I'm not waiting to see Twitter fail. I'm just hoping that the federated alternatives for Twitter and Reddit will get more mainstream. And I must say that I'm happy with the way things are evolving at Mastodon and Lemmy.

Perhaps the takeaway is that opportunities don't come that often and don't sell yourself short by assuming you won't be able to succeed?

Am I wrong in assuming that OF, and people making money of it, isn't that mainstream at all?

Being from Belgium, following American politics started for me together with the rise of YouTube and I could watch episodes of The Daily Show on it and where things have gone from topics like 'Dick Cheney shot someone in the face' to news like this. It really made me stop watching talkshows that I really enjoyed like The Daily Show, The Late Show with SC, ