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As long as the tech or the software doesn’t become obsolete, or the company doesn’t go bankrupt.
You know about the blind people that were able to see for a while but the company making their implants went bankrupt, leaving them blind once more, as their their implants will eventually all stop working?
Yet in 2020, Byland had to find out secondhand that the company had abandoned the technology and was on the verge of going bankrupt. While his two-implant system is still working, he doesn’t know how long that will be the case. “As long as nothing goes wrong, I’m fine,” he says. “But if something does go wrong with it, well, I’m screwed. Because there’s no way of getting it fixed.”
https://spectrum.ieee.org/bionic-eye-obsolete
It’s obviously understandable to want to try something, anything, to help with a disability, but relying on private for profit companies for experimental medical devices is far from ideal.
Addendum: Also, disabled people are unfortunately often used as an excuse to push agendas. “We can’t have a bike lane there! Think about handicapped people using their car!” Or like "Tesla’s FSD will help disabled people get around No need to fund dirty dangerous public transit!! " Or again “Neuralink is going to help disabled people so they must have good intentions and obviously not plan on selling these to the general public eventuality. It’s purely for the embiggening of society!”
FSD is soooo full self driving that blind people can’t use it as it requires constant babysitting, and more importantly, a driver’s license and thr ability to drive a car… for a car that’s supposed to drive itself.
Anything coming from Musk is obviously a scam. He’s a con artist. He will say anything to convince people. He keeps promising his shit is always just on the verge of revolution but it’s mainly just empty words for hype.
Helping the disabled is probably just an afterthought for Neuralink. People are so desperate, they will try anything, and Neuralink will be the creep profiting off them.
I’ve been using MATE since Gnome 3. I really liked the simplicity of Gnome 2 and was unable to adapt to their “new” way so I switched to MATE and it just clicked. I tried Gnome 3 a few times again but I just can’t.
As for why MATE instead of XFCE or others? Because I already used and tried XFCE in the past and prefered Gnome 2’s look and feel. In fact, I have been going out of my way for years to keep every app using GTK2 and my favourite theme because I like how it looks and feel, and Gnome 3 and GTK3 broke this. So MATE it was. They switched to GTK3 too eventually but it gave my time to adjust.
My only “complaints” about it are the file manager Caja, and the way you can list windows, which both feel very basic. I would like those two to get better.
I try and use different DE from time to time, from Fluxbox to E17, but I just go back to MATE. My favorite DE of all time was E16 but it took waaay too long for E17 to be functional and I ended up keeping MATE.
This reminds me of the efforts made against tobacco and for cleaner air in certain areas, but it also reminds me how we do this for other things too.
Radium toothpaste, lead paint and asbestos curtains.
So, as someone that sees cars as a significant source of pollution, from exhausts, brake pads and tires, I find it ironic that some places are banning outdoor smoking in public areas while it’s perfectly acceptable to drive a gas guzzler around and among those places.
Like, I’m so grateful nobody can smoke around me on that restaurant’s terrace, this way I can fully enjoy breathing the pollution from the thousand of cars around.
I can’t tell for BlueSky because I have not joined yet, but I did create a Mastodon account months ago and I’m not sure what to do with it or how to interact with others. I find it confusing.
On Twitter I was mostly following a bunch of like minded people, liking their stuff, and I could see what they liked too. But on Mastodon there’s uuh, boosts and favorites?! I’m not sure of how it works or what I’m doing. I can’t just “like” posts? I have to boost them?! I found the people I liked that were on Twitter, but on Mastodon I feel like there’s nothing I can do aside from seeing posts and it’s just not attractive.
15·1 month agoThen you can stay on forums that needs to be refreshed, or uuuh… isn’t there a proprietary IRC like thing for young people, something like Disco? Or Discom. Or Discord? Apparently it’s much like IRC but without the freedom.
I use TheLounge which saves and display history for me.
Convos also does that.
I am still on IRC, have my own server, and use TheLounge as a client. We can paste mp3s, mp4s and images on the channels. It just works fine for us.
IRC still exists. There’s nothing stopping anyone from joining a server and a few channels.
6·1 month agoMeanwhile I’ve always been the one that takes the smallest possible meal at McDonald’s, and would think that 5 nuggets with fries and drinks is just enough. In fact I hate going to restaurants in general because portions are always much too big for me. I can’t usually take doggy bags, and I feel like I’m wasting most of what I’m served. I can’t recall even finishing a plate in a (real) restaurant; there’s always too much. I’m always like “oh it was really tasty but I can’t eat much more!”
Hey, that’s me. More or less.
I have been living paycheck to paycheck for about two decades but things changed during the pandemic. I got a substantial raise, stopped smoking, and kept the same micro apartment in a high rise for years. I also live alone, refuse to pay for a car, and don’t have any children.
