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  • When I read books, picturing everything in my head is a part of the enjoyment. Often, books describe senses and feelings that would be more difficult to portray in images or video. Some examples:

    Right now, I am reading Ancillary Justice (by Ann Leckie), and the main character (who is the narrator) has difficulty with recognizing gender, so, unless explicitly stated, it is up to me to decide how characters look. Also, main character controls multiple bodies at once, and some paragraphs are full of parallel events and thoughts.

    Annihilation (by Jeff Vandermeer) has a movie adaptation, but it's different from the book. The book goes deeper into the main characters own thoughts, concerns and regrets. It also describes smells and physical senses quite often, and the creature the main character encounters evokes emotions more so than just a description. And throughout the story, in addition to the general eeriness of Area X, there is just a feeling of being lost. (I should give credit that It Follows does the uneasy feeling really well, too)

    And just to be annoying, I can extrapolate your logic to "video does not show what happens around the camera, VR is better", and "VR does not bring the senses of touch, smell, and heat, fully immersive simulators are better" :)

  • I am the same way, if I write something, I try to make it a complete, and informative statement.

    IMO this trend started with Twitter 10+ years ago, where short messages were equivalent of shouting into the crowd, and more frequent shouts got more retweets. Then there was the trend of "first" comments, glad that is mostly gone.

  • Slighty altered:

    when prosecutors reportedly alleged the murderer used Google Maps to locate and visit places where handguns were known to be sold.

    Sounds kinda dumb, doesn't it? Once again, a lesser known app gets a portion of the blame because of shitty people.

    P.S. I use iNaturalist and greatly appreciate all the people who correct my identifications.

  • I was always under the impression that the fraudulent intent (outside of extremly blatant cases) would be very difficult to prove in court or otherwise. If a car is used to meet clients or haul some company-related cargo, it is used for business. If a company is a real estate developer, it is expected for them to own and lease residential properties. If the owners' family members work for the company, they must collect salary. And so on.

  • A popular scheme I have seen is:

    Owner registered and de-facto runs an incorporated Company. Company employs Owner and pays them a small salary (down to state minimum wage even), so Owner minimizes the income tax they pay.

    The car Owner drives is owned by the Company for "business purposes", which allows the car to be operated within 50 miles of the Company (and farther with supplemental insurance). Company counts the car purchase/lease, maintenance, gas as expenses, bringing down the bottom line.

    Flights, travel, meals could be paid by the Company, as long as it's tangentially "business related".

    The house Owner lives in (or several houses for the family) is owned by the Company and is rented to Owner for very cheap, so Company pays the taxes, maintenance, etc, breaking even, or taking a loss on this house. Again, this brings down the company's bottom line.

    Somehow, purchases for a Company can be exempt from sales taxes, too.

    In the end, on paper, the Company is barely making any profit, but the Owner might be enjoying a nice car, nice house, and vacations. All for "business purposes" of course. While you pay taxes on your income and purchases like an idiot

  • Not looking for a dumbphone at the moment, but

    There’s a KaiOS jailbreaking community ... I’ve seen an XMPP client and a Matrix one too.

    This is good and opens up a path for using other messengers via bridges.

  • I don't find it difficult, and have enjoyed sxmo on the PinePhone. I understand the suckless approach, but I do have to admit that many people that I know, even tech-savvy ones, probably would not want to rebuild to configure something.

  • To configure most suckless tools you need to... recompile them. The readme even says that is to "keep out the newbies" or something similar. But then if you are trying to use suckless tools you are already too deep in.

  • I knew a guy in his 30s that has similar attitudes: thinks that his ways and opinions are the only valid ones, thinks he is smarter than most people, has instant assumptions about people based on appearance, and does not take criticism well.

    From talking to him, I would say that to avoid becoming someone like him:

    • Do not define yourself in terms of work or money. Yes, most people need a job to pay bills to live. But find a hobby, passion, or charity that you like. Trying to make / hustle / gamble money for the sake of a larger number in your account (with no other goal) is honestly sad.
    • No one is out to get you. Stop seeking enemies or blaming problems on others.
    • Do not make IRL opinions from online "content" (I don't even wanna know which subreddits and YouTube people this guy follows) Interact with real people.
    • If your friends are repeatedly calling you out on questionable or insensitive actions and opinions, listen and think for a minute.