Okay, maybe I’ve been reading too many historical accounts as of late, but the title by itself sounded like a military action meant to round up the Cree in order to violently/forcibly intern/confine them back onto their reservation.

Yes, I’ve read the article. It’s the phrasing of the TITLE that gave me such pause the moment I first saw it.

Instead, last year, a bombshell research paper authored by several Canadian neurologists and neuroscientists concluded that there was in fact no mystery disease, and that the patients had all likely suffered from previously known neurological, medical, or psychiatric conditions. The New Brunswick cluster was, one of the paper’s authors told the BBC, a “house of cards”.

500+ patients, all in one highly geographically-constrained area, makes this conclusion as suspicious as a fleet of black Ford Excursions, all filled with men in black suits, saying “nothing is going on here, carry on.”

TL;DR: BULLSHIT.

I wish Canada had a politically-independent research arm that could look into any possible subject, free of interference and with the authority of a national police force, only staffed with highly-accredited experts from every field. They would have a mandate to follow political and economic corruption and harms to the environment and peoples of Canada without censure or blowback, with the only requirement being full transparency and accountability. And with payroll bonuses being drawn from fines and other financial judgements such that they are as incentivized as possible to go after the biggest fish, first.

Now granted, the existence of this agency could very well mean the end of many political careers, as well as that of most any conservative political party. But that would be one of the small but important ways we reinforce democracy for the people, instead of letting the Parasite Class call all the shots.

Edit: just realized that most conservatives would violently push back against any open and fully transparent fact-finding organization that was a crown-funded research arm. Because it’s fact-finding, so therefore it’s intolerable.

Except when you realize that both parties - aside from a few specific Democrats - are totally right of centre.

Like, the Democrats are moderate but solid right-wing neoliberalists, and the Republicans are off-the-deep-end alt-right fascists. So there isn’t a “centrist” position because there is no-one left of centre to balance things out; there is no in-between position that is actually at the centre of the political spectrum.

Even AOC and Bernie would be considered centrists anywhere else in the world. So any use of the word “Centrism” within the bounds of American politics really means “strong right-wing”.

And when almost everyone is right of centre, they really can be grouped together as being equally evil and hostile to the common man.

Now, if you were to look at any first-world country with an actually-functional democracy, you would be correct, because these countries actually have socialist parties that advocate for the masses, and seek to advance the needs of the common citizen. But I digress…

75 years ago there were such few restaurants that margins were decent and owners could pay their staff well. A mid-range restaurant could have chefs and even servers earn decent wages.

Now there are 100× more restaurants per capita than there were back then, and margins are razor-thin and staff are being paid peanuts.

The planetary zero-impact carrying capacity for humanity is somewhere between 500 million and 2 billion, depending if we want (respectively) a first-world meat-inclusive diet or a fully vegan diet.

Carbon emissions aside, we are indeed a plague upon the planet. Thanks to high tech, we have massively blown past our carrying capacity, and risk lowering the non-high-tech-enabled carrying capacity down into the mere tens of millions or even less. Which bodes very badly if we experience a severe civilizational collapse in the next 10-30 years (as is becoming increasingly likely) that makes building and maintaining high tech impossible.

Edit: this meme is also very problematic. A “collapsing environment” has CO2 production as only a very tiny contribution. It also involves soil degradation, overfarming, overfishing, overharvesting of forests, animals driven to extinction, and all sorts of effects that are DIRECTLY ATTRIBUTABLE to our insanely high population and has almost no extra effect from “the wealthy”.

Perhaps. But F-Droid in particular has some pretty serious issues that cannot just be hand-waved away.

People certainly don’t believe that corporate schilling when it comes to home computers and cars.

Show me a single desktop/laptop computer manufacturer - aside from Apple - that deeply ties the software to the hardware.

Phones are different because the OS needs to be closely tweaked to work properly (and I would argue more specifically, functionally) on the phone. It’s why releases of custom ROMs are so model-specific. You cannot take a ROM for a Pixel XL and expect it to even boot on a Pixel 4 XL, much less a OnePlus. That kind of deep integration involves many specific settings because hardware is so wildly varied between models.

And car manufacturers can and do invalidate warranties based on software… a brand-new vehicle that has been “tuned” can and will have the warranty for a broken part invalidated if the manufacturer can demonstrate that the custom tuning software installed merely had the capability to affect the part in question. Since it’s not their software, they have no control over it to prevent it from driving the part beyond spec and breaking the part in question. Therefore, the onus is on the owner to prove that they never drove the vehicle such that the tune pushed the part beyond spec, and since you cannot prove a negative, good luck with that.

My BiL works at a dealership, and has seen many dozens of cases over the years where a warranty on a tune, chipped, delete, or software-modded vehicle was successfully denied. Hell, these days even software updates failing to be installed can cause a warranty to be denied if said updates correct a manufacturer’s mistake in the currently-installed software.

Also why are you letting ai do the thinking for you in that second link?

Because according to several different search engines, no-one has ever published any kind of answer to this kind of a question. The sales data is publicly available for each model, but nothing in aggregate when presented against the entire Android ecosystem.

Now granted, my view on AI is exceedingly dim. Even I take its answers at much more than arm’s length. But after poking at the sales figures for select models and comparing them against that of the entire ecosystem, I found its answer to be reasonably rational enough to be linked to.

in Canada, you cannot invalidate a hardware warranty based on the software that’s installed.

Software can most certainly drive hardware beyond its specs, resulting in physical damage.

Just try and tune a brand-new vehicle with third-party software, and then try to get warranty work done on a related part that broke. The manufacturer can and will successfully deny that warranty based on how that tune had the capability to drive the part beyond spec, thereby directly causing the failure… my BiL works at a dealership and has seen it happen dozens of times. Even skipping software updates can run the risk of voiding your vehicle’s warranty these days, when said updates are meant to correct software that doesn’t control the hardware correctly.

