I mean, it is the fundamental problem of art/science/knowledge.

It costs money/stability to create. That money often comes from either the wealthy or the state.The wealthy CAN be good but means you are catering to a specific audience and the problems can range from “We aren’t going to talk about the BDS movement because our fans like xboxes” to “We aren’t going to talk about the multiple wars and genocides facebook have supported because zuckface pays for our electricity”.

As for the state? Under a just government, that is awesome. Moving on.

As for us individually? Probably the biggest thing we, as individuals, can do is to actually permit-list websites that we like/trust on the adblocker. Ads are a genuinely awesome way to generate “passive” income which goes a long way towards keeping said lights on.

But also? If you have the cash, consider actually subscribing to news/media outlets you like. Get a newspaper subscription. Look at the independent media outlets and pay for a month or three every so often. Because the broader the subscriber/patron base, the less temptation/need there is to cater to the whales.

The former Vice crew (404, Remap, probably others) have talked about this in their various podcasts and blog posts and so forth:

My take is that there are two big, but linked, problems:

The first is… there is a reason all these news media outlets are shuttering. People don’t want to read. They also don’t want to watch a documentary that isn’t over-dramatized trash. And any form of monetization model mostly just antagonizes the audience who were never going to consume it in the first place but will GLADLY derail every single discussion to say how much they hate a paywall. So you become VERY dependent on your hardcore subscribers and that is an incredibly dangerous tightrope to walk. Do you prioritize your coverage based off what your patrons (because that is what they are) would want? Do you NOT cover something because it might make subscriptions go down? What do you drink when you realize you are literally the person who fired you a year back?

And the other is that legal representation costs a lot of money. Last Week Tonight have covered SLAPP Suits a few times over the years but that is also the reality of it. Any form of investigative journalism pretty much guarantees you are getting, at the very least, a C&D. If not a full blown lawsuit. A good lawyer can make the vast majority go away but… a good lawyer costs money.

The former Vice crew were pretty much all in a special case. 404 came out of Motherboard which was pretty much one of the most trusted and respected “tech” news sites out there. Aftermath has some of the Motherboard crew and but also is basically a who’s who of games media as a whole (arguably everyone who was keeping Kotaku alive). And Remap is mostly the people who were at Waypoint until Vice realized they were still getting paid and that audience is one of the most rabid and faithful out there when it comes to subscribing to content we love.

Whereas most outlets actively try to prevent people from getting enough popularity/notoriety that they could get their own funding for a new start. Like… think about who the big names in traditional news are? MAYBE you remember whatsherface’s name from PBS? But it is almost entirely going to be the anchors/commentators like Anderson Cooper because they are the ones you see night after night and they are the ones who present the stories written by the “normal” journalists. And zero shade to Mr Cooper, but that is very much intentional. Because if some third party wanted to pay him to spin up a new outlet? That’s great, but they ALSO need to hire like three or four more journalists to have anything for him to say.

As opposed to a Jason Schreier who, with sufficient lawyers and a contracted editor, can be more or less a one person show.

…

Yes, the reason multiple people accused you of being gullible is because they are bots.

And if you don’t think there are backdoors then I have a bridge to sell you.

The best you can hope for in any case is increased friction. Because if you have pissed off a government org to the point they declare you an actual national security threat… you start realizing why israel et al tend to be known to have tools that can crack a few generations back.

Which is why journalists, when they talk about stuff like this, are pretty adamant that they don’t trust those devices at all. One of the more common tactics is to have completely separate devices for sensitive communication that are kept physically isolated from any of their personal devices… and preferably in a place that a trusted associate knows about. If someone gets taken away in a black van? Someone else goes for a walk with a power drill for no apparent reason at all.

This is one of those weird flashpoint issues.

There are two layers to this. One that is a major problem, and one that… isn’t.

The former is exactly what you identified. The door latches are all purely electric. This leads to the very regular occurrence where someone’s swasticar updates while they are inside of it on a hot day. And their only choice is to sit and roast or to rip open their trim to try to find the manual release. THIS should be 500% illegal but basically no countries actually care.

The other is the flush door handles. Some fatalities have been attributed to them. But the reality is? A door that just got slammed into by a giant pick-up truck ain’t opening. And you gots to be a mother rescuing her baby to get a firm grip on most door handles when the car is on fire.

Yes, flush door handles are a deeply stupid idea and always will be. But the reality is that people REALLY need to keep window smashers in their cars. Like, easily accessible by the front and back seat occupants.

