@Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com

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• Not quite just a transistor but maybe something like this (an SOC with 32MB ram which costs about $5 in bulk) though it does require quite a bit of additional electronics to work.

  Also somebody also made an embedded Linux for the ESP32-S3 (which is even cheaper and doesn’t require anywhere as much auxiliary electronics).

  PS: Yeah, I got the joke. Just pointing out that the reality itself is quite impressive.

  on Overkill, really in c/linuxmemes@lemmy.world · 2h ago

• I have a Samsung tablet which I bought years ago. It’s was full of unremovable useless software and after a maybe 4 year of updates it was unusable because each version just took more and more space to the point that eventually it would fit maybe 2 or 3 applications on top of what came with it and nothing more.

  To give it new life I had to install a non-official version of LineageOS compile by some random guy which has problems and will even crash once in a while, and even then it’s better than using the original Samsung version of Android in it.

  More recent Samsung tablets and phones can’t even be bootloader unlocked to install an alternative to the Android they ship.

  I’m not interest in from companies whose products are are activelly managed to force customers to buy replacements for perfectly good hardware.

  on Owners mourn spoiled food after firmware update bricks Samsung smart fridges in c/technology@lemmy.world · 3h ago

• We trully live in an Age of Technological Devolution.

  And Environmental Devolution.

  And Political Devolution.

  And Economic Devolution.

  But the richer have never before been this rich.

  on Microsoft Patents Technique for Inserting Ads Into Videogames While You’re Playing Them. in c/technology@lemmy.world · 8h ago

• IMHO, people who buy smart fridges from Samsung deserve this shit.

  It’s extremelly hard to get a TV which isn’t smart nowadays, but that’s not the case (yet) for fridges.

  on Owners mourn spoiled food after firmware update bricks Samsung smart fridges in c/technology@lemmy.world · 8h ago

• Or selling data about who is in that kitchen and when which it obtained using a mic and a speaker plus some basic echo-location tech or some other intrusive shit like that, or maybe just selling info on what you buy and when.

  on Owners mourn spoiled food after firmware update bricks Samsung smart fridges in c/technology@lemmy.world · 8h ago

• It doesn’t matter.

  If they vibe code their software, even the most stupidly stable parts of the code that once made nobody should touch, ever, like say the part that decides when to turn on the compressor to reach the desired temperature, can be changed by the code generator everytime they decide to add a totally unrelated feature, and end up with bugs, possibly the stupidest shit imaginable of the “nobody would ever make this mistake” kind.

  If they can push fresh firmware into it externally, they can fuck up ANYTHING at ANY TIME. It’s the ability of replacing the code in it at any time that’s the problem - if firmware can be updated by the manufactures at any time your food and your health (if you end up eating food that spoiled without you noticing) has a constantly active risk vector which is linked to the quality of the software development process of that manufacturer.

  If shit isn’t exposed to the Net, shit doesn’t need firmware updates for security reasons and if a user wants to update the firmware to get some new feature then they will do it willingly in their own time, knowing that the firmware was updated and thus much more likely to notice things not working properly (and much less likely to keep on doing firmware updates in the future if the software development process of the device maker is shit and their firmware updates keep fucking up their devices).

  on Owners mourn spoiled food after firmware update bricks Samsung smart fridges in c/technology@lemmy.world · 9h ago

• The reason is that companies when they make “smart” products throw everything and the kitchen sink into it in order to justify the higher price of that version of their product - their remote control app needs to look like it does lots of things so that it feels like it’s actually worth it, hence it’s filled with needless crap just to make it look feature-rich.

  It’s a business and marketing reason rather than a technical or user requirements reason.

  on Owners mourn spoiled food after firmware update bricks Samsung smart fridges in c/technology@lemmy.world · 9h ago

• The fridge itself only activates the compressor when it determines it needs it (typically based on a termostat and the temperature you chose for it) so in a digital fridge that would part of its software since the “desired temperature” setting is itself from some kind of digital input rather than a hardware knob, and in a “Smart” Fridge it makes sense that value can also come from the outside (likely a smart phone app).

  I mean, setting the desired temperature ss a stupid near-zero-value feature (how often are you away from the fridge and actually need to change that setting), but designers of smart shit throw all kinds of meaningless crap into it in order to justify the higher price for “smarts” - feature-wise those things are a mile wide and an inch deep.

