Barges into room.

Them: “Are you hacking, son?

Me: “No.”

Them: “Cool. I’m just a hotel employee, and I only have understanding of computers at an end-user level. Plus, I see you’re not wearing a hoodie and sunglasses while being hunched over a laptop. Have a nice day and enjoy your stay at the Hilton!”

Does Donald Trump, the convicted felon rapist racist, really want Taylor Swift to publicize again to him about how much she champions for human rights, advocates for the LGTBQ+ community, adovcates for abortion rights, and hates the corrupt fascism and conservatism poisoning the U.S.?

Right before an election, too! Sure, Diaper Don, let's get the Swifties angry again and let's have them vote Democratic in droves. That's a community you should really piss off!

Desperate Diaper Don, beloved friend of Jeffrey Epstein, is desperate once again.

Everything Taylor Swift Has Said About Donald Trump: https://www.newsweek.com/taylor-swift-donald-trump-kamala-harris-joe-biden-2024-election-1938982

EDIT:

Remember to vote. Do not get complacent. Make sure you vote, and tell your friends and family to vote. Say NO to Fascism.

I never would have guessed that the captured regulators would choose the owner class over the working class.

User accidentally opens Uplay when trying to double-click Steam

A store banner ad shows 'Skull and Bones'

User immediately frowns in disgust and tries to spam the X button to quit Uplay

Uplay privacy-invading telemetry captures an image of the user frowning via the webcam, and tracks the movement of the mouse cursor moving across the banner ad of 'Skull and Bones'

Uplay closes, telemetry is uploaded to Ubisoft's servers

Ubisoft:

What’s Taters, precious?

The best way to get back at someone is to have a great life. Ignore him and block him, and carry on with your great life.

He’s obviously insecure, fragile, and arrogant. Move on - you’ll never win anything by stopping to his level, and you’ll never convince him to change his ways by putting him in his place. The older you get, the more you realize quickly people just aren’t worth your time.

When you see him next, just ignore him. When he gossips about you to his brother or your friends in an attempt to get a rise out of you, laugh and ignore him.

Have a great life, and fuck that guy.

This is a sad article to read. I'm not a woman nor am I young adult growing up with all this technology that can be leveraged against me. Could you imagine being a junior high or high school student, and having an anonymous classmate creating deepfake porn of you using your yearbook photo? And the children in your class gossiping about you, sharing your porn video/photo online with their friends, and enduring that harassment? It's already well-documented what damages that too much pornography causes on our psychological development, now imagine the consumer of this content being around the victim. That harassment can get so much worse.

I can't even begin to fathom what kind of psychological damage this will cause to the youth. I feel for women everywhere - this is a terrible thing people are doing with this technology. I can't imagine raising a daughter in this environment and trying to help her navigate this problem when some asshole creates deepfake porn of her. My niece is currently getting bullied in school - what if her bullies use these tools against her? This just makes my blood boil.

It's bad enough that since social media has risen and captured the attention span of kids and teenagers, that there is a well-defined correlation with an increase in suicide rates since 2009 (the year Twitter first came out). https://www.health.com/youth-suicide-rate-increase-cdc-report-7551663 . Now, a nonconsensual AI-generated porn era to navigate.

These are dangerous times. This opens persons up for attack, and regulation to increase friction to access these tools is one of the next most important steps to take. Granted, outright bans never work (as the persistent ones will always get their hands on it), but we need to put controls into place to limit access to this. Then we can remediate the root cause to these problems (e.g., proper systemic education, teaching a modified sexual education in schools to address things like consent, etc.).

EDIT:

Wanted to also add after I posted this, that a common prevalent argument I hear parroted by people is this:

• People are gonna do this AI generation anyway. It'll get to the point that you won't be able to tell what's real or not, so women can just deny it. You can't prove it's real anyway, so why bother?

This is another way of saying "boys will be boys" and ignoring the problem. The problem is harrassment and violence against women.

That’s a cute dress. If I pirate it, will I get a Creative Cloud warning pop up when it dials home?

Oh wow! This is neat Google! This is a great distraction from your other invasive and insidious tracking you’re introducing in your browser.

I’ll go redownload Chrome now and give up Firefox.

Why are we still preordering AAA digital video games from multi-million dollar corporations?There is no incentive to preorder AAA video games anymore - long gone are the days of midnight launches for physical games.

