Mossy Feathers (They/Them)

This. If I’m not mistaken, the system was meant to operate like a hybrid between patents and trademarks. Iirc, things weren’t originally under copyright by default and you had to regularly renew your copyright in order to keep it. Most of the media in the public domain is a result of companies failing to properly claim or renew copyright before the laws were changed. My understanding is that the reason for this was because the intent was to protect you from having your IP stolen while it was profitable to you, but then release said IP into the public domain once it was no longer profitable (aka wasn’t worth renewing copyright on).

Then corpos spent a lot of money rewriting the system and now practically everything even remotely creative is under copyright that’s effectively indefinite.

The alternative explanation is that the employers have investments in corporate real estate and don’t want their investments to lose value. Personally, I think that the the people at the top probably have investments in corporate real estate, while middle managers are the way you describe.

I don’t think the people at the top usually care what the employees are doing so long as they’re making money, and being in the office means they’re keeping corporate real estate prices afloat. As such, being in office makes money for the executives, even if that money isn’t made directly through the company.

Middle managers on the other hand, likely don’t have any significant corporate real estate investments, nor are they as likely get significant bonuses for company productivity. As such, it makes more sense for their motive to be more about control than it is money.

That said, I do know some executives do indeed see employees the way you’ve described them; an infamous example comes to mind about the Australian real estate executive talking about how they needed to bring workers to heel and crash the economy to remind workers that they work for the company and not the other way around. I’m just not sure that many executives actually think about their workers in that much depth. I think if they did then we’d see a stark contrast of very ethical companies and highly abusive companies instead of the mix of workplace cultures we have now; because some ceos would come to the conclusion that a happy worker is a good worker, while others would become complete control freaks.

Oh my god, wallet chains are going to make a comeback, but for phones this time.

I’m really hoping valve does a public steamdeck OS release. I’d like to replace windows on my PC with Linux and have windows as a backup, but the Linux distro I’m the most familiar with is the steam deck’s distro, and that’s not available outside of steam decks yet.

Seriously. Even my dad who has a seemingly near-religious belief in capitalism (hello from 'murica) thinks that nationalizing food production wouldn’t be unreasonable.

(I don’t think my dad is as much of a capitalist as he thinks he is, but don’t even think about using the scary S word around him. He’ll try to find any excuse to say that capitalism is better than socialism. I don’t think he really understands what socialism is, but he’s not really interested in learning either so I just avoid using the term when talking to him. *shrug*).

After reading the article, this might be an exception.

I thought that was Qobuz. At least I can actually buy music through Qobuz I guess.

Yeah, I don’t get it. No one says, “fuck Alphabet for how they’re handling YouTube”. No one says, “fuck Alphabet for baking spyware into Android and Chrome”. No, they criticize Google for that stuff. Why is Facebook different?

I don’t think the people doing it now are bots, but I swear the Facebook-Meta separation had to have been started by astroturfing. People seemed way too eager to accept the rebranding and act like Meta was somehow different from Facebook.

Dude, maybe it was meant to be a joke, but that doom picture is so fake. C’mon.

The fact that quantum dots are already being successfully applied to LCD-LED and OLED screens is encouraging for future QDEL products. QDEL stakeholders claim that the tech could bring efficiencies like lower power consumption and higher brightness than OLED. (Research using a prototype device has recorded quantum dot light-emitting diodes reaching 614,000 nits. Of course, those aren’t the type of results you should expect to see in a real-life consumer product.)

614,000 nits

That’s fucking insane. HDR 1400 displays are at least 1,400 nits. 614,000 nits seems like you’d be staring at the fucking sun.

There’s also hope that QDEL could eventually last longer than OLED, especially since QDEL doesn’t rely on organic materials that can cause burn-in.

Tbh the burn-in issue is the reason why I don’t like OLEDs as computer monitors. I know phones and TVs don’t tend to have major burn-in issues, but the fact that it exists sucks. TVs have a variable-enough image that long-term use isn’t an issue imo, and even the most thrifty person will probably end up replacing their phone every 4~6 yrs. However, I’m used to having computer monitors be long-term things. My last monitor lasted about 10yrs before it died.

As it stands, QDEL displays would become noticeably dimmer more quickly than today’s OLED displays.

Aw, that’s disappointing. At the same time though, if they’re able to get even 10% of the 614,000 nits on commercial units, then they’d have to lose a significant amount of brightness to dim to current display levels.

But optimists believe QDEL display lifetimes could one day be on par with LCD-LEDs and outlast OLEDs.

Yeah, I hope so too.

True, it’s just that if businesses are already using Windows + Office 365, then it’d just be the usual monthly/yearly cost wouldn’t it? Maybe they were just talking about their office specifically though.

I doubt any department is going to get approval to move to Windows 11 and deal with Microsoft’s fees.

What fees are you talking about? Genuinely curious because I haven’t seen any articles about new or increasing business fees.

A picture of the man

I looked up the transcript for it out of curiosity. The jokes aren’t terrible I guess; they read a lot like the Carlin bits I’m familiar with. However, I got to the AI part and was like, “nah, they’re pushing it too hard.” I couldn’t see the complaint until I got to that bit, and then I could understand why it made his estate uncomfortable.

If they’d used the AI bit to poke fun at themselves and talk about how AI’s even replacing dead people without trying to push AI as the future, then I’d be confused as to why the Carlin estate is upset. However, right now AI primarily benefits the rich, so pushing AI as the future of humanity is contradictory even within the context of fake-Carlin routine because it goes against his takes about rich people ruining everything.

I like the security camera pointed at the billboard, like someone’s gonna steal it.

Because Maya is the industry standard and while Blender and Maya are very similar, they aren’t identical.

It’s too bad that, unlike the weird, quirky electronics 20-30 years ago, these will be totally unusable in several years. The retro computer enthusiasts 20yrs from now will have nothing to make YouTube videos about.

even contemplating leaving Canada for good.

Hello, yes, LGBT person stuck in Texas here. Can I have their house please? I don’t really like the cold, but if it means I don’t have to feel scared about coming out of the closet then I could deal with it.

I never thought I’d say that I think aliens are more plausible than illegal miners with jetpacks, but uh… I actually think aliens might be more plausible than miners with jetpacks. I mean, there have to be more reasonable explanations than aliens or jetpacks, right?

“Miners with jetpacks” feels like something someone would say if they don’t give a shit but are being forced into making a report. I just can’t see a bunch of people who’re mining gold illegally as being capable of rigging together jetpacks, nor can I see them having the money to buy one. Surely if they had the money to buy one then they could have bribed the right officials to make their illegal operations legal; and if they had the skills to make one themselves then I don’t think they’d need to be illegally mining for gold.

At £380,000 starting price, I have doubts on whether illegal gold miners have the money for that. If they had £380,000 they’d probably be able to bribe their way into legitimacy and still have some money left over.