  So it makes sense that a firmware update for the fridge would include the whole code, including the part that just decides when to activate the compressor and hence that even such basic functionality can be hit by a such a bug, even if only indirectly - in a properly managed code base, it’s perfectly possibly that the code that activates the compressor itself based on the temperature setting is stable as fuck and never gets updated but the code upstream that sets the target temp from commands sent from a smartphone has been changed and is setting a stupid value, whilst if the thing is vibe coded all bets are off and even the most stable “there have been no feature changes here in 2 decades” areas of the code which only an idiot would touch can very well be changed by the code generator and now have bugs.

  on Owners mourn spoiled food after firmware update bricks Samsung smart fridges in c/technology@lemmy.world · 9h ago

• Trully what people really need in their lives are additional risk factors for their peace and quiet in exchange for little or no value.

  I’m just happy that I’m moving in the very opposite direction, avoiding externally controlled computing devices like the plague and instead having my own stuff when I actually need some smarts on my stuff (which, at the moment, is mainly my TV media player).

  We’ve recently had some big brownouts in the city and country I live in and those made me keenly aware of risks to my peace and quiet (for example, electronic payments don’t work if there’s no power, so if you don’t have actual cash on hand things can get pretty tricky) and nowadays there are way too many unnecessary dependencies on external entities in exchange for little, none or even negative value for us (don’t get me started on Smart TVs) - it’s long been the case that a big utility provider going down would be quite a pain in the arse, but nowadays lots of people’s risk exposure profile is so stupidly wide that “random company turning to vibe coding and sooner or later forcefully pushing an update that bricks your ‘smart’ device” or leaves your home network and digital devices one it wide open for people wanting to steal financial info from it, are maybe one of the biggest risks.

  on Owners mourn spoiled food after firmware update bricks Samsung smart fridges in c/technology@lemmy.world · 9h ago

• Por qué no los dos?

  on Pentagon investigators have discovered that flawed intelligence and an overreliance on AI contributed to a missile strike that killed 123 Iranian school children in c/technology@lemmy.world · 1d ago

• The makers of both Orange Pi and Banana Pi have been around for years, over a decade at least for Orange Pi.

  In fact in my experience SBC makers tend to be quite stable, possibly because those thinks are a lot more technically complex than, say, an electric kettle.

  on Raspberry Pi is intentionally blocking RAM capacity upgrades in c/technology@lemmy.world · 1d ago

• Well, I went for an N100 myself (and recommended it) because of its low power consumption (it has a 15W TDR), which makes it a good choice for an always on device which is how I operate my Mini-PC because it’s also my home NAS.

  That range of CPUs was design to consumer less power and most x86 CPUs consumer significantly more power than this.

  on Raspberry Pi is intentionally blocking RAM capacity upgrades in c/technology@lemmy.world · 1d ago

• We’re all supposed to believe that the rich are rich because of their own merit and the poor are poor because of their own lack of merit, so that we don’t force the rich contribute more to the public pot so that the poor aren’t poor.

  So the relentless propaganda we’re bombarded with in the media is that the rich are great and amazing people who got to were they are due to their hard work and intelligence (notice how Bill Gate’s mother who was a member of the board of IBM was never mentioned in the press when talking about “his” success with Microsoft) whom we should all look up to whilst in the last couple of decades we’ve been seeing more and more in the rightwing press stories about how the poor are lazy and dependent on benefits (aka social security if in America).

  The poor aren’t the ones who own TV Channels, Newspapers and (in countries that have that) end up in the boards of publicly owned TV Channels and Newspapers.

  on Shopify CEO says employees' 'slop grenades' are making more work for everyone else in c/technology@lemmy.world · 2d ago

• The EU Commission is nominated, not elected, with only confirmation votes in the EU Parliament for members other than its head.

  Unsurprisingly, this executive organ whose members are chosen behind closed doors and not even by the democratically elected representatives of EU citizens has long been the most corrupt part of the EU, often pretty much selling the EU to large foreign companies known for giving non-executive board memberships and millionaire “consultancy” gigs to retired politicians.

  on EU Kids Act Won't Keep the Internet Accountable and Trustworthy in c/technology@lemmy.world · 2d ago

• The purpose of a Law is what it does, not what its proponents loudly claim it’s meant to do.

  on EU Kids Act Won't Keep the Internet Accountable and Trustworthy in c/technology@lemmy.world · 2d ago

• We don’t live in a meritocratic society, especially at the higher levels.