• Cyberpunk 2077
• Returnal
• Forsaken
• The Lord of the Rings: Gollum
• Fallout 76
• Grand Theft Auto: Definitive Edition
• The Last of Us Part 1
• No Man’s Sky
• Etc. ad nauseum

All of these games came with a half-assed apology from the publisher and how “this wasn’t their intention”. Yes, it was absolutely their intention. They released a knowingly broken game and charged us full price for it. They already got our money and laughed because they know we’re too stupid to do anything about it and that they’ve trained us well with “fear of missing out”.

How many times do us gamers need to get burned by video game publishers until we learn our lesson?

Stop rewarding and encouraging their predatory behavior. Opt out of this abusive practice by not preordering and voting with your wallet. Let them earn your money, so “they can feel a sense of pride and accomplishment”.

A quick, non-technical explanation:

• Google is working toward implementing a new protocol in Google Chrome, “Manifest v3”, that will be intrusive and help enforce Digital Rights Management, as well as stopping ad blockers.
• Under the guise of this being safe, secure, and to curb bots, Mv3 will require users to become Trusted by using the Chrome browser.
• Since the majority of users are using Google Chrome, this will heavily influence corporations to adopt this protocol in their service.
• A Trusted user can access Netflix in the browser. If you’re using Firefox or are an untrusted user, you will not be able to access Netflix in your browser.
• This protocol will appear one day in some form, and it will greatly shift the internet and force more users into Google’s ecosystem.
• This will spread to all areas of the internet - Banking web sites, government web sites, healthcare, entertainment, education, etc.
• The internet will become less “free” over time. More censorship, less rights.
• Lots of ads can contain malware. Considering that Google allows phishing sites to pay for an ad to appear directly in Google search results, there is no confidence that Mv3 will be safe or secure.

See my other comments in this Post for more details.

It's a long video with many points and better if you watch it. However, here's a break down of key points, made to be as simple as possible - there's a lot more technical stuff, but I'll try to keep it concise and less technical.

This is probably about a 10 minute read if these concepts are not familiar to you:

1. Google owns Chrome (not Chromium), and they dominate the market ever since they won the internet browser wars.
2. As an amoral corporation (not evil, simply lacking morals), their business runs on advertisements.
3. They're revealing a new feature called Manifest v3 which is a locked down version of the browser that's built around what they feel is security and trust.
4. Under their proposal for Manivest v3, your browser will have to be "verified" in an attempt to keep you "safe". Are you a human or a bot? They're making a more trusted internet with trusted software.
5. Companies like Netflix, news web sites, etc. will eat this up and implement the proper protocols to use Manifest v3. To visit your bank's web site which has this protocol, you'll need to use Chrome's browser.
6. Using Chrome's browser, you'll need to authenticate yourself and become a "trusted" user. With this enabled, you can then visit your bank's web site.
7. If you use an alternative browser that isn't approved, you won't be able to use that web site.
8. Eventually other corporations will implement these protocols, too, and you'll be locked out from participating in the internet.
9. Google, an ad company, gets to control advertisements better, gets to learn more about their users, and now gets to mark them as "trusted". In other words, you get the North Korean version of the internet, "Mommy and Daddy's Safe and Approved Internet". Meanwhile, North Korea and Mom/Dad get to spy on you, see what you're up to, monitor you, control you, and shape you. The benefit is they also make money off you by selling the information they learn about you.

Why is this bad:

1. It's censorship. It's like your mom and dad grabbing your phone, computer, enabling severe parental controls, giving it back to you, and they get to see and approve what you're allowed to do and say at any time. Apply that same protocol to your money, too. Want to send money through the internet using PayPal? Even more censorship. Want to watch Netflix? Your parents lock it down so only certain things can be watched, at certain times, and certainly under their permission.
2. It buries competition and makes Google even more of a monopoly. We already know Google Search is bad (advertisements, phishing web sites, auto-generated content web sites are always the first results in Google.
3. Digital Rights Management. Just a bit north of 20 years ago, when you purchased a digital product, you could own it. Streaming didn't exist. In an age where "buying" no longer means "owning", this new protocol will further enforce DRM. Pay for Netflix and want to watch it? You'll have to be a Trusted User that uses Chrome. Bought a new video game you're excited to play on Steam? You'll need to be a Trusted User. Don't want to stream music through Spotify and instead use something like Bandcamp? To make a purchase at Bandcamp, you'll need to be a Trusted User. Don't want to buy something through Bandcamp and instead just download what you already paid for? You guessed right - you'll need to be a trusted user to even login and reach your downloads. Don't forget your downloads are hosted on servers that are run by Google and Amazon - you'll have to be a trusted user in order to download from that server.

