thisislife2

You are right, I was mistaken. Apparently permanent residency is a must now. The only way to bypass the employment based green card quota is to marry an American citizen.

Browsers have to kowtow too ...

> most Indians who immigrated to the US after 2010 will never become citizens in their lifetime because of the green card backlog.

While a green card makes it easier to get a US citizenship, it is not a requirement for it.

Yeah, learnt the hard way to have backups in multiple medias and that you have to refresh / re-copy your backups every 4-5 years. Wish we had consumer tape drives so that it could be once every 10 years or so.

Depends on the political perspective. Has the US bet all on AI tech to retain its power? Yes. AI tech currently is very energy intensive. So energy infrastructure too needs money to expand. The "colonisation" of Venezuela has already secured the US one relatively cheap and secure source of energy. The Ukraine-Russia war, and now the Iranian war, allows the US to price gauge Europe on the gas it sells them ( https://www.politico.eu/article/vladimir-putin-war-europe-uk... ). The Iran war is also enriching the oil companies. If Iran can be colonised, another source can be secured for the US too. Or so the thinking goes ... (there are of course other political factors that these kind of energy politics helps the US).

I am guessing, but many of us still use CDs / DVDs (/BluRays?) to make backups. It's cheap. Lasts long.

Now all it needs to do is fix its freshwater problems ...

> To further analyse the extent of AI’s handicap, I questioned both ChatGPT and Gemini about the “first Indian Prime Minister to visit Palestine”; it answered — Narendra Modi on February 10, 2018, when he visited Ramallah in the West Bank and held talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. However, a look into The Hindu’s archives shows that Jawaharlal Nehru was the first Indian Prime Minister to visit the Gaza Strip on May 19, 1960. In an article dated May 20, 1960, The Hindu recounts how Mr. Nehru made a one-day trip to the United Nations Emergency Force and Palestinian refugee camps ...

> ... A look into the results given by the AI tools shows that in spite of several newspaper reports of Mr. Nehru’s visit, AI challenged its veracity as Mr. Nehru’s visit was to Gaza — then occupied by the UAR. It chose to classify Mr. Modi’s visit to Ramallah as the first instance as it was governed by the Palestinian Authority. However, India had recognised both Palestine (comprising the Gaza Strip and the West Bank) and Israel in 1948 itself ... In spite of AI’s continued learning, archives of century-old newspapers like The Hindu present facts without the filter of an algorithm tailored around the user’s preferences, political ideology and search patterns. The above examples show AI’s lack of fact-checking, limited access to older news reports, and failure to remain unbiased.

This confirms what I once complained about here of - increasing censorship on western online platform is perhaps tied to preventing AI from "learning" more, to deliberately introduce bias. I've only observed it on the subjects of the Russia-Ukraine war, Israel's ongoing genocide and Palestine's continued occupation. But apparently other "taboo" political subjects are also seeing increased censorship - The erasure of Luigi Mangione - https://substack.evancarroll.com/p/the-erasure-of-luigi-mang...

You are absolutely right that the delivery services sell the convenience of saving time. The economics of it also suggests that only the rich can truly afford it regularly. That's where the price gauging comes in. In India, it is often cheaper to drive down and get the food yourself because of the business model of the delivery apps. They take a commission from the restaurant (from the billed items) and also charge the consumer a bunch of fees for the delivery (ranging from subscription, platform fees, convenience fees, surge fees, delivery fees etc. etc). This has resulted in restaurants having a two-tier pricing model with the listed price in the delivery apps being way costlier. Just last week I wanted to get some food for some guests, and the total price on the delivery app for it was Rs. 1050, where as the restaurant price was Rs. 770. So even though the delivery price was listed as Rs. 17 for me in the app (as I also pay a subscription fee), in reality I was being charged a total of Rs. 297 (the cost of a car Taxi fare, both ways!).

