I’ll check and see if I can do that with this one!

I should have thought of that. Thanks! Ironically, I have a very old lead-acid UPS in the basement that I’ve been kind of afraid to plug in again after all this time.

Why removing the battery? I was thinking that could be one good thing about using a laptop is that in a way it has its own UPS.

Good question. I’ve been drinking Earl Grey for so long I don’t remember which came first, that or STTNG. It’s possible I first tried it because of the show.

My car armrest has physical buttons (edit: I guess you’d call them “rocker switches”) that I can push forward or backward to raise/lower the windows. It would be absolutely ridiculous to make me navigate a menu on a touchscreen to do that–please tell me newer cars aren’t doing that?

It’s been a long time since I looked but I hope most cars still have physical buttons/controls for all important functions! Besides being easier and faster to use, without them if a touchscreen malfunctions (hardware or software) everything is gone and you wouldn’t be able to drive the car. Then there’s the tracking and spying, and sometimes bugs and UI changes after updates–and now ads!?# Cars are becoming as enshittified like everything else now.

Well said.

Does anyone actually know why we are putting tariffs on Canadian goods?

I think his objective is to try and damage Canada’s economy, but I’m not sure exactly why. Apparently he really is serious about the “51st state” thing along with the Greenland and Panama thing. He’s just that megalomaniacal. He wants to be like Putin.

Shit, I was thinking about getting one but my brain didn’t make the connection that I needed to get it before this. Maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get it anyway to support some of these companies that may be taking a sales hit because of all this. Or I could just wait a while, maybe it won’t be very long until Mangolini backs down.

As someone who grew up before the negative effects of computer/internet technology became apparent, and who was excited and impatient for it to develop, I agree with the points made in the article. It didn’t have to be this way; in a different kind of society it could have been a boon to everyone. But in our society all the benefits of good things are appropriated by the powerful so they can more readily exploit the less powerful for profit.

So many wonderful possible benefits that might have come from these technological advancements, to help people lead better lives, to address many of society’s issues (hunger, climate change, disabilities, education, etc) simply never happened, because in our society money must be invested to develop them, so only things that would make more profits for the greedy were able to be developed. Yes, some things did get funded by governments or foundations, but they’re only a drop in the bucket to what could be done.

I just installed Librewolf today, using it now. Being a fork of FF it makes a very smooth transition.

Nope.

Yep after all that’s how musk did it by using trump as the symbolic figurehead

I have a flip phone with a touchscreen so I can type via the onscreen keyboard. When I bought it I wondered how well it would work since the screen is so small, but it works great! So much easier than using the keypad. BTW it also has maps with voice navigation.

Walmart doesn’t let you use contactless pay unless you use their app.

By “contactless pay” I assume you’re talking about paying by using a smartphone app? Obviously I don’t care about that because the whole point of my post is that I’m not using a smartphone, so obviously I have no apps of any kind.

But if by “contactless pay” you meant paying with your debit card by tapping it or holding it near the card reader, yes they do have that like everyone else.

yes

It’s called “Active Listening”

https://www.404media.co/heres-the-pitch-deck-for-active-listening-ad-targeting/

I use a dumbphone. I’m not buying a smartphone just so I can play these stupid games, and I’m not installing an app for every fucking business I interact with. I realize there will one day be a point where I won’t be able to do things I need to do without one, but until then I have no desire for one. Fortunately they haven’t made the parking meters here require a smartphone yet.

My grocery store still uses loyalty cards for most discounts (which is irritating enough), but also has “digital coupons” that require an app so I can’t get that. Theoretically I could go to their website and print them off but that’s not worth the effort. I have to pay close attention to the price signs they put up because some of them say “with digital coupon” in small print, meaning “not for you, bitch”. You know who doesn’t pull this kind of shit? Walmart. So I wind up getting a lot of my groceries there so as not to be discriminated against.

Yep, I’m on the latest version.

I’m having the same issue on Freetube, it pops up and says it can’t play the video because Youtube requires being signed in. Sometimes if I retry a couple of time it’ll play, but usually keeps getting the same error. Freetube is great though, maybe they’ll come up with a solution soon.