Stovetop

Give me the outcome of The Good Place as well where you can choose oblivion after there’s nothing left to do.

San Junipero was one of the few “happy” episodes of Black Mirror but it didn’t ask the question of “where are we in 10,000 years?” like The Good Place considered.

Yes, and they’re pronounced the same in the US.

Kilometer has the same stressed syllable as odometer in American English.

Easier just to distinguish pronunciation as -ometer vs -meter.

Obligatory IANAL, but…

Generally a search warrant needs to be issued by a local authority, and that requires the crime to be prosecutable in the place where it was issued.

So in theory, California is potentially able to refuse requests to search for things that are not illegal in California but may be illegal somewhere else.

That being said, it looks like there are specific practices in place making it easier to issue warrants for electronic data like this scenario, even across state lines.

And in this particular circumstance, the alleged offense is even illegal in California (abortion of a viable fetus), so it’s a bit of a moot point anyways. A Californian judge would have issued this warrant if a local police department requested one.

If that’s how you choose to read into my comment, there’s no helping you.

Why would you even assume I’m white? Do you think I just moved to China on a whim? All Chinese people have to be born in China and nowhere else?

Fuck this.

You’re right. A lot of people in China would probably disagree with me. But a lot of people in China lack the basic critical thinking skills to even question their circumstances, because secondary schools (if you even have the means to attend one) don’t like students who ask too many questions.

A lot of people in the US would also disagree with me politically, because they think they were chosen by Jesus to oppress brown people and spread glorious capitalism around the world. But that doesn’t make them right either.

I am a Marxist. I’ve done my homework. What do you want me to do, start quoting Zizek or Gramsci to pass your shitty litmus test?

China is an experiment in socialism gone awry, because like the rest of the world, those with power lust over capital. I lived in a T3 city in China where things were relatively quiet, but flew out to visit a friend way down in Shenzhen periodically. It’s hard to see billionaire kids racing their Ferraris down the street there while the poor masses look down from the windows of their destitute coffin house apartments and think that this is somehow a socialist success story.

China is as capital-driven as any other world power. The government just likes to participate in it a bit more directly.

But sure, you’re the expert, not me, so I’m sure this is all just capitalist propaganda intended to denounce great Mao zhuxi and sabotage the workers’ revolution.

My man, I lived in China. You don’t have to sell me this bullshit.

I’m going to level with you, I don’t have time to watch an hour long video for a topic that is likely just government-approved talking points.

In practice, I just don’t see any difference in the way the mega rich in China control society, just as they do in the rest of the western world. There is too much aesthetic reverence for the West in the upper eschelons of Chinese society.

It is just as dystopic as the West with the way workers are used as fodder by megacorps with no regard for their well-being. Any country with such widespread income inequality cannot call itself a socialist success story.

China is a terrible example of a socialist economy, and the others are still mired by poverty. One could claim that is due to capitalist sabotage, but I don’t think it does socialism any favors to use them as success stories.

Facebook/Instagram (Meta) is one I am not sure how to get a read on. They are branching out a lot, but I have no idea what they’re doing to remain profitable. It seems like they’re in “Throw everything at the wall and see what sticks” mode, hoping that they find a new niche before their sizable warchest from the 2010’s runs dry.

They severely downsized once this year already and I have a feeling that won’t be the end of the story. Wouldn’t surprise me if they sell off/shut down Oculus in the near future.

Tiktok, meanwhile…well it’s already undergoing enshittification (it is the subject of that original essay) and old people are starting to use it, so I feel like it’s only a matter of time before it’s no longer cool with kids and they lose a sizable chunk of their revenue stream and content.

From the user perspective for sure. It’s much easier to join lemmy.world and it has a higher population of fledditors. I was just more acknowledging the role of lemmy.ml as something of a model instance because it is run directly by the developers of Lemmy.

It is the “default” one, though, and its admins are behind the Lemmy platform itself. Along with the Jerboa app, too.

A feature similar to RES, maybe one that pulls from your subscriptions, would be nice. Start typing the name of a community and it suggests some autofill options formatted in a way that folks from other instances can click on it easily.

Just to add onto this good answer, you are really only expected to tip for sit-down restaurants with service and bars.

For takeout, cafes, fast food, etc., you don’t need to tip. A lot of places these have payment machines that just ask if you want to tip by default. You can safely hit “No tip” on these if you don’t want to.

Ostensibly it’s just to replace the tip jar for those who don’t use cash, but the prompt appearing every time you pay by card has convinced a lot of people that tipping is what you’re supposed to do in those situations, when in reality you have no obligation to.

Probably close to 20 years ago at this point, when visiting the official forums for a game I loved, my computer was infected by malware delivered by a malicious ad. This was not some seedy part of the internet, but a website hosted by a major game publisher whose product I enjoyed.

