merc
@merc@sh.itjust.works
- Comment on I knew one day I’d have to watch powerful men burn the world down. I just didn’t expect them to be such losers 1 week ago:
Everyone around him must hate him so much, to allow him to go out in public looking like that.
- Comment on I knew one day I’d have to watch powerful men burn the world down. I just didn’t expect them to be such losers 1 week ago:
“The average American, I think has, I think it’s fewer than three friends. Three people that they consider friends.”
This is Zuckerberg, claiming it’s normal not just to have only 3 friends, but fewer than 3. This is telling on yourself even more than “Women’s orgasms aren’t real because no woman I’ve ever been with has had an orgasm.”
If he counts his wife in that list of “fewer than 3 friends”, how many friends does he actually have? I get that being ultra rich means that often you can’t be sure who’s actually your friend, and who’s just there for the money. But, still, he should at least be able to count a handful of friends. I’ve known my 2 best friends since before I was 5 years old. Surely if Zuck had a normal childhood, he should have people who were his friends long before he got rich, who he can be sure aren’t just there for his money. If he doesn’t, it strongly suggests he was either a pretty awful kid, or he led a really weird life growing up and was isolated from anybody who could have become a friend.
- Comment on Saint > Pope 1 week ago:
I still can’t get over that his policies are the result of what he watches on TV. I’m not talking about his watching the Sunday morning political shows. I’m talking fictional movies in prime time that result in new US policies.
At 9pm on Saturday WLRN aired “Escape from Alcatraz”. On Sunday another Trump policy was announced: he was re-opening Alcatraz prison.
This is at least the second time that people have figured out what Trump was watching on TV to cause him to issue a new crazy edict.
- Comment on Right-leaning Australian opposition leader loses election, and seat 1 week ago:
Is he going to step down, or is he going to force someone else to give up their seat?
- Comment on [deleted] 1 week ago:
That’s not something that can be solved by changing interest rates. To increase wages you need unions and for those unions to go on strike.
- Comment on The Circle of iLife 2 weeks ago:
I don’t remember what did it for me, I switched a while ago. But, I do clearly remember one time when I had the kind of moulded earphones that go really deep in your ear, and I caught the cable on something, and they got yanked out of my ears. That was pretty painful.
- Comment on The Circle of iLife 2 weeks ago:
Why are you so deep in your own bubble that you don’t believe that someone could simply prefer wireless? If that’s the case, you should get out more, meet more people, expand your horizons.
- Comment on The Circle of iLife 2 weeks ago:
Ooh, BUUURN! BUUUUUUUUUURN!!!
- Comment on The Circle of iLife 2 weeks ago:
I’ve never lost one in at least a decade of using them. But, I don’t use the kind that just balance on the edge of your ear.
- Comment on The Circle of iLife 2 weeks ago:
Wireless means you plug it in occasionally, maybe once a week.
If you don’t value the convenience of wireless headphones, that’s great for you. For a lot of people, the cable is a real pain in the ass. It gets tangled up when it’s off. It gets caught up on things when it’s on, etc.
- Comment on The Circle of iLife 2 weeks ago:
If you’re listening to podcasts or music, latency doesn’t really matter.
- Comment on The Circle of iLife 2 weeks ago:
Yeah, it’s a risk. But, there’s also a risk of getting your wired earbuds cord caught on something. I’ve had that happen and it yanked the phone off the table and sent it crashing to the floor. I’ve also had the buds get yanked out of my ears multiple times.
If I lived somewhere where winters were mild, I might still use wired headphones. When you only have to worry about a t-shirt or something managing the cord isn’t too bad. But, when you have to manage a hat, scarf, coat, etc. there are just too many things to get in the way of the cord.
- Comment on The Circle of iLife 2 weeks ago:
You know what’s easier than a cable? No cable.
I’ll give you sound quality, but the whole reason that wireless earbuds took off is the hassle of wires.
- Comment on It's a fun new game 4 weeks ago:
Because it would be nice to have a card number that looked plausible that could be used in movies. Imagine if every phone number in a movie had to be (555) 555-5555. It would break your suspension of disbelief.
- Comment on It's a fun new game 4 weeks ago:
Too bad the Visa and Mastercard ones are so obviously fake.
- Comment on Bluesky has started honoring takedown requests from Turkish government 4 weeks ago:
You’re right that Bluesky isn’t federated, but it most definitely is centralized.
- Comment on It's a fun new game 4 weeks ago:
It doesn’t seem to be the case, but it would be interesting if there were CC numbers that were meant to be used in movies, similar to how 555-XXXX phone numbers are never real.
- Comment on Determining the reason no one replied to your Lemmy post. 4 weeks ago:
It’s a different model.
Mastodon, like Twitter, is a person-centered setup. You can use hashtags, but most people don’t. You follow people not communities. As a result it’s basically microblogs, where most people are just posting into the void. Celebrities are followed more, so they get more replies, so there are more conversations. But, fundamentally it’s not really inviting interactions.
Lemmy, like Reddit, is a topic-centered setup. It has a bunch of communities and people post something because they think it might be interesting for people who are also interested in that community. Every post is basically an invitation to have a discussion about something.
