I've used both Lineage and Graphene extensively, and contrary to a lot of what I see even here in this thread, I find Lineage (without MicroG) to be a more Google-free experience, at least on the surface. Graphene's sandboxed GApps can still learn information about your usage patterns if you log into the services, albeit far less than they would on a standard Android device. However, it's for the sandboxed GApps that I consider Graphene to be more usable for the average smartphone user.
I'll admit to not really understanding what about the AOSP is inherently bad other than being maintained by Google. To my understanding, it's only the GApps binary that remains shrouded in sinister mystery, and obviously that's not present in Lineage.
Truthfully, I agree with this new stance of theirs and believe it's always been the case, but there's no doubt that they're only adopting it now because it's become advantageous.
Sure. But there's a fair amount of US Copyright law that says this has never been the case. To test this hypothesis, upload a video to YouTube with music by Prince playing in the background.
Copyright law is more of an ideal, and if it had "never been the case", there wouldn't have been any content to DMCA off of YouTube in the first place. US copyright law is fighting the tide, not conveying a natural order.
I find it strange that bots are considered distinct from humans. Bots don't spring from the ether, they're made by humans - even the AI-powered bots.
It might be better framed as "half the Internet's traffic comes from a subset of power users who automated their interactions with the web." Maybe we need less "agentic design" and more APIs.
This is a great point, as far as the understanding of "bot" is concerned. Although I think the overall point is that the bots create an algorithmic determinism toward information.
I do agree with the overall trend the author is observing, but I guess what I was getting at is that this is sort of an old problem extending to the web.
There's a unique social stigma around "bots" that isn't applied the same way to power users of any other system (understandably so, given some are nefarious). I believe this largely gave way to AI-powered bots, as there's a demand for bots to behave as humanly as possible to 1) minimize obstructions like 403s and 2) maximize the extraction of information.
Maybe if web servers were broadly designed thinking of bots as power users, the web would bifurcate into a "optimized web" for bots (APIs), and a "traditional web" for humans (HTML). Instead, we're getting this mess of bots and humans all trying to squeeze through the same doorway.
I see the "town square" analogy used a lot, but it's ignoring the actual purpose: it's an advertising platform, run by advertisers for advertisers. The presumed function of communication (something it certainly was started for) is purely for keeping the attention of users to sell to advertisers.
I dislike the town square analogy as well. What town square requires membership and provides anonymity? What town square do people routinely share dissenting opinions? The fact people feel free enough to routinely share dissent on these platforms shows that it's the opposite of a town square. The very act of sharing dissent in the town square used to be provocative in itself. What's provocative about grieving on Twitter?
The town square analogy couldn't be further from reality.
It was deliberate - maybe you realize that, but "conflating" is something usually done by mistake. Review outlets are more akin to journalists, in that their job is to sort through the noise to help improve awareness for all.
Influencers are a new breed of advertisers and propagandists, which are far more appealing for commercial goals. Don't need all that "truth" and "integrity" getting in the way.
The cost of AC is more than just "stick a window unit in there".
I live in the States, but in a centennial home within a historic city. The thought of a window unit is downright laughable. The windows are single-paned and unsealed, made of wood planks that are decades old. Given how hot it is here, most people just blast their AC and opt for flat-rate plans on power. Thankfully, the Victorian-style homes here have high ceilings, attics, and crawlspaces, which allows for retroactively installing HVAC.
Now consider Europe, where there are homes that exceed 200 yrs in age, and are sometimes made of difficult materials like stone and clay.
I also live in a "centennial home" (built between 1900 and 1920) in a "historic city" (Boston). Window units are very common here; I don't see what's laughable about them?
How would a masonry building make a window unit more difficult?
Unsealed window units are terribly inefficient to the point of being cost-prohibitive for some. The more windows or rooms, the more it compounds. You develop "heat pockets" in the nooks and crannies furthest from windows. What's more, the air tends to move right back out, "air-conditioning outside" as my elders always called it. In homes with unsealed windows, adding central HVAC (if possible) can at least offer a central point of dispersal, so that as the air quickly disperses through the windows, the cooling effect does too.
In the US, windows sizes are very standardized, and many window units are designed to fit snugly so that some degree of sealing can be achieved. In older wooden homes, you'll sometimes see entire walls replaced to accommodate standard double-pane windows, something very common in my city. With stone buildings, which can be very, very old, windows can often come in non-standard sizes, and may not open vertically or even be a rectangular shape. However, replacing a wall is pretty out-of-reach in that situation, either from difficulty and cost of the job, or municipal protections.
> terribly inefficient to the point of being cost-prohibitive for some
I don't see how? Running a small EER 11 unit all day on a very hot day is $1-$2.
