FriendOfDeSoto

I think you can trust the operational side of it. I don't think they've had many detrimental oopsies, the services work. I used them for a year and then jumped ship. One reason is the favorable comments by their CEO about the 47 administration, which I didn't like. Another reason is the nitty gritty - they don't clearly advertize what's part of what package and I felt that was by design to get you to upgrade. And they definitely see themselves as a basket for all of your eggs. If you are moving there because you want to degoogle your life you end up just protonizing it. It's better to spread around your stuff so you're not dependent on one provider. If you just want a good VPN and don't care about the rest of their services and the politics, you could make worse choices.

Now i'm torn. On the one hand I want to dismiss your counter argument as a counter factual and therefore there is no need to even glance at it. On the other hand, the omnipotent dick is part of the equation and he can control these things and I kinda see where you're coming from. I would say he is being more of a d though because he is rubbing Picard's nose in how unprepared humanity is in the stars. The fact that his finger snapping detour shortened the encounter timeline with the Borgs may have had the one positive effect: forewarning for the feds. And that may have put them in a position to win by the skin of their teeth. So your counter argument holds some limited and not massive amount of water.

Q is just a dick. He could've brought Voyager back home but didn't and then involved Janeway in that continuufederacy civil war. He exposed Picard and crew to the Borgs and didn't lift a finger when he got Locutussed. I think in terms of dead people he may have screwed Picard over more. I may be wrong but I think more people died in that cross section being cut out by the Borgs as a direct result of Q finger snapping the D out to meet them. But at the core, he just does stuff because he's a bored omnipotent dick and he makes everyone in his path suffer.

In my house, I have a no dumping on the couch rule. If you come in and take a dump on my couch, I don't care how insightful your thoughts are, you're out the door. In terms of the fediverse, you merely seem confused about what constitutes taking a dump. These rules are available though, you just have to read them.

If you have spare time while developing your Don Quiote complex, give a passing thought to what censorship means. Nobody is banning you from having your super intellectual thoughts about government on the internet. Start a blog, your own lemmy instance, and fire away. But nobody has to listen to your thoughts; we're free to go seek out other bullshit if we so please. That's not censorship, that's how the free exchange of ideas works. You don't have the right to be heard on your terms in somebody else's forum. And who knows, maybe modding your own would teach you a level of empathy that might make you feel embarrassed about your comments on this thread.

There is no accounting for taste.

They are the epitome of the adage that their earlier stuff was better. For me, they jumped the shark when Roman Catholic bells were ringing.

This is shitty behavior by the company (and a reminder not to rely on online services for anything, not even storing your shopping list). But it isn't Doctorowian enshitification. It isn't a focus shift from consumers to suppliers to then be able to hold both captive, squeeze them dry, and making the service worse in the process. This is just new management pissing off nerds.

First thing, disable all auto backup on your phone. This is step 1 for anything.

If you have access to a computer, log in to Photos through a browser and delete images there and it won't affect your phone's storage. Maybe test it with an image if lesser importance before you bulk delete.

You could also move your locally stored photos to a different, temporary folder. Then delete the backed up ones in Photos. Then move the local files back.

I wouldn't rely on the Google Takeout images. If the standard settings applied, the images will all be in Google's compressed format. Granted, most people in the world couldn't tell the difference. But it might be better to keep the best quality for the future.

And those folks aren't on here because they already do their socializing in person. A frightful thought.

Florida Man strikes again.

What's wrong with these people? The rabbi had time to sink to the floor, the priest is clearly passed out on the floor, why is the pastor still walking into the bar? Are they all blind and deaf?

The deeper message must be that just out of shot an imam and a Buddhist monk are looking at each other puzzled exchanging remarks like "They really cannot learn from each other, can they."

(I do get the bar joke, internet. No need to well actually me. This was very much tongue in cheek.)

I feel like the Atari 2600 is quickly becoming for so-called AI what the "how much is a gallon of milk?" gotcha question had become for politicians who run for office. A rather pointless bit of news.

As Scotty said: the right tool for the right job. An LLM is maybe not a chess engine and that's fine too. Why would we expect these models to be Magnus effing Carlson if they cannot reliably summarize an email or recommend eating pebbles?