Oh huh, really? I thought Europe used calories.

I cannot contain my shock at this news.

Ah it was Kurzgesagt? Yeah that…really checks out. That dude is sketchy af.

I’ve just gone down a rabbit hole of old Reddit threads. This comment by Brian of Real Engineering is the source for that claim. At the very least, it shows they weren’t interested in putting in effort to grow the platform into the fantastic place it has become since their departure. At worst, Brian’s speculation as to their motives paints them in a very unflattering light.

But it seems it was my mistaken recollection that it was specifically about discussions relating to the “creator-owned” business structure.

You can read further down in that thread for a comment of my own summarising why exactly I described Kurzgesagt as “sketchy af” above. Or for more detail, here’s another thread on the subject where I go back and forth with someone staunchly intent on defending Kurzgesagt despite the overwhelming evidence against him.

I’m pretty sure this is the thread that got me silently banned from all CGP Grey–related subreddits, too. Not a proper ban, but all my comments are silently auto-removed, presumably by Grey’s bot account that mods all his subreddits. I went months cheerfully commenting in Hello Internet (RIP) threads and getting no engagement before I realised I had been banned. Back then I was actually a huge fan of Grey’s in spite of my growing frustrations with some of his content, so that really stung.

Oh and just for fun, here’s another thread I came across with some other people detailing some of the grift-like penny-pinching behaviour from Grey, wherein he treats his audience not as a community but as a resource to be extracted…until it’s no longer useful: https://old.reddit.com/r/JetLagTheGame/comments/1iom4n4/whats_bens_beef_with_cgp_grey/

Without clicking I already know what both of those videos will be.

CGP Grey is a liberal hack. He’s very skilled at explaining things in an entertaining and easy-to-understand way, but he’s really bad at making it clear when what he’s “explaining” is his (or someone else’s) opinion and not an actual fact. And when it is his opinion, far too often it’s a bad one, tainted by some of the laziest liberal status quo bs.

This is one such example, and Shaun’s response is justifiably scathing.

I also found it particularly telling when he did his “guns, germs, and steel” explainer (a book that is widely criticised by historians for its vastly oversimplified explanations), and he responded to criticism by laughing it off, and saying there was no problem. But when he later did a video and made a minor mistake by using the name of a submarine-based missile for what was actually a ground-based missile (or something along those lines), he made a huge deal about how important his integrity is and how he could not possibly live with himself if he allowed that misinformation to go uncorrected.

Suffice it to say, I was not particularly surprised when I later learnt the reason Grey pulled out of Nebula was that he (and Veritasium, IIRC?) wanted a business model/corporate structure which would allow him and other early members to profit off of the work of later-added members. An opinion that put him at odds with the other early founders like Wendover and Real Engineering, who preferred the more equitable model.

Apart from the notification that there’s a new version with AI, I can’t say that I’ve noticed AI in Firefox at all. And I haven’t even bothered (as far as I remember) going anywhere to try and turn it off.

That certainly doesn’t feel remotely comparable to Chrome and Chredge.

Their blog post about it seems pretty clear, and it sounds good to me.

• First: Every product we build must give people agency in how it works. Privacy, data use, and AI must be clear and understandable. Controls must be simple. AI should always be a choice — something people can easily turn off. People should know why a feature works the way it does and what value they get from it.
• Second: our business model must align with trust. We will grow through transparent monetization that people recognize and value.
• Third: Firefox will grow from a browser into a broader ecosystem of trusted software. Firefox will remain our anchor. It will evolve into a modern AI browser and support a portfolio of new and trusted software additions.

And considering they’re a non-profit, I don’t see any particular reason to doubt their honesty.

Also by pure coincidence, Matt Colville released a video explicitly paying homage to Technology Connections the same day, too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbfBhwkEQ_M

fwiw there’s a comment by @Mycatiskai@lemmy.ca as a top-level reply to the post that I think was intended as a reply to you.

kWh are a metric unit (even if they’re not SI), and are extremely common in discussions of household electricity. I wish it weren’t the case, the same way I wish countries other than Australia used kilojoules for measuring energy in food instead of (kilo)Calories. But they don’t.

Oh, that was for real? I saw your comment, but since psychOdelic didn’t acknowledge it in any way I assumed it was a joke.

Well, congrats on the transition then! I hope it goes well! 🥰

That did occur to me, but the phrasing of “future girlfriend” seemed a little off for that in the context of someone accepting and understanding. It would have the same vibes as when I hear boomers who are trying to be accepting but are just a little outdated when they say things like “back when [person] used to be a boy”. Which it is my understanding is not generally the preferred way of speaking about it.

But I’m neither trans no currently close friends with anyone who is, so I’d love to be corrected if I’m wrong.

So yeah, I was thinking mainly the AI thing, which doesn’t seem super healthy.

Naming your future girlfriend? What does that mean?

Brunhilde.

I like it cos it lets you browse more sneakily at work.

I recently heard a great interview with the President of Mozilla where he basically says exactly this. It’s all about options. Yes, Firefox now incorporates AI, but it makes it super easy to turn it off if you want. Which is a major contrast from Microsoft and Google which shove it down your throat.

Link to interview with timecode.

That’s the nuance you need. Give people the option to do what they want. Make it easy either way.

Why would you need it to tell you when it’s full? If it mirrored the screen of the main pump it would at least let you see how much you’ve pumped/how much it’ll cost, without needing to turn around, which is a tiny benefit but not zero. But I can’t see any benefit in it just telling you “your tank is full now”, as though the fact that it stops pumping doesn’t do that for you more effectively.

Not exactly the same thing, but I used to have a terminal-based Reddit client, back before the API change put a kabush to that. Anyone know if there’s a simple text-based Lemmy or Piefed terminal client?

3 month? Wtf?

It’s really an astrophysics joke disguised as a computer science joke. Hawking radiation is the term for radiation that escapes a black hole. /dev/null is kinda analogous to—at least the pop culture conception of—a black hole.

Oh good tip!

Wtf is this crap? Just because I’m taking the approach of siding with reality I must be a bit or corporate stooge?

Google and Amazon do enough real things wrong without needing to make up bullshit conspiracy theories. Like Amazon’s abusive labour practices, and…everything about the Audible & Kindle platforms. And Google’s support of the American military industrial complex and shoving AI down everyone’s throats while making their products actively worse.

Just because something is bad, doesn’t mean every single accusation against it is accurate.

That’s a pretty righteous set up OP.

Lol not me. I’m not the author. Just saw the article and thought it was an interesting conversation starter.