Because if that car is on fire? You ain’t getting a grip on that handle one way or the other. You MIGHT be able to smash a window and drag someone out. Same with a car that is rapidly submerging in water. Even with mechanical handles, NOBODY has the strength to open that door after a shockingly small amount of water. So you are either sitting there waiting for pressure to equalize or you are smashing that window and getting the hell out.

At which point? Flush door handles are still idiotic design. And electric only door controls SHOULD be illegal. But if you actually care about emergencies? Get a god damned hammer for like 30 bucks. Or even just tape a spark plug to your keys.

reddit has very minimal bot protection and a lot of systems designed to benefit those who pay to play, as it were.

Lemmy doesn’t even have that. And it is trivial to make multiple accounts across multiple instances. Whether that is to role play some nonsense or to do the old “the first two or three downdoots set the tone” trick people try to pretend isn’t a thing. And spend a bit of time shitposting/reading the timestamps and… some of them are REAL obvious.

And this is very apparent in the various political threads. LOTS of people pushing agendas (the gun nut lobby being particularly alarming). Let alone the “official” lemmy instance being blocked by most people because it is infested with lead dev sanctioned tankies who are largely indistinguishable from chuds when it comes to pushing putin et al’s policies.

Much like in the good old days: Open, minimally invasive, social media is fun (yes. IRC and Usenet were social media). It is also infested with bad actors and manipulators.

The chuds are happy for this.

The ones who really need to be told this are the ones who STILL insist that Biden would have been worse for Palestine than trump is so that is why they couldn’t vote for such an uncharismatic candidate as Kamala. They don’t support genocide, period.

And they don’t watch fox news. They watch tankie nonsense like hasan. So they feel genuinely righteous as they are either so stupid as to not realize they are pushing an accelerationist agenda or figure it will turn out good for them because they are the best socialist so they will have the most money and power after The Revolution.

And… we are REALLY fucking stupid in the US. But you EU and rest of the world folk might want to pay attention to what is going on domestically too because a lot of y’all ain’t THAT far behind us on the way to the drain.

Can’t wait until Bubba starts insisting on a very specific definition of the term “oral sex”.

… I don’t think you understand what “gatekeeping” means…

Unless your point is that you are angry your socioeconomic group isn’t getting credit for being an even bigger part of fuckface’s reelection? Or that you aren’t viewed as privileged enough to be THAT naive?

Aside from that: I think there is a lot of value in understanding the demographics and the reason behind our christofacist regime. Because… only the most privileged of white folk THINK they can ignore it.

Especially when said demographics and understanding explain why two of the most famous murderers in the country AREN’T white.

20 or 30 years ago? Sure

These days? And ESPECIALLY for 3d printing? Fusion 360 IS the intermediary step between TinkerCAD and professional software… and is the professional software too. And OnShape isn’t THAT much of a step if you understand the basics from TinkerCAD et al.

Stuff can get VERY complicated if you are trying to make stuff for different processes (e.g. CNC) or want to run physics simulations (essential for any “real” part). But if you are just making a model to get sliced? TinkerCAD teaches you more or less everything you need to know to get going and the UX of Fusion and OnShape are insanely good.

And if you really DO want to go free: FreeCAD exists and is almost kind of usable these days (moreso if you have already learned the fundamentals of CAD in a more friendly tool).

Some of the most hateful racists are quite often the first (or even zeroth) generation immigrants. They have experienced enough racism that they decide they want to be on the winning side and “prove” themselves to be One Of The Good Ones. Its why a LOT of AAPI “kids” semi-jokingly say “My mother is an asian white supremacist…”. And… why so many of us have gone low, if not no, contact as adults.

And its worth remembering. You know how it feels like EVERY Irish American family have like twenty cops in them? That was a conscious effort in the late 19th/early 20th century with many of the Irish gangs effectively becoming the police unions we still know today. People often don’t realize that the Irish are “the n-words of the whites” in the US. A “good” comparison is how the Romani and Travelers are… still treated in large parts of Europe.

But if you are the child of immigrants? You learn that real fast because your parents use that as an example of “fitting in”.

All of which is to say: There is a reason only the most privileged of white folk were shocked when Male Hispanic voters made up such a large part of fuckface’s base.

Hey now. That would interfere with them living productive lives as ice agents one town over in a few weeks.

