260 karma · joined July 9, 2019
Especially when the scuttlebutt is that they're not going to be doing anything more risque than PG-13. It's true that not every good TV show needs constant swearing and gore and T&A to be good, but artists need the freedom to push envelopes. Apple TV+ is likely going to be as bland and generic as a friday night broadcast TV lineup.
Of course, there's still the flaw of backups to Google Drive being unencrypted. But fortunately that's not the default setting.
If I were of a suspicious mind, I'd wonder if Rogers is pulling some backend shenanigans to discourage cord-cutting.
If there's one thing that Apple hates more than lost profits, it's handing over control of anything to carriers. Cheap-subscription iMessage/Facetime for Android would strangle RCS/Duo in the cradle and put a thumb in the eye of the carriers, while bringing in some steady and significant regular revenue. Let's not forget that Apple is already offering a subscription service on Android, Apple Music. They're not averse to the concept.
Actually I use Fastmail, and am a big fan. I've never had an issue reaching support. Of course I've rarely had to, the service is pretty reliable.
As for features, I could flip that around on Gmail. Does Google rigidly adhere to imap/carddav/caldav standards so that standards-compliant clients have no problems whatsoever in connecting, or are there still cheerful little "quirks" when trying to use non-official clients with Gmail?
The only Google services I bother with are search, maps, youtube (in a non-logged-in viewing-only capacity, not a posting-my-own-videos capacity) and the android play store (paying for apps via gift cards). I don't trust google not to cancel new services on a metaphorical moment's notice, and I don't have any faith in reaching a human being if I have a billing problem. So I make sure not to tie my life in any way to my Google account.
It feels strange to say, as an old school Linux fanboy who vividly remembers the Halloween document release, but I tend to point "I want to move my business to the cloud" friends/acquaintances to Office 365 instead. Say what one will about Microsoft's scummy behaviour over the years, but no-one can claim they aren't into Office 365 for the long haul. And while it's not exactly easy to get a human being at Microsoft to fix a problem, it's certainly easier than Google.
The jokes practically write themselves.
I was referring to its use in the context of an election, which is often limited to the citizenry (in any democracy).
Also, where I live, public figures who use the word "citizen" to refer to ordinary people often don't use it in the literal sense of the word when discussing public-interest matters. They're often using it to emphasize the responsibilities and rights that all people have in relation to the broader society. In other words, where I live it's not often used in an exclusionary xenophobic way, but instead in an inclusive common-purpose way that emphasizes our shared humanity. The xenophobes here tend to prefer "taxpayer".
I often base my vote, when all the candidates in a given election have similar policies, on how they refer to people.
Use of "Consumers" loses my vote instantly. "Taxpayers" is a yellow flag - if used in specific situations that involves concern over major public funds going to private businesses (like building a stadium for a pro sports team) I'll let it slide but otherwise it only raises suspicion in me. But if a politician consistently uses "citizen", I'll give them a little mental gold star.
I think I may make the effort to learn how to make a Firefox extension to automate this. Scrape "about us", "contact", etc. page in background for first email address, then autofill it into the email spam form. Boom, done.
Take a closer look at the key phrase in my post: "makes no effort". If a web developer who's trying to pay the rent makes even a single comment to the marketing drones about how email signup forms might not be a good idea, and asks if they're sure they want to do it, then that web developer has my sympathy and not my hatred. But if they just cheerfully say "Yes sir!" when the marketing drones make that demand, then I hate them just as much as I hate the marketing drones, because at that point they are marketing drones.
Dear every web developer in the world who makes no effort to fight your employers' marketing department on this: I hate you.
Sounds rather like the Space Transportation System. During design, it went from a compact inexpensive passenger shuttle with modest payload capability, to a complete pig of a ship. And all because the Air Force contributed cash on the condition that it be capable of classified high-payload-pass missions to polar orbits.
It is nothing short of a tragedy that fully-reusable compact shuttles with flyback boosters (like the Rockwell P333) lost out to the disposable-booster design that was eventually built.
What.
"Good news, General. We've found a way to lower maintenance costs in the cockpit systems by 10% if we removed this thing here on the blueprints, so we've already gone ahead with that change."
"But that's the emergency ejection system!"
"Yes, and our data indicates that it's almost never used. It doesn't really make sense to devote manpower to keeping a system running that few people ever need. If we get rid of it, we can free up developer-hours to making the canopy opening/closing action a little smoother. Everyone uses the canopy."