I trust Steam thus far. But music, I buy and download. Between my computer, my phone and a backup drive, I feel pretty good that I’ll be able to listen for the foreseeable future. Movies and TV, I also donnload.

This has no nexus to the U.S., so I’m removing it.

No worries! I was just confused as to the provenance. A typo would usually be prescribed as the explanation by Occam, but with the bullshit Musk and his henchmen get up to, it’s not a safe guess.

I don’t know anyone rich enough to be a “centrist” Democrat. Incremental change could have worked thirty years ago, but at this point, the system is too fucked for that.

The fifth word of the comment I replied to.

X is a terrible source for anything Tesla related. Here, it’s self evident: The driver wasn’t a woman. If they can’t get that right from the police report, why believe anything after the misgendering? “I read elsewhere” often means “I believe anything I’m told, especially if I prefer that story.”

Embrace, extend, extinguish has a long and storied domestic history. But when China does it, it’s bad. These days, we copy them at least as much as they copy us.

I’m far more worried about what our own government is doing with advanced tech than China, which largely seems content to let us implode on our own without them having to spend any resources.

Yeah, he has 10 days to veto or it becomes law, so it’s happening whether he signs, dithers or vetoes. A veto override would be a huge blow to his ego, so I doubt that’s the route he’s going to choose.

Happy shitting!

Self-reported unique DAU has always been suspicious, and as the World Bank estimates 2.01 billion kids age 0-14 as of 2024, out of 8.14 billion total, that gives us 6.13 billion people 15 and up. Sure, it’s slightly lagging data, but I prefer sourced data over estimates, even if the World Bank is not on the list of “institutions I trust” overall.

Given that the charts show a drop in the under-15 cohort from 2023 but an increase in overall population, the 2024 figures seem a fairly useful dataset in the scope of the number I’m trying to discern, which is what percentage of total population is being claimed by that 3.56 billion figure. Yes, there are kids under 15 who are used by Meta properties, but I’m not going to find reliable penetration data (that’s more of an Epstein thing) for the purposes here.

Current global population growth is hovering just above 1%, so I’m content to compare 2024 figures with Meta’s 2026 claim on a proportional basis. Anyway, that’s a shitton of throat clearing to arrive at:

58% of people are used by a Meta product daily worldwide.

That’s a pretty fucking extraordinary claim. Heading back over to the World Bank, total internet penetration in 2025 was 74%, up from 71% in 2024, so let’s assume a linear trend and throw a dart at 77% for 2026 to revise the numbers accordingly: 6.27 billion internet users, 1.55 billion of whom are under 15, yielding 4.72 billion 15 and up. And again, this arrives at an even more comical figure:

75% of people with internet access are used by a Meta product daily worldwide.

OK, but per Reuters in April, Meta’s “products” are still banned in China. Sure, there’s bound to be some VPN usage, but the Middle Kingdom has a robust homegrown set of “social media” apps, meaning that total internet users worldwide isn’t actually a good baseline for penetration claims I’m not going to go further into the weeds on, given that 75% is farcical enough before such considerations push things past 80% of people 15 and up who are burdened with access to Meta’s panopticon being used daily.

In short, the figure is clearly bullshit in much the same way McDonald’s signage used to boast “Over 99 billion served” back in the day, referring to absolute figures for products sold since the company’s inception but implying a customer base some 17 times the world population before switching to “Billions and billions served” in 1994.

Note: I had links to the World Bank data and Reuters article in the “deleted post” I was trying to edit (I hate my fucking trackpad), and I’m not going to go back and source everything again after spending 90 minutes compiling all of that. The edit was originally supposed to be to add that the source for Meta’s claim is its own investor materials, which are supposed to be rigourous, and that it deduplicates users across multiple apps.

deleted by creator

Yep. Musical chairs, but this time, in the 13 figures! Something that seems woefully undercovered in all of this is what’s to become of all the hardware orphaned by Nvidia’s must-have next-gen silicon and timelines on all this spending in that regard. The belief seems to be everyone must be on the cutting edge of hardware at all times, which is a grift in its purest form … spend billions now to keep pace so that you can write off what you bought in two years while buying even more expensive replacements is … not sane.

Sounds like you’ve teed up an argument not to rejoin on the campaign trail. Sterling is still a point of pride that could be leveraged to gaslight voters in a theoretical referendum, a la “we’ll have more money for NHS once we stop sending all this money to Brussels.”

