I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, corporations treat you like a product. Whether you buy something from them or not. People are becoming the product that they sell.

I usually don’t care very much until it starts to affect pricing for stuff based on some algorithms impression of how desperate you are. That algorithm started with travel (airlines, online booking fees for hotels and stuff) and has expanded.

If I need a new computer because mine isn’t working, I don’t really care that advertisers come at me with ads for their computer products. I need one, they want me to buy one, it’s marketing. No worries.

If I need a new computer and suddenly all the prices for new systems goes up by $100 because it thinks I’m desperate enough to pay that, now I have a problem.

I still don’t like them selling my data, and I’ll do what I can to avoid it, but marketing is going to do marketing things.

As a tech savvy person, it’s already a gaping chasm. Making it wider and deeper isn’t a huge change.

Yeah. This is the problem with trying to enforce standards on industries that historically move at glacier speed, with standards used by tech moving at breakneck speeds.

The only happy part of USB-C in this context is that, at least right now, the USB-C connector doesn’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon, so if things get updated to USB C, we should be okay for a while.

Personally, I carry a whole assortment of USB cables with me everywhere. C-to-C, A-to-C, even A-to-lightning, and A-to-microB. I don’t use an iPhone, nevermind one that needs a lightning cable. And I have moved away from most accessories that require micro.

I also have a power brick in my pack with the cables, it’s a GaN power brick from Anker, with over 100W of output, two USB-C outputs, and one USB-A. At least one of the type C ports supports enough power output to charge my laptop, the other USB C port for my phone, and the USB A port for anything else that might need it. I don’t recall the exact power capacity of it, but if memory serves, it will take 100-240V, 50-60hz AC input, so at most, I just need to get one of those cheap converters for the receptacle type used wherever I may find myself.

I work in tech, so being without power is a huge problem. My work laptop also takes USB C for charging, so I don’t need to have two power bricks with me. I usually have both, but I don’t need to have both.

As long as there’s power available and is sufficiently clean and stable, I’m good. I have a few accessories that are not USB C compliant, some have USB C ports but won’t trigger a proper USB C charger to deliver any power, which is why I have USB A to C cables, and there’s two devices I have that uses a proprietary cable (a Bluetooth headset and my smart watch), which I’ve obtained spares for which I keep one charging cable at home and one in my kit. My kit also includes a USB A/C power bank. It’s not powerful enough to charge my laptop, but it’s fine for everything else.

USB C has simplified the cables I carry. I still have a few odds and ends for edge cases, but for the most part, I’m okay with it.

My only big issue with USB C at this point is that it’s not just for power+usb data anymore. It’s thunderbolt, and display port, and… Ugh. So many things using the same connector that I don’t know what will work anymore when I get to a new device, because though it looks like USB C, it might be USB C QC, or PD, or thunderbolt, or display port, or… FML.

Very recently, I was chatting with a coworker who is a dad, and he said, “I love my kids, but don’t do it”

Bit of a different vibe from that guy.

Assert dominance, do it again.

I would expect that Gabe is trying to hedge his bets and make the company more of a co-op, where several key figures in the company as well as himself, own the majority, so that there’s accountability in what everyone decides.

That way if someone’s kid ends up inheriting stock in valve, there’s a way to block them out of major decisions if there’s a need to.

If that’s indeed what’s happening, then it’s a very long-term play by Gabe. He’s looking so fast ahead, so that long after he’s departed the company, the values that make valve great (and successful) will endure.

Actually explained like you would to a 5yo.

Awesome job.

I know right? What a stud that guy is.

I had to pay the cat tax. I couldn’t tell the story and not include something.

The cat distribution system has been good to us.

73. Be safe out there.

This is a well known phenomenon. The cat distribution system.

Happened to my partner twice in the last ~10 years or so. The first was Zora, a black/white lady who was very chill and liked to stare at people (usually me, but yeah). Very friendly and outgoing. She was distributed to my partner at a bus stop. Anytime someone visited while we had her, she would go and greet them, since we’re pretty sure that she was convinced that people only ever came to visit her to give her pets.