Try as I might, I could not revert the damage caused by the virus, so the only recourse I had was to just blank slate wipe it clean and start over.

Today, I acknowledge that most websites more tightly control the ads they host, but the trust is forever broken. As soon as the option became available to me, I installed the best adblocker I could find and never looked back. No exceptions.

The truth is that every ad is malicious, to small degrees. They want to commodify your eyeballs and take up space in your mind. They’re trying to create a need where one does not exist, and will use whatever tactic they can to try to part you from your hard-earned money. They’re a barrier between you and the content you want to enjoy—in many cases content that you paid to enjoy.

Even if it’s in the name of supporting a website/service I enjoy, I can’t confidently turn off my ad blocker anymore. It only takes one malicious ad to sneak through the cracks to cause disaster.

There has got to be a better way of running an online business without having to completely fill the space with ads.

FYI: The Xbox version will still contain a physical disc. It is just the PC versions which will not.

Not that you should preorder in the first place, but before someone cancels their Xbox preorder over the news, figured some clarification would help.

But even then, however, what’s to stop an army of bots from just ChatGPTing their way through the application process?

I went to a website to generate a random username, picked the first option of polarbear_gender, and then just stuck that and the application questions for lemmy.ml into ChatGPT to get the following:

I want to join Lemmy.ml because I’m really into having meaningful discussions and connecting with others who have similar interests. Lemmy.ml seems like a great platform that fosters a diverse exchange of ideas in a respectful way, which I like.

When it comes to the communities I’d love to be a part of, I’m all about ones that focus on environmental conservation, wildlife preservation, and sustainability. Those topics really resonate with me, and I’m eager to jump into discussions and learn from fellow passionate folks.

As for my username, I chose it because I’ve got respect for polar bears and how they live with the environmental challenges they face. And throwing in “gender” is just my way of showing support for inclusivity and gender equality. Building a more just and fair society is important to me.

I don’t know the full criteria that people are approved or declined for, but would these answers pass the sniff test?

I’m just worried that placing too much trust in the application process contributes to a false sense of security. A community that is supposedly “protected” from bots can be silently infiltrated by them and cause more damage than in communities where you can either reasonably assume bots are everywhere, or there are more reliable filtering measures in place than a simple statement of purpose.

I don’t think Reddit could operate without moderators. On a technical level, sure it’s possible, but as a business they would not be able to operate. If the content didn’t have a reputation of being vibrant, interesting, and reliable, no one would use the site and they’d have no income. Reddit’s business is only possible with moderators there to cultivate their communities and keep things civil.

No, I mean Reddit runs entirely on subreddits for its business, and the infrastructure requires a moderator to exist to create them.

You sorta can. The difference in your scenario is that your neighbor doesn’t need you to mow their lawn, but Reddit requires moderators in order for the business of Reddit to function.

Here is a guide published by the state of California about whether someone should qualify as an employee of a company. Read through the first couple pages of checklists and ask yourself if a moderator fits the criteria they’re looking for.

For the first 3 questions, a “Yes” answer is an indictator that the person is an employee.

1. Do you instruct or supervise the person while he or she is working?

• I would say that likely counts as a yes, because moderators have a code of conduct which is mandated by Reddit, and they must follow it in order to keep their jobs.

2. Can the worker quit or be discharged (fired) at any time?

• Reddit does not have protections in place for moderators, who can be removed from their positions at any time. Likewise, moderators can walk from their job at any time.

3. Is the work being performed part of your regular business?

• This is definitely a yes, because Reddit relies on subreddits for its business, and subreddits require moderators.

For the next 3 questions, a “No” answer indicates that the person is an employee and not an independent contractor.

4. Does the worker have a separately established business?

• This is a bit of a gray area. For the majority of moderators, this would be a no at surface value, but some subreddits that concern a specific product/company sometimes have representatives from that company on the mod team. However another criteria of this category is that moderators have the ability to add/remove other moderators at their discretion, which is an indicator that they qualify as independent contractors and not employees. Should this go to trial, this will be an item that is argued.

5. Is the worker free to make business decisions which affect his or her ability to profit from the work?

• This would likely be a no for most moderators. To expand further, one of the example criteria is whether the individual is free to utilize their own tools/resources to do their work, and Reddit limiting API access is specifically one example of this not being the case. But if the subreddit is a front for a business (as in, the subreddit’s primary purpose is to sell/support a paid product or service), it likely would not qualify.

6. Does the individual have a substantial investment in their job which would subject him or her to a financial risk of loss?

• Similar to the above, I think this would be a no for most moderators. Reddit controls the platform and dictates what resources moderators are/aren’t allowed to utilize when doing their jobs, so there is no independent financial investment from the moderators that is at risk.

It’s not cut-and-dry, and I think that’s what might make this difficult to take to court, but the argument certainly exists and the case could at least result in better terms for how Reddit must work with their moderators.