I think the friction to posting something on Lemmy is slightly higher, but when you do, it’s more likely to generate comments.
- Comment on Determining the reason no one replied to your Lemmy post. 4 weeks ago:
Similarly a “good post”, one that gets lots of comments, would be any post that gets more than 13 comments.
By my count, this comment will take your post from one with 12 comments to one with 13 comments, therefore I’m conferring on you the title of “good post”. Congratulations!!
However, I’m assuming that you’re including your own comments in the comment tally. If you’re not, then your 2 comments so far to this post don’t count, and you’ll only be at 11, and therefore “not good”.
If you are counting your own comments on your own post, can you juice the numbers by adding lots of comments? In other words, can you make a post good by interacting with the people who are interacting with the post? Like some kind of um… conversation? Sounds like cheating to me.
- Comment on Jack Dorsey and Elon Musk would like to ‘delete all IP law’ | TechCrunch 4 weeks ago:
I’m saying it is necessary to achieve the aims of the GPL.
Until copyright no longer exists and everything is in the public domain, as I said.
How are you going to enforce the GPL in a world where copyright doesn’t exist?
- Comment on Jack Dorsey and Elon Musk would like to ‘delete all IP law’ | TechCrunch 4 weeks ago:
No, the GPL very much requires copyright to work
That’s what I said.
- Comment on Jack Dorsey and Elon Musk would like to ‘delete all IP law’ | TechCrunch 4 weeks ago:
The current US trade war is the perfect opportunity for some other country or countries to “right-size” their IP laws.
Hollywood wanted “lifetime plus 900 years” or whatever. So, whenever the US negotiated a trade deal it said “you only get tariff-free access to our markets if you give Hollywood lifetime plus 900 years in your country too.”
With section 1201 of the DMCA this also meant that other countries had to accept that you could only repair your John Deere tractor if you paid Deere for the privilege. Or that HP could prevent you from using any ink but theirs in your printer, allowing them to make printer ink the most expensive liquid on the planet.
If the US is no longer abiding by the terms of their trade agreements, other countries should no longer honor these absurd IP treaties.
- Comment on Jack Dorsey and Elon Musk would like to ‘delete all IP law’ | TechCrunch 4 weeks ago:
That’s why the Sistine Chapel has the little © 1512 painted in the corner
- Comment on Jack Dorsey and Elon Musk would like to ‘delete all IP law’ | TechCrunch 4 weeks ago:
The GPL is basically trying to make a world without copyright. The GPL basically only has teeth in a world where copyright exists. If copyright didn’t exist then everything would be in the public domain and the GPL would be toothless, but that’s fine because it would no longer be unnecessary.
- Comment on Jack Dorsey and Elon Musk would like to ‘delete all IP law’ | TechCrunch 4 weeks ago:
I see the value in trademarks because it prevents people from selling knock-offs. In some cases (medicine, machine tools) using a knock-off could be deadly.
For patents, I don’t think it should be one-size-fits-all. A modern drug takes a lot longer to develop than some e-commerce thing like one-click ordering. Different categories of thing could get different lengths of patent protection. Also, IMO, the clock should start once something is available in the market. Again, I’m thinking of medicine. Something might be working in the lab so it’s patented, but going from lab to store shelves is not quick. If the clock starts immediately, then that mostly benefits huge and rich pharma companies that can move extremely quickly.
I strongly believe that if we have copyrights, they should be short with an optional renewal that’s also short. Too much of our culture is locked up by companies like Disney. They shouldn’t be able to hold onto it for more than a century. That’s absurd. For the most part, media makes the vast majority of its money in months. 14 years gives the creator not only the most lucrative period, but also the vast majority of the tail of the distribution. It would also be good if corporate-owned copyright had a much shorter term than copyrights owned by individuals. And, we also need to have a way for people to get their own creations back, by say cancelling the copyright assignment.
- Comment on Jack Dorsey and Elon Musk would like to ‘delete all IP law’ | TechCrunch 4 weeks ago:
For as much as they are abused, “IP laws” protect small and individual inventors, writers, composers, etc.
Do they? Or do they protect the huge companies that those people have to assign their IP to?
- Comment on Are there any Lemmy/Mbin instances by women for women? 4 weeks ago:
This seems like a very good niche for someone willing to do it. Problematic accounts could get a site-wide ban instead of each woman having to ban someone herself.
- Comment on Are there any Lemmy/Mbin instances by women for women? 4 weeks ago:
People who cover their drinks when you’re around.
- Comment on The US Secretary of Education referred to AI as ‘A1,’ like the steak sauce 4 weeks ago:
People seem to be missing the one positive piece of news here: She’s literate!
The only person who would make this mistake is someone who read “AI” in an ambiguous font. I know it’s a low bar, but this means that the secretary of education is able to read.
- Comment on How likely is it that Trump will be the first President assassinated since Kennedy? 4 weeks ago:
There’s a reason I didn’t say “hairs”. I believe he has one and it gets wrapped around and around and around and around and around…