Anti-fluoride and anti-vax started in the lunatic left fringe, yes. The difference is that Democrats realize that those bozos are not qualified to be city dog-catchers, much less head of HHS. Note how nobody from the lunatic left is elected to positions of power. Mainstream Republicans took the stupidest ideas from the lunatic left and made them the center point of their platform.

So no, your "both sides are just as bad" whining is as accurate as RFK Jr. Have you been checked for brain worms lately?

It sounds like your argument simplifies to "Texas juries consist of gullible idiots who rule based on the skill of the lawyers rather than on facts" which simplifies to "Texans are gullible idiots". Also "SCOTUS rules based on ideologies rather than on facts and on the constitution."

This is a strong condemnation of both Texans and of the SCOTUS justices. But... this seems well supported by reality. I'm sad but have to agree with you.

I mean, it's fine to define "open standard" as "MUST HAVE no license, no patent issues, complete and perfect documentation, and a perfect open implementation". And hey, all of those are good and are preferred. But saying "ha ha not open because it doesn't meet my definition of open" seems disingenuous. (And let's not even start with the arguments about "is this open implementation REALLY open by my definition of open"; I've seen enough of those BSD-vs-GPL arguments for a lifetime.)

So, saying "This standard is 0% open" is simply false. If the standard is available and has enough information to implement it, it fits a reasonable (if limited) definition of open.

The standard seems 100% open, including the E2EE piece. There is no open source implementation, but that is a completely different thing.

Note that I have never tried to access the RCS standard to prove its openness, because I really don't care. But I've seen multiple statements that the RCS standard is open, so I suspect you're just abusing the term "open standard" to mean "open implementation" to bash Google (or RCS, or E2EE, or just to whine, I have no idea).

Also: I am not happy that there are no open source RCS client or server implementations. I'm also unhappy that everyone is choosing to use Google's implementations (except Apple client, which is instead purposely excluding E2EE for now so that they can claim to be pro-privacy to the gullible.) But it seems to me that the one person in this mess who is NOT to blame for this is Google, unless your theory is "Google should have a shitty client so all of the clients can be shitty!" which would be odd.

"Proprietary extended version" is exactly how every open protocol in the world has ever worked. You implement the base protocol so that you can interoperate with everyone, then add your optional extensions with the hope that the extension will be a part of the protocol in the future. And "proprietary" is doing a LOT of work here given that Google's E2EE has been open from the beginning, and is now well documented and will likely be in a future version of the protocol.

Also, do you have a source for "default to Google/Jibe, even if the carrier has a valid server"? I cannot find anything to support that, and the RCS Wikipedia page says "Google Jibe provides RCS service directly if carrier does not" which I parse as "default to carrier server, fall back to Jibe". Not that Wikipedia is authoritative, but absent any other evidence...

It sounds like your preference is that RCS should not have E2EE, so that Google would also have access to the contents of every message? Or that protocol extensions should always be implemented by slow committee rather than "rough consensus and working code". You seem to really hate privacy, dude.

The page you linked is "RCS Business Messaging" and is a marketing front page with zero technical details and no mentions of "server" or Jibe. Maybe try providing a link that actually says what you are claiming?

The Wikipedia RCS page says "Google Jibe provides RCS service directly if carrier does not" which seems to directly contradict your whiney conspiracy theory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

As far as I know, Google only "forces" RCS through Google's servers when the service provider has decided to not provide their own servers. Google only made their own servers because service providers were not providing them, and now some of them are still not providing them. (And I think a few have contracted with Google to use Google's servers.)

I think that iPhones will only use RCS if service providers have designated RCS servers.

If you have evidence that Google "forces all Android phones to send their RCS messages through Google's own servers" I'd be happy to hear it. Otherwise, please consider providing facts rather than pathetic conspiracy theories.

That's kinda like bragging that Ford makes amazing cars because they can use gas from *any* gas station. Is there a non-niche browser which CANNOT change the default search engine in less than 30 seconds?

I'd argue that the current US administration is completely upfront and open about exactly how trustworthy they are. China, on the other hand, is "obvious" about it, but not "open" about it at all.

Of course. Similarly, people are in more danger driving to/from the airport than during the flight, but people fear airplanes far more than cars. The solution isn't to inflame fears (snow and rain and fog, oh my! More fear, uncertainty, and doubt!) It's to make things as safe as is reasonable given constraints, and to spread rationality not fear-mongering. It's pretty easy, I find.

"It's not 100% perfect in all conditions, so it's useless"? Some people just want to whine. These numbers are very good. Snow and ice will always be sucky, but most other issues can be worked on. I mean, do all of the Waymo cars disable themselves when there is rain in California? I doubt it.

Besides, these cars don't need to beat ice and snow. They just need to beat human drivers in ice and snow. And that's a far, far lower bar.

People generally have to download either firefox or chrome (or stick with the browser on their computer); it's similar effort no matter what they download. Most people seem to prefer chrome (strongly). So you are saying "I insist that people use a browser they dislike, just because I wanna." I mean, it's got some promise as an Evil Overlord plot if you add some nuclear missile silos on the moon somehow, but otherwise it's just confusing.

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I assume that your plan is to work on "teaching people to recruit fairly", and to do nothing else to resolve the problem until that is done? Because that may never be done.

I mostly see it as a way to say "see, there is a theoretical solution which might work someday, so that's a perfect excuse to not deploy any imperfect but workable solutions now! The fact that I have philosophical objections to the workable solutions doesn't bear mentioning since I used LOGIC to prove that they were unneeded!"

Yes, let's teach people to recruit fairly, but let's assume that will be a work-in-progress for a very long time and plan alternatives.

Oh, I completely agree. But like all DEI, "veteran" has never meant "will always get the job". It has always meant "boost to account for the usual idiots who SWEAR up and down that they are completely unbiased but always rate People Like Themselves slightly higher than Other People". And when I say "usual unbiased idiots" I include myself because we're all terrible at this, tribalism is wired into our DNA, but efforts like DEI are a way to fight against the bias that we are 100000% sure we don't have but those damn scientists keep on demonstrating that we do have, clearly this is all the fault of the scientists, HEY, we have someone else WHO IS NOT OURSELVES that we can blame since we are also 100000% sure we take personal responsibility for our faults!

Sorry, this is exhausting and bigots gonna bigot and will loudly claim that they don't bigot. Not saying you're a bigot, but most anti-DEI people work around to it once you expose the usual painfully-obvious rationalizations. I'm overall happy with the Harvard plan, most colleges should be a bit harder to get into but should be free or very affordable. Bankrupting our college grads is shooting yourself in your own foot. Repeatedly, gleefully, and with careful aim.

This fixes some problems and doesn't fix others. DEI was the same way. I'm happy with Harvard's solution, but it still means that folks from poor schools won't look good to Harvard (my school was white and middle class, but only had one AP class, English).

Also, remember that the biggest DEI pipeline at most companies was the Veterans Hiring Pipeline. Turns out that recent veterans often don't know how to sell themselves to companies nor to colleges, but most of us know that a veteran is an incredible co-worker. This sucks, but We Must All Kneel To Government!