Phones are no different. If your custom OS has the ability to drive a speaker to volumes that are beyond its spec, that invalidates the warranty even if you never drove the volume that high. Manufacturers don’t have to prove that you actually did (and how can they, when it’s no longer their software that’s in control?), only that the custom software made it possible to do so. It’s up to you to then prove that you never did, and good luck with that.

And the App Store is one of the things I clearly pointed out as needing improvement, albeit not with this exact example. Apple makes more than enough money off of developer fees to hire more people to police standards and provide a more effective method of dealing with developer complaints and issues without resorting to highly error-prone automation.

I mean, I never said Apple was perfect, only that they are clearly doing something “more right” than others, as evidenced by consumer choice… within North America, Apple phones out-number Android (not specific brands, all Android phones, COMBINED) by 16%. As in, Apple has a market share of 58% in North America.

It’s only elsewhere in the world, where much poorer populations are simply not able to afford Apple products, where Android dominates. And even there, those who have the money to do so tend to choose Apple phones.

You can already do all of that with some phones that are already on the market and which have decently current specs and tech.

…Where are the consumers clamouring for those phones? Why are those phones owned almost exclusively by enthusiasts and tinkerers? Why are production runs so small that these manufacturers struggle to remain profitable going concerns?

Maybe it’s because there is zero consumer demand for what you are asking for?

Vanishingly few people want to tinker with their phones. Most just want something that works without having to dick around with it. And having an unlocked boot loader means zero warranty, because no sane manufacturer is going to warranty something they have no quality control over

The simple fact is that there already are phones that give consumers total control over OS and platform. And yet, almost no-one is turning to these phones because that’s not what they want.

Then focus on forcing all Android devices to be totally unlocked and let consumers decide whether they want a freedom-based and chaotic ecosystem, or a locked-down and orderly ecosystem.

I mean, isn’t the free market all about letting consumers decide?

And if sideloading and unlocked bootloaders were so vital to consumers, wouldn’t those manufacturers making those devices be seeing overwhelming market demand?

The point being, bootloaders are locked for security reasons, and to maintain separation between warranty concerns. That’s why most Android devices with unlockable bootloaders require OEM codes, such that warranties on those devices can be invalidated due to no longer being within the provider’s control. It would be moronic for any manufacturer to warranty anything that is not within their control.

And look at that: less than 1% of Android phones currently being used have said directly-unlockable bootloaders. And the availability of phones with directly-unlockable bootloaders has been shrinking rapidly as of late. I wonder how many of those have actually been unlocked.

Honestly, I am not seeing any material consumer demand for said directly-unlocked phones, otherwise manufacturers would have those phones as permanent best-sellers and seek to make more of the same.

Yeah, Apple has a lot of shitty restrictions in its walled garden. Firefox not being able to use its own rendering engine being a big one for me. And there are plenty more, such as a lack of responsiveness to legitimate devs when they report copycat rip-offs.

But as the Android ecosystem has shown, a breakdown of the walled garden has seen malware and scams explode in number. Many of the secondary app stores just don’t have the resources and tools to keep users safe.

Allowing alternative walled gardens is not the answer. Dramatically lowering the barriers to legitimate app developers is.

According to a staff email obtained by VGC, the decision is a cost-cutting measure and not related to the studio unionizing.

Aaaaaaaaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaaaaa…

inhales deeply

BULLSHIT.

I’m not even a gamer, and I can smell the anti-union stench from the far side of the country.

I mean, when the crime is going to happen regardless…

Emotionally? Maybe. I have so many things that I still want to do that death is not even on the radar, and wasn’t even on the radar when I was a socially isolated and depressed teen. So I am not ready, but I would be able to accept it.

Mentally? Yes. As an atheist, I am of the firm belief that everything that has a beginning has an end, and death itself holds no fear for me.

Rather, it is the potentially-painful process of dying that has me nervous. And the concept of wanting to wrap things up and just shut it all down, but being stuck in hospice and no longer having a legal right to do so, is absolutely terrifying for me. Which is why I am now walking my Octogenarian parents through the process of MAiD such that they can still leverage it whenever they want to and for as long as possible; to give them the agency to flip that switch as they see fit. Supporting and maintaining their right of self-determination and agency right to the very end is probably the biggest gift I could ever give them.

Physically? Dear goodness, I hope not. Seeing as my own father is inching rather close to 90, and doing so in good physical condition, gives me hope that I can get another three-plus decades under my belt as well. I just hope I won’t mirror his cognitive decline.

My statement has two interpretations, yours is the one that most people just don’t cotton onto.

Honestly, “running away” is the best possible solution in most any conflict. And when the bullets are flying, you want your opponent to duck and cover just long enough for you to skedaddle and get out of range or into an escape route out of the line of fire. Hell, in that circumstance blanks would be sufficient to get that job done.

I have always been of the opinion that if you cannot solve a violent/dangerous situation with six or less bullets, it is vanishingly unlikely that anything will materially change in your favour if you had more.

And now that many of these young adults are parents themselves, they are bubble-wrapping the next generation.

Meanwhile, those of us who still remember what it was like to be “free-range” as a child are absolutely confused AF when other parents are arrested and charged with child endangerment for letting their kid walk two kilometres by themselves to the store.

Like, in what brain-dead reality is this a crime??

I remember jungle gyms. They taught a lot of lessons on how to discover personal limits and how to safely exceed them.

The loss of jungle gyms from our playgrounds are - I feel, as just one attribute of many, - directly contributing to our emerging young adults lacking the self-confidence and risk-evaluation skills they require to succeed.

The Beaverton really needs to stick to satire, it was never meant as an advice column.