Like the forced-to-install on 80% of devices, clone, Microsoft Edge, you mean?

The problem with Firefox is that it's better at detecting spyware, via plug-ins: Corporations don't want their customers doing that. Which in turn, means many corporations can't avoid Chrome in their own computers because their computers use someone else's servers.

Another consequence of blocking spyware, is that Firefox (extension) settings need to be tweaked as corporations put new versions of spyware in their web-pages. Since Chrome blocks much less, changes aren't noticed: It just works. That suits the dumb user who doesn't want to play whack-a-mole with the settings.

What's the bill when half a billion people download a 60GB game? Let's remember that Google demands those 2 billion computers update Chrome every 6 weeks: Mostly, for UI tweaks, not security and privacy. We're all turning a blind eye towards the environmental cost of our favourite tool and toy.

It's getting difficult to tell the difference between "free product" and malware. Google isn't doing this out of kindness, they're doing it to make the user, well the user's data, into the product. This is the local model of Gemini, so Gemini will be sending data summaries, not raw text, to Google: It doesn't help Chrome, it's still spyware.

CEOs and shareholders would lobby their politicians to kill that bill before its first reading. The whole point of corporations is giving massive amounts of capital and labour to a sociopath with limited responsibilities to the labourers and shareholders.

The alternative is, company shares sinking through the floor, the first time they employ a discount expert to handle IT operations and security: Then, the CEO being fined for the incompetence of his employees. No career CEO is going to allow principles such as personal responsibility, interfere with his ego and money-grubbing.

Every corporation is demanding online customers use PassKeys or Facial Recognition to secure their account: Neither are safer.

Facial Recognition is a problem because one's face is always there and can be photographed for later break-ins to any secured device. It stops opportunistic thieves, not a planned robbery. Similarly, PassKeys are really passwords the user never touches: This makes the phone the point of weakness, as there's no access when the phone is missing, and whoever has the phone has control of the account. There is a protocol for moving PassKeys to a new phone (CXF, CXP) but only Apple supports it.

Schools, supposedly have taught computer literacy for 15 years but password management still seems to be a blind-spot. SOHOs still don't record their product keys and passwords (since one needs an online account to download the software). As, explained above, I do not see the password-one-can't-lose philosophy as good security.

On the plus side, the government services I use, have quietly offered OTP, and it uses SHA256, not the SHA1 mandated by Google and Microsoft. The "otpauth://" URL contains a "&algorithm=sha256" parameter.

In software, much application data lies in global variables because passing it through the stack consumes memory and time: Yes, Microsoft has a point, that safety and sensibility trade-offs are common. Still, the word "private" means more than a lock on the door, it means leaving the door unlocked for the minimum time. It means installing the easy road-blocks in case a mistake, happens. The prime reason to stop that, is sharing the data with other functions: I'm thinking AI agents, that will combine logging into your shopping account, banking account, Facebook account to automate your online 'life'.

You no longer own your work, so Microsoft is no longer illegally pirating your work: It's brilliant, how easy it is, to deprive everyone else of rights.

Politicians protecting their popularity and winning the election, are not the same thing. Following the will of the voters works because the voters care about results, not ideology: US billionaires have spent trillions teaching voters the opposite: Unfortunately, it's worked in the states most able to sabotage stable government.

As X/Fox News/Trump proves, US politics is about buying mind-share and thus votes. It's already known that the biggest spender wins the most votes. Except for Trump, who had both X and Fox News do free PR work for him.

The White House is having a "Oh, shit!" moment as it realizes this technology will be used against them. They want to roll-back their "damn the torpedoes" and "small government" rhetoric to control and censorship, to save their own arse.

What's the alternative: I've murdered 17 people, so l will be your murder buddy?

Nintendo's scorched-earth policy might not be moral but it is legal: The law allows them to punish people using Nintendo's IP a little too cleverly.

I think the word not mentioned is "kick-back" (to Amazon) but it would effectively be a discount, with Nintendo choosing to sell to Amazon at a loss or to inflate its prices to all other retailers. The latter option, chosen by so many manufacturers, is a type of price-fixing (One retailer is more popular because the manufacturer enforces an arbitrary difference in price.) which is illegal.

That's not the lesson your monologue gives: It's, men are valuable as long as they make something. Which points to the problem, if his skill-set can no longer be monetized (replaced by automation/AI, or a lack of; tools, seed capital or demand), his future is living under a bridge.

It's very practical to avoid "economically useless" but most of us enjoy something first, or at least, enjoy learning about it, then learn to get good at it. Then there's industry lobbyists pretending they need more people to do X: So, the government funds a training scheme where employers take 10% of graduates and dump the rest into unemployment. A decision to avoid economically useless activities, doesn't guarantee avoiding economically useless activities.

Most of the world is geared to the humans capable of paying you less and keeping the profits, then using the profits to steal what you already have. Forbes is full of 'this unmarried mother made a million dollars' stories. It's selling the truth that getting your first million requires hard work (plus other things they don't talk about), and the subtle message that employers don't want to give you a stable income, so start a hobby that you can monetize.

At some point it stops being capitalist efficiency and market forces and instead, is a vicious circle designed to keep a few people, wealthy.

I watched a Japanese pronunciation video which had been run through English speech-to-text processor to create subtitles. Even the English words were incorrectly detected.

I mentioned last week, that such processors can't handle homonyms: Always writing "brake" instead of "break".

It's describing mission events happening over 2.6 years, not what the thrusters are doing for 2.6 years.

But they might want to idle the thrusters for 18 months, to prevent the thrusters going cold.

While looking for a heavy-load e-scooter (most e-scooters are built for tweens), I noticed that e-bikes frequently had lower specs than such e-scooters.

Around town I started seeing e-bikes that were closer to a motorcycle than a bicycle: Heavy frames, long seats, large headlights, off-road tyres and some had hydraulic brakes.

I guess, someone started selling e-scooters without running lights, because the government created a safety standard for them (more detailed than the legal requirement of; helmet, lights, speed limiter), with the PSA that non-compliant e-scooters would be confiscated.

Interesting that Musk's "Grok" AI wasn't counted.