I'm pretty sure that's the entire point behind the exercise (well, except some bonus mild cruelty associated with thoughtless and shitty rules that will inevitably be biased against the poor and powerless). They want to create terrible regulations so that they can point at them later and screech about the TERRIBLE OVERBEARING REGULATIONS. This gives them a lever in 3 years to push against these AI regulations in addition to any others they want to excise.

This is just the techbro version of what Regan did in the 80s. He and his administration claimed the government was and had always been incapable and incompetent, and they proved it by being incapable and incompetent. Then they pointed at their own failures as justification for burning everything down, something we are still paying the price for today.

This is actually a pretty interesting topic, if you care about the facts and details and aren't just parroting right-wing talking points.

Obama’s pledge that ‘no one will take away’ your health plan

The oversimplified short version is that health care is complicated and Obama made some campaign stump claims that really needed nuance. The ACA did have provisions for grandfathered plans but it also required them to meet rules around coverage changes and price increases or they lose that status. Some states also have laws that conflicted with grandfathered plans that prevent people from keeping them.

Frankly, most of the plans that were no longer valid under the ACA were shitty plans anyway and only provided the illusion of medical insurance. They didn't cover preventive care, had ridiculous maximum coverage limits, lacked coverage for serious illnesses, or didn't allow for expensive treatments. Basically they covered a runny noses and stubbed toes but not cancer or diabetes -- the exact kinds of things that drive people to medical bankruptcy.

Yeah, headings are one of the aspects of Markdown I dislike.

Numeric lists are also obnoxious, since you only have two choices: (1) use the real numbering in the text (1, 2, 3, ...) and deal with manually re-numbering everything if the order changes or (2) give up on the unrendered text and just use "1." for each item. Both options suck.

Oh, and single asterisks being used for italics instead of bold is just plain wrong, and this is a hill I will die on.

I guess I'm "the other guy" because I also liked Pocket (originally Read It Later), though I stopped using it a few years before it got killed. I agree that Mozilla buying it was a mistake, though I try to be charitable and hope it was partly because they wanted to improve the privacy and openness of a product that could, as you suggest, be used to harvest user information. An open web is their mission, if you believe it.

I've looked around to see how much Mozilla paid for it and can only find "an undisclosed amount". Where are you getting the $20M number?

One thing I think most people don't understand about Pocket is that it was more than just a bookmark database. When you saved a site, it really saved a snapshot of the entire page so that it was available even if changed or removed later, and pages were cached so they could be read offline. These were the unique "TiVo" features of Read It Later that made it more than bookmarks.html and also required backend support, which is why the "just make it an addon" argument doesn't really hold water. Someone has to host the service and data, and that (plus the existing userbase) is really what Mozilla was buying.

But all that said, it was a boondoggle and was probably just Mozilla trying desperately to find ways to be relevant in "mobile". They could have easily built this functionality themselves at a cost much less than whatever they did pay for Pocket. Eventually shutting the whole thing down was the shitty cherry on top.

Archive.is is usually pretty good at getting around paywalls.

Scientists Thought Parkinson’s Was in Our Genes. It Might Be in the Water

I think the term you're looking for is "Corporate Democrat", and I completely agree.

Even though the term "socialism" is still almost poison in most of US politics, I think we need to embrace "social Democrat" to make clear the difference between status quo corporate Democrats and people advocating more of the progressive ideas of the early-mid 1900s and places like the Nordic countries. With some effort I think control of "socialism" as a damning label can be wretched away from the conservative pundits and restored to have legitimate meaning in the political discussion. Bernie Sanders made decent progress on this all by himself, and probably would have succeeded if he'd been selected as the Democratic nominee.

Even if someone disagrees with it, at least disagree on rational grounds.

This makes me wonder what would happen if the secession ammendment were later repealed by the remaining states. I guess it would be tantamount to a declaration of war at that point, like Putin deciding Ukraine is suddenly part of Russia again, but if done by a constitutional convention it would circumvent the fact that only Congress can declare war.

It's become just another form of wealth transfer from the poor to the upper classes in the economy. Perks and incentives to earn "points" and cash-back by spending on credit cards are financed by those merchant fees, so the entire country is subsidizing them by paying hidden fees in the form of higher prices of goods and services. People who buy a lot with credit and can easily pay off their credit card bill every month come out ahead. People who can't or don't purchase much or who cannot always pay their bill in full get screwed. And card networks (Visa, Mastercard, etc) are leeches in the middle sucking blood from everyone.

Once you understand how the system is rigged, it's actually pretty disgusting.

I want them to bring back Slashdot subscriptions. I'll happily pay to support Slashdot, but I uncompromisingly reject advertising. Not to mention, the few times the newer ads have gotten through uBlock filters they've been atrocious.

I know the site has been on life support for a decade but subscriptions seem like a pretty easy way to make some money.

Clippy
Cortana
Copilot

Maybe they need to pick a new letter. Bring back Microsoft Bob?

To be fair, they capitalized all sorts of random words in the 1700's.

Nicely said.

A favorite quote by Christopher Hitchens, describing Martin Luther King, Jr:

Even though it sounds brusque, the first time I read it I found it to be incredibly encouraging and uplifting. And Hitchens was no opponent of personal vice, so it's really not quite the insult some might take it as. There are no perfect humans - every one of us is a physical creature with unique and personal baggage bestowed on us by our flaws, circumstance, and the times in which we live. The whitewashed saints often presented for emulation are uninteresting and useless as genuine role models.

Exactly this. Airlines are now essentially banks with a side hustle flying planes.

I've used Firefox Beta as my primary browser on my Android phones for years and have never encountered this. Maybe there's an issue with some specific features used by sites I don't visit. Doesn't prove anything but I guess one anecdote deserves another.

> Sure, do this instead of better tech

Regardless of what you think of the new mascot, do you really think the same people responsible for drawing pretty pictures of foxes are the same ones designing "better tech" and writing code and fixing bugs? Groups of people can do more than one thing at a time.

And I'd guess this is also an attempt to raise some money and awareness to the browser. At this point it doesn't matter how great Firefox "tech" is, they have lost the popularity context against Chrome and Chromium knockoffs, and will never get it back. Google will do and spend whatever it takes to keep Chrome on top, so Mozilla is probably looking for ways to at least retain what they have and keep the lights on.