So I was able to put some money aside in the last years and now, I take extended vacations (I took 8 weeks this year), I travel, and treat myself with what I want.
My sister wonders how I can afford to take that much time off work to go to different countries and think that I just recently found interest in traveling but really, it’s just because I can afford it now.
0·2 months agoI go camping for an additional night. I already planned to bike and camp to the closest national park one last time before winter, this weekend, but I would gladly add one night to the trip and go right now instead of tomorrow.
How do people intent to power cars during the apocalypse? I guess electric cars can be charged with solar or wind but it’s not a small battery to charge. As for ICEs, stations are going to run out of gas after a few hours, and AFAIK, gas has a limited shelf life so making reserves for the long term would be a problem.
As someone that doesn’t get cars nor the “freedom” they supposedly confer, I also never got that part about an apocalyptic future. To me, a car is already a burden, and I can’t see why I would want one during the apocalypse.
3·3 months agoI face the same specific issue. I started with the French (Canada) layout years ago but now Windows sets the default to Multilingual/CSA because it has been made the official one by the government a number of years ago.
So now everyone that got used the “old” one has to fiddle with keyboard settings every time they use a new Windows session/computer.
And it’s not exactly a breeze to switch, as Windows often keeps the multilingual one and switches back to it when you use a different application. Gotta make sure to delete the multilingual and leave only one layout. It’s a real annoyance.
Why is it sad? No lawn to care about. No snow to remove in winter. No garbage day. No electricity bill. No roof or windows to change. No water heater to worry about.
I much prefer to rent than be stuck owning a condo where I have to deal with the other owners and plan maintenance. And I wouldn’t want an “affordable” house that is much too big, in a suburb or in the middle of nowhere, where a car would be a necessity, and another thing to own (or rather pay for).
As far as I am concerned, owning a home is a social construct. A goal imposed on us by capitalism. Our collective dream, should be to own a home in the middle of nowhere before we’re too old to have a family, with obviously, a car! But I never wanted to have a “death pledge”, nor a family, nor a house, nor a stupid condo. Renting is perfectly fine for a whole lot of people. It’s not something to be sad about. The only sad thing is that we don’t have enough cheap housing of any kind for everyone.
Around here we have “half furnished” apartments that include appliances.
I’ve always lived in a place where they are included with the rent. So I don’t have to move them up and down the stairs or the elevator every few years. Also, if they break, the landlord just change them.
To me, winning a refrigerator would be a burden. I’d have to store it and sell it. I’d prefer what it’s worth in money.
The one about the memorial built in advance for a damn disaster that they all saw coming but did nothing about, except for the memorial of the future victims.
This disaster will have been preventable. All of the warning signs are here now. Yet, no one will have fucking done anything about it.
Unfortunately this one depends a lot where you live.
I never owned a car but I live in Canada and public transit sucks. Our provincial government is actively cutting funds to cities’ public transit. And intercity routes are detained by VIA Rail or coach buses >!!<that sucks.
It’s easier for me to go to the airport and in another country than move in my own province.
VIA Rail trains are infrequent, always late, pricey and most employees are jaded. They also don’t take bikes. It’s a problem. Sometimes you can get stuck as a prisoner on the train, without food, water or toilets for multiple hours.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/via-rain-passengers-stuck-1.7311176
Another one was stuck for 12 hours last year.
Coaches are cramped and also have very limited intercity services. The city I need to go to frequently only has three coaches a day at inconvenient times. They are usually full and they charge $15 to bring a bike.
I’ve been car free for 20 years but I’ve come to hate taking the train or coaches here. I’m slowly realizing that my province really really wants me to get a car.
PeOpLe On BiKeS dOn’T StOp On rED LiGhTs! HueHehUhEHUhE!
Meanwhile people driving multi-tons vehicles are not coming to a complete halt at every stop sign and it’s completely fine. People in cars are important. They have places to go. Not like those idiots on bikes that may start ahead on a red light not to get hooked by a car turning right.
Look at all those damn people on bikes not stopping at stop signs:
I do that too but only because it’s much easier to help my relatives with Linux than those with Windows.
I even “convert” some people because Llinux is easier for them if I just manage it. I had a neighbor that was using Window on a very old computer, it was slow and choking under the weight of simple updates. Plus, she was always asking me why her computer kept rebooting by itself while it was obviously Windows update. So I installed Mint and all the problems went away.
Anyway I don’t want to have to deal with Microsoft accounts, licenses, office365, the general bloat, the ads, the new versions of Windows… I have enough at work, so if I am going to help on my free time, it has to be on the OS I find easier to deal with.