This is as close to the definition of a shitty idea as it can get.

No, it’s not my point, although there is a difference between expressing ideas, no matter how contrarian or controversial they may be, and spouting hate or other positions detrimental to advancement.

I am aware of what you mention of companies sniffing for the social media of employees and potential applicants. It is a shameful practice. And if it is illegal in my country, has it is viewed as trespassing on one’s privacy, it should be as welll any and everywhere.

Nobody should be ashamed nor afraid of expressing their opinions and ideas. Unfortunately, freedom of expression is often confused with the hability of saying whatever one feels like it, which is not.

What you describe (and fear, I take) is persecution. And that already tells whatever system an individual lives in is already deep into veering towards blatant suppression of rights. The US case is so off the rails it deserves an entire category to itself but it is only one among too many.

On the question of banning access to pornography I am completely against it. Yet I can not and will not deny the amount of evidence that supports that early and easy access to it is in fact tainting how people in general and kids in particular understand how relations are constructed. Pornography is really good at teaching wrong things. Nothing against it per se, it can be fun, but it should be consumed just like sugar, tobbacco and alcohol: in moderation and knowing of its ill effects.

I personally started reading erotic books much sooner than it was supposed. I recognize that curiosity towards sex and sexuality is ingrained in what makes us humans. I’m not advocating for banning adult material of any sort. What I would like to see would be clear boundaries for that specific content, for it not reaching those who are not expected to access it unware. It can’t be written off to caveat emptor. Even less because a lot of it is “free”.

The web is as it is today in great measure due to porn. There was a lot of money being poured into technology to facilitate access to it and in high definition. Let’s be thankful for it but that is it. It can be almost ubiquious nowadays, along with casinos and crypto. It’s too much and too much of a good thing is bad for everyone. Remember death by snu-snu.

I have no illusion we, as a species and a civilization, are going through a very dark period. Again. All the prior should have been able to sink in the lesson but we are either too sttuborn or too stupid to learn. Censoring, wide spread control of ideas, knowledge and thought is detrimental to a fair and free society.

Excuses like “protecting children”, “fighting terrorism”, etc, are, as you correctly said, excuses to make advances on individual rights and liberties. But we should be as concerned by now that companies do whatever they can to reach their goals and we are being force fed too many things that are not good for us. Two wrongs don’t make a right but something has to change. Perhaps ceasing to be afraid of being responsible by one’s own ideas and words would be a good start. Maybe stop feeding social media would be another. And perhaps reigning in companies on bad practices could be another.

That’s the point.

You, as a common citizen, should not have to. But the moment you feel like to share your thought or opinion, you should be identifiable and made responsible for it.

The current social media outlets shield behind the argument they act solely as channels while at the same time fostering and allowing for “anonymous” groups or individuals to spout whatever views they want, often views that deter from advancing social and civilizational progress. Hence the current state of the world, with authoritarianism on a rise and hight like there wasn’t in nearly 70 years.

When the internet was made of individual websites, the person behind it was automatically made responsible for whatever they put on it. That was fair and reasonable.

Pushes like this, is assigning suspition/guilt before any wrong doing.

I will grant the overall facilitated acess to pornography is damaging the kids. There are already enough studies showing how the early access to porn is related to bad interpersonal relations on social, emotional and sexual level.

But this does not imply you should be identifying yourself to access adult content or anything on the web. Just impose curation. If it’s available to the public, you’re responsible for it.

Old school “dirty” books and magazines stores had controlled access and the really hardcore stuff was well out of reach of who should not get to it. Free porn is nice but there are things available that should be behind pay walls or at least registry, with identity verification.

Try reading it instead. Go old school. And while you’re at it, write yourself and share it. Bring back the times of hand to hand banned knowledge sharing.

But now seriously: that is completely stupid.

As anyone considered the amount of money that “industry” generates. Considering the US is so economy driven and concerned with jobs, maybe that argument can raise concerns.

At some point, it will be easier to just not have a phone.

Myth. Vanilla extracts either come from low grade vanilla pods or cloves. It may have been but not today.

So, in essence, this, but with added marketing steps.

Not universal yet but heading that way. MBWay is gaining momentum as well and the eEuro could be a thing.

I’m going to check a bit further. I would like to have a MSI based system. My (most probably) next monitor will be an MSI curved.

I have a motherboard that reaches a version that requires OS loading. It has an .exe file. No files directly loadable at BIOS level but I always assumed it an oddity.

Currently, I’m running a Gigabyte AB350M-DASH and I was able to load several BIOS updates directly by USB. However, from a version onwards it requires loading from the OS.

I thought it was just an isolated case but it seem to be a more common situation.

You want gold? Tons of it? Go mine the asteroid belt. But if it is to become plentiful what value will it hold?

Will cheap gold plated circuitry be back?

I’m in Portugal.

I’ve asked if such devices could be supplied and I was given pretty much the same explanation I supplied here.

Strangely enough, vehicles can be legally tracked, in real time, yet the company I work at has some union agreement that prevents such installation in the work vehicles.

It’s a mess.

It’s strange. Apparently it is one of those situations where the possibilty of something very useful being easily abused by companies to spy on their people is too great.

Meanwhile, I often work with immediate risk of death or injury and, by law, I can not be equipped with a panic button for rescue purposes, as it is deemed unlawful surveillance of the worker.

I am supposed to warn in advance what work I will be doing and agree on a reasonable time window for it to be done safely, before having to call in again to say I am not yet dead and if the task is done or not.

I followed the link of a video here on Lemmy just a few minutes ago and it opened in the browser.

Nothing shocking up to this point.

Then I get a prompt from the video saying “Ready to buy products advertised in the video? Log into the official app in order to.”

Direct purchase through the YT app is a novelty for me.

Newpipe all the way.

I don’t give two cents for the american auto brands but spare me the drama: try and make a proper car.

Looking at Ford: try importing a few models from the european line and offer it in the states. Small, economic, somewhat reliable, fuel efficient cars.

Stellantis has a slew of models that could be brought into the american market. They make good cars.

And I’m willing to bet GM as a few models they build and market overseas that would be guaranteed sucesses.

The Arch users being so vocal is more of a trope to me. Never fails to make me smile.

Ubuntu started as a great endeavour. They made Linux much more approachable to the less tech inclined user.

It is an achievement to get a distro capable of basically work out of the box that hides the hard/technical stuff under the hood and delivers a working machine, and they did it and popularized Linux in the process.

Unfortunately, they abused the good faith they garnered. The Amazon partnership, their desktop that nobody really enjoyed, the Snap push. These are the ones I was made aware of but I risk there were more issues.

I was a user of Ubuntu for less than six months. Strange as it may sound, after trying SUSE and Debian, when I actively searched for a more friendly distro, I rolled back to Debian exactly because Ubuntu felt awkward.

Ubuntu is still a strong contributor but unless they grow a spine and actually create a product people will want to pay for, with no unpopular or weird options on the direction the OS “must” take, they won’t get much support from the wide user community.

Amazon basically solved this problem for me: they locked me out.

We could just regulate tech companies and outright ban some practices but since we apparently don’t have time for rational solutions…

Well thought out sabotage can be written off to causality or involuntary human error.

Not giving notice of lay off is an abusive work practice and only shows how far we’ve allowed work conditions to degrade.

And that practice itself can be highly dangerous, if we consider a person can be midway into a complex task that can turn extremely difficult to follow by another: waste of time, resources, energy and money.