One thing to note - The science is still calculating. Yet. SpaceX (and presumably others) are allowed to continue and increase what they're doing. This is the bass ackwards way to protect future us.

Its the same mentality as driving in a random direction for 20 minutes while someone looks in the car for the map on the off chance that when you get the map open you'll be where you wanted to be anyway.

It has the potential (and at this point, just the potential) for planet level changes, and is being done by one group. Should I, a random dude, be able to do something that might possibly affect the entire planet, and the planet as a whole just have to wait and see how it turns out?

The hopeful thought that its probably nothing, before anyone can prove that it's probably nothing, makes a bet where the short term wins are mine, but any long term losses are everyone else's.

[ confirmation bias at play. you have switched to bluetooth. it meets or exceeds all your needs. you don't see much public indication to the contrary. you figure bluetooth is the best. ]

1. simplicity the cable just works. no configuration. no pairing .un pairing, figuring why it worked yesterday

2. Audio quality - bluetooth is lossy. we just were given AptX lossless in 2021 ( another confirmation bias ) "Sounds great to me" "I can't hear the difference".
   2 things are both possibly true though: I can't hear the difference. Other people hear a big difference. this seems impossible to some people. As if their senses are the apogee of human sense.

3. lag. new codecs lower latency, but lag lag lag. You couldn't possibly use your device as a synth/music instrument and 'play' the lag is far to great. Same with games.

4. whats the big deal. This is a bias for the plug users - would it hurt to keep it? we've always had it. The work is already done. Its already baked in the cake, why you gotta take it out?

5. Investment - I have really good headphones. I have really good earbuds. Yes there are adapters but they are finicky exactly when you want them to just work. They inevitably break. They often downgrade the sound - I have 3 usb to audio adapters for android that all hiss for no reason.

The issue is that when the marketers are selling us a 'clean vision of the future' they purposefully gloss over the things they are taking away. Then they paint the people who feel pain because of the change as neanderthals who wouldn't know better if it bit them. When they do know better. They had better (for them) and progress made it worse (for them). To which the marketers generally say - you should be someone else.

... its the scale.

we've had photograph manipulation since the photograph. we've not had the ease and scale which we are about to have. and its not the same.

anyone can open the box at the corner and mess with a traffic light. and has been able to since we had them. now give me the ability to mess with all the traffic lights in a city.

the difference is scale.

Media Contact: Office of Media Relations MediaRelations@fcc.gov For Immediate Release FCC VOTES TO REQUIRE CABLE AND SATELLITE TV PRICING TRANSPARENCY New ‘All-In’ Pricing Rules Will Address Consumers’ Confusion on Hidden Fees in Cable and Satellite TV Billing

WASHINGTON, March 14, 2024—The Federal Communications Commission today adopted new rules requiring cable and satellite TV providers to specify the “all-in” price clearly and prominently for video programming service in their promotional materials and on subscribers’ bills. The FCC aims to eliminate the misleading practice of describing video programming costs as a tax, fee, or surcharge. This updated “all-in” pricing format allows consumers to make informed choices, including the ability to comparison shop among competitors and to compare programming costs against alternative programming providers, including streaming services. TV providers often use deceptive junk fees to hide the real price of their services. The FCC is putting an end to this form of price masking, increasing competition, and reducing confusion among consumers. These new rules require cable operators and direct broadcast satellite (DBS) providers to state the total cost of video programming service clearly and prominently, including broadcast retransmission consent, regional sports programming, and other programming-related fees, as a prominent single line item on subscribers’ bills and in promotional materials. The record demonstrates that charges and fees for video programming provided by cable and DBS providers are often obscured in misleading promotional materials and bills, which causes significant and costly confusion for consumers. These new rules continue a series of consumer-focused proposals to combat junk fees and support transparency for consumers. In addition to this “all-in” pricing, the Commission is preparing to upcoming launch of the mandatory Broadband Consumer Labels and has proposed to eliminate early termination fees from cable and satellite TV providers. Action by the Commission March 14, 2024 by Report and Order (FCC 24-29). Chairwoman Rosenworcel, Commissioners Starks and Gomez approving. Commissioners Carr and Simington dissenting. Chairwoman Rosenworcel, Commissioners Carr, Starks, and Simington issuing separate statements. MB Docket No. 23-203

Here's a subtle thing...we say both the manufacturers and consumers have choices.

The manufacturer has the choice between all the thousands of possible ways to deliver a product, and picks one or two. A consumer has the choice between those two. ( or do without )

Those are all valid choices, but they are not alone of equal weight

late to the party. Q: What is it that corporations will not tolerate about online commmunity, crowdsourced news and info?? Digg, Delicious, Slashdot, Reddit.. all eaten and changed?

Silly thoughts...

• the life in a discussion site is the exchange of ideas/thoughts. For that to happen users need to actually listen, process, and discuss. Reddit's structure has discouraged that for years.

• signal to noise ratio - in order for the discussion board site to be useful, there's some magic signal to noise ratio that has to be maintained. Otherwise, its some style of chaos.