  Right mommy, right daddy, right school, knowing the right people, right way of talking - that’s far more important to end up a CEO than competence.

  on Shopify CEO says employees' 'slop grenades' are making more work for everyone else in c/technology@lemmy.world · 2d ago

• Well, yeah, the problem with LLMs in a professional context is exactly that the second order effects of using them are so bad that they wipe out the direct effect gains (the time saving in creating the text).

  It’s fine for entertainment if all you want is to be distracted for a while with some somewhat bland chewing-gum for the brain.

  on Shopify CEO says employees' 'slop grenades' are making more work for everyone else in c/technology@lemmy.world · 2d ago

• That’s my experience too.

  That said at the higher end (Raspberry Pi 5) its actually cheaper to get a Mini-PC with a low-power intel chip like the N100 than a Pi and it’s more powerful, more extendable, more compatible, with a much better and well supported tech stack (because that’s an actual PC) and you get the whole device already, not just a board that you have to add the box and everything else to make a computer from.

  Maybe at the level of the little SBCs the rp2350 is good value, but that stuff is more towards the embedded systems side (high end, though, beyond things like ESP32) than a general consumer computer.

  on Raspberry Pi is intentionally blocking RAM capacity upgrades in c/technology@lemmy.world · 2d ago

• Orange Pi, Banana Pi, plenty of other Chinese SBC makers who products don’t necessarilly have names ending in Pi. Tons of those in places like Aliexpress. You can even try a Risk-V architecture if you’re daring.

  The problem is that their english language support is inferior, as is the software stack, plus the ecosystem is a lot smaller so there’s a lot less info on those from other people out there. That said, as far as I can tell all of them have at least one Linux distro (at the very least ARMbian), some having more distros.

  Still, it would be fine if all you want is a small computer with HDMI to turn it into a media player using Linux and something like Kodi.

  Alternativelly, just get a Mini-PC with a low power intel chip like the N100 - which is actually cheaper than a Raspberri Pi 5 whilst being more powerful and with better peripheral compatibility since it has a PC architecture - and put the Linux with Kodi in it. Sure, it uses more power because it’s not ARM, but not actually that much more (15w vs 8w for a Pi, if I remember it correctly).

  Raspberri Pi devices are maybe twice the price of other devices with equivalent hardware, which means that the low-end low-power Mini-PCs are cheaper and yet more powerful and compatible than the high end Pi.

  I have a mini PC just like that at home working as a TV Media Player (which a nice remote control and everything) and I even use it as a home server and home nas (remotelly controlled via web interfaces and SSH) since it’s has far more power than needed for just being a media player.

  on Raspberry Pi is intentionally blocking RAM capacity upgrades in c/technology@lemmy.world · 2d ago

• And, curiously, kill itself in the process.

  on Raspberry Pi is intentionally blocking RAM capacity upgrades in c/technology@lemmy.world · 2d ago

• It has been pretty obvious for those in power in the US that there is zero accountability ever since George Bush Junior didn’t end up in The Hague for the invasion of Iraq and subsequent Pillaging (the War Crime, as shown in the British Report On The Iraq War)

  on Pentagon investigators have discovered that flawed intelligence and an overreliance on AI contributed to a missile strike that killed 123 Iranian school children in c/technology@lemmy.world · 2d ago

• Even if the whole kill chain was automated and the machine “pulled the trigger”, it would still be the fault of the humans for caring so little about the lives of children that they wired the trigger for something that can mass kill civilians directly to the machine.

  There really is no way that this shit can be blamed on the machine.

  on Pentagon investigators have discovered that flawed intelligence and an overreliance on AI contributed to a missile strike that killed 123 Iranian school children in c/technology@lemmy.world · 2d ago

• The thing has no intelligence, it’s a statistical engine (at that’s the case not just LLMs but for ALL machine learning implementations)

  So it doesn’t even has common sense and its not going to go: “Oh shit, this might have some really nasty side effects so better check with somebody” unlike even the most junior domain expert imaginable.

  Worse, the probability distribution of its errors in the domain of the gravity of the consequences from said errors is uniform - in other words it’s no less likely to make a major life destroying error than it is to make a tiny error which isn’t a problem - which is why we get stories of for example LLMs advisings somebody who has voiced suicidal thoughts to “kill yourself”.

