I disagree. I think it’s more helplessness than apathy.

I don’t approve of all the spying, but I don’t “own” any congress critters, so what can I do? I can’t even opt out of the spying by cancelling my Internet plan and smashing my phone – there’s still tracking through CCTV, face recognition, license plate scanners, etc. I’d have to move to some remote middle of nowhere and live as a subsistence farmer – and even on the way there, I’d be thoroughly tracked. There’s no escape, it’s like we’re all in a giant digital cage.

Hmm, and what about fish?

I used to be subbed to several local subreddits, including a [mylocation]-social.

The difference in tone between people I knew from the `social meetups vs. the people in the generic city/state subreddits was truly amazing.

My reaction upon leaving the theater was “Wow! They did Star Wars almost better than Star Wars!”

In the days that followed, the more I thought about the movie, the less I liked it in retrospect. I was hoping for a continuation of the saga, not “Star Wars: The Remake”.

I thought the show did very well until they ran out of material to adapt and started having to improvise. The showrunners had a great talent for putting things on the screen, but they couldn’t write their way out of a paper bag.

(disclaimer, I only watched the first few seasons, plus a couple of episodes in S8 when a friend was organizing watch parties)

Are you kidding? Star Wars had amazing special effects for its day. Yeah, they look clunky now. But you know what? The special effects in Wizard of Oz looked clunky in the 1970s.

As for good story telling…what? This is Star Wars we’re talking about, not Fine Art. It’s pretty much a reshooting of The Hidden Fortress … in space!

It’s a fun movie, but damn do people lionize it far beyond what it ever actually was.

Right? All I want for Christmas is a phone that fits in my hand. Apparently, that’s WAY too much to ask for.

Very possible. Or maybe “just” connecting to any open wifi networks that might be available…

OTOH, I take “non-tech-savvy” reports with a healthy grain of salt. “Never been connected” could simply mean “I didn’t plug it in to the Comcast box”. Or “I connected Netflix, I didn’t connect the TV”.

Yeah, that’s true. Part of why it’s a niche appeal.

In my case, I was having a hard time finding a reasonably sized phone. All the major manufacturers really jumped into the phablet trend (150mm x 70mm is where I start to feel like a phone is too big).

For now …

I wouldn’t put it past them to start trying to mesh network their way out of local network jail. Are your neighbors as diligent as you are about privacy and security?

They are definitely niche appeal, but take a look at Unihertz. They make some phones that diverge from the current trends with flagship phones.

Omg, that reminds me of a time when a retail employee insisted that installing Linux on a particular machine would rock crashing the hard drive. This was, oh, maybe 2006 or so.

I did not buy a new computer that day.

Bad phrasing. I read your previous comment as demanding an explanation from me for why the author wrote an article about simple design rather than about user testing.

Honestly, I don’t think the article would have been well-served by detouring into user testing. It’s long enough as it is, and again – NN group has written a LOT on the topic.

I’m not really sure why you brought it up in the first place. It seems like ‘beating a dead horse’ territory.

Why are you asking me? I didn’t write the article.

It’s not the point of this article. NN group talks a lot about user testing in other articles, IIRC.

Whoosh!

Looks like Wright-Patterson in Dayton. Amazing place.

I see some of that in my job. We put encrypted data in settings files, and the keys for decryption are provided on the VMs where we deploy. The developers never actually see the keys.

I suppose it’s as secure as the process for managing the production VMs, assuming the encryption isn’t just md5!

Ah, that all makes sense. I live in the US, so I’m looking at it from that lens.

don’t think the government should have power over dissenters assets

Agreed, but this is a thorny problem. Clearly the government has a legitimate cause to freeze some assets in some cases (obvious example: US govt freezing Osama bin Laden’s accounts). This becomes an abuse-of-power question, then. Unfortunately, we as humanity don’t have a good answer to it.

third world Russia

Technically, Russia would be second world :)

I do think cryptocurrencies fall short of the promise/hype with the exchange problem – either there’s a big bank-like clearinghouse that the government can target with freeze orders, or you’re in “You have to know a guy who knows a guy” territory when it comes time to actually use the cryptocurrency. I can’t pay my mortgage by transferring Bitcoin or Ethereum to my bank.

government straight up saying that you don’t own any of your money anymore

What are you referencing here?

I feel like I should be recognizing some specific thing here, but I can’t figure it out.