Can I use Firefox and stop using any Chromium browser

• Most browsers are Chromium: Chrome, Brave, Ungoogled Chromium to name a few. They will all eventually implement Manifest v3, and if they don't, they will disappear.
• Firefox is not Chromium, but think about how many users use Firefox now. Google Chrome has the overwhelming market share and has captured users into their platform.
• Because the majority of users use Chrome, corporations have to evolve to adopt Manifest v3: banking web sites, governments, job applications, benefits, healthcare, personal emergency, etc. All of these will be forced to adopt it because that's where the users are, and Google will force corporations to participate. After all, banking web sites will face less downtime through Manifest v3, because bots won't be able to spam them and try to get in. Netflix will have to spend less money on security, because only trusted users will be able to even reach Netflix. Your "free" email service through Gmail now stops all spam because it only accepts incoming messages from trusted users. Of course everyone will adopt it - Google is safe, secure, and trusted. And best of all it's "free"!
• If you use Firefox now and continue to use it, you'll be safe for several years. For now.

What can we do?

• Right now, you can opt out of using Chrome by using Firefox and other decentralized tools.
• In the not too distant future, there's not much that you can do. Educating users to switch from Chrome, use Linux, use stock Android (e.g., Graphene OS), will not help.
• Eventually, the users that use Firefox, Linux, stock de-googled Android will get locked out. An average user isn't going to invest their time to learn these platforms. They'll stick with what works: "I can login to Chrome and watch my Netflix and pay my bills. You're telling me that this Linux thing doesn't let me do that? Screw that, I'll use Chrome OS - at least my shit works! What's wrong with these Linux developers, they can't get anything right! They should take a lesson from Google and fix their shit."
• Write your politicians and hope that some governments will help restrict this rollout. Keep in mind though that some version of this will get passed and approved. Also don't forget that corrupt regulators and politicians are captured and owned by corporations. This will get passed, there's no doubt about it.

What will happen 20 years from now?

• Humans have tenacity. You can only frustrate humans so much before they break. Take away too many of their freedoms, impose many restrictions, and eventually they will break.
• The trick for all of time, seen throughout history by all our overlords, kings, emperors, etc. is to find a careful balance. Take away "just enough" freedoms. Give them "just enough". Work them until they're tired, but don't let them break. And of course, give them a few handouts here and there, but not enough to make their lives easy.
• Manifest v3 (or its derivative) will be implemented. There's no doubt about that at all.
• The 99% of the population will continue to use these services because they want to be able to participate: They have to pay bills, access money, access healthcare, use government systems, do education, have entertainment, etc.
• The 99% will continue to use this because they won't care. So long as they can be happy enough, they will persist.
• Eventually, an infinitesimally small minority will be affected by something. Something will break and cause them to snap, and they will do the only thing that an individual human can do: opt out.
• That small minority will leave, opt out, and refuse to participate in the system. Those clusters will grow at an extremely small rate because they're able to recognize the whole picture and see that personal freedoms are so restricted. They'll remember their history and learn from it.
• Enter decentralization - the removal of power from centralized authority.
• Those who recognize decentralization will build new platforms, and others will eventually follow. This is why the Fediverse and Bitcoin exist. They recognize the problem of centralization and are full of users who decided to opt out. The Fediverse adoption exploded with the 2023 Reddit API problem, and the constant Twitter issues under Elon Musk. Bitcoin happened in 2009 out of anger from the 2008 global financial crisis when "Satoshi Nakomoto" gave, as a gift to the world, a permissionless peer-to-peer decentralized economy of money that had "rules, but without rulers".

What happens 20+ years from now?

• In 30 years when more of the population realizes their freedoms are under attack, they'll consult the ones who left 10 years previously.
• In 40 years, you might have choice. There may be a "new Firefox" that pops up after the old Firefox was wiped out 10 years ago, and let's you use the internet, your IP, and your content in a different way.
• The trick is to train yourself to see the big picture. You'll never defeat your overlords - they're behind tall walls and they control the money. However, you can opt out. You can refuse to participate. But by doing so, remember that you will be locked out. That's not an easy choice to make.
• But those users that do opt out, they will be the ones that were pushed too far. This is why refugees leave their homes - they just want to be safe, they want to be alright, they want their freedom from their opressors.
• We will have "Google Internet" (Manifest v3) refugees one day.

“We no longer have choice. We no longer have voice. And what is left when you have no choice and no voice? Exit.” - Andreas Antonopoulos