What?? How are you getting that I am threatening people?? I was clearly saying that META people do not seem to take no for an answer even when NO is meant. I said I would keep this in mind the next time I am downtown and come across anyone from their staff. I live in San Francisco and pass by both Twitter and Google for that matter on a daily basis so I see people that work there all the time, at coffee shops in the morning, at lunch etc. As in TO AVOID THEM. Good grief.
Removed by mod
Maybe… I think there is an argument to be made for Vimeo
Yep. Obviously he can go ahead and claim now whatever he wants about this move being all about combating bots but it seems fairly obvious to me that this is not about that. Getting access to registered users payment info is just one more way to loop people into their system and keep track of who.what.where type of users they have. Charges and platform uses for buying marketed products on the platform is just a hop skip click away at that point.
Bots meanwhile will continue to do what they always do; $1 a year to register in is nothing. They will also most likely be able to do this via a one time only use type credit card where user info is irrelevant.
Some time ago, I basically relegated Amazon to nothing but a search engine.
Let’s say I want to buy a certain item; I do a general search online for what I want; inevitably the first 5-10 search results are a listing on Amazon. I go ahead and read reviews. I notice specs and branding info. That’s it.
From there, if the store isn’t near me physically (so I just go in person), I just go to the actual brand vendor and purchase directly from them instead.
May seem convoluted but I have been burned so many times with fake items, with used items when they were supposed to be new, with no real savings, constant shipping problems, etc. that Amazon as a vendor has become basically nothing but junk to me, compared to how they operated even 10 years ago.
Meantime, I spend some of my happy time back in brick and mortar bookstores, record shops, etc. and enjoy getting undamaged items to my heart’s desire. 😊
They also bought out ZeniMax in the same deal, which means they also have ESO under their rap sheet.
The only thing that effectively changed in ESO since the acquisition in 2020 is that they added the endeavor system to the game, so there was an excuse to sustain loot crates and give people a means to get the loot crate items in the game… though that system is frankly still BS since the amount of endeavor and gems needed for that fluff is in real world dollars ridiculous. As is, I dumped ESO completely after High Isle and went back to only playing GW2 (I have been in both games since beta), since the nonsense happening in ESO was enough for me to see that Microsoft running into the ground was not an issue - ZoS already managed that themselves…
I imagine it will be the same for WoW. Zero sum game.
It will take any country credit card. They used the VPN to sign up and then were fine afterwards.
Statements like this really need to be more clear
Not going to get into an argument about Hamas vs Isreali tactics, but you should be aware that it is far, far from the case that Palestinians inside of Israel let alone in OPT have the rights you think they do:
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2022/02/israels-system-of-apartheid/
I have family in EU and they have been able to watch using NordVPN and also with Apple. They have been watching for a couple years now without issues.
I can remember the first time I thought there was something seriously wrong with all the social media habits people were getting sucked into; that was probably like in 2008 or so, when some of my colleagues and I used to joke about how we could never get through any kind of interaction with another colleague of ours without her constantly scrolling her phone like 25 times a minute. It only got worse from there…
The biggest sigh of relief I have had in a long, long time was deleting my Google apps and account. I also deleted Facebook, Twitter, and lastly Reddit account over the summer. The only “social accounts” I have today are this one and my new e-mail account. I now use Startpage for searching if I need it, so no more “googling” things. I haven’t subbed to cable since 2010, but I do sub to HBO (er… “Max” now ffs… I am considering dumping that too…), and The Criterion Channel which is still awesome. Rest of the time, I work, game, hike, or swim.
Getting rid of Google is sort of like trying to get all the fish out of the sea. They are everywhere, hooked into everything, and they constantly nag you. I had to give them another e-mail address before I could even delete the one I had with them, which really annoyed me. None of their business where I got off to… except it is. According to them. So, I had to trash that email account too afterwards just so I could stop getting stupid Google spam.
Anyway, it is definitely possible to unplug just takes some effort. The internet is a lot more pleasant without all that nonsense. :)
There is no better example of this that I can think of than the clothes sold under the Ralph Lauren labels. If you browse through their website you will see a plethora of labels all meant to cater to a certain price point, from Collection level down to retail store. A former work colleague who has enough money to buy collection wear, told me this year that after dropping over 5K on a supposedly 100% cashmere sweater and vest set (labeled as such on the site) when they received it they discovered blended materials listed on the inner tag of the garments, let alone that they began to pill and unravel after one wear. One.
Mind you I would never spend that kind of money on clothes so I don’t have too much sympathy, but share the story to say that Lauren is typical of a ton of “designer” labels now, throwing out tons of promotion for their supposedly high quality garments that are all just as crappy construction as Walmart clothes seem to be. It’s insane.
As a kid, my family always went to tailors for our clothes. We bought fabrics we liked, they measured us, made the garments, done deal. Same with knits. Suits always fit exactly, dressed were a snap, pants all flattered in all the right places. This was not considered “chique” or whatever. Everyone we knew did this. We did not pay a fortune. Buying clothes at department stores was considered far more expensive and a somewhat strange thing to do at the time.
I wish that the idea of supporting and nurturing real artisanship at the local level in all communities were more of a thing. Where I do find them, there seems to be way too much hipster/exploitation vibes around it which is completely counter to the idea of honing a craft and sharing that skill for not just a living but the betterment of people around you.
Maybe some effort at finding where these people still exist and supporting them would be a good way to turn some of the fast fashion (trash fashion) mindset and practices around.
The things that pass for science these days are truly baffling…
And the “platform” thus charged, charged right off to another… 😂
Hehe. ES6 may become the longest/farthest postponed game since Beyond Good and Evil 2, the later now saying it will be released in 2025… maybe 😂
Thinking in another language is the hallmark of true fluency, vs having to auto-translate in your head how to say something before you say it. So the entire argument around people employing “more careful and deliberative thinking when using their foreign language,” tells me the sample people were not likely fluent speakers of another language.
They may have studied for years and gained strong proficiency - but that is not the same thing as fluency. Once you reach the state of true fluency you are not second guessing yourself all day long about how to say what you want to say – you just say it. You can switch thinking from one language to another, and it’s fairly unconscious.
People who speak several languages fluently also tend to have a strong awareness of cultural norms associated with speakers of those languages. When you straddle different cultures, you start seeing and thinking about a lot of things differently.
If the studies were meant to augment already established science on the impact of foreign language study and acquisition in adults, they should be clarifying at what level of acquisition the sample rests.
I mean our computers and phones already do something like this while looking for available WiFi networks, so maybe it wouldn’t be that farfetched. On the other hand, I just got a flashback to Jim Carrey in Batman and… “the box” for some bizarre reason! 😂
Since I live in a small space and game a lot, I have invested in a gorgeous 4k monitor and honestly love how all my movies look as well as games, so I have zero issues. It would be nice to someday buy a large tv that didn’t constantly search, scan, and update crap I don’t want or need, but I am not holding my breath they will reverse course.
That is NOT what I said and NOT what I meant. The Mod removed this comment due to everyone saying I was somehow threatening everyone. They did not publish my response to the message they sent me, so this needs to be cleared up.
What I am saying is that clearly these people do not take NO for an answer, even when it’s clear NO means NO. They ignored it and did what they wanted anyway. I said I would keep this behaviour in mind whenever I am downtown because I live in SF and go by their headquarters literally every day and have already see a lot of their people, and in fact some awful behaviour from some that work there. Interacting with them is something a **WANT TO AVOID. ** I was not implying in ANY WAY that I intended to harm or threaten them.