BananaTrifleViolin

The BBC article that this article is a bizarre summary of is far better (the Gizmodo article even links directly to the BBC article). It give a far better overview of the issues; the main crux is they cost most than anticipated through both theft and cost of the machines themselves. The consumer’s disliking it is a less point and more naunced essentially “customer’s want the technology to work but it isn’t” which is also what you’ve said.

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20240111-it-hasnt-delivered-the-spectacular-failure-of-self-checkout-technology

Personally I preferred the self checkouts because I don’t want to interact with someone, but th they fail so much (because of the weighing which is to stop me being a supposed thieving scumbag, not to benefit me) and you end up standing around waving at a random stranger to come and fix the machine awkwardly while a massive queue waits impatiently for a machine. I’ve recently switched back to the manned checkouts for bigger shopping trips.

You can use PowerPoint in a web browser with office 365. Really don’t need windows to run it anymore.

This is an interesting concept but doesn’t seem like it has long term legs.

It depends on what you mean by open source and also even eBook reader (I’m assuming eInk), but if people want open source e-readers I would say flashing existing reader hardware with open source operating systems would be the way to go. However I’m not sure if there is much motivation to do that.

There are Android based eink ereaders available with more freedom than Kindle devices (Boox is an example) and you can side load free or open source reader software onto Kobo (maybe not Android Kindles though?), and you can load free books onto e-readers via software like Calibre. So you can read books in privacy outside the vendors ecosystem - it kinda reduces the imputus to build an open source ereader (hardware or OS).

I’d love to see a truly open source Eink device - particularly software wise. But I doubt the demand is enough. And this Open Source hardware solution seems a bit too cut back to fit the bill.

The headline is also dumb. Any election can be won by 1 vote. Doesn’t matter that 43000 people voted.

Not strictly correct. Spotify pays out from its net revenues (revenues when billing costs and tax are removed) and it pays to the various industry rights holders who then distribute the money. There are lots of complex deals in place and big rights holders are likely to have better deals than ad hoc users, plus it’s different in different countries.

The 70% figure is a PR thing Spotify pushes about as part of its constant battles with rights holders on exactly how much it will pay them. It’s trying to claim most of the money goes to artists but it’s opaque how much goes where.

This may also be about trying to take control of OpenAI. Despite owning 49% of OpenAI, the company is seemingly set up so the 5 board members have control and they’re seemingly not under the control of investors.

Could this actually be about Altman and his allies trying to take the company fully for-profit so they could benefit? It also seems Altman is very close to Microsoft, so rather than product roadmap this might actually about trying to take control of the company.

Microsoft hiring the staff and forming an AI unit is a boon to them if it happens, but OpenAI still own and controls everything they’ve worked on up to date, and it seems the Investors don’t control that judging by the boards independance.

Meanwhile Altman is tweeting very concillatory OpenAI but pro Microsoft position. This may be a battle for the whole company, not just a personality thing.

While it’s a factor it probably isn’t the root of the problem. The problem is car manufacturers are building the cars faster than the market is growing and at high price points than consumers want in a time of economic difficulty and inflation.

We’re still seeing build out of electric infrastructure, expensive cars vs petrol cars, and a relatively small second hand market (which also drives infrastructure expansion). It also doesn’t help that countries are pushing back promises to ban non-EV car sales. Dealership monopolies certainly exacerbate all those problems.

This story headline is nonsense though. EVs are working and are growing. The story is actually that car companies have made expensive attempts at grabbing market share which haven’t worked and are now counting the costs. They’re delaying the rate of growth in production, not reducing production - significant difference.

I think this is why Trump could win. “I don’t believe the polls”.

Democrats need to wake the fuck up - Biden is not a good candidate and time is running out to select someone else. Don’t ignore the polls because you don’t like what they say - that is utter stupidity.

Democrats are going to let Trump back in by their own stupid machinations pretending that everyone thinks an 81 year old president is a good idea.

This is like Hilary Clinton all over again - it was “her turn” to run so big hitters sat out the primaries. She was a bad candidate - she won her own vote well but in the US system you have to win the electoral college and she didn’t do it.

Please Democrats - wake up. Not Biden.

Abortion is legal up to 24 weeks. After 24 weeks abortion is no longer legal (unless for medical reasons) as the foetus is regarded as viable - as in the foetus may survive birth with medical intervention. Premature babies born at 24 weeks can survive thanks to neonatal medicine.

The police are tasked with enforcing that law.

It remains highly controversial as on one hand there are arguments about women’s rights Vs foetus rights (which are more nuanced as the foetus can survive at that age) and on the other when the law in enforced, how it is done is difficult and legal cases are highly controversial.

It’s not like there are many women going around trying to abort at 24 weeks+; often they are cases of tragically chaotic lives, mental illness and so on. But the police are obliged to enforce the law, and we have a conservative government directing them to do so. And also ultimately the law is the law - the limit exists for a very good reason. A foetus born and dying without medical care due to an illegal late abortion is horrific to even think about, and adds a complex layer of emotion on to the whole topic.

No it depends on how you interpret it. Apple may have legitimate reasons for technical differences between the different versions of Safari. The issue would be if Apple is claiming they are more different than they really are to say they don’t count as one when calculating market share.to.determine whether regulation applies.

Mozilla Forefpx has different versions for Android, and Desktop. So does Chrome. But in terms of marketshare generally people class them as one browser.

Out of interest what part of the UI don’t you like? You can drag and drop pretty much any button and component where ever you want and you can use the Firefox colours website to apply any colour scheme you want. This is all core browser features so no performance affects.

What is it that a theme is then adding?

I thinky you’re right and this also applies to the single market. The tech sector is fragmented not just because of language/culture but because of different regulatory regimes in each country. The EU tries to solve that for member states but even that is stymied by so many competing national interests. The EU can’t seem to agree between it being a club of nations or a single state and so we end up with a mix instead - it fails to be the best of either option as a result.

Also it doesn’t help that the UK has left the EU nor the attitude in Europe generally allowing international companies to buy up tech companies. Look at ARM - UK based chip manufacturer but bought out by a Japanese company and now being floated on the US stock market.

For me the failure of a European tech giant to emerge is in part due to a failure of the EU. It needs to decide what it wants to be and push in that direction. The half way house to try and keep everyone happy is not working and it is one of the reasons the UK left (it was a close referendum and many factors played into the vote but it’s been easier for people to simplify that story to black/white and entirely the UKs fault and based out of narrow issues, so there has been no real look at the many factors that drove that decision and no effort in the EU to look at what it could and should be doing to be better).

It’s good users are now aware that Brave includes redundant features that you have to pay extra for to activate. Users browser will update everytime the browser or the VPN software needs an update.

For example Firefox VPN from Mozilla is separate software. They don’t force millions of users to download it even if they don’t want it.

This is yet another example why people should not be using Brave and should be skeptical of its intentions.

If I was laid off by a company I wouldn’t go back unless I had no other choice. If a company didn’t see your value previously and now it supposedly does, what is to say it will not change again in the future and fire you again? A lot of companies do a last-in first-out approach and are cyclical about hiring and firing to please shareholders. That’s where these tech companies are at now.

Also who wants the potential of a CV where you were laid off twice by the same company? It’d be like them taking your CV and wiping their arse with it before handing to back to you as security escorts you out of the building.

Don’t go backwards, keep moving forward.