She played fetch, ate fries and Cheetos… She’s a great girl. She passed away a few years back and I still miss the little shithead.

Then we were distributed shadow. His nickname is manager, because he tells everyone what to do, and occasionally where to go. He’s got sass when he needs it and he’s our fluffy little man. When he was distributed to us, he basically showed up at our door and when we opened it, he came in and made himself at home. He’s a very distinguished gentleman, and demands the freshest food, tastiest treats, and only the prescribed 82.475 pets in any one petting season. If you slow down or stop at any point before this quota has been satisfied, he will glare at you like he’s about to end your life if you don’t resume.

He’s got a little white spot on his chest that looks like a bowtie, so he’s always ready for a fancy party. He doesn’t like guests though, and when anyone new shows up, he will depart quickly and won’t be seen for at least 4 hours after the guest leaves.

His hobbies include windows (mostly looking through them) and trying to eat any food I may have.

As a qualified amateur operator, I approve this course of action.

Accurate.

That was wild. It’s hard to imagine that actually happening, but I know it did.

The structure of how TV was setup seems like it would be insanity now. They just used fast scan TV EM signals and bounced them wherever. If you got in the middle between them, or simply pointed a much more powerful transmitter/antenna array at the relay, you could override the signal.

Crazy. WTF.

I recently was looking for anything I could find for the max headroom TV series and couldn’t find a thing anywhere.

Oh well.

My partners car has a touch screen, but knobs dials and buttons for all the climate features.

The touch screen is just the infotainment stuff.

That’s about as far as I want it to go. I don’t need a large format display in my vehicle. I don’t want my speed, turn signal indicator, and climate controls on a massive display that takes up 1/3rd of the dash. Their car has a 8" or so, infotainment display… Great for Android auto/Apple carplay, with navigation so I can get my directions without having to meddle with my phone, or a clunky phone mount wobbling around.

But that’s where I draw the line. Just give me the fancy infotainment screen, leave everything else the way it is.

Interesting take.

Can I ask how long something must exist before we can love and appreciate it?

I still miss my old school flip phone, but mobile phones haven’t been a thing for half as long as cars so I guess I can’t be a technology lover?

You’re weird.

… I’M JUST SAYING.

Have a great day and an excellent life!

:)

I get what you’re saying, and I think it’s more that the copyright folks want the ISPs to banhammer whole households when violations happen.

First, that’s going to punish a whole lot of people who have nothing to do with the piracy. Imagine having family over for a weekend, and their snot nosed tweenager brings their laptop, gets on your wifi and their torrent program fires up… Come Monday, after they’ve gone home, you try to sign in to your work at 9AM for your work from home job and you have no internet because of a copyright troll.

Second, they already know which subscriber it is. I dunno if you’ve downloaded a car movie illegitimately ever, but the ISP spams your inbox with notifications about “cease and decist” bullshit about it. Usually this goes to the ISP provided mailbox which nobody uses, so a lot of people don’t realize it’s happening, nor care, but they’re already legally required to forward that shit on to you. They know who is doing it. They send those messages and I’m sure have systems that tally up how many of their subscribers get them and at what frequency they are recieved.

Third, ISPs are not the police. They’re literally the messenger that carries your traffic to and from the rest of the internet. They just want to happily continue doing that for the ludicrous amounts of money they’re paid to do it.

ISPs are already bearing the cost of upgrading all their stuff to support the ever growing sets of standards they have to meet to continue being an ISP, set forth by the FCC and other regulatory bodies that they previously stole millions of dollars from promising to upgrade their networks to fiber, then paid themselves insane amounts instead… They want to afford their next yacht and live life in luxury, not be the security guards for some copyright troll with a grudge.

Not to mention “ISP” is an incredibly broad term. You can consider international transit providers as ISPs. If they’re headquartered in the USA, they have to abide by the rules too. That means the “ISP” for the dedicated server farm for your local online delivery place could be shut down, because someone logged into one of their “cloud” desktops to watch finding Nemo on popcorn time, causing the datacenter ISP to cancel their internet. Poof. No more delivery because Jim doesn’t know how to hit “sign out” before setting up his work laptop to be a babysitter for his kids.