  So you NEVER, EVER, EVER wire its output directly to something important - at the very least it needs to be cross-checked by somebody with the knowledge to judge it, the time to properly go over it and the power to stop it being actioned.

  on Pentagon investigators have discovered that flawed intelligence and an overreliance on AI contributed to a missile strike that killed 123 Iranian school children in c/technology@lemmy.world · 2d ago

• Well, shoving adverts in front of gamers under the flimsiest of excuses will definitelly turn around the trend of game companies going bankrupts when Microsoft purchases them …

  on Microsoft patent describes in-game advertising triggered by boss fights, loading screens, and cutscenes in c/games@lemmy.world · 3d ago

• Oh, I agree with you and have similar expectations on who is going to be determined to have most if not all of the blame for it.

  However the facial recognition company having to pay or not really depends on what was in the service supply contract they had with the City Of Fargo - a good contract for them can insulate them from paying even if they fucked up majorly whilst a bad contract can mean they’re liable for the mistakes of others who used their system even if their system performed entirelly within expectations.

  More in general, the point I was making is that whenever one has some problem with an entity that’s providing you a service (in this case it’s not quite a “service”, but it’s similar, though this kind of thing is more commonly a situation where you’re hiring a service from some company who internally chose to outsource some of the work that goes into it and who failed to abide by the contract terms they have with you), legally it’s irrelevant for you if they’re outsourcing some or all of the work that went wrong and if they are outsourcing work who their suppliers are, and if the failure was directly from that entity or one of the suppliers - the legal responsability towards you is that entity and if they fail then THEY are the ones who have to make amends.

  It’s not up to the injured party to have to worry about whatever internal organisation, work distribution and outsourcing policies and contracts the entity which has injured has in place that have led to said injury - they fucked up, they pay, and if they fucked up because they chose to outsource some or all of the work to somebody else who fucked up, well, they can’t use that as an excuse to send you in some wild goose chase after their suppliers and their suppliers’ suppliers - whatever is behind their failure in abiding by the terms they have towards you is their problem not yours.

  on Grandmother jailed for six months after facial recognition mistake launches $10 million lawsuit against Fargo and detective in c/technology@lemmy.world · 3d ago

• You mean Volks “we don’t even make an effort for our cars to obbey emission rules and instead we cheated” wagen is having trouble staying afloat?!

  I wonder how such a high quality company which was not at all doing funny business and using political connections is having trouble competing with those who just offer better products at lower prices …

  on Xiaomi Has a Luxury SUV for $31,000 That All Western Brands Should Fear in c/technology@lemmy.world · 4d ago

• If you tell a joke that you heard from somebody else to a friend you’re breaking the Copyright of the creator of the joke.

  If Copyright was strictly enforced it would constantly intrude in people’s lives and pretty much everybody would turn against it.

  on Republican bill would order ISPs, DNS providers, and VPNs to block piracy sites in c/technology@lemmy.world · 5d ago

• The way these things work it’s up to the City Of Fargo to, after paying $10 million to this lady, go after the supplier they hired for the facial recognition service because it was not up to claimed standards and resulted in such losses for the City Of Fargo.

  on Grandmother jailed for six months after facial recognition mistake launches $10 million lawsuit against Fargo and detective in c/technology@lemmy.world · 6d ago

• I wasn’t aware the US had a Duty Tax for some things that was a fixed minimum price.

  Until now, all I had ever seen and learned about Duty Tax and Tariffs is that they’re a percentage on top of total price of a product delivered at the border (so basically factory price + shipping to border costs).

  Then again I’m in Europe and only ever imported consumer electronics in bulk here for a small business I had years ago.

  on Solar panel costs have plummeted from $6 per watt in 2000 to just 12 cents today in c/technology@beehaw.org · 6d ago

• It’s a bit much when that’s a transaction done with a retail customer (even if the card used was a business one, it looks like that was used on a personal account with Google, not a company account) which should legally have some form of limit to protect consumers of unlimited charges or if you want to be insanely neoliberal, at least some kind of insurance (just like how Insurance is mandatory in most of the World for driving a car).

  I mean, even in Financial Investment there are at least mandated by law very prominent warnings to retail customers if they want to trade the more dangerous products with unlimited liability, such as Futures, because such customers are not considered domain experts and people even without those warnings already generally know and treat Financial Investments as something where a lot of money at risk and thus are more careful with it even when they’re non-experts.

