That’s my hope too. Basically you can’t pretend to use real people if someone would reasonably think they are real people.

But I hope they’ve worded it well.

There are specific carve outs listed in the law to exempt ads for movies, television shows, streaming content, video games and other works that feature synthetic performers in the entire work.

That seems like a pretty big carve out.

I don’t think that would change anything. The valuable part is the collected data. Even if the way that data is collected is open source or even if the data itself is open source, the issue is misusing that data.

2019 Yahoo

My immediate thought, there is no way Yahoo! Screen survived into 2019.

I looked it up and Yahoo! Screen (which featured Community season 6) was shutdown in January 2016. But Yahoo! View launched in late 2016 (as a Hulu-like replacement), and that did shutter in mid 2019.

So Yahoo! was already dead, but it also died for real in 2019.

It’s important to differentiate between being a monopoly, and engaging in monopolistic behavior.

Valve, to the best of my knowledge, isn’t doing anything that prevents or stifles competition. As a monopoly it’s important to investigate them from time to time to ensure this remains true. But if they’re just putting out the best product and everyone is choosing to use them, then it’s not really a problem.

Yes. I started using it years ago and have been unable to exit ever since.

But honestly related to your question, I started learning to use vim exactly because when I started to learn and use Linux I was often stuck in situations where that was the only thing available.

I don’t use DoorDash but occasionally order from Taco Bell. Every time I order I watch the car arrive at Taco Bell and wait about 20 minutes before actually picking up my order and then delivering it.

Additionally I know UberEats used to (and maybe still does) offer cheaper delivery if you pick a restaurant another driver was already heading to. (I haven’t used UberEats in years because I found them less reliable.)

Ironically if a restaurant did all the deliveries themselves they would have all the information about how best to optimize delivery. Maybe all the delivery companies can find a way to share this information to minimize travel and maximize speed of delivery.

You might find a symbolic link useful. For example

ln -s /media/docs ~/docs

Now you’ll have a “folder” in your home directory named “docs” that points to “/media/docs”. You can use that path with commands like mv or cp.

These commands now both move “myfile” to the same location

mv myfile ~/docs
mv myfile /media/docs

I wish they were fuckin. Right now they’re a wet noodle.

Sure, but is this actually a good idea?

The argument would be that these “short form videos” improve discoverability. I can’t speak for Netflix (since I’m not subscribed), but I am subscribed to Disney+. I completely agree that the discoverability in the Disney+ app is bad. But I’m also subscribed to Hulu, which is now owned (fully) by Disney. The discoverability in Hulu is actually pretty good.

Everything that is “Disney+ Exclusive” is only available using Disney+. Everything that is “Hulu Exclusive” is available on both Hulu and Disney+. So Disney+ has everything I want, but the app sucks.

The plan is by the end of 2026 to turn down the Hulu app and only use the Disney+ app. So, is Disney improving the Disney+ app? Nope, they’re adding “Verts”.

This is what bothers me. If you have an interesting idea to improve your app, do that. If you’re just chasing the current flavor of the week, stop. Spend that time doing something useful.

Disney+ has “Verts”. It’s fucking ridiculous.

It’s wild to watch these companies chase after one another with no thought. Just “TikTok is popular! Can we be TikTok?!?!???”

You have a product. Do that product well. Fuck!

Even with false positives it won’t change anything. It’s just a small group of people. It’s worth it to “save the children”. If “the system” rejects you, then you must be at fault. Maybe we can even sell a “Super ID Check”. Just a one time $200 fee and then the system will leave you alone. (For 3 years, then pay the fee again, but renewal is even faster this time.)

I’m not a SQL wizard and I’m typing from my phone but couldn’t you just do something like,

select name from sys.tables where name like 'wp%users'

To get the table of WordPress users, then do whatever bad things you want to it?

I get that that’s an extra step, and I suppose in the example even though “best practice” is to add random characters, if everyone knows that, then best practice for bad people scripts would probably be to add an extra query.

But my real point is more about adding obfuscation for your developers and server owners. If you’re making their jobs harder for no benefit, is it a good change?

I also wonder about adding obfuscation and it causing issues when debugging.

I think adding obfuscation is fine, but it’s important to be careful when it comes to your developers and debugging.

So I completely understand where you’re coming from, but sometimes you gotta live on the edge and accept the consequences.

Mint is based on testing irc.

I thought so too, and it looks like it used to be, but LMDE is currently based on Debian Stable, specifically LMDE 7 is based on Debian 13 “Trixie”, first released Aug 2025.

FWIW I’ve been running Debian Testing for a few years now and been plenty happy, might get worth trying that.

Even when set to 0 you’ll still see shorts, it just stops (or limits) the infinite scrolling.

So Cohn did mention comprehensive privacy laws and the ability to leave platforms. These are absolutely things that need to happen.

However as an individual there are still things you can do. Cohn mentions Bluesky because it has no algorithm (except the “Discovery” feed). Cohn also mentions (in the video) Mastodon. And the truth is you don’t need to switch fully, just don’t only slurp down the concentrated hate machine(s).

Look at Lemmy. Reddit decided to be pricks and a bunch of individuals jumped over here to create what I think is a pretty good community. That doesn’t mean the problem is solved. That doesn’t mean Reddit isn’t still a problem. That doesn’t mean Lemmy is perfect. But that is a win and something individuals can do.

Additionally, those are things you can do now. You don’t need to wait for some law to be passed to fix things. You can make the move now. (While still advocating for laws to fix things.)

You can install Debian on your Chromebook like you would any app, which I feel makes it a bit less controlling since you have access to a complete Debian install and all the benefits that provides.

Windows also has WSL, which gives you Ubuntu, although that process isn’t quite as user friendly.

stop selling the item until the incorrect price is corrected

Not a lawyer but couldn’t they just refuse to sell it to you? We all know it would be bullshit but couldn’t a company say “Oh that minimum wage clerk made a mistake, but don’t blame them, just an honest mistake.”

Or is the law, if it’s on the shelf, it must be honored?

You’re right that putting people in bubbles is probably one way some of these things get worse. If all you see is toxic, toxic is the norm, now you’re always toxic.

Maybe they can tricked.

Although really what we’re talking about is the algorithm that currently exists being focused on highlighting terrible people doing terrible things. Can we turn that same algorithm around and use it for good?