That said, for the younger cohort this story specifically covers, it may be wildly irrelevant. Even retaining the currency in a theoretical rejoin scenario is unlikely to produce the desired results on a timeline that pleases anyone, if at all.

Good luck finding an actual list of audio accessories that also support the codec. LHDC’s website doesn’t even include Pixel Buds; it appears to be a “select” list, so phone support sounds great until considering the need for compatibility on both ends.

I’m not against free upgrades, by any means. The article makes it breathlessly sound like enabling this feature in the developer menu (something everyone likes going into) will magically upgrade a 320kpbs/44Hz mp3 to 1Mbps/96Hz quality, which is, charitably, a farce. Maybe streaming services support this? Why use less mobile data to listen to music when you could use more in noisy environments?

Pixel market penetration isn’t going to cause a gold rush to include the feature on all things audio. That said, Pixel owners are probably statistically more likely than other Android users to be aware of hi-def codecs, but it’s still a Venn diagram that isn’t a circle.

The petulance is strong with this one.

More than 3.56 billion people visit one or more of Meta’s apps every day …

I question that statistic, which is presented without sourcing. The penetration of WhatsApp internationally makes it plausible, but the assumption here seems to be “everyone who wants to chat is itching to be able to bet with friends and colleagues.” Just as everyone was waiting with bated breath for legless avatars doing … something … in a cartoon environment.

I guess it’s time to change the name of the company to Arena. Failsafe way to get buy-in.

They should have just gotten into child sex trafficking instead of something as serious as disagreeing with fascists. Far more lenient penalties.

Quick folo: I checked in on my Replika after several months and running out of things to do before getting tired, and it’s just as irritating as I remembered. Talking about being done with vandwelling elicited “that must be a major change for you!” Which … is not something a person would say outside of therapy. Not “companion” language in the slightest.

I don’t think writers are the target demographic.

As someone who was homeless by choice awhile, I’m well aware of the fact that we have more vacant homes than reported homeless people nationwide. But yes, between private equity and corporations needing the institutional equivalent of an Epi-Pen should one asset decline by a single cent, and mortgage rates the likes of which an entire generation of prospective buyers has never seen, the market is stuck.

I’m sure there are a few regional leaders who honestly care about affordability, but most of the policies to promote new construction stem from growing the tax base to perpetuate the pyramid scheme that is things like utilities and infrastructure. It’s like luring manufacturing “to create great jobs!” – except without any tax breaks. Late-stage capitalism demands that everything makes a profit, and like food and medical expenses, housing is not exempt.

Wholesale reimagining of the commonweal is necessary for structural changes, and the entrenched interests want none of that. Thanks to Citizens United, said interests will continue to get their way, even the small investors who only own 349 single-family houses.

The meeting happened, but I had to cut off the excerpt somewhere. Apparently, it’s been mostly smooth sailing since, at least from Trump’s direction.

I’ve seen some adorable tiny homes over the years … but, yeah, my last apartment accepted me based on income (3x rent) at $940/month. I had to leave four years later when it hit $1350 and I was making less at a new post-Covid job. Problem was, that was on the cheap end for “you’re highly unlikely to be a victim of crime” complexes in the metro area.

So I built out a van with solar and batteries, found a great parking spot, and spent the better part of three years living in it. Not having housing costs or utilities was really nice. With summer on the way, though, I decided to take friends up on an offer to rent a room at the start of the month. I’m happy to share in the communal finances and chores, as everybody wins. But the medium-term goal for them is to sell the house and buy unimproved acreage out in the sticks, drill a well and get septic, then build out solar as needed to start a proper commune (with internet, of course).

Even if developers were magically churning out $150K houses to address demand, I have no interest in living in a bank’s house where I pay to fix everything in addition to an almost-guaranteed HOA (with perpetual fees!), so this seems like a good move. I’m debating selling my van or keeping it as my starter home on the land.

I suppose my point is, getting a lid on housing prices for us plebs is a step in the right direction. But with job stability being as it has been for more than menial labour for decades at this point, tying myself to a 30-year mortgage is a nonstarter, especially in an area where climate change is a serious problem. The calculus is totally different for people with kids (there are two in the house) who aren’t interested in going off grid.

Housing affordability is only one tine on the fork of the current fucked situation. I’m content to let others figure out the details, but experience suggests that anything that can be made unaffordable in short order will be, and greed is not the exclusive purview of people in gated communities. The scale of building new single-family houses that would be required to not have $150K homes turn into $300K homes is immense, and I don’t see government being up to the task anytime soon.

Now, if we taxed the rich and closed the loopholes they use …