And that is why the US allies in the region are losing trust in American leadership ... when the American political leadership condones a genocide of Arabs, tries to legitimise the occupation of land by them in their neighbouring foreign territories, while also trying to coerce them to have ties with this favoured ally, something was bound to give. And it has already begun - not trusting the US to protect them from an Israeli aggresision in the future, Saudi Arabia has made an alliance with Pakistan to come under its nuclear umbrella (ironically, both the US and Israel are already facing a repercussion of this because Pakistan, not wanting to fight the Iranians and spoil their fragile relationship with them, has been pushed to favour Iran and to end the war). Not trusting the US to protect them from Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Egypt are considering forming a military alliance against Israel (and possibly Iran). The Israeli-right, with an eye on Syrian territory, made Turkey their enemy by trying to entice Kurds in Iraq and Syria to fight for them with the promise of supporting their demand for their own country (which is apparently to be carved out of Iraq, Syria and Turkey).

The future of Apple clearly is "subscriptions".

They should take their time ...

US tipping culture is insane:

1. If "tips" in the US are "compulsory" because customers should make up for the poor wage the delivery people get paid, why is there still a compulsion for tipping now as the wages have been increased (and presumably is "fair")?

2. And if the wages are "fair" now, why should a customer be forced to tip when they are making an order, rather than after they have received the order and can determine if the worker deserved a tip for satisfactory or exemplary service?

I absolutely understand the need to regulate corporates to ensure that they didn't steal the tips or lower their workers' salary based on it. My questions pertain to consumer rights. The government has rightly addressed the needs of the workers and preserved their right to a "fair" wage. But how is regulation that forces customers to tip at checkout itself (even before one has experienced the service) fair to the customers? (And ofcourse, by asking for a tip before checkout, you are forcing customers to give tip because apparently delivery people can see if someone has tipped or not before accepting an order, and most delivery people do not accept orders without tips or tend to de-prioritise it). Democracy is meant to balance everyone's right. Instead of forcing corporates to pay a fair wage, the government has (yet again) transferred part of the burden to customers (this time directly, instead of indirectly through taxes) and even thinks this is something to brags about:

> ... show tips nearly doubled after the city started enforcing the law and were “proof” that the apps were wrong about New Yorkers’ willingness to tip delivery drivers ... New Yorkers are consumers, but we are workers too. We want to support our neighbors who bring meals, groceries, and medicine to our doors.

Yeah, right - if someone is forced to tip because the system is designed around tips, that's not good grace driving the customers to tip. I am left to believe that this was a deliberate concession made to the corporates because it is in their interest that delivery people earn more (as long as they don't have to pay for it). So while the government maybe did do a good job in balancing the rights of the corporates and the workers, it has ignored the rights of consumers and deliberately sacrificed it.

I wasn't making a general statement on the American poor (poverty and debt can turn into a vicious cycle, sometimes one has no choice but to borrow and there are complex political factors at play too that is driving American poverty), and only on what we are discussing - Poor Americans who don't mind getting into debt to buy an iPhone (or some other luxury item) even when affordable alternatives are available. You can't really disagree with me that it is poor financial judgement to give into your wants over your actual practical needs, when you can't afford to do so.

When it comes to smartphones, there are only two practical options - ios and Android - and amongst both, only Android based smartphones are available really cheap (there are Android smartphones that retail for $100 too) - that is the only context in which Android was mentioned.

Another "non-profit" organisation, like Mozilla, that is swimming in 100's of millions of dollars, but doesn't put it to use effectively.

I have come to the realisation that it just makes more sense to buy repairable / upgradeable electronics / computers and cars, used. You save a lot of money that way, and the second-sales market has also become more organised so you don't really waste time too in the process.

Or, they can still pay the $400 and try to resell it for higher. And then buy a cheaper Android when they finally realise being in debt for making a fashion statement is stupid.

If everyone was as rational as you, Americans wouldn't be living in debt that most cannot afford. Most Indians have a healthy fear of debt, and that is why the iPhone doesn't have a larger share of the mobile phone market here as it really is unaffordable to most Indians (as it is for many in America). Americans however have accepted debt as a normal part of their lifestyle. When a rich man says poor people shouldn't be ordering food through Door Dash, it sounds very cynical but there is a basis of truth in it that some poor people really do not know how to manage their finances.

Is this true of the UK too?

God, imagine being trapped in a plane for 24 hours! And I just checked the current flight time between Melbourne, Australia and London, UK, and, even with 1 stop, it's still around 24 hours - https://www.google.com/travel/flights/search?tfs=CBwQAhoeEgo... . The break due to a stop (if you are allowed to step out ofcourse) can be a relief on such long flights.

