I *HATE* "shorts". And never watch any.
I also don't login with YouTube.

My life was made so much better when I discovered that UBlock Origin (Firefox, of course) can actually hide all the Shorts crap!

https://github.com/gijsdev/ubl...

>"The court found that the company misled customers because its network uses copper cables for the final stage of connections, sometimes extending up to a mile from the distribution box to subscribers' homes."

Yeah, the marketing name game. A lot like the words "unlimited" or "free".

Cox Communications calls their home coax cable modem service "Powered by Fiber". Hmmm, that is cutting it a bit close. Technically, ALL ISP's are probably "powered" by "fiber". It is true that most of Cox's modern network is now fiber, but the last step to the home, at the neighborhood level, is still coax. And it suffers from all the typical signal interference, leveling problems, and channel bonding errors we have had for eons.

That said, I am lucky and my home connection seems to be very reliable. But just a few blocks away, where I manage an almost identical connection, it is a nightmare of constant issues. Dropped packets, long ping times, regular outages (sometimes many per month). It is on a different "node", so I am told.

Anyway, my point is that the biggest advantage of fiber is not speed (at least not when talking about home connections), it is reliability/lack of interference. And one doesn't get that unless the fiber makes it all the way to your house.

And yes, finally, there is a fiber-to-the-home option in my neighborhood from a competitor. But their pricing is too high to have me bother changing to it. I think they are still trying to milk pissed-off Cox customers at high prices and haven't tried undercutting yet (that might happen later). Their service is more expensive, but twice as fast (and CGNAT, so you have to pay $10 more per month to get around that "feature"). But I don't need the speed. At 300/30 I am just fine. Yet it is nice to finally have choices and perhaps having competition might get Cox improving services and lowering prices.

>"First of all, please kindly go fuck yourself with your judgmental bullshit."

Wow, nice posting language there. Perhaps you should calm down before posting? I think we actually agree on more than you think...

>"Parenting is fucking hard...mistakes get made."

100% agree. But handing over an unrestricted internet device to a child isn't a simple mistake nor a one-time mistake. It is a huge, continuous, major mistake.

>"Should Roblox get sued?...no.."

100% agree.

>"can parents supervise every fucking minute of their kids life?...no, they can't. If you think they can, you're fucking stupid."

Nobody expects parents to supervise their kids every minute. That would be stupid, and actually damaging. But if you give a kid an *unrestricted device* to have/keep/use whenever they want, one cannot possibly supervise that. They will spend countless hours on it doing whatever they want. I see it all the time. It doesn't matter as much if they are exposed to crap once in a while, but that isn't what is happening that is causing the major issues.

>"If a parent says they can be on top of their kids online interactions, they're lying...probably to themselves."

100% agree, if it is not a locked-down device.

>"Also, it's bullshit to sue them."

100% agree

>"I think they [Roblox] take reasonable actions."

My comments were not about Roblox, but about unrestricted devices in the hands of minors. I readily admit I have zero experience with Roblox (but I would if I were going to whitelist it for a minor).

>"Roblox aren't a carrier. They're more like a sports league, or perhaps a daycare franchise."

OK, I will admit I didn't research "Roblox" much before commenting.

>"and expect them to be in one piece and not an anxiety riddled right wing christian jihadist by the time they get back to them"

Or an angry, frightened, gender-confused, victim of imaginary oppression seeking safe spaces, either (works both ways).

>"Please note, some parents absolutely do take their kid to a public library and leave them there all day"

I struggled to find a good analogy to the internet. There just really isn't one. The library might not be that great.

>"Honestly though... You aren't thinking adversarially about how to provide a functional service."

I don't disagree that companies should "do better"- not only for children, but adults also. But the "solutions" we are coming up with are destroying the best parts of the Internet why trying to "save the children." The choke point is what the parents allow children to do. It is inanse to hand the "keys to the kingdom" to children and then expect that millions of sites out there are going to cater to your child's best interests. Far better to vet things yourself and give only a limited device, whitelisted for ONLY those things you trust. And keep an eye on it. And limit time spent with it. Expand access as responsibility is shown and cognition improves with age.

>"Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has issued criminal subpoenas to Roblox"

Wrong action. They should file criminal subpoenas to the parents or the parents agents that allow the children to have unrestricted, unsupervised access to the internet for child neglect, and/or child endangerment, and/or child abuse. The end.

You don't take your child to the library and leave them there every day, for many hours, without supervision, and then try to hold the city or the library or or the book manufacturers or the writers responsible when the child starts reading stuff or seeing things they shouldn't have access to or interacting with strangers there. The library is open to everyone and it is not a school or daycare. It is the PARENT'S RESPONSIBILITY to monitor what their children do and restrict or withhold devices that would enable them to go anywhere on the internet and interact with whomever they want there.

