In many places in the world, cars are built to order. So you test drive the model you want, but it might not match your preferred color or options.

The thing is, you're iPhone is pretty much your problem. It makes you look stupid, not Slashdot.

No, of course a broken spar is A Very Bad Thing when it happens in midair.

Is this changing-the-timing-chains-in-an-Audi difficult, or is this replacing-your-spinal-cord-without-killing-you impossible?

Are these planes repairable? I think it's a reasonable question.

(Of course, with the Audi, if has anything more than a loose gas cap it's not economically feasible to repair, but that's what you get with European engineering.)

Woah... Dumb question, but would a wing spar be repairable or replaceable?

It's a tiny bit easier to damage cables in international waters, than to dig them out of the ground in remote enemy territory. Hint: an anchor dragged behind a ship is enough for the water based cable.

What if Iran will participate in a certain bet where insider trading is going on, but as the (happy) loser?

After all somebody could have the idea of betting on the specific day on which Trump will die. Iran will lose the bet (but won't mind), and "somebody" will win it :-)

If Bill Gates really gets that much of a hard-on about his insecure code, then why is it still called Microsoft? :-)

While it is pretty much infeasible to dig a canal through Oman's mountains, it's (relatively) easy to lay cables over them. So cables coming from within the gulf will make landfall in Dubai, traverse the peninsula, and go again into the water at Fujaira.

A lot of the audio production in individual videos is really bad. This isn't anything to do with YouTube per se, not their compression algorithms or other features. A lot of YouTubers have absolutely no concept of microphone placement, of using audio compression, of reducing background noise. All of which are things which will drastically affect audio quality and the ability of a speech-to-text model to create subtitles.

It would be nice if YouTube would normalize all the uploaded videos to one set standard. Note I'm not suggesting that they compress the videos as that might change the intended presentation of professional audio productions. I just mean peak-finding normalization which could be implemented losslessly and without breaking existing video links.

Having said that, when I look at my own channel - and I am not claiming to have great audio; I have a host which would destroy a lavalier microphone in mere seconds. YouTube's subtitling is really good. It automatically switches between English and French and Hebrew, and even with a fair bit of background noise (welding, grinding, cooking, crowd noise, music) it generally gets the text correct. So I don't know what the original complaint is, except that it's not perfect. Well, guess what, neither is human hearing. How about that famous Jimi Hendrix line, "Excuse me while I kiss this guy."

Looking at this a day later, I can't really see a valid reason for doing this. It costs them nothing to post to X. In fact, X was one of the places I saw the *most* engagement with them. Bluesky is not a nice place, Mastodon has limited engagement. I would think that they'd want to remain on a platform where some folks really needed to see what they were saying. Now they've cut themselves off from a potential audience.

Looking at their board of directors, and into their past associations, it's now a lot more obvious. They pushed John Gilmore out in 2021.

Remember this? https://yro.slashdot.org/story...

First comment is "a time of transition. Wonder if they will make it through with their integrity intact? Only time will tell."

Now we know the answer.

No problem, EFF hasn't been cool for a while now. Remember what they did to RMS?

At least where I am (California) Apple News is a solid product. I've been a very happy Apple One subscriber and enjoy it. One reason for me anyway is that I can read our local papers with no paywall, and I use the magazine selection as well. And yes, I've been a huge Apple fan for years. :)

but I certainly get value out of it.

and only if I could hide literally every other trace of unverified content.

Knowing I was dealing with actual human beings might be kind of nice for a change.

The reality is that I'd probably just delete my reddit account and not think twice about it.

It's ruining sports across the board for many people, and I really hate that it's leaked out of Vegas the way that it has.

Nothing like seeing FanDuel and Draft Kings ads on what feels like every sporting event under the sun.

I'm so sick of seeing gambling advertisements.