> The more windows or rooms, the more it compounds.
The cost should be proportional to the number of window units you run, so if by compounding you mean it's superlinear I don't see how.
> You develop "heat pockets" in the nooks and crannies furthest from windows.
Ceiling fans work well at avoiding this. (Our house has them in most rooms)
> In the US, windows sizes are very standardized, and many window units are designed to fit snugly so that some degree of sealing can be achieved
I haven't seen this. Around here window sizes are pretty arbitrary, and every window unit has accordion bits on the side to block air exchange.
> In older wooden homes, you'll sometimes see entire walls replaced to accommodate standard double-pane windows
Weird; around here you almost never see that (only with gut renovations) and most houses still have their original arrangement. When they were switched to double pane they were swapped in place (usually with slightly smaller windows so no wall work was required).
I think the point I keep trying to get across here is "a lot of peoples' environments and/or architectures do not accommodate this" and you keep rebuking with "well my environment and architecture accommodate this."
I live in an area much hotter than Boston. ACs do not live long here; the rule of thumb is to expect half the life of that in a temperate climate. This means bigger units to combat the sweltering heat in the summer (90-110 F heat index, extremely humid) that are bought twice as often. Sometimes, it's actually more cost effective to just keep working your ACs to death and replacing them, particularly if you don't intend to live in the home beyond 15 years.
All of this applies to window units as well. As I already said, window units don't install smoothly here - some windows get nailed shut from becoming too delicate. I have a couple that were sealed that way prior, and a couple more I'm planning to do myself. Even if I could get window units into the remaining windows, replacement can be very damaging. (Thankfully, I have central HVAC, like most people here.)
I agree we're talking past each other somewhat. Taking a step back, Europe is a large area representing many different building traditions and climates. I'd find it very surprising if window units were uniformly a bad option across all of Europe.
Your example of a place much hotter than Boston isn't that helpful here: the main question is what to do about occasional heatwaves in Europe, thinking about cooling options for places that are almost always tolerable without AC.
(I also interpreted you as saying "The thought of a window unit is downright laughable" in a pretty broad context, but now maybe I think you were trying to say that specifically about in your city?)
You're getting the gist of my point. I bring up being in a place hotter than Boston to point out that it's high temperatures that strain the value of a window unit, not mild or cold temperatures. A lot of Europeans defined by the context of this post are dealing with rapidly rising temperatures. Combine their generally unaccomodating architecture (very prevalent on the quite ancient Mediterranean coast) and rising temperatures put them in a place that window units do little to solve. That's not to say they're uniformly useless, but that certain groups of people are going to gain little from adopting them.
Good point, I'm basing my rejection on my repulsive feeling. I'm not familiar with philosophy but I'm sure there are philosophers that have built up arguments on why a life based on seeking truth and logic is worthwhile.
While I agree with them, I've found a lot of the other responses to not be conducive to you actually understanding where you misunderstood the situation.
AI performance often decreases at a logarithmic rate. Simply put, it likely will hit a ceiling, and very hard. To give a frame of reference, think of all the places that AI/ML already facilitate elements of your life (autocompletes, facial recognition, etc). Eventually, those hit a plateau that render it unenthusing. LLMs are destined for the same. Some will disagree, because its novelty is so enthralling, but at the end of the day, LLMs learned to engage with language in a rather superficial way when compared to how we do. As such, it will never capture the magic of denotation. Its ceiling is coming, and quickly, though I expect a few more emergent properties to appear before that point.
Their first album also includes guest vocals from hardcore punk musicians.
The general EM argument is that they are adding black metal elements to music that is fundamentally hard rock and/or punk.
It ends up being arbitrary, but I think the underlying desire makes sense - at some point, things go from being metal to being something else with metal elements. They aren't an encyclopaedia for music with metal elements, they're an encyclopaedia for metal music.
If the Gallup poll indicating that 49% of people identify as independent is anything to go off of, this is more urgent of a matter than it seems. We're actually hitting an inflection point where voters can deny the presidency to either party, but if no third party is available, it would default to a vote by the house from the top 3 candidates by votes, aka a contingent election[0]. This is less than ideal. The majority party of the House would likely just insert their candidate, which would only further disenfranchise voters (who would have voiced their majority desire to not have that candidate.)
Provided, people would have to stop falling for the "lesser of two evils" rhetoric, a deliberate ploy to stop the formation of a third party.
However, should ideals fracture too much, too many new parties form, and you end up in a contingent election again, as was the case in 1824.
I'll admit to not really understanding what about the AOSP is inherently bad other than being maintained by Google. To my understanding, it's only the GApps binary that remains shrouded in sinister mystery, and obviously that's not present in Lineage.