Spyke

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Google is blocking AI searches for Trump and dementia

I'm actually surprised people still heavily use Google search.

Not for some tech snob snark reason, but because it's unusable.

I only ever go back to Google if I'm really desperate, and I can't recall the last time it ever delivered me a result I considered useful.

It's all SEO AI spam, and those are the web results Google returns only after all of its own AI and shopping bloat.

Completely useless.

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Netflix kills casting from phones

The only good thing about Netflix is their diverse global library.

As in, a Netflix subscription plus a VPN, gives you access to a large library of global content.

Taking that into account, it's probably still the best streaming service, which means they're the shiniest turd in the toilet.

But still, Jellyfin FTW.

world

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Manchester synagogue stabbing, car ramming: 4 injured, suspect shot outside synagogue, police say

Mods removed my comment for saying I don't have the emotional energy left to care about attacks on pro-genocide groups.

Not that I supported killing them, or that I endorsed this attack, but that it's hard for me expend emotional energy caring about an in-group actively engaged in a genocide.

I also went out of my way to explain how Israel's role in conflating Judaism with Zionism is a key reason why I feel that way.

And let me be clear: this attack was wrong and it is 100% counterproductive to bringing an end to the genocide.

I do not support or condone this violence, but I will not be guilted into having a different emotional response just because others find it more acceptable

And while I strongly feel that my own background should have no bearing on the conversation, I will point out that I was raised in a Jewish Zionist household. So please don't tell me how I'm a self-hating Jew, anti-semitic, or otherwise racially prejudiced against myself.

With all of that out of the way, let's take a closer look at the target of this attack:

Rabbi Daniel Walker serves as co-chair of the community and interfaith committees of the JRC and has been the Rabbi of the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation since 2008.

He has previously held a number of rabbinic and educational positions in Israel and the UK.

Rabbi Walker was educated at Manchester Jewish Grammar School and went on to study in yeshivas in the USA and Israel, where he received his ordination in 2003.

How does Rabbi Walkers JRC organization view the conflict? Would it shock to learn that oppose Palistinain self-determination, and do not consider the conflict to be a genocide?

As an organisation, we are appalled by the motion passed by Labour delegates on the Middle East conflict. To agree to the text without referencing the atrocities committed by Hamas on 7th October 2023 when 1,200 innocent people were murdered or the fact they continue to hold 48 hostages means they have no credibility to comment on what is an extremely complex issue.

The fact a more moderate motion that did reference these key facts was defeated highlights how many seem unmotivated to work towards a peaceful solution to the conflict. The text is not binding and we will continue holding conversations with key stakeholders within government to advocate against taking divisive and deeply problematic positions.

During our time at Conference we have held a number of meetings with Ministers, MPs and the press focusing on our concerns around the record levels of antisemitic hate crime across society. We also reiterated our strong opposition to the unilateral recognition of Palestine, supported the Government’s position on proscribing Palestine Action, highlighted concerns around antisemitism in cultural spaces including the need to cancel events by those who incite hatred whilst emphasising the importance of holding the Iranian regime to account by enforcing snapback sanctions.

This is an Orthodox Zionist organization helmed by an yeshiva educated conservatives. They are explicitly against Palestinian self-determination and who don't express an ounce of sympathy or concern for the Palestinians being slaughtered.

For a final time, this attack was wrong. Violence is wrong. This should not be supported, celebrated, or sanctified.

But please don't censor people who are expressing valid feelings about how they emotionally process attacks against organizations of unashamedly racial supremacists, who are actively part of the in group currently perpetrating a genocide.

This is also relevant discussion to this topic because it speaks to a larger issue facing the Jewish community and public sentiment and opinions that are only getting worse, whether they express themselves through inexcusable violence like today, or by people having tragically apathetic emotional responses to violence.

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Trump & Hegseth to hit thousands of Pentagon staff with polygraphs in hunt for leaks: report

This a guaranteed to be a gigantic shit show that will become an unmitigated disaster, if they don't end up abandoning it early on.

I can't fucking wait.

Imagine these morons going on a tear and firing 20% of the bureaucrats at the Pentagon.

The majority will be fired based on false positives and office politics. Those rounds of firings will then cause so many of their former colleagues to start leaking information, in addition to the leakers that passed the polygraph.

I'm seriously giddy at the thought.

games

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Shortly After Xbox Game Pass Prices Spiked, the Page to Cancel Game Pass Subscriptions Was Overwhelmed

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I'm not a licensed math surgeon, but I think your math is wildly optimistic in favor of Microsoft due to how the subscription totals are actually distributed per price tier.

I don't doubt that they did a lot of math to figure out an acceptable level of churn for this change, I just don't think it's nearly as generous and wide as you're calculating.

There probably is a very real churn limit that they're trying to avoid, and my hunch is that there exists a breaking point that could be hit with an aggressive and sustained boycott / cancellation spree, but again, I'm not a math surgeon so I could be wrong. That's just my gut feeling.

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Apple Banned an App That Simply Archived Videos of ICE Abuses

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What argument...?

Out of nowhere, you just started talking shit about Apple users to make yourself feel superior about your individual consumer choices, really cool bro.

Also unclear who I was making fun of, unless you consider pointing out how absurd your Apple user hate is, to be making fun of you.

But that's not making fun of you, it's pointing out how pathetic your unprompted and vocal hatred for Apple users was.

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*Permanently Deleted*

Let me know when their business model no longer includes making their customers wait multiple years before shipping their orders.

Or when their model no longer includes the tactic of refusing to cancel orders after customers waited multiple years.

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Google is blocking AI searches for Trump and dementia

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Searxng still has to send out queries and receive results, but yes, it's one of the better options, and I mentioned it in another comment.

Regardless, my beef with Google search isn't specifically privacy related, it's that in exchange for giving up some privacy, I get no useful results in return, just slop.

DDG isn't perfect, but it substantially better than most of the available alternatives.

Externally hosted search engines have to make money, you'll either exchange some privacy, or some cash, in exchange for results.

world

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Women and children stranded in Syria return to Australia after smuggling themselves from country

It sounds like some of those women were truly victims or trafficked, but that others probably belong in jail.

Just a hunch, but I suspect if that was a group of all men with similar stories, they would all be in jail, at minimum for processing and evaluation.

All in all, not enough information in that article to take a complete dump on the Albo government, but definitely enough to fart in their general direction, with wet stinky ones.

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Apple Banned an App That Simply Archived Videos of ICE Abuses

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It's not my reading comprehension that's to blame for your rancid hatred of Apple users and I'm confident that your behavior is repulsive to more people than just me.

The irony is that I use Linux for desktop and Graphene for mobile so my objections are not rooted in defending my own consumer choices, they're based entirely on your pathetic blind hatred of people who use Apple products.

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Iran to completely close Hormuz if Trump executes threats on Iranian energy, Revolutionary Guards say

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They've been profitable for some time.

A lot of people say they're profitable at $60/barrel, but it's more like between $50 and $80, depending on a bunch different factors, such as location and extraction method.

But that's only considering profitability in the terms of the current political system.

If a new system came along that factored in harms to the environment, global warming, etc., they could go back to being unprofitable.