Lots of reasons to dislike Google. That is not one of them.

Then I’ll pass and stick with Firefox. Seems like they’re trying to capitalize on some people’s current frustration with Mozilla and their Mastodon instance

I’m a long time fan and user of Firefox. I’ve heard of, but never used, Vivaldi. How does it compare?

Is it fair? Probably, yeah. But I don’t think it’s an effective way of framing or addressing the problem.

The challenge is always getting enough people to do enough of an action that it makes an impact. It is certainly more effective, in terms of reducing emissions, to target policy interventions at leverage points - like forcing energy companies to adopt renewables by law and banning further fossil fuel extraction.

Personal action can be useful to live in alignment with your values and to provide examples to others for ways to get involved in the climate movement, but we can’t consume our way out of this.

It’s not so much that I can’t make phone calls, as much as I don’t want to. 75% of the time you just end up playing phone tag, and I’d rather just email so they can reply at their convenience and there’s no question about who said what

Why am I not surprised? In the words of the Wu Tang Clan - “cash rules everything around me”

Of all the words in the world, those are certainly some of them

Same in Michigan. Voters here passed a ballot initiative with a bunch of voting rights protections in 2022, and now you can sign up to be mailed a ballot once, and they keep sending it for every election if that, if you check the box saying you want that. It makes it SO easy to vote, especially for smaller elections that I ordinarily probably wouldn’t pay attention to

Wind has come down a lot, just over a longer time. Solar and storage are what have really plummeted recently. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/levelized-cost-of-energy

One of the big challenges now in the US is streamlining permitting, for renewables and for transmission upgrades and expansions.

I’d be interested to see the video you mention!

This is true, but investing in research and subsidizing its production is how we drive costs down. We’ve done a really incredible job of getting clean energy costs down from where they were, but there’s no need to slow our efforts down now

You’re right about the differing educational requirements, but optometrists are just as much an eye doctor as an ophthalmologist. They just fulfill different roles.

Optometrists do four years of optometry school (the fourth of which is entirely supervised practice) and pass a series of licensing exams. Many optometrists also complete residencies to further specialize. They typically see patients on a regular basis to monitor eye health, provide contacts and glasses, and treat some diseases.

Ophthalmologists go to medical school, and then further specialize in eyes. They tend to treat more serious diseases and injuries, especially when they require surgery (or injections, depending on the state).

I guess I would compare the difference as similar to a dentist versus an oral surgeon. Both doctors, both valuable and knowledgeable components of the healthcare system, just filling different roles.

Yep! It’s a good way to get over the fear of a blank page, but I don’t trust it for more than outlines or summaries

You can critique UI design without using an ableist slur

I think scripting is certainly a level 4 activity, since to even get started solving the problem you would need to navigate an IDE and have basic knowledge of a scripting language. Most people wouldn’t even know where to start.

Okay. They do have port forwarding though

ProtonVPN

On the tracking and phoning home: gross, I wish they didn’t do that. I’ll stick with FreeCAD.

It makes sense though, that they don’t care about pirated software unless you’re making money off it. It’s probably in their interest of hobbyists can learn how to use the software from pirated copies - that’s just a potential future paid user, if they develop the skills to eventually want to use it professionally.

How would Autodesk or Dassault discover that you are using a pirated copy of their software in the first place?

Aw darn, I usually like Vox. I guess I won’t be getting news from them as much anymore

Yeah, that seems reasonable to me