They claimed that the government was focusing on this one issue when really it was a small part of a much larger legislation. Whether it’s good or bad is a separate judgement.

This was part of an overall package including aid to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan.

Personally, I just find it really disappointing. This Tik Tok issue could have been an opportunity to improve privacy and reduce data collection across the board. Instead, it’s a surgical strike in order to not disrupt American tech companies doing the same thing.

What will happen is that Bytedance will sell the US Tik Tok to an American VC firm and it will continue data hoarding as before. This time, the US government will be getting the data instead of the CCP. I’d rather nobody got it.

When I worked in a factory, all the old country maintenance guys and techs were on tik Tok during their breaks.

-Stilgar

I’m a Wikipedia addict but I’m not complaining

Why do they want to step into what we are doing here?

I think there’s a much simpler explanation. Elon’s actions are causing users to want to leave the platform. Meta wants to pounce on this opportunity. ActivityPub is an established, open source protocol that allows Meta to quickly spin up a Twitter competitor. The federated nature means that Meta can reduce regulatory risk. At the same time, they can lobby for increased scrutiny of Twitter since it isn’t interroperable like Threads.

I have no idea if this is actually how Meta is strategizing. But what I definitely know is that Meta absolutely doesn’t consider federated social media a threat. They aren’t trying to squash us. They’re aimed at Twitter. If they make some change that degrades the experience for us, absolutely we should consider defederation. Until then, let’s try to make some converts out of Threads users.

That probably would’ve been true even if they did follow through.

I’m surprised nobody has linked the Technology Connections video on this.

Better editorial and moderation transparency are good. I support that. I’m worried about the “mitigating emotional harm” part of the bill. This could mean that the fringes of society are allowed to use coded language and dog whistles but people aren’t allowed to call them out (for example). Information about transitioning could be deemed “emotionally harmful”. I’m skeptical about the government’s ability to define “emotionally harmful” content, especially in the current political climate. It seems too broad.

Hopefully the clinical trials prove fruitful. It sounds like this could be a really promising treatment, if not cure. It increases effectiveness of other cancer drugs. Even if it just allows us to reduce the side effects of chemo by using less of the drugs, that would still be a benefit.

Torque. It allows you to connect to your car’s OBD2 port via a cheap Bluetooth adapter. From the app, you can read and clear diagnostic codes, setup custom gauges, and log data. It was very helpful when my alternator was dying and when my car was overheating. I don’t have voltage or coolant temp gauges.

Google will appeal so they haven’t won yet. The next jury might believe them to be patent trolls. Who knows.

I found the exact act. It’s pretty short. If I’m reading it right, it specifically says an HOA can’t limit this right. That is, if I’m understanding “home rule” right.

Edit: I think “home rule” is legalese for local governments. Looks like HOAs probably can still limit this right.

I’m pretty sure a lot of HOAs are formed by property developers before the first house is sold. Not all of them are specifically to increase property values. Condo HOAs are necessary to maintain the common areas. Some HOAs maintain a pool or communal areas. But yeah, I’ll only live in an HOA community if it’s a condo.

I’d love to. Personally I use CAD software that doesn’t have a native Linux option or (good) FOSS alternative. Also, there’s a lot of work done in Excel. No way my company is going to find a transition away from Windows to be attractive.

Tbh, Lemmy is much more difficult to get into. I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t somewhat dogmatically against reddit’s shenanigans. My buddy who uses the official app doesn’t really care about any of this stuff. Even I feel a bit alienated by Lemmy because it feels so dominated by tech workers. Your average meme-enjoyer is going to see multiple instances, buggy apps, none of their favorite communities and they’re going to bounce off it. I like Lemmy but we need to be realistic about how palatable it is.