Commented on another thread - Rising costs, inflation, stagnant wages, a pandemic, and the specter of Long COVID. Not to mention that the country is so relentlessly polarized that nearly everyone I know is reluctant to let anyone new into their circle for fear of learning that new person has been duped into supporting literal fascist Nazis. We’re exhausted and we don’t want to argue all the time.

With Cheeto Benito and the Brown Shirts in office, there’s a palpable tension in nearly every interaction right now. It’s only going to get worse, until eventually we will either have to start socializing in the form of local community organizing or we’ll rapidly find that we no longer have a hope of a future for ourselves.

For a nation typically sitting firmly in dumb, fat, and happy territory, this is a level of existentialism that none of us are accustomed to. Unless of course you’re Black or maybe Latino, in which case you probably know what’s up.

Expert level sounding.

So what does Zuck do when Trump uses an exec order to stay the ban and pushes Republicans to reverse it?

You’re a wombat.

That’s fair - I should have said major browsers to be more clear. Edited above.

The overwhelming majority of development to Chromium is done by Google and not the open source contributors to the project. Maintaining a browser is not something that can be done for free as a hobby. It requires an army of full-time developers to sustain.

Given all of the major browsers except Firefox are using Chromium, the best case scenario for spinning off Chrome is that Microsoft would pick up the lion’s share of development to keep Edge up to date.

This is the same reason that all of the major Linux distributions have large foundations to support them.

The DoJ would do less harm to the internet if they just forced Google to sell off Search instead. Then they’d be an advertising and cloud services company that happens to maintain a major browser to serve their ads.

Asheron’s Call weeps quietly in the corner.

In fairness, it’s Wired who called them creatives, while Adobe called them artists.

It turned out alright, but it would’ve done better and had a stronger continued player base if it had just been a BF3/BF4 rehash. BF players are similar to CS players. New things come and go, but Dust 2 and Gulf of Oman are forever.

Requisite, Billy Mitchell is a lying, manipulative, cheating, litigious fraud.

This article is basically summed up: “VPNs don’t completely eliminate your digital footprint, so don’t use them unless you need to accomplish these specific things.”

It seems pretty disingenuous to discourage people from taking steps to protect their privacy in this way. It may not be sponsored, but it’s still bullshit.

And guns.

“Awkward spinning selector wheel”

Say what you want, but the iPod click wheel was anything but awkward. It was the most approachable and efficient interface and hardware on the market by miles and miles. Navigating other similar devices without it is an awful experience of buttons and layered menus that feel clunky and slow.

I won’t deny that the Arcos and other jukeboxes were incredible devices, but they lacked accessibility and mass appeal. Their size and expense kept most people from even considering getting one. They were absolutely an enthusiast’s device and nothing more.

The iPod ushered in the boom of portable media players and paved the road for Apple’s performance in the mobile phone space by establishing them as purveyors of a superior form factor and experience when it came to those devices. Apple owes its continued success in its personal computer and tablet product lines to the iPod’s design and their decision to focus on creating a cohesive ecosystem across their products based on those design principles.

I mean…. Really? Toyota kind of kicked off the whole EV shebang by introducing the first commercially successful hybrid in the Prius. And they’ve been innovating in the space ever since. Don’t mistake this for me believing they have a solid state battery right around the corner. But Japanese auto companies aren’t known for being on the forefront. They’re known for doing what everyone else does with better reliability and lower costs.

I’m loving the FPS renaissance we’ve been seeing lately. The Boomer Shooter… boom, low poly gameplay-centric entries like BattleBit Remastered, rhythm games like Metal Hellsinger, and the latest incarnations of DooM and games seeking to mimic it are all welcome additions to the current gaming landscape. Also love experimentation happening by even established and larger developers - Gearbox’s efforts with the Tiny Tina RPGish games come to mind; though I wish they’d do a better job of addressing bugs in those games. I’d love to see more FPS-RPGs come around.

Hell - I’d love to see a ton of crossovers. It’s been a while since we had a truly great FPS platformer. RIP Mirror’s Edge.

I think the barrier to entry also helps a bit. The folks willing to put up with the rough edges that Lemmy has are also likely willing to participate with the intent of making Lemmy a success rather than just “hangers on” as it were. With a 1600% growth in “active” user population, there are definitely a ton of lurkers, yet. Once it becomes more approachable, we’ll see if the community feeling that Lemmy has begins to tarnish and fade as the volume of interaction and content rises.