The implications of this are huge.

I haven’t read the text and maybe there’s exceptions for service networks and connections. Maybe it’s only targeting residential connections. IDK. But from what I’ve heard so far, that’s not the case. Given that this is patent trolls and government representatives writing this garbage, I doubt they know enough to exclude those groups.

If I’m right on that, and I hope to all fuck that I’m not, and they didn’t exclude service/business networks, then this legislation will be the single most disruptive thing that happens to the internet.

Services like Dropbox and other “cloud” storage systems will jump up and down, going offline regularly because people want to share x movie with so-n-so, and don’t know how, so they dump it wholesale into Dropbox, getting their internet service cancelled.

Even if I’m wrong, and it’s only targeting residential subscribers, it’s still a massive pain point. Work from home will be difficult at best, and most people won’t have internet service regularly. Given that the internet is presently regarded as more important than the fucking telephone, which the government annexed as an essential service when it was the only “fast” method of communication, and we’ve since dogpiled most of what was considered an essential service into the internet (like telephone calls), this really really can’t, and shouldn’t happen.

To continue my analogy to telephones, this is very similar to having your phone line cut because you played a copyrighted song for a friend over the line. Now you can’t call 911. Get fucked. In an era when telephone is the only game in town (before the internet), that would have been completely unacceptable. You got cut off because you called your friend to play him the new hit “enjoy the silence” by Depeche mode over the phone (in 1990), and now you can’t call 911 to get an ambulance for your visiting elderly relative who just had a heart attack, and they die.

gg copyright trolls, you sure “won”.

No. Fuck that. The internet is a critical communications network, not something you get grounded from because time/Warner/Disney (?) got angry about your use of it. Fuck them. Fuck this shit. Fuck the government for even considering it. Fuck everyone who supports this garbage. Access to the internet should be immutable. You can’t cancel someone’s connection because you take issue with how they live their life.

I understand what the copyright holders are doing and it makes me sick. They want to take away your internet because you didn’t pay full fucking price for some bullshit they’re peddling. You’re a source of entertainment at most, stay in your goddamned lane fuckers. You’ll take the exorbitant amounts of money the majority of people are willing to pay for your shit stain of a streaming service, and you’ll like it just the way it is. They want to make us comply through fear of losing access to shit like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and all the crap we browse on the internet to bring us some iota of joy, so that the public will be so fearstricken of losing it, they they’ll fork over whatever they need to, in order to do things “legally” and we’ll be screwed into using their service… or else.

It’s a fucking money grab because they’re to chicken shit to prosecute people individually like the RIAA did during the Napster incident.

Either sit down and shut up, or sue the people responsible the way the RIAA did, which already has a judgement on record that you can’t hold the individual who is named as the subscriber for the illegal use of the service they’re subscribed to.

No really… At least one of those Napster RIAA cases went to a judge, and IIRC it was deemed that there was too much opportunity for it to be not the named subscriber that the named subscriber couldn’t be reasonably held liable for the actions of someone else connected to the internet through their connection. Wifi, pretty much guarantees that outcome.

So come at me bro. Good fucking luck you dillholes. Unless they catch you specifically in possession of the illegally obtained products, you’re fine. Just be sure to memorize the “erase everything and catch fire” command for your particular storage. As soon as you get the legal notice they must give you for the lawsuit, run it. They won’t have shit for evidence and the courts will throw out the case, forcing them to pay your legal fees.

And that’s exactly what they’re trying to avoid doing, by punishing people with this legislation. This is essentially a slap suit against the whole fucking country.

It must not pass.

It’s situational, but you’re not the only one.

I lived with my dad for many years because he slowly lost the ability to take care of himself. My brother and I were there to handle whatever he needed and since I was working full time, I’d cover bills when it was required, either because he forgot or because he was struggling.

We eventually made the decision to have him moved to a care facility where he could get the care he needed, and far better care than we could hope to provide. He’s passed on now, but it happens. That was a crazy time in my life. Now I live independently.

For the record, I’m over 40 now, and I’m the youngest of his children. He died a few years back at this point.