And in charge of basically everything. What in the name of fuck did people expect? Cheap eggs?

Yep. And this just means that F-Droid has to have one person sign up and submit all of the apps for signature, as I said.

People don't want the news. News consumption continues to drop. People always thought of news as a bit of a chore. Something you were supposed to keep up with but not anything you enjoyed. It got turned into 24/7 entertainment crap when Fox News took over but that's not news that's propaganda. And even that isn't very popular.

People in America are in the habit of blaming individuals for either systemic problems or what our Epstein class is doing. It's a bad habit and I wish we would stop but well, there's all that propaganda encouraging us to do it...

Yeah, there's two main problems:

1) People entering the wrong fields. For example, medicine really needs workers, at all levels, but not enough people are going into it.

2) Certain manual labour fields, like field work and home construction, because... well, I think we all know why there's a shortage of workers in those fields.

Nonsense. There's no reason to expect that mandatory developer certificates will kill F-Droid, at all. F-Droid will need one guy to pay the $25 fee and identify himself. Unless they can use the open source developer exception that Google has talked about (but hasn't announced any details, AFAIK).

That's a bigger issue, because Google's announced policy is to require that apps respect intellectual property, which would include not distributing apps that blatantly violate terms of service. Most likely F-Droid will have to stop distributing NewPipe if they want to be in Google Play. If dropping NewPipe is enough to kill F-Droid, then I guess that'll do it.

Those in the north will complain because the portion of the winter they go to work in darkness will increase, and it will be darker. Those in the center will also complain louder because they'll start going to work/school in the dark.

Those in the south will be confused about why everyone else is complaining, but they'll lose.

It's really not. 20 years ago, yes, but they've grown up and wised up. I know lots of excellent engineers at Microsoft, and I know they do good work, and they report that their colleagues do, too.

And note that I'm no MS fanboy. I hated them with a purple passion in the late 80s and early 90s, and swore off Windows entirely in 2001. I did finally break down and buy a Windows laptop a couple of years ago because I bought a CNC milling machine and the good software is Windows only, but that's the only thing I use it for.

More precisely, "Everyone does".

Microsoft's code isn't especially shoddy, all large codebases that are getting AI review right now are experiencing the same thing.

My past dealings (mine and others) have lead me to think of PayPal as a criminal enterprise,

I've seen a lot of hate thrown at PayPal over the years.....and not quite sure why?

I've used it a LONG time for eBay payments, sending money to friends and the odd small merchant.

I wouldn't say I've used it a TON, but some.....and never had any problems.

What problems have ya'll had that you dislike them so badly? Genuinely curious....

Am I one of the only people that do NOT like talking to machines?

I mean, I still can't stand the voice menus when you call support...I''m constantly hitting "0" or saying Operator over and over to get to a real person asap.

Don't get me wrong, I like my AI...ChatGPT can be fun and helpful...but, I don't wanna hold a fscking conversation with it, especially not in public.

Hell, that's one of the reasons I hate the voice support calls, when in public or sitting in Cube Land where everyone has nosy ears....

I wanted the high-end Qualcomm chip because it has a much better modem and I have lousy reception in my area. Switching to the high-end Qualcomm chip was night and day. People could actually hear me on calls and I stopped getting text messages 6 hours after they were sent. My bedroom is no longer a dead zone.

Samsung has an equivalent phone but they put a small battery in it either because they were being cheap or because they didn't like how much it made the thing weigh. Whatever the case the battery life is horrible on it. Maybe it's better if you're not sitting in a dead zone where the modem has to work harder but I am.

There is the red magic but at the time I bought my phone it was closer to $1,100. Not sure why but it's dropped down to 800. That's not great but with RAM prices it could be worse. But I did only have to pay $500 for the phone I have now because it was right before the AI apocalypse.

Right now if you want a high-end Qualcomm chipset you just don't have a lot of good options on Android besides that red magic.

Most of the world doesn't have DST. It's really just Europe and the US. Somehow they manage.

I"m in the US...and I don't care which one they make permanent .....just pick one and stick with it.

I hate the hour changes....messes with me twice a year fairly badly at times....gets my pets off schedule too which is a PITA.

I'm just seeing the world as is. If you actually stare the real world in its eyes with all the children being murdered by Elon Musk so that he could be a trillionaire and bombs dropped on children in Gaza so some stupid little nationalist asshole can live out some weird fantasy or watching kids in America starve because some people just get off on that or because it doesn't matter how hungry your kid as long as somebody else's kid is hungrier well if you actually face that reality you turn out like me.

I guess ignorance is bliss and all. So go ahead and enjoy yourself. But I think the reason you commented is you know how bad things are and you know how horrible and horrific they are and you're trying your best to act like things are normal. You're the dog surrounded by fire in the meme.

Maybe survivorship bias will work out for you like it always has. Good luck and try not to think too hard

Ok...I understand disabilities, etc....

But WTF is "Protected Leave"?

That is a new term for me.....some forms of vacation time are "protected"?

Conventions are a lot of fun but not everybody can live in a major city with a major convention. It doesn't really do any good for you to fly out to LA for Comic-Con. You're going to meet a lot of cool people but then they're going to scatter to the four winds.

Facebook makes it possible to meet people in your area with your interests. So you can find a d&d group or a bunch of guys to go fishing with or something like that.

This is especially important in our modern dystopia. Increasingly game stores are shutting down because private equity owns all the property and game stores just aren't profitable enough for the amount of square footage they need. All those tables that you are playing at aren't merchandise you are buying. And a store wants to get you in and then back out again so they can get more customers in. You hanging around doesn't result in enough extra sales. Yeah you might pick up a mini or two or a expansion book but then you're going to hang around using up space for basically the whole day.

Also people have to move a lot. People have to upend themselves and move to other cities all the damn time now because Jobs go away and you have to live where the work is. So if you're new to an area Facebook lets you find the community you want to hang out with.