they probably know that too. If they wouldn’t mind you speaking positively about you online, they cannot keep the negative stuff out either (as long as it is based in fact, libel is a different story). This little boiler plate serves only to give pause to the consumer. It plants a seed of restraint in their minds (if they actually read it).

Humans are a complicated species.

We can all agree kids shouldn’t be watching porn. We do not agree on how to achieve this.

That was only option 2.

You need to try for yourself. Or consult a therapist who knows you well enough. Us idiots on the internet cannot look inside your head.

That’s not universally true. Necrophiles may be past that, according to preference.

Kids are probably old enough to get it. I would just think that you will be loading a shotgun that’s going to shoot you in the face down the line. Either the ladies will get in each other’s hair or, worse, they’ll team up against you. I think your girlfriend is either insane or not entirely honest when she says she would be fine with your arrangement. I would sooner suggest you look for a place closeby. I’m guessing the 15yo is eye rolling you hard and the 13yo will soon not care about you either. You’ve carried them through the divorce rough spot with your unique living arrangement. Take a bow and let it go. Provide a better environment for your new relationship.

We are just asking old questions here. The printing press, novels, and pamphlets were the end of truth! We struggled, many people died, but life moved on. Then newspapers, more death, radio, world wars. Television, photoshop, the internet - fewer deaths in between but still. And life moved on.

Every new medium brought a phase of uncertainty (and possible carnage). That’s where we are right now. Every time we think “this is the worst EVER.” Until the next thing comes around. We will figure out the slop tsunami as well. I think fewer people will die than during the reformation.

Some people will successfully bend truth to generated video or whatever. But in the end, most will not succeed. Because we get wiser at spotting the bullshit. Q Anon showed us the learning isn’t a linear development; it follows more of a two steps forward, one step back pattern.

Have you ever noticed the difference in screen quality before? Did you ever watch a YT video on something slightly better than a cathode ray monitor and thought to yourself: “hmm, this is shit.”? If so, don’t cheap out on the tablet. Maybe a used iPad might even be ideal. I’m leaning Apple here because Android tablet screens tend to be worse on average and there will be fewer good ones on the resale market.

If you don’t want a big TV, how about a smaller one that you can cast content to? Just as another suggestion because other folks have already suggested laptops.

As you get older, your eyes turn to shit and most of this won’t matter that much. So you’re right to be cautious on the spending.

I proudly watch movies on my phone. If I don’t want to watch Paw Patrol or Frozen it’s the only way to get some not-made-for-kids content in. And I can take it to the toilet and continue watching. And I don’t mean porn, just to clarify. Sure, as the cinematic experience goes, it isn’t what Christopher Nolan had in mind but shit happens. It’s that or nothing.

I’m not a geneticist, I don’t even play one on TV. But i’m fairly confident in saying: evening out? That’s not how this works. When your daddy’s sperm combined with your mother’s egg, a whole host of chance processes happened to make up your genes. It’s random as far as I can tell. It isn’t just averaging out between them.

It took centuries to get to disposable contact lenses while trying to figure out the physics, both in optics and in manufacturing any sort of spectacles, at the same time.

Will the survivors of the apocalypse be able to pick up where we left off or will they essentially start from scratch? That depends on the apocalypse and on the survivors. Do documents and knowledge survive, perhaps in a stash or in digital form? Do the survivors include an optician or a material engineer? Chances look good if that’s the case. If no, life will get a lot harder for many people.

Germany is a collection of regions and former midieval fiefdoms that pretty much all hate each other. Munich and surroundings is representative of Munich, not the whole country. But a lot of the stereotypical things Americans think of when thinking of Germany will be there. Most of the South was occupied by US forces post WW2 and all the lederhosen, Oktoberfest, and Neuschwanstein Castle should feel just right for you. And that pisses off the Germans in the rest of the country like telling a Texan their BBQ is trash.

Somebody said Germans aren’t into smalltalk. That’s probably true by comparison to the average American but by comparison to their countrymen in the North they are positively chatty in Bavaria.

Bring cash or research at least two ways to get your hands on it while in the country. Just in case one method fails. A lot of places do not accept credit cards and that will probably extend to US debit cards that run on a cc system.

And yes, especially intercity trains are a clustereff of neglect and wear and tear and timetables are not to be trusted at all.

Don’t rent a car and just floor it on the autobahn. Take it at 120kph/75mph first for an hour before you put your pedal to the metal. Get a feel for the road and the rules first because Germans love a rule. And it decreases your chance of hitting a concrete pillar. No speed limit areas tend to be between cities, not on the built up areas. Know that speeding tickets will be charged after the fact or they will follow you by mail.

The staring people refer to here may be, to a large extent, that if there are no Chinese tourists in the area, American ones will be the loudest ones around, carrying their cute little fear of dehydration made manifest water bottles around. You look funny to us and we can’t help it. Don’t buy bottled water, tap is fine to drink. But there aren’t drinking fountains around. A lot of drinks in bottles and cans charge a deposit fee you’ll get back when you return the empty container to the supermarket - your kid will know the drill.

If you’re planning to cross borders be prepared for actual border checks. Our version of ICE crackdowns is making the federal police force delay EU cross border traffic with pretty much EU-illegal ID checks. We spend absolute millions of Euros, accruing a gazillion hours of overtime to catch two illegal immigrants or thereabouts. Political theater with waiting times for all.

Doesn’t difficult very much depend on what you think matters? You’re instantly missing out on anything app, anything QR-code related (ordering food in some restaurants, links, etc.), membership cards that no longer exist in physical form. Some places sell certain tickets online only and then you may need a printer or you’re SOL. I’m sure in missing something so that’s not extensive.

But at the same time, if you have a dumb phone, you can still stay in touch with friends and family. You’ll be missing out on images being sent that are bigger than 2 pixels. But you wouldn’t be completely out of the loop. And if you have an internet ready computer at home or at the next door library, just not on you at all times, I think that’s crucial. Without that you’re ending up in all sorts of trouble.

I would say it’s doable if you are good at not giving F’s. If at the same time you only want to use cash or just no credit cards you’ll be making your life much harder though.

We must hang out in very different circles then.

Become active in your local politics. That’s where this urban design sausage is made. I’m gonna go ahead and doubt that your post here will reach many decision makers and urban designers.

The reason why you can’t angle that parasol is because it will cost more money. Anything the public can use will be abused and then broken. We cannot have nice things.

Fixed typo