• Why I left - in a technical subreddit, someone asked a technical question 'Who still uses XYZ, and why?, I never quite understood it', I gave a short primer on how it worked, with a couple analogies. The OP replied testily ' I don't need anyone to explain to me how it works.'. And then testily to other helpful responses, and then deleted their acct.

• The experts left most of the technical subs I am in 5-10 years ago. My guess is that discussions are mostly noise: things I could have learned if I read the instructions, or how can I do this without understanding anything about it.

• somewhere I read that the upvote/downvote counts on the front page are made up... modified by reddit.. so that people don't know what they need to do to get to the front. By adding this, they gave themselves full editorial control of the front page. It's downhill from there.

1. I'm old enough to have been down this road a dozen times, and it has always ended in tears. The ones I bought into either came into the market too early, too beta, or too late, or just weren't able to see it through or abandoned hope mid journey.

2. I think it has a great chance to be a great thing.

Why? The magic isn't the Framework Ecosystem. It's one thing, un-crapified modularity. The reason most of us can afford to keep a car working isn't because of the great Mazda or Ford ecosystem of parts. Its because the un-crapified modularity of those parts. The designs are "open" (they're not in the libré sense, but they are simple re-make or recreate ). That is why most of us can keep our cars going. If I need a headlight, or an alternator, or a throttle-position sensor, not only does Mazda make/have the part, there are a dozen other people who make the part. I not only get a replacement, but I get choices in a open market in a range of prices and qualities.
I imagine in 2032, even if the company Framework has disappeared, there will be a lady in New Jersey making inexpensive replacement modules. That is a 'good thing'.

Its no accident everything on an Apple device is soldered down. If they made cars they'd grind down all the bolt heads and embed the engine in epoxy. It's their ethos. If my macbook ssd goes bad, all they can do for me is sell me a new one. The beauty of the Framework is that each module can be replaced. So no, the typical user is not going to completely upgrade their laptop in 8 years. (but they could) But, most will want to replace that one broken part on their otherwise perfectly good laptop. Another way to think about it, lets say I have a 10 year old car, worth $5k. To replace every part might truly cost me $35,000. But the way chance works, it's rate to actually need to replace every part. And the parts that need replacing are usually relatively inexpensive.

Some years ago Consumer Reports Magazine had a section where they'd list the costs of all the replacement parts of a new car. Was interesting. IIRC it was about 4x the cost of the car.

late to the party, but I had OperaGX do a clever evil thing recently - I have an old machine running MacOS 10.14 (for reasons), I had GX up, and I alt-tab'd and noticed there was the "don't symbol" (ghostbusters) over the OperaGX Icon. I thought, "that can't be right". I'm running GX right now. I double checked, and I was using GX with several windows open. But the symbol was right - they had Updated OperaGX that I WAS running, WHILE I was running it, to a version that WOULDN'T work on the computer I was on. I eventually restarted GX, and got a 'You can't use OperaGX with this version of MacOS". Jerks.

I dug around, and very roughly, the .app file is not the App. They use a folder off in Library to store the actual pieces of the app, and it there is a few different pieces, and the .app file points to the actual executables.

Anyway it was fun while it lasted. Never again.

Ah, common misconception - hacking an API != creating a compatible program. ( reverse engineering)

Imagine a drill company has a special shape for its bits. Our law allows someone else to either.. make bits that can fit in that shape OR make their own drill that can accept those bits.

"BUT they copied!" - it doesn't have to be a copy to be compatible, and they don't even have to use the 'special shape' just be able to work with the special shape. The law does not allow for protections around that. Doing so would be by definition anti-competitive. Our anti competition laws or rather our IP protection laws are not intended in any way to 'ensure a monopoly'. The IP laws give a person a right to either keep something they do secret OR share that knowledge with the world so we all benefit, in exchange for a very limited monopoly.

Practically speaking, If I got the KFC Colonel to give me the list of 11 herbs and spices in a Poker game, and then started making my own delicious poultry that is totally cool. Likewise, If I figured out that all that was inside a Threadripper was blue smoke and started making my own blue smoke chips, the law is ok with that.

In this case roughly, Having a public facing endpoint. And then saying that the public can access that endpoint is cool Saying that only the public using the code I alone gave them -- well... that's not been litigated a lot, but all signs point to no.

It's like Bing saying its for Safari only, and suing people who accessed it using Chrome. It is a logical claim, but the law does not provide that kind of protection/enforcement.

tl;dr these concepts are old but being newly applied to fancy technology. The laws in place are clear in most cases. A car maker can not dictate what you put in the tank. FedEX and UPS can't charge you differently for shipping fiction books or medical journals or self published stories. And they'd probably get anti-trust scrutiny they even told you what brand/style of boxes you had to use.

same. reddit is populated with users who's comments are generally indistinguishable from those of a 12-15 year old.

why don't they ever add the "... in this survey" part at the end?

found this in video form.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAvUFD68NEQ