What we need is more research on supersonic flights to cut down travel time ...

What stand people take, or what people do, depends on how educated they are on the specific issue. Creating awareness is the first step.

> overwhelming majority of users are going to install the app or use chrome

If they are already using Firefox, why would they use Chrome? And if Firefox suggests OS default browser (like Edge or Safari) to watch NetFlix, why do assume someone who wishes to use Firefox, wouldn't return to Firefox and continue using it for their other browsing needs? (If it really bothers you that Firefox is suggesting Edge or Safari, another implementation can be to open popup that uses the Edge or Safari Webview in it - most users won't even realise that they aren't using Firefox).

> That's literally what EME is, with better sandboxing.

Yeah. So leave it to the user to determine if they want to install a particular plugin if they want to watch some content (which is how it was before). Let Netflix or Prime or Apple or Disney etc. etc. offer their own DRM plugins, which should be tied to their domains (i.e. work only with that particular domain). That's a much better way than bundling a DRM (spyware), created by BigTech, in the browser.

I am somewhat confused - does this mean we can all now legally scrape Google search results?

By "understand", I was not alluding to their political leanings. What I was implying is that some rational comments can still lead to inflamed / emotional discussions (which is against our community guidelines) or lead to unnecessary flagging which increases a mods workload and thus I would understand if the mods delete my comment for these reasons.

> but of course they all know about Gaza.

Are you sure? What exactly do they believe is happening in Gaza? Remember that former President Biden himself claimed there is no genocide happening in Gaza. Trump has said anything about a genocide since he got elected. Western media has mostly preferred to whitewash the genocide. TikTok in America has now been taken over by an American BigTech to censor all contents on the genocide and pro-Palestinian causes. I wouldn't be at all surprised if many Americans still remain ignorant about the genocide or don't believe that what is happening in Gaza (and elsewhere) is a genocide.

Direct source - https://turntrout.com/why-i-left-google-deepmind

This may be controversial (and I will understand if the mods want to remove this comment) but this made me really wonder if westerners like him are actually aware of the ongoing genocide in Gaza (and now in West Bank and Lebanon) that is also supported by Google tech (amongst others)? I ask because if the death of 2 people in America bothered him so much, shouldn't the death of around 75,000+ Palestinians have stirred his conscience much earlier?

- How US Big Tech supports Israel’s AI-powered genocide and apartheid - https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/5/12/how-us-big-tech...

- Google's Role in Supporting Israel's Genocide in Gaza - https://matttutt.me/googles-role-in-supporting-israels-genoc...

See Flag State vs. Port State - https://www.mitags.org/flag-vs-port-state/

> but for these news outlets to spread government propaganda would constitute corruption.

You would think so, but that isn't the reality because journalistic "corruption" is judged on political ideology. Your whole notion of what is "corrupt values" is based on your political ideology. And one of the important roles of government news outlets is to propagate the political values that the country has adopted - that is why western media covers capitalism with a positive biases and disses on communism and socialism with negative biases (and vice-versa in say, Russia and Cuba). These political values are not examined neutrally by the media because the political powers have already termed one or other other as "corrupt".

Just look at the heavily biased (positive) coverage Israel receives in western medias. Western countries were imperialist powers and thus have no problem with Israeli zionism's settler-colonialists policies and the consequent repression of Palestinians. Where as the Global South, especially former colonies still remember what it was to be colonised by foreigners and thus are "biased" towards Palestinians. (Ireland is the exception in the west, with huge sympathy for the Palestinians, because it too remembers its oppression under the British).

I should have been clear it is from 2019 - just providing more history here. The US was already aware what Iran could militarily do in the Strait many years ago.

Yes, this is a no brainer. Whenever someone accesses NetFlix on a Firefox with no EME, just display a page which has a short description explaining why Firefox doesn't support EME ("EME is not included to protect your privacy as it allows websites to profile and identify you more easily") and provide a button to open Netflix either through a Netflix app or the pre-installed OS browser (Edge or Safari). Educate your users rather than treating everyone as dumb.

Or, reintroduce browser plugins (with permission based architecture).

See also: Tanker attacks in the Gulf — evidence or warmongering? - https://www.dw.com/en/tanker-attacks-in-the-gulf-evidence-or...