>"Mass debt is profitable to the ones pulling the strings of our government."

Actually, it is much more profitable for the colleges/universities that rake in tons of zero risk money and have zero accountability for their admitting and spending/charging behavior.

>"No but if the borrower can't get a good job there should be cause of action for Warranty Act claims against the college. Extremely few people go to college with the expectation of borrowing to be unemployable. "

THIS

The colleges/universities should be held at least partially financially responsible for loan-enrolling so many people who probably are not ready or suitable for college (or at least THAT college) and are destined to either pick a useless major, or drop out. The colleges currently have ZERO risk, and their behavior and spending/pricing exactly matches that reality.

>"If they can borrow money against those "unrealized gains" - a major source of wealthy people's cashflow - then they can tax those "unrealized gains."

That is the cart pulling the horse.

The problem is borrowing against unrealized gains to avoid income tax, so fix THAT. Then they will get taxed on that action, or on selling holdings which does create realized earnings and that will be taxed.

>"Are you a temporarily embarrassed billionaire?"

If I were, would I be bothering to post on Slashdot as a pass-time? But, no, I wish I had such a problem.

>"Wonâ(TM)t someone think of the poor billionaires?"

So easy to "other" them and do whatever we want to them?

But this will just drive all the highly rich right out of the State and they will take all their spending, companies, employment, holdings, other taxes, etc with them. I am all for closing loopholes, like the creation of tax-free "income" by borrowing against unrealized assets. But taxing them like that is just wrong on many levels and sets a really bad precedence.

>"colloquially known as the billionaire tax, would levy a one-time 5% tax on any California resident worth more than $1bn."

If it goes through and eventually becomes law, who really believes this will be a ONE-TIME ever tax on the UNREALIZED wealth of individuals?

>"Unfortunately my bank has recently decreed that customers can't log into their online banking without first authorizing it thru their app."

If any of my banks (I use 3) required that, I would complain loudly and then close the account, making sure they knew why. Seriously. I don't want to "bank" on my phone, and I don't want use some bank's stupid "app" just so I can log into a website on from my desk. If they want increased security, then they should allow standard TOTP and I will use whatever off-line/non-cloud authenticator I choose, like Stratum.

>"I think that's kind of the point behind this - to unplug from social media and information overload, but"

But for the same price, you could have a much, much better phone, run anything you want/need, and CHOOSE not to install social crap like facebook, instagram, twitter, etc. And CHOOSE not to go onto stupid time-wasting sites in the browser? T9????? Seriously?

And why would one want to block Email? How is that doomscrolling, addicting, or forever distracting?

>"I guess that's no longer possible."

I have answered this question numerous times on Slashdot (presumably for the same few people reasking it over and over for some reason). They disabled the ability to remove update notifications in the Mozilla-downloaded packages. That is very likely never going to change.

If you are using Linux with a distro package, it will get updated easily through that and there will be no notifications inside Firefox, itself. I have no idea about MS-Windows or other platforms. If you don't want to update, then set a policy to turn off updates (applies to either mainline or ESR). In Linux, put:

{
    "policies": {
                "DisableAppUpdate": true
        }
}

into $INSTALLDIR/distribution

There is something similar for MS-Windows registry stuff, I believe.

ESR is a feature freeze version. So there will be much fewer changes and, thus, fewer updates and fewer new bugs which need updating as well. However, it will get all the same security updates as mainline, if they also affect the ESR version.

So, overall, there will be fewer updates.

As for complaining about getting update notifications, if you are using Linux with a distro package, it will get updated easily through that and there will be no notifications inside Firefox, itself. I have no idea about MS-Windows or other platforms. If you don't want to update, then set a policy to turn off updates (applies to either mainline or ESR). In Linux, put:

{
  "policies": {
        "DisableAppUpdate": true
    }
}

into $INSTALLDIR/distribution

There is something similar for MS-Windows registry stuff, I believe.

Don't have any such problems on any of my Linux desktops or the hundreds I manage. I would prefer they focus more on core stuff than other stuff, however.

>"Once FireFox is outlawed, only criminals will use FireFox."

Ug, I fear a life of crime is coming...

>"A gazillion of them supporting ad blockers."

And most of them are just me-too leaches, too cheap to perform actual development and support themselves. It is not like there is a rich browser diversity anymore, we are barely hanging on to anything NOT Google-controlled:

    "This will also impact other Chromium-based browsers, though the comment notes that other browsers can continue supporting these if they so desire. Microsoft Edge and Opera are likely to follow suit [with dropping support]."

So, how many of them are willing to actually maintain the code on their own for this? (Not that I care that much, because I use Firefox exclusively). A few might, but not a "gazillion." When you hitch your wagon to the Google beast, you are being mostly led around at their direction. And their interests are generally not user's interests.

It's a good thing we all use and promote Firefox (coupled with UBO). Right?

>"Voters in Switzerland have rejected an unprecedented far-right proposal to cap the country's population at 10 million"

That isn't "far right". In the past it was even a "left" position. But I guess everything has to be framed in ridiculous polarizing left/right ways now. Nearly half the population voted in favor, so it is certainly nowhere near "far" anything (implying it is fringe).

It is true that most systems now are set up as a pyramid scheme that requires ever-increasing population growth to be sustainable. But that isn't what I think of as ideal, nor sustainable. How many people is enough? They weren't proposing DECREASING population (which has lots of issues), just trying to hold it at a fixed level, which still included significant immigration.

>"I have 40 kWh of batteries in my home, for backup and time-shifting, and I participate in a grid-stabilization program with my power company."

OK, I was thinking more like grid backup, not just stabilization.

>"The grid never draws significant energy from my batteries [...] I see an otherwise-unexplained spike of 5-10 kW flowing from my batteries and into the grid, for a period of 2-5 minutes. 10 kW for 5 minutes is ~0.8 kWh, which is 2% of my house battery storage. I see a draw that large maybe once per week; usually it's much less. "

That sounds pretty reasonable.

>"What do I get for allowing the power company to do that? For the first year of participation, I got a check for $2000. For subsequent years I'll get bill credits of up to $50/month, applied to energy charges only. I'm not sure how much that will translate to, since my net energy purchase is usually zero (thanks to solar panels). It's a great deal for the first year. Beyond that... we'll see."

Looks like you have a good setup.

Thanks for the good/informational posting!