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re: people complaining that firefox needed the DRM support because netflix: consider that watching movies should not have been the thing that web browsers do in the first place

QRT mastodon.social/@jwz/112662062

What people think a CoC incident looks like:
"A crime has happened! Call the police!"

What CoC incident really looks like:

Guy posted off-color joke in forum.
Newbie: "it's inappropriate here, reported for moderation"
Guy: "I'm being censored, my right to speech is violated. I'm wronged"
Some other guy: "It's just a joke, lighten up."
Long timer guy: "We've said this joke so many times nobody else ever complained."
Yet another guy: "Newbies just can't understand our joke"
Newbie left.

@lexbailey sounds entirely like something that would've been made (and then retailed for $24.95 until it became built into some OS)

@lexbailey i feel like this has been a solved problem with some sort of windows 95 software package

@alienmelon i don't see why not, you could wrap it all up in a hamburger menu

🧵 In 2020, I nearly died from mysterious industrial chemical exposure at my apartment. Later, in 2023, I discovered my employer was dumping toxic waste into the apartment windows from their Skunkworks semiconductor fab next-door. I tipped off the US EPA, who sent their env cops to raid Apple's plant in Aug of 2023. The US EPA finally released the report of their enforcement inspections & sent me a copy on Friday. 💀 ⬇️

netizen.club/~wildweasel/updat - The Golfshrine Birthday Update! I've been receiving all kinds of golf stuff this month and finally got the last package of it today, so here's a big ol update with images and video, because Multimedia™!

i finally recapped my amiga 600 that already had loads of electrolyte damage since first getting it in 2007 and it was grueling and the board is a horror show of ripped pads and bodges but now the screen doesn't dim slightly every time the floppy drive seeks and it still seems to work enough to boot a fairly bloated (for the 600) workbench with 68020 accelerator so i call that a win

I love tech, but tech is unapproachable and inhumane 

Somewhat related to this

digipres.club/@timixretroplays

I occasionally teach tech-related stuff to people of every age. Today I was in a classroom with kids ages 9-11. They had almost pristine laptops with Windows 11.

What I wanted to do:
- have them create an avatar with Picrew
- have them write a slide about themselves, and paste the picrew avatar in it
- start playing around with Scratch

Also mandatory from the course's management: have everyone login to the Google Workspace of the course. (I also put the links to the Picrews in the Classroom)

Tech issues I encountered:
- the "smart" classroom touchscreen whiteboard has some HDMI ports, but those ports mysteriously refused to work with my linux laptop. They also refused to work with some of the Windows computers the school had. Kept displaying a message about "trying to connect" or whatever. I've never had an issue connecting via HDMI to a "dumb" monitor, so I don't know what it was trying to do there.
- The school teacher I was paired up with was familiar with some of the other whiteboards the school has, which require a proprietary program that only runs on Windows to connect via bluetooth. This one was different anyway.
- The whiteboard was an Android device and had its own browser. This object that, I'm sure, cost north of 2000€ was barely powerful enough to open Google slides or Picrew, with noticeable slowdowns, and absolutely collapsed under the "weight" of Scratch
- The laptops the kids use have a regular blue Windows popup "Antivirus protection expired" because the McAfee trial version expired. I had to explain to them that there was nothing wrong with their computer, and they didn't catch a virus or anything. We didn't have the administrator password ready so I couldn't uninstall McAfee and get rid of the popup even if I had the time to do it for 20+ computers while I'm trying to teach.
- Picrew is absolutely inundated with ads, including some fullscreen images that obscure the screen until dismissed. One of the ads was creepy AF and scared a kid, and he didn't want to look at the screen anymore. I had to install ublock origin on all the Edge browsers, one by one (I know, but it was the only browser installed, and again, no admin password and no time even if I did)
- Some people straight up got pop up ads, with videos that started playing at max volume, disturbing the lesson. Many of them didn't even know how to dismiss them. I had to explain to them that it wasn't their fault. (again, solved by installing ublock origin)
- The new tab of Microsoft edge isn't mostly empty, but it's just full of news and links and stuff. There's nothing straight up NSFW, but most of it is inappropriate and distracting to kids.
- Millions of popups throughout the whole process. Popups for cookies, Popups for so-called tutorials, and "I understand" and "I accept" to click through to do anything at all.

Honestly, it made me kinda hate tech. I don't know how I'm supposed to transmit my passion for tech when every little interaction is such a minefield to navigate.

Mastodon has features to limit discovery and visibility, but it really needs features that allow everyone to see your shit but only some people to reply.

And if you can't immediately understand a use-case for that, then you need to stop and think about why that is.

Oh, and here's Intel's white paper on the USB 3.0/2.4GHz interference thing: usb.org/sites/default/files/32

It's from April 2012. The industry's known about this for 12 years, and it's been so well-communicated that you absolutely knew about it before reading my post on it today. More shit.

I think I'm becoming utterly disillusioned on tech stuff lately. I'm hugely aware of the "you like stuff you grew up with" and "you have less patience for stuff as you age" biases, but even so...

Streaming is shit.
Searching is shit.
Researching is shit.
Shopping is shit.
Troubleshooting is shit.
My phone is shit. Autocorrect, touchscreen keyboards, Bluetooth, AI, Android Auto, Spotify, all shit.

It's not even capitalism or consumerism, I'm just tired of arguing and fighting with things I own.

After 14yrs, the RickRoll is no more. It's finally been taken down.

Another internet meme bites the dust.

youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXc just shows an error msg now. 😞

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Computer Fairies is a Mastodon instance that aims to be as queer, friendly and furry as possible. We welcome all kinds of computer fairies!