  This wouldn’t be a “bit too much” if we were talking of somebody doing it on a professional setting were it’s their fucking work to know what the fuck they’re doing, but for a retail customer who is not tracking what’s going on in their account day in and day out and who is not expected to know all the ins and outs of it, unlimited liability with no notifications at all is insanelly anti-consumer and only possible in a zero-regulations jurisdiction.

  That kind of shit were there are ZERO mechanisms to avoid that a single dumb but understandable mistake by a non-expert retail customer explodes into a life-changing bill, is very much a facet of the typical American way of treating common people as nothing more than money-bags for big corporations to squeeze.

  on Devastated father says his 9-year-old son spent $118,000 on YouTube ad campaigns for his Minecraft channel using a company credit card — bill racked up in just three weeks was supposed to be one $20 in c/technology@lemmy.world · 17 Sep 2026

• That very much depends on the country you’re in: @boonhet@sopuli.xyz found them at €0.13/watt sold to consumers in Estonia, which is an EU country which has 0% VAT on solar panels whilst the EU itself has 0% Duty Tax (aka tariffs) so there is no tax at all on them and their price is just factory price in China + shipping costs (probably by ship, which isn’t actually that much when shipping full container loads of them) + profit margin for importers and sellers.

  Even in the US, given that Duty Tax if applied to Purchase Price + Shipping Costs To US Border, if the purchase price of the panels goes down, the price in the US after Duty Tax will go down, though it’s ultimatelly bound by Shipping Costs To US Border (which aren’t actually all that much if shipping full container loads of them from Shenzheng by boat). The point being that the Duty Tax for solar panels would have to be many 100s or percent for them to never be lower than $0.35/watt when factory prices in China are already below $0.12/watt.

  I think that the reason for US prices is all the intermediaries adding their margins on top of the base product price.

  on Solar panel costs have plummeted from $6 per watt in 2000 to just 12 cents today in c/technology@beehaw.org · 17 Sep 2026

• I checked around in Alibaba and for bulk orders directly from a big manufacturer (with EXW terms, meaning pick-up at the factory, so no shipping and no taxes included) it was actually less that $0.12/watt, quite a bit less if enough units were ordered.

  Such consumer price in Estonia kinda dovetails with the indicative prices per watt that I’ve seen in Alibaba being less than $0.12/watt, as even though Estonia has 0% VAT on solar panels and the EU has no Duty Tax on them so there’s no tax paid, what’s left that’s on top of the factory price (so the shipping costs + a little margin for the seller) still requires the panels to be less than $0.12 at the factory to end up sold to consumers in Estonia for €0.13

  on Solar panel costs have plummeted from $6 per watt in 2000 to just 12 cents today in c/technology@beehaw.org · 17 Sep 2026

• Even if one has one’s very own personal single-owner company, you keep company stuff separate from personal stuff.

  There are accounting reasons for this, there are management reasons for this, there are even legal reasons for this (for example if you own limited company is sued, keeping its shit totally separate from your shit means none of your stuff is part of the discovery process and if it loses the lawsuit, none of your personal stuff gets taken).

  This is even more so when the company is not yours and you’re just an employee - you don’t want company troubles to end up hitting you and the company doesn’t want you troubles to end up hitting it, so it’s a win-win for both sides.

  Always suspect when companies want to start mixing company stuff with personal stuff - in my experience they’re either small amateurish operations, they’re doing it to get you to do unpaid work for them outside work hours (i.e. the “company phone” that gets calls from management at odd hours) or its some weird tax evasion scheme and/or ties you more to the company (the “company car” that you don’t really use for company stuff).

  This guy fucked things up massivelly, even if a $118k “lesson” is maybe a bit too much.

  on Devastated father says his 9-year-old son spent $118,000 on YouTube ad campaigns for his Minecraft channel using a company credit card — bill racked up in just three weeks was supposed to be one $20 in c/technology@lemmy.world · 17 Sep 2026

• Private Prisons + Slavery is literally legal in the US for those in Prison.

  As usual, it’s performative moralism hiding the real reason: $$$.

  on Bernie Sanders proposes 20 year prison sentence for AI devs who plow ahead with Artificial Superintelligence plans - penalty on par with illegally developing rogue nuclear weapons in c/technology@lemmy.world · 14 Sep 2026

• Oh yeah, you want dumb everything else beyond the little box that you control which has the “smarts” and something like Linux and Kodi on it.

  Even having Windows on that box would pretty much guarantee you have no privacy.

  As it so happens, in my experience of over a decade using Media Players to play videos on my TV (since well before Android TV and Smart TVs) it’s even the most economic option: the life-cycle of the hardware that plays videos is a lot tighter than the life-cycle of the actual display - unless you’re running after the bleeding edge, you more often have to replace the video playing hardware because it doesn’t support newer video codecs than then display - so it’s cheaper to have those things be separate so that you don’t have to replaced the whole thing every few years just because the cheaper part - the processor - can’t decode newer codecs and instead can just replace the “smarts” and not spend any money on the stuff that still works fine (and is actually more expensive).

  Further, if one does like I do and actually use that box for more things (my Media Player Mini-PC is also a home server and home NAS), that’s yet another way that such a setup ends up being cheaper because it’s being used to do the work of 2 or 3 things.

  I suspect even if one pays twice as much for a non-smart “Hospitality Display” to have alongside your own self-made Media Player box, it’ll still end up cheaper because in 5-10 years’ time that display will still be just fine even while that box might need upgrading due to new video codecs.

  on LG responds to TV spying allegations in c/technology@lemmy.world · 14 Sep 2026

• From looking around out of curiosity when this stuff about LG TVs came out, Samsung sells explicitly Non-Smart 65" Hospitality Displays, but they cost $1030 (US), which is over twice as much as their consumer TV with the same specs.

  Also somebody pointed out Spectre TVs (which seem to only be sold in the US, and I couldn’t really find an European equivalent, the closest being a Spanish brand whose largest non-smart TV is only 40").

  I couldn’t actually find any large dumb monitor except for the ultra-wide curved ones, but I only looked around for half a hour or so.

  Personally, the way I already use my TV (wired to a Mini-PC running Linux and Kodi, which has Series and Movies as video files as well as using free IPTV for live TV, and I even have a wireless remote for it so it’s used just like you would a traditional media player or Smart TV) is already perfect for a dumb monitor.

  (A more straightforward way to get a privacy respecting setup like this would be to install LibreELEC on something like a Pi or a Mini-PC and get the same kind of wireless remote as I have - my setup is only as it is because I didn’t know about LibreELEC back when I put it together plus it also works as a home server as well as my home NAS, since an N100 Mini-PC is very overpowered to just work as a Media Player).

  It really seems that the only way to keep at least some privacy is to ditch corporate devices altogether and just put together your own media player box (which, as I wrote above, is pretty straightforward with something like LibreELEC).

  on LG responds to TV spying allegations in c/technology@lemmy.world · 14 Sep 2026

• That might be because they are threatening european companies and Industries leading to dependencies which threaten european sovereignity.

  When you have a rotting tooth and you’ll let it fester, sooner or later you’ll have to feel the short sharp pain of having it pulled in order to reach relief - you’re going to lose it either way but this way you don’t spend year in pain and don’t risk actual death if the rot spreads.

  I think European politicians who have spent literally decades tilting the playing field in favor of large companies instead of flatenning market barriers to entry in important markets and punishing cartels with fines large enough to actually bankrupt companies, are a lot more to blame for the situation were certain large European conglomerates could grown fat and lazy by enshittifying instead of innovating and even selling products which shouldn’t be allowed due to their danger (for example SUV’s are 70% more likely to kill pedestrians in collisons than sedans and don’t get me started with the tens of thousands of EU citizens that die each year due to the higher diesel emissions of sulfur oxides) all the while it was painfully obvious a technological sea change was happening.

  This shit we see now is the result of the hardcore neoliberals that dominate the EU refusing to actually do the “govern” part of governing all the while the Chinese (who, laughably, aren’t even Capitalists) beat them in the Capitalist game by having actual high-level cross-industry strategies rather than “leave it to The Market”.

  Go figure - you can’t win a “War” by having an “Army” where nobody sits at the top level doing Strategy and commanding those below them and expecting that “Having good Tactics is enough to win”.

  Literally denying a large part of the body of knowledge of Game Theory (most notably the Tragedy Of The Commons) and picking and choosing from Behavioural Economics (Nudge Theory yes, Humans not being rational economic actors, no) is a great way to set a society up for long-term failure.

  This rotten tooth could’ve been treated early enough that it wouldn’t need to be pulled, but the dominant politics in the EU is basically “each body cell knows best” and “the brain can’t interfere with the free operation of the body”, terminantly refusing to act as a top-down agent in oversight, so here we are now.