I AM SICK OF THIS BLAME SHIFTING. What part of *THE INTERNET IS NOT A SAFE PLACE FOR UNSUPERVISED CHILDREN* do people not yet understand??? It isn't a single site, or a single platform, or a single category of "apps".

>"This isn't intended to be in favour of this gadget but most people can't see blood in their urine or feces but it's there and detectable in a lab."

Yeah, but my comment is in reference to a "camera". How is that going to detect blood better than my eyes? A camera isn't a lab instrument :)

I am sure future models might actually have fancier sensors that could do more. But, really, how is this silly toilet better than just pointing your smartphone in the toilet and using some app?

>"Kohler has launched the Dekoda, a $599 smart toilet camera that analyzes users' waste to track hydration, gut health, and detect potential issues like blood."

Um. No thanks. And, by the way, I think most people can manage to see blood and know what "normal" movements look like.

>"and a fingerprint sensor to identify who's using the toilet,"

Right, because we wouldn't want people to lie or something.

>"customers will need to pay between $70 and $156 per year for a subscription."

Of course. No modern purchase would be complete without an endless "service" revenue costing the consumer thousands of additional dollars!

>"It also notes that the resulting data is secured via end-to-end encryption."

We are REALLY concerned about the poo data being intercepted between the toilet and your servers. We are not at all concerned about your servers being hacked, or the data being shared or misused or any silly thing like that.

>"The report noted a lack of basic CCTV equipment across multiple wings. Cameras had mainly"

CCTV mentioned over and over and over again. IT DOESN'T MATTER. Video is not security. It will not prevent theft. And most of the time it will not lead to recovery either. It can be a useful tool, but it is reactionary at best (like calling the police so they can arrive 5 minutes after some event is over/done).

>"The thieves were caught on camera at one point but were masked and impossible to identify"

Right, kinda what I just said. And typical. That is not security.

>"The alarm system activated when thieves cut open display cases, but they threatened staff who left the area."

THAT is your "security". They broke through a window and no alarm. The case was then apparently easily cut open. Then that alarmed (so at least that worked). Then your unarmed staff "were threatened" (by presumably unarmed thieves) so they just left! Oh well.

That is what was protecting the "priceless" items that were stolen.

>"I suspect you do not need to be told what to do to address this, and I am not running Ubuntu anymore so I do not know in any case, but last I checked the solution was to remove the snap for firefox and pin it away â" and to install firefox as a deb package from the official PPA."

A better solution is to abandon Ubuntu and use Mint, instead. Which not only has a NATIVE Firefox package (and LibreOffice, and GIMP and Thunderbird, etc), but also doesn't use or force SNAP.

>"I've always wanted a version on the gimp that takes ages to start, runs slower and can access all the critical files in my home directory but not a plug in usb stick it a secondary drive for "security reasons".

And takes up more RAM and disk space. And is less efficient, overall. And is more complicated and harder to troubleshoot. And take much, much, much longer to update. And if you do use containers, why would it be freaking SNAPS, of all forms available? It is the worst and most "proprietary."

No thanks. I want all my packages to be NATIVE. Thank you, Mint.

Fortunately, there is no winning or losing. Any additional Linux users is good. And I think it is impossible there will be fewer.

>"Is it though? Wouldn't you rather have something that 90% of people find acceptable over something that only 50% are prepared to use?"

Hmm, that is a good point. But I don't think it is often a matter of people finding it acceptable as it is people being willing to actually make a change (not just the OS, but certain applications) and not give up immediately when things work differently. I mean, if Linux worked exactly like MS-Windows, I would *HATE* it :)

When informing new prospective Linux users, I list all the advantages but also always ask what they do with their computers and what their expectations are, so I can better steer them and give advice/prep... trying to set their expectations to be realistic so their experience will be good. This is especially important regarding the "key" applications they plan on using.

Mine was a black EEE 1000, I think. I still have it somewhere. Typing on that 90% keyboard was a bit odd, although it had a nice feel. Screen resolution was a problem, vertically, even then. But it was bright and had good contrast. The trackpad was so tiny! But that solid state disk was da bomb (even though the CPU was a dog). I never had any problems with WiFi.

Oh it was fun :)

>"In which case Linux should now have a huge market share since we've been through this with the Netbooks before."

"This ain't your Father's Linux", things have changed significantly since those days. (And yes, I know, I have been using it since it started. And yes, I owned the original Netbook as well, the EEE).

>"How could I sell Linux to a non-techie when before you can even install an app you have to choose a flatpak, an appimage or a system package, or a .deb file"

By steering them to a friendly distro like Mint, maybe? It will use native apps for most everything important. Non-techies will usually just browse the software installer and see what is available and install stuff from there. And it will work. And Mint is "store" and "SNAP"-free, so they won't encounter that mess.