FriendOfDeSoto

The solution should not be one single provider. Use Ente for pictures, maybe Proton* for other cloud storage and Docs replacement, look into a Nextcloud server hosted by another provider for calendar and email. Don't put all your digital eggs in one walled nest.

*Proton is plagued by a CEO who can't keep his mouth shut about politics. Look into that and how you feel about it before you sign up. Their VPN is good but I wouldn't use them also for email to make switching less of a headache - and I don't think you could use your own domain there anyway.

Why is this in privacy? Because it's an obfuscation, which is good, or because there will be another database to be hacked, which is bad?

I was disappointed they didn't go for a system like these three words. Or just structuring their addresses around street names and house numbers, like normal people. If you don't know: currently, addresses are not written as 123 Example Road but mostly as Subdistrict name and number, Block number, House number. The splits into numbered subdistricts is fairly random, the block split just fairly less random, and the house numbers can be in order of building completion so number 6 can be next to number 13. Most streets have no name. It's so utterly absurd that even if you knew the address there is no guarantee you will actually find the right place without a map provider with correct addresses. It's a miracle not more people die because first responders couldn't find the right address. But they don't change this system, no, they just exchange one incomprehensible system with rando numbers and letters! Well done, the Post Office.

If we needed everyone we want to name anything after was required to be a saint, we wouldn't have anybody to name stuff after.

Churchill - the man who rose to lead his country through WW2 - was a big colonial killer in India before. Both the reformator Luther and the philosopher Kant were raging antisemites. A non-insignificant number of US founding fathers held slaves. Bill Clinton balanced the budget while molesting an intern (and allegedly worse). It's rare that we already know the president is a sexual predator before he gets elected. Yet, there will be a probably very small library named after 47 if there isn't one already. It's probably the best library in the world!

History goes through many hands before it gets whittled to a generally agreed upon narrative. Churchill was lucky in real life. Daystromn was lucky in canon. And while sympathies may change over time, I'm not expecting a name change in trek Okinawa.

I think with PCs it will be harder to lock them down and not disgruntle consumers too much in the process. I'm also hopeful that over time right to repair will be the standard, so they have to allow for third party repair. So all these restrictions like chipped components and software only from our store will be phased out by incremental legislation. The EU is not perfect but it's on this path. Even in the US people are thinking antitrust more often now. There is hope, however small.

You can run whatever you like in your Android phones. Jailbreaking iPhones is also possible. All these devices are just computers that can run anything within their hardware specs. Hacking some of these things may be against the Ts and Cs or even illegal. But technically possible. The restrictions are mote political, not technical.

Chromebooks are not the way to the future. They fill a niche in education for cheap hardware in connection with limited capabilities. They are not technical limitations, they are designed to limit users in what damage they can do. AFAIK you could technically wipe a chromebook and put Linux on it. It may violate the Ts and Cs and we're right back at political. Google would like to develop future customers at an early age. They don't care about the education so much as about their bottom line.

This is the "how much is a pint of milk?" politicians gotcha question of the so-called-AI age.

Sci-fi is delightfully circumspect on how an intergalactic empire would work. Maybe Herbert's Dune universe is clearest and he just took us back to the middle ages with sandworms and drugs, fiefdoms and nobility.

I think whatever area shares the same government is a country. It doesn't have to be contiguous or on the same body floating through space. It could be the size of the Vatican or half the universe.

I suspect the definition of the word will change once (if) we make it to the stars. We have gone from nomadic life to loosely defined borders to kingdoms to empires to multinational and intranational federations of sort. These terms may no longer be fit for purpose when we colonize Mars etc. And maybe that's why you struggle to comprehend how it would all work behind the scenes. We don't know for sure, sci-fi authors don't know (or don't want to be too specific and limit themselves in what stories they could tell in the future).

I don't like Facebook, I don't like this "legend," I don't like so-called AI being forcefed down our throats. I've yet to see a reliably good use case that makes me forget how many polar bears get cooked while we are playing around with this quarter-baked tech. And I don't think it's right to just syphon off the training data either.

That being said, I want to defend old Nick a tiny bit. Why doesn't he think it's feasible to go to every copyright holder and ask for permission? Because the stuff is readily available online. Either because people put it there voluntarily. Or because people torrented it, file-shared it, stole it. I'm not excusing one crime with another committed by somebody else. This is just about the motivation: why don't they go around to every artist and ask? Because they don't have to. And they have deep enough pockets to pay later if they have to. If you were sitting in Facebook's c suite (you know what the c stands for), and you were entangled in a race to the bottom with the Googles and OpenAIs of this world, this makes business sense unfortunately. And if you have ever enjoyed pirated content online, you are (as I am) culpable in a homeopathic dose. If we didn't occasionally break the law, Meta would have to go ask more artists because there would be no other way. That's the status quo we find ourselves in. The moral gray zone.

I suggested in another thread a new law, based off of Murphy's. Anything that can be training data, will become training data. Whether it's a big company or a rich privateer with large server capacity - somebody is going to take it. It's not right and just and legal and at the same time an inevitability. That's why all these measures to get these companies to ask artists is akin to trying to close the barn door after the horse has bolted. We need to milk these companies for money, percentages of revenue and raised funds, and find a way to distribute this among the artists. Fines, taxes, voluntary contributions - all the tools need to be thrown at companies that train or apply the various models. The longer we spend pearl clutching at the audacity of these big corporations, the more money they get to keep.

Technically, smoking weed in the Netherlands is illegal. The law just isn't enforced. Stealing bicycles is illegal everywhere but they get stolen all the time. Abortion may be illegal but tolerated until a certain time where you live. We have many scenarios where we're stuck in the moral gray zone. Where illegal things just happen and life goes on. I am afraid that so-called AI has provided us with another one.

I don't like it, I don't like it at all. I just don't see any other way to move forward. Weavers hated the industrialization, horse breeders the introduction of the automobile, the music industry Napster et al., and everyone will hate so-called AI.

There are legendary villains too. But truthfully, he doesn't even fit that bill either despite having worked for Facebook. Maybe he's just the legendary wart on the arse of history.

Normally, when somebody on the internet starts a question with "Am I the only one ...?" my first reaction is to say no, of course not. This is the first time that I really need to question that conviction. I think you just might be the only one!

Like the river finds the sea, people will find a way around it. Satellite connections, just as an idea.

Anything a chip does can be backwards engineered to fool it. People will break your proposed surveillance chip eventually.

Most of these companies are maybe US-owned to varying degrees but they don't produce everything in the US. Also, they would put a very high price on these government mandated chips for two reasons: 1) government has deep pockets and 2) it would keep them away from very profitable so-called AI biz opportunities.

The pandy has shown us that with a few disruptions in the supply chain, any system that requires a cryptographic chip check to function can be sent to hell in a handbasket. I forgot if it was HP or Canon or some printer company had to teach its customers to bypass, i.e. hack their own cryptogtaphic chip checks because they couldn't get more chips and otherwise the printers wouldn't print. A few disruptions could also affect the censorship chip supply chain.

The great firewall of China has also shown how creative people get to get their message across. If it's not just human censors but also so-called AI censors it will just take creativity to a new level. Necessity is the mother of invention.

So there are some reasons why you might be worrying too much. I think another one is much broader. The majority of Americans did not vote for the current president. If he started censoring the internet now there would be Civil War II - Now It's Digital. The reason why Russia or North Korea can censor their people much easier is because they have never had or only on paper a brief period of liberty and rule of law. It will be much harder to control the US population. There isn't just the one media outlet, the one ISP, the one judiciary to dominate. It's splintered. And populated by feisty people, some of them armed. You couldn't pull off what you suggested without much more support for 47. And he seems to be losing it more than gaining these days.

Of course, I didn't think far enough. Thanks for setting that straight.

The founders and other info can be found here.

And wouldn't you know it? Both men, and both on Xwitter and LinkedIn.