Read all four books. I have read the series now. Perhaps 3x in the last 25 or so years since I discovered it.

The Fall of Hyperion is 100% a recommendation. The Endymion books are somewhat controversial. But I love them.

Not OP but my guess would be moderation tools.

Reddit’s bottom line in the short term is unimpaired that is how they won.

But in the long term- they are dead. I mused on this before.

Social network need monopoly - otherwise the business model struggles. One Facebook. One Reddit, one Instagram. Facebook, Insta, Snap, and TikTok however are struggling because they are now the same thing in different packages.

Not so Reddit. Reddit was a true monopoly. Nothing else compared. Well no longer. All their hiking have spawned a true credible alternative in Lemmy/Kbin. This will kill them. No matter of it’s Fediverse or something else - now there use than one place for Reddit. That means a third, fourth and fifth place is in the realm of possibility. And they WILL emerge. Others will try to enter the Reddit space.

Reddit had a niche and it was so dominant. No one truly tried to enter my ya niche. But that was not good enough. The enshittified it over and over again. And now the. Have competition. As they will never have a monopoly again. They will struggle to get their ads money. They will struggle with the margins. They will struggle. Yahoo will buy them in 10 years and do the mercy blow.

Because of apple’s size. And because we just witnessed a death of a proprietary connector. A major win for the consumer and for the universtal serial bus projects overall mission.

On a side note. Apple has been part of the usb c project from the beginning and based on some biographies - they worked hard to never release Lightning. But they needed to drop the old 30pin connector and found usb C not ready when they needed it - so they release the lightning port instead. Then stuck to it for obvious profit /ecosystem reasons.

Truth. Very good point.

Miele now us a few bagless models with pretty good reviews. But they are a late comer compared to Dyson and Samsung.

It’s popular to hate on Dyson but cordless, bagless vacuum is very much a game dominated by them. Others - Samsung, Miele - have great products but I have yet to see a model from them that is truly superior to flagship Dysons. They dominate on suction and battery power.

Dyson is expensive (overpriced?). The owners is an oligarch brexiteer asshole. The brand is perpetually trending with annoying influencers and I find their vacuums ugly, but … they build very good vacuums.

Yes. I own a Dyson. A corded one. We’re on our third one and keep buying them because we have never had any issues with them.

My current one is 4 years old. The one before was 10 by the time we sold it due to international move. The one before we bought 10 years old used before deciding we wanted a new one.

Basically also why Swedish barns are red. I presume those two stories and red barn origins are related.

Same.

Seems to violate TOS of both app stores and likely a few laws in key markets.

But Elon never gave a hoot.

You mean like when you visit a Google service (Gmail, Google, Maps …) on a non Chrome browser it bugs incessantly to switch?

It’s pervasive and it stinks, but it’s not Microsoft. It’s our current capitalist gestalt.

EDIT: I’ll be damned: It’s not on Google anymore … I either imagined it, or they removed their nagging. My bad. Thanks to the commenters who pointed it out.

Please separate government and politicians and media. Plenty hard work happening in our agencies solving important issues. And of course then congress wakes up and just spews bullshit.

That is an important point. But why it’s unpopular is that it’s not “feminism’s” job to do this. Feminism is a struggle to give women equal opportunities to men. They do not include race, poverty, and definitely not men’s issues in this.

To put it bluntly: It’s not women’s job to fix men.

Men’s loneliness crisis may have come about as a result of modern societal changes. Including equality for women. But it’s men who need to organise and fix that.

(And honestly- as someone who has moved around the western world - this seems uniquely American problem. European men have rich social lives. Even in the most feminist nations)

I think you’re close to understanding WHY then the trans community is such a stickler about pronouns

Let me give you an example that may further close the understanding loop for you.

I moved from US to Scandinavia. This place, despite being always described as heaven for the queer community … is, on the surface, entirely devoid of them. You hardly ever notice. There is hardly ever any discussion, politics, or fuss. You struggle to spot queer couples on the street. There just isn’t a loud community shouting about queer and trans issues on the street. When you spot queer or trans folks they are just people doing their daily life.

Why? Because they are not under attack. When a community is being attacked it becomes tighter, builds rituals and ways of living that identifies members of the group. It becomes louder and with a uniform voice on the political scene. Because the coordination and loudness is necessary for their political goals- of not being attacked.

(I guess groups not on the defensive but on the offensive would do the same. I guess you have to look at the goals to understand which is which.)

But here’s my point - in conditions where the trans community is treated with respect, they again become free to NOT make their life about bathrooms and pronouns.

And thus - I argue pronouns are such a hot topic because trans folks are being deliberately misgendred as an attack by their political opponents.

It’s not unusual. The joke is the political spectrum is a circle. You go far enough to the left - you meet the far right.

In the end both Bernie and Trump are populists (in both senses: offering solutions that people want and proposing simplified solutions that are unrealistic)

During Covid in Germany the anti vaccine protest coalition was made up of fascists and hippies.

The problem for me is that Musk is an unreliable partner to any government. He is for sale to the highest bidder that strokes his ego.

But I guess that is a risk the feds will have to deal with in due time.

Honestly I waiting for the moment when one of Musk’s stunts gets Space X banned from government contracts until the boot the Muppet.

Edit: grammar