BRFR Cake Stop 'breaking news' miscellany

[PurplePenguin]

I think the crunch will come when the stark choice is offered. Currently Chrome with adblockers works fine on FB, but other websites (usually journals and newspapers) say "accept all ads or trackers, or subscribe", so I'd expect FB to go down that route when they change the terms.

You can read the Daily Mail, the Sun or mumsnet on Brave without any such option. I'm not sure that you would want to, but then I'm not sure why anyone would want to read Facebook.

 

[Pblakeney]

You can read the Daily Mail, the Sun or mumsnet on Brave without any such option. I'm not sure that you would want to, but then I'm not sure why anyone would want to read Facebook.

In my case FB is used purely for sharing photos worldwide with friends and family.

 

[secretsqirrel]

I thought the likeness was more MAGA-ish.

No they are descendants of Mr & Mrs Figleaf surely?

 

[briantrumpet]

No they are descendants of Mr & Mrs Figleaf surely?

No, they were only 4000-odd years ago, I think.

 

[icowden]

You can read the Daily Mail, the Sun or mumsnet on Brave without any such option. I'm not sure that you would want to, but then I'm not sure why anyone would want to read Facebook.

Or the Daily Mail or the Sun for that matter...

 

[briantrumpet]

An interesting read on Greece's successful tax collection reboot - but 'intrusive' doesn't get near describing how closely they monitor transactions.

https://apnews.com/article/greece-tax-ai-technology-b0c6c32dae42964142d8ef9aa7f0e9c6

During a recent nightclub sweep dubbed “Saturday Night Fever,” they matched individual table orders against receipts to uncover undeclared sales, mostly of alcoholic drinks.

“We knew the tables were full, but the receipts didn’t match,” one official said, adding that after inspectors showed up, the nightclub’s reported revenues doubled within days.

Fraud can be detected by cross-referencing mobile phone activity with reported sales as recorded by cash registers and card-payment terminals that by law must be connected to the tax authority.

“If we detect signals from 20 phones inside a store, but see almost no receipts, that’s a cue to dispatch a team immediately,” another inspector explained.

 

[Pross]

Facebook is frustrating ... I long ago realised how sh1te it is, but there are so many organisations that use it as sole news feed that I almost "need" it!

(example: local cyclocross league - yes, really! - puts almost all information, league results etc on there, as well as all the chat being there. aaaaargh!)

And when they move (because everyone hates facebook) it's usually some terrible idea like Instagram or Whatsapp
aaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!

Yeah would have ditched mine years ago. I cleared all my ‘friends’ during Covid and was on the verge of closing the account but as you say it is the main source of news for clubs / groups I’m in and the rugby team I follow. I find Instagram good for getting ideas for my photography and to bore others with my own feeble efforts but both IG and FB are becoming virtually unusable.

The process seems to be:

1. Develop a reasonably well designed and useful product that attracts billions of users.
2. Gradually break the product, force people to see loads of rubbish they don’t want
3. Offer a paid for service to get rid of the unwanted content.
4. Gradually break that one and offer a ‘premium’ paid service for more money.

It’s the same with streaming services. All those people who initially signed up and were smug about watching TV / listening to music ad free now find themselves stuck with ads you can’t skip and gradually seeing a premium option that allows you to pay more for ad free. TNT / Discovery is a great example, up the subscription by more than 100% and then take away the ad free option during the biggest races.

 

[Psamathe]

Facebook is frustrating ... I long ago realised how sh1te it is, but there are so many organisations that use it as sole news feed that I almost "need" it!

(I've never used it, no account but) Has the "export" or "migrate" options happened yet. Some time back used to be many organisations started on Facebook but then decided they'd be better with their own website (maybe more sections, or split areas up better or whatever). And then those companies/organisations would be complaining like mad that there was no way to export their Facebook stuff out. Ie a closed system.

Although I use Apple I'll often avoid some of their apps as they are "black hole" eg Apple Podcasts provide no way to export your podcast subscriptions to the "standard" .opml file (like pretty well every other podcast app allows). So once you've built-up a history/volume of data moving elsewhere becomes a nightmare - so most don't move.

To me it's a sign that they lack confidence their system is good enough to retain users (which is a sign it probably isn't).

 

[Evil_Breakfast]

An interesting read on Greece's successful tax collection reboot - but 'intrusive' doesn't get near describing how closely they monitor transactions.

https://apnews.com/article/greece-tax-ai-technology-b0c6c32dae42964142d8ef9aa7f0e9c6

I recall watching something (quite possibly QI) about the Greece taxation policy on Swimming pools; and that Home-owners would attempt to evade/avoid paying the tax by camouflaging the pools by draping 'printed' sheets/nets over the pool.

 

[briantrumpet]

I recall watching something (quite possibly QI) about the Greece taxation policy on Swimming pools; and that Home-owners would attempt to evade/avoid paying the tax by camouflaging the pools by draping 'printed' sheets/nets over the pool.

Shades of the English 'window tax'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window_tax

 

[Evil_Breakfast]

Shades of the English 'window tax'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Window_tax

Was the pun deliberate B?

 

[briantrumpet]

Was the pun deliberate B?

 

[briantrumpet]

Sartre obviously hadn't foreseen the troll who won't fall silent, but will just shift the focus onto something else. Sorry I can't find the original text to verify the translation, but it must come from this essay:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Semite_and_Jew

I suspect that many of Sartre's thoughts are equally apposite today in regards Trumpism.

The antisemite is a prime example of a person who has entered into bad faith to avoid responsibility. He attempts to relinquish his responsibility to antisemitism and a community of antisemites. He "fears every kind of solitariness… however small his stature, he takes every precaution to make it smaller, lest he stand out from the herd and find himself face to face with himself. He has made himself an anti-Semite because that is something one cannot be alone."[12]: 22  Antisemitism is a way of feeling good, proud even, rather than guilty at the abandonment of responsibility and the flight before the impossibility of true sincerity. The antisemite abandons himself to the crowd and his bad faith, he "flees responsibility as he flees his own consciousness, and choosing for his personality the permanence of the rock, he chooses for his morality the scale of petrified values."[12]: 27  He pulls down shutters, blinds, mirrors and mirages over his consciousness to keep himself in his bad faith away from his responsibilities and his liberty. The antisemite is afraid "of himself, of his own consciousness, of his own liberty, of his instincts, of his responsibilities, of solitariness, of change, of society, and the world – of everything except the Jews." He is "a coward who does not want to admit his cowardice to himself."[12]: 53  The antisemite wallows in the depths of an extreme bad faith. "Anti-Semitism, in short, is fear of the human condition. The anti-Semite is a man who wishes to be pitiless stone, a furious torrent, a devastating thunderbolt – anything except a man."[12]: 54  This is his bad faith.

 

[briantrumpet]

Sartre obviously hadn't foreseen the troll who won't fall silent, but will just shift the focus onto something else. Sorry I can't find the original text to verify the translation, but it must come from this essay:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Semite_and_Jew

I suspect that many of Sartre's thoughts are equally apposite today in regards Trumpism.



View attachment 10239

Now I'm intrigued, I've ordered the book. I'm not sure if it's ironic or not that the cheapest option was to get it from Germany.

 

[briantrumpet]

Graphs R Us. Sorry that a couple of them have zero axes.

Milei's economic miracle. See what chainsaws can do.