Yep. I have access to everything else, just can’t view Youtube while signed in.

I disabled my adblock for YT, but I still use privacy badger and occasionally a VPN.

Good to know. Even if it does get unsuspended, I’m taking it as a wake up call. If that was my gmail account I would’ve been in a bad situation. I use it for almost everything.

Better late than never lol. They really are a shitty company. Bots run the show over there. I just never thought it would be this bad until it was…

The other shenanigans was that the secretary of state allowed other petitioners with the same issues to proceed on the ballot, namely marijuana and gambling referendums. The organizers should have been on their best behavior because the state was always going to selectively enforce the rules here.

The schools doing okay financially aren’t the ones cutting these programs for cost-saving reasons. In bigger state universities eliminating programs, the cuts are largely political. School admins are worried that state legislators will target school budgets in the near future if cuts aren’t made to “useless” subjects in the humanities and social science.

In regional state universities and private liberal arts schools, however, the situation really is dire. They’re cutting to survive. The US has started to experience a decline in college enrollment. Universities have known it would happen since the late 2000s, but not in the way it has.

Big universities are growing or maintaining class sizes, which is putting tremendous pressure on the regional and liberal arts schools as the available students evaporate. It’s pushed the timeline for change up at many universities and it’s only going to get worse.

Do I feel sorry for university admins? No, they should’ve taken action sooner, with real wind-down plans for students. But we’re going to continue to see cuts to small programs for decades to come; it’s unavoidable.

Thank you! That cleared it up!

I see some providers support DANE. Is that different than either DMARC or DKIM? I looked it up, but the description was very technical and didn’t clear up the differences for me.

I did the same thing. The first privacy-oriented service I heard about was Proton. And, to be fair, they’re quite good. But the email search issues and struggles I had with their bridge eventually turned me off.

I left for mailbox(.)org and haven’t looked back. It’s great Proton has so many cool services, but the last thing I want is to get dependent on one company again, not after how hard it was to get away from Google.

I kinda don’t want to dip my toes in this, but here goes:

I agree that it’s occasionally a breath of fresh air. The issue I’ve always had with Hexbear is they’ve more or less replaced one version of American (and to a lesser extent European) exceptionalism with another. Where American nationalists consider America to be exceptionally great, Hexbear considers it to be exceptionally evil. They routinely attribute domestic incidents in different countries to American meddling–regardless of evidence–even when those events either achieve nothing for American geostrategic goals or actively harm them. America as the “great Satan,” etc.

Just an example because I remember it: Imran Khan lost an internal power struggle in Pakistan. He was probably the most west-friendly candidate left there, but Hexbear blamed a CIA coup https://hexbear.net/post/186331

In the same vein, they permit or even encourage Chinese aggression against the Philippines, within the Philippines’ own exclusive economic zone. You can’t substitute one form of imperialism for another. It’s a trap I see a lot of leftists fall into.

I think most of 'em are alright. Just growing into leftist thought still and grappling with the moshpit that is international politics. Also they’re funny lol

Thank you so much for this information. Your passion is contagious. I’m going to dive into all of these sources in the morning!

Have a wonderful day/evening/night!

So, as someone who has used the Internet since its very earliest days, what would you say about what the Internet is like today versus back then? Was it better? Worse? Any major online events that you can recall from that period?

I grew up at the very tail end of the old forums and certainly after the decline and death of old school chat rooms. Most of them died or went inactive while I was in high school/college. The version of the internet older adults used is almost alien to me.

Hell, today’s Internet is on its way to being alien too.

As someone who peer reviewed papers, and got familiar with the process, most reviewers do not take the time to seriously examine papers. I would compare my comments to other reviewers for the same paper, and holy shit they barely read it. I would spot pretty blatant omissions–bad methodology, incomplete sections that make a paper impossible to reproduce, poor quality figures, need for major revisions. The other reviewers would offer minor suggestions and leave it at that. And the chief editor will push it out the door with minor revisions that don’t address any issues.

I have seen some truly blatant shit get published. Like figures that have made up data, or that we’re straight up copied from the authors’ previous publication and presented as new. The for-profit publishing industry doesn’t give a fuck. Those issues might get caught 10 years down the road, like in that case, but it’s usually a slap on the wrist for tenured faculty unless it gets lots of attention.

Prof in my department when I was a grad student blatantly copied work from another researcher, and the only sanctions he got were a moratorium on taking new grad students.

By virtue of having a disproportionately beneficial EU membership agreement, they actually caused friction with later EU members that received the standard agreements later on.

It’s hard to overstate how catastrophic the UK fucked up by leaving the EU. They joined on the bottom floor, had the leverage to negotiate a deal that gave them more benefits, let them keep their currency instead of promising to one day adopt the Euro, and had access to all the immigration controls they needed to deal with the ‘problem’ Tories perceived.

It’s incredible, really. Part of me still can’t believe they tossed all of that away. It’s got to be one of the biggest peacetime geopolitical fuckups ever.

This one is odd, I guess? So they had the autopsy stating the cause of death was homicide and a bunch of video evidence in September, and per the article, didn’t believe there was enough to charge these guys?

I wonder what changed.

Yeah, I’m basically where you are now with my mindset.

This CU helped me out during the pandemic, when I was on the struggle bus, but their rates are virtually unchanged since then. It’s pretty much just that and inertia that’s kept me with them so far.

Time to finally move on to somewhere that actually tries to keep up with the market.

Yeah, I am probably overthinking it. I’ll check around and open a trial account or 2 to see how good the places I’m thinking about moving to are.

And also, if I left, I definitely wouldn’t be eligible to rejoin. Moving and changing jobs has ended that.

The term “shakedown” has been used to describe frivolous lawsuits seeking to strong-arm settlements from defendants for decades. Language is descriptive, not prescriptive.

They literally explained why it was a shakedown. I don’t know what else needs to be said.

The parents of the victims are suing organizations that have no chance of being held liable in the hopes that they get some form of payout. That’s what a shakedown is.

It’s tragic and I get their anger, but this isn’t going to succeed. Any legal team worth its retainer fee will successfully defend this.

Freelancer had to be pried from his control because he couldn’t meet even the least ambitious deadlines. Chris Roberts hasn’t managed a successful project from start to finish in over 20 years.