  Protectionism now without a proper strategy to force more competitiveness in European car makers will just delay the innevitable reckoning or (it the market is totally closed) force the EU population and businesses to have higher costs than others because the market was closed to protect companies that spent decades chosing short term profits over mid and long term success, thus hindering the competitiveness of the rest of the EU Economy to protect a few fatcats.

  on EU unveils ‘buy European’ public procurement rules to counter China in c/buyeuropean@feddit.uk · 10 Sep 2026

• “urged”

  The sold out neoliberals in the EU Commission would never go against the people that give them millionaire non-executive board memberships when they retire by doing anything in any way form or shape against hardcore neoliberal economics.

  This shit is just neoliberal style talkie-talkie and even then it’s in the service of incredibly uncompetitive corporate behemoths which have spent the last 2 decades with enshittification and anti-social products (SUVs are 70% more likely to killl a pedestrian in a collision) instead of innovation - the “Constructive Destruction” of a Free Market is only for the plebes.

  These crooks and the fatcats who hold their strings deserve any shit they reap from the seeds they’ve been sowing for at least 2 decades - certainly the rest of us (just look at enshittification and the recent PISA results) are already suffering from their decades of via the EU pushing EU nations more and more towards a variant of hardcore neoliberalism that favors ever less competitive and innovative large companies with captured markets or in cartels.

  on EU unveils ‘buy European’ public procurement rules to counter China in c/buyeuropean@feddit.uk · 10 Sep 2026

• IMHO Liberalism was manufactured by Capitalism as a left-sounding form of politics to allow mainstream parties which were genuinelly leftwing to move Right in Economic, Quality Of Life and even broad Equality whislt still appearing to be left-wing due to their pro-liberty posture on Moral and Social subjects.

  I say this because I have yet to see any form of Liberalism in mainstream politics, ever, anywhere, which sought to maximize people’s freedom to access limitied or constrained resources which are required merelly to live, such as Land (which Land Ownership goes against), so I don’t think that at least in Politics there was ever any genuine Liberalism for Capitalism to corrupt.

  on LG smart TVs caught logging audio with screen off and snooping on local devices in c/technology@lemmy.world · 7 Sep 2026

• A TOS presented after an electronic device has been sold is not valid in most of the World since it’s considered an attempt to, after the sale, force a change of the terms of the implicit contract which is the sale.

  A company can shove whatever they want in front of the customer as contract conditions they have to accept for a sale before the sale - by which point the potential customer can refuse and not buy or accept and buy - not after.

  Of course, they don’t do that because they would lose most sales, so instead there’s a TOS or EULA which the owners of the devices are forced to agree to after the sale to fully enjoy that which they bought, but these are really just legal fictions in most countries.

  Mind you, this does not apply to a subscription to an ongoing service, though even then at least in Europe, there are conditions they much obbey to have the customer accept a TOS or a TOS change after subscribing, such as it being possible for the customer to cancel the service at no cost rather than accept the new TOS.

  on LG smart TVs caught logging audio with screen off and snooping on local devices in c/technology@lemmy.world · 7 Sep 2026

• I’ve been boycotting Sony since the Rootkit Scandal, what took you so long?

  on Sony Implements New Customer Harassment Policy Following Backlash Toward Its Plans to Stop Making Physical Game Discs in c/technology@lemmy.world · 3 Sep 2026

• “Somebody else will pay the salaries of our customers”.

  As far as I can tell the individual actors extracting more from a system that its capable to support if everybody does the same (the kind of situation Game Theory calls a Tragedy Of The Commons) always think in one of 3 ways:

  • They simply don’t think about systemic consequences at all, be it simply that they don’t have the kind of intelligence for it or purposefully don’t dig down into it because they don’t want to think about consequences.
  • They expect the “system” (i.e. somebody else, maybe everybody else) will make up for it so it’s fine if they take more from it than the put back in, as illustrated in my first paragraph.
  • They’re aware of what the commulative impact of their actions can or even will have in the future, but they think they themselves and their families will be alright and screw everybody else - essentially that if they can get ahead enough they can ride the wave whilst it crashes.

  The same kind of thinking also applies to Ponzi Schemes (like the current AI bubble) - Ignorance (willful or due to lack of knowledge/intelligence), The Many Will Make Up For The Over-Extraction Of The Few and/or I Myself Will Be Alright.

  And you know what?

  Those people have very good reasons to believe in the second one (that I illustrated at the start) - you look at Neoliberal Capitalism so far that’s what’s been happening as Money acummulates in fewer hands and sin ce with regulations neutralized and Corruption through the roof, those holding most of the wealth can do whatever the fuck they want so they are increasingly pillaging wealth from the rest, and the “system” - i.e. everybody else - just gets poorer and instead of Revolutions and Guillotines for the rich all we see is passive acceptance so the rest so have been making up for the depredations of the few for decades. Also just look at how Governments the world over sacrificed everybody else to make sure Finance and Asset owners in general came up better of after the 2008 Crash - these people have very good reason to believe that those in power, being very much in their pockets, will use said power to sacrificed the rest in order to deflect away from the Few the consequences of the actions of those very Few.

  And if they’s CEOs they also have very good reasons to believe the third - just look at corporate governance in the last decades, with getting those jobs being far more abour Cronyism than Merit and incompetence being de facto rewarded with golden parachutes a even failing upwards. From all they’ve seen their whole lives there is no reason for them to expect to ever personally suffer the consequences of their own depredations and pillaging.

  In summary, some don’t even realise the problem and as for those who do, given the experience of CEOs for at least the last 3 or 4 decades, it’s pretty rational for them to believe that their depredations wont destroy the Whole enough to come back to them and even if they do, they themselves personally will be alright even if the companies they manage are destroyed.

  on Dwarf Fortress' creator says the industry's in shambles over AI and layoff-happy CEOs: 'Everyone I know, their bosses are slowly getting psychosis' in c/games@lemmy.world · 2 Sep 2026

• I really, really hope that the Chinese take most of the market away from these assholes.

  on Memory Prices Indefinitely High: SK Hynix Says Shortage Continues Through 2030 - PC Perspective in c/technology@lemmy.world · 31 Aug 2026

• In all fairness, I was thinking mostly of European politicians and added the Americans there for completeness.

  I suspect that in America the politicians are mainly just bought (via, for example AIPAC campaign contributions) and any blackmailing that’s needed is done by using the recordings made by a Mr J. Epstein.

  on Cover up in c/privacy@lemmy.ml · 27 Aug 2026

• Considering that some of the biggest companies hacking smartphones are in Israel and were founded by ex-Israeli Military, I’m sure he’s very well informed about the remote activation and use of smartphones as eavesdropping devices.

  Also he probably doesn’t want other to have on them the kind of blackmail material Israel has been using against European and American politicians to make them do whatever is best for Israel even against the wishes of their own Public Opinion.

  on Cover up in c/privacy@lemmy.ml · 27 Aug 2026

• And by all indications LLMs will never be there - its speed of progression towards that has already pretty much ground to halt.

  Mind you, you’re totally right that they will replace everyone if they can (i.e. if they get their hands on actual AGI), it’s just that this tech direction is a dead end and won’t get there.

  on AI agents meant to replace Meta workers made “large-scale, disruptive actions” in c/technology@lemmy.world · 27 Aug 2026

• 7" table, 5" phone please, pretty please, pretty please with cherries on top!!!

  on Motorola's 2027 flagships will officially support GrapheneOS in c/technology@lemmy.world · 26 Aug 2026

• Whilst I’m not sure about contractors specifically, at least in my technical area “Software Development” having the expertise/insight in the social domain (which is not part of the expertise required for the job) to do things like that is more the exception than the rule.

  But, yeah, totally agree that the wise, well-rounded and (IMHO) competent professional would at the very least do a bit of subtle “social discovery” to try and figure out who is the best person the interface with.

  on Big mistake rule in c/onehundredninetysix@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 24 Aug 2026

• Gender stereotyping is a vicious cycle (multiple cycles even) and definitelly goes through both genders.

  Mind you, in my experience it does have some cultural component to how far it goes, but even in the most gender-egalitarian country I lived in (The Netherlands) there were still plenty such expectations and, for example, before the remote working era the percentage of couples there with a huisman (the male version of housewife) was only 18%.

  on Big mistake rule in c/onehundredninetysix@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 24 Aug 2026

• How much of this is the contractors being sexists and how much is it them being used to, far too often, having to manage the fragile ego of a male partner who thinks that “as the man of the house I’m suppose to know these things”?

  on Big mistake rule in c/onehundredninetysix@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 24 Aug 2026