I used the ad-supported version way back in those days. I also used Netscape then FF but those later two I had too many issues with, and they were dog slow...

For the ad-supported Opera I am ashamed to admit that I knew enough about low level Windows API that I could sniff through the Opera window to get the handle of where ads were served and hide it. So my ad-supported Opera got hidden ads, but I got what looked like the full release.

Actually Opera never went to the CCP until much much later. I think it was about the 2016-2017 time frame. It was at that point I dropped using it. I always used the free version.

Many of the main devs started their own browser Vivaldi which is my main browser. However like most browsers, it is just different lipstick on the same pig... Chromium.

Actually as an OLD school Starwars fan the Clone Wars was one of the better Releases in the franchise.

Different take on this. We have a government that very, very, very narrowly lost against a party and a leader that had horrible human rights policies. Like would have been scary for LGBTQ/Woman's rights let alone those of non-Christian faiths. Yet our current government is so bad at governing that they still almost lost to those yokels. The current leader took over from the previous leader with a surplus budget and things running not too bad. They are now so far in debt that we are at record deficits and growing with nothing really to show for it. Their positive spin on the budget is they will be reducing the budget successfully after next year. For the average joe that can't math it isn't clear that there is going to be one year of a large increase in budget followed by three years of small decreases to get to a deficit higher than what we have currently.

They also sold us multiple tax increases saying 60% of us will not have to pay for it and the average is only X dollars which is not much. For the average Joe they don't see that a large percentage of us don't pay taxes, because they are kids or have no income so that small X dollars is not spread out across all of us, but only about 40% of us...

It is when we do our taxes in a year it will be apparent. But with elections in the future they have to do something that says "forget about all the promises we broke about child care and funding education and health care, we went to daylight savings like the average joe wants". That is something people will remember. It doesn't matter that in the winter months our kids, with their parents are walking to the school in the dark and rain trying to cross busy roads etc. and that standard time is better. The average joe voter will go Daylight Savings! Fuck ya! More evening sunlight and beer drinking time!

For ease of install and use, Corel Linux was much better. But so very short lived.

OK I never read the article or their excuses. I know why our office was ordered to come in 3 days a week. The threat of the matter is that if not enough people do this, they will enforce a full time in-office.

Now as an almost 30 year vet in the software industry, and technically at the same company, I will say I do not like the mandated 3 days. I will also say I would not want to be full time at home. I also know from experience that if the work place doesn't get compliance at close to 3 days average per person they will try to enforce fulltime.

I also am involved in hiring with the interns and I hear from them how hard it is to find a job in our locality and I also know that fresh from university are generally going to be hired before I am.

I will not argue any points on commute, have smaller offices closer to staff, less commute, better for environment and morale. I have been saying that for decades. I would also say from my experience mandate 2 days a week (for full work weeks) and optional for the rest. I hated when we had to come back just one day, then hated two days. I now REALLY dislike 3 days, and it has been that way for a long time. I also want 2 days in office. I need to get out of the house and away from those I am living with once in a while. I also think the two days needs to be coordinated with team mates so i am not going into the office with only 4 out of my 20 team members.

As for being non-compliant to get the working conditions I would like, I cannot afford to do it. If I am let go I am not sure I will find work in my industry here right now. I am more than happy for the younger generation to put their foot down and fight for the working conditions they want. But I also hope they know if it results in full-time in office mandate that is the cost of their actions. :)

I wish it was that simple. In Vancouver, a major high tech center, software tech jobs are hard to find, and have been for a while. Younger interns I have spoken to are actually starting to look at reschooling for trades. What do older less desirable employees do? We are not less able, but are still at a disadvantage in job hunting in this sector. And if we have 10-15 years until retirement it is even more difficult, so we are in a situation where we need to keep our jobs. I really do not want to retrain in a new field and start at the bottom again.

Sorry, Poor quality is spelled Shoddiness not quality.

And of course the rest of the world cannot compete in price when companies have what most would call slave labour, but that would be an insult to slave labour.

There is a very big problem with this. Firstly internal company meetings are internal. Your boss is paying you to do your job and if your job says this is internal keep it internal and do your fucking job. It doesn't matter if this is McDonalds, Facebook or the FBI. Internal is internal and if you can't keep things internal, then you should be fired.

And if you do make the sacrifice of potentially being fired by leaking something that in the long run helps humanity, good for you. But this is not that though.

Secondly it isn't spying by scraping data from Facebook and other platforms. You join those platforms knowing they are going to do it. You are agreeing to it. You are wanting to do it. You are saying please give me this service for "free" then complaining that "free" means using the data I am freely giving the platform.

So it doesn't matter if you like the guy or not, this guy does have a very valid point. A very valid concern and needs to start cleaning his house. It starts with him and needs to filter down and fast.

Yes but can it be proved that they didn't go to a library and scan the books for the AI to read it? Or just take the book out? I guess what I am saying there is a VERY fine line here. This is not to be on Meta's side. It is a thought process. Just say we created an android with some AI smarts. And walked into a library with it. It picked up a book and with super efficiently read it.

Then did this over and over and over again.

The result would be the same. Would this be legal?

If Facebook legally took the book out of the library, scanned it, and let their AI read it, what would be wrong with that? What then if they skipped the scanning step, legally obtained, maybe even bought the book, but used a prescanned online version instead of scanning themselves?

And what is the difference between the AI "reading" the book and a person doing it? If I do it and use that knowledge to tutor someone I am profiting on that copyrighted work. But is that wrong? If AI does it what is the difference?

When it comes to music there is a reason for this! Just listened to a show all about Marketing and this was a topic. Basically it used to be you heard music for the first time on the radio, or record/tape/CD/8 Track or what have you. So when the next song came on you just had to listen to is. Now it is released online and today's generation need to be hooked in the first dozen seconds or so or else the next button is pushed.

You mean like movies? Movies used to rely on a strong story line, strong character development and good dialog. Then came special effects.... gone was the story telling and in came 2 hours of action packed special effects....

I play occasionally with my son. He has been playing Mario Kart for years. He has his preferred combos based on track and how many CCs we are playing. He found this out through game play and getting to know the game.

Myself a long time gamer has not played Mario Kart much. I enjoy it. I don't have the advantage my son does with knowing the combos to choose. I do my best. Having something like this allows me to narrow things down so that I can have a better understanding in what I can pick to try and be competitive.

This isn't for a single person in a room watching tv. This is a group of people watching a movie or sports or something and a break is needed. Some go to take a leak, have a smoke, refresh beers, but there will always be someone in the room at some point.