It more speaks to how a kitted out ar-15 kinda IS “the height of close-combat weaponry”. Pretty much all of the concerns over stopping power of the 5.56 on an armored target (because the cavitation caused in soft targets is well documented in american high schools) goes out the window since even a shot to level 3 armor in close quarters is going to incapacitate people. And all those attachments are pretty bog standard military kit.

Which is the problem. You can buy the same gear we use to go after… heads of fucking state at a Walmart. And the only real difference is whether you have no full auto capability or are told that you shouldn’t use full auto.

There is a reason that militaries around the world are STILL adopting what are essentially AR-15s for their general infantry and special forces.

What do you expect? People are treating the (white people) streets like they are a god damned kindergarten class. Something has to change!

It wouldn’t have been rare at all because it wasn’t rare.

Yes, you wouldn’t be video chatting (and still shouldn’t be… it is a plane for crying out loud). But emails were 100% a thing and I had plenty of gchat conversations with colleagues that included the phrase “We are about to land, Ill get back to you when I am at my hotel”.

Okay, THIS I need someone with a more reliable brain to chime in on. But I want to say it was actually easier to IM on a plane (assuming your employer paid for the wifi which was expensive as hell) than in an airport due to a mix of cell phone dead spots and shit APs in most of the major airports.

Believe it or not but most cops aren’t as virtuous as Stabler and don’t have a pretty blonde DA around to challenge them over what they would be willing to do to seek justice. And a “good” attorney can often work around that.

But also, that doesn’t change anything. From skimming the article, it sounds like he wasn’t being interrogated without a lawyer. He was just being left to languish in confinement. Which… is how the us legal system “works”.

This is less “ice are bad” and more “all cops are bastards”

I liked Deezer a lot when I used it, but their library (at least as of 2018/2019) felt very limited. Been 6 or 7 years of minutes (…) but I want to say their agreements with East Asian labels was woefully lacking?

I used spotify for a year or so until they tripled down on sending joe rogen dump trucks of cash while he was pushing anti-vax shit.

These days I use a mix of Youtube Music and plexamp/mpd. The former because I “get it for free” with Youtube Premium and love it for discoverability or checking out a new band. The latter being how I store the songs I like enough to buy (or otherwise obtain). And ListenBrainz for getting discoverability out of that.

I do “self host” but they would want more than whats in our music collection. Plus hdds are fucking spendy now.

A 15 track album (Protomen’s Act 3) in FLAC is 393 MB. If you are neither a data hoarder nor an audiophile, you can shrink that considerably (A 320 kbps mp3 is generally about a third to a fifth the size of a FLAC). Storage is a mother fucker, no argument there. But you don’t actually need that much for a music library.

And I’ll just add: Plenty of artists are very open that buying a 1 dollar album on Bandcamp tends to give them a LOT more money than like a day straight of listening to them on one of the streaming services. Shit is bleak.

Exactly. They don’t care if you have your Abrahamic God Given Right to own an assault rifle. They just care if the people who have the money are panicking and buying guns.

Which… people should keep in mind when the gun nuts on social media swarm a thread to post links to gunbrokers dot com and the like and tell you “it doesn’t matter what you have, just buy a gun and practice” and all that.

Like… I assume we ALL know the It’s Always Sunny gag about “so anyway, I started blasting”. What people don’t necessarily realize is the context which is Frank, who has monetary interest in local gun shops, is trying to panic the people of Philly into buying guns from his stores.

What they are referring to is electrolytic etching (et al). Yes, you can get something approximating what is essentially tapping a thread, but I can pretty much guarantee you that anyone doing this in a shed isn’t getting that level of precision and is, arguably, doing a worse job than not rifling at all. The folk who DO know how to do this have access to machine shops… and the tools to do it correctly.

Regardless, the real problem is making the barrel in the first place. Anyone who bought a mini lathe or got a drill press on facebook marketplace thinks they can do this. They chew threw mild steel like butter! And… there are a LOT of recovered guns from The Troubles in Ireland that fractured or literally exploded after even moderate use. Because you need proper alloys to handle the pressures of repeated explosions AND need to machine it in a way that is less likely to fracture/chip the parts containing that pressure. And drilling through THAT takes much better gear and skills that go beyond “Only an idiot wears gloves”

Also… it is irrelevant to the topic of Ghost Guns. Because, in almost all cases, barrels (and springs and levers) are not controlled items. So you print what is controlled and buy a parts kit for the rest.

The NRA is frantically running the numbers to see what will increase public fear, and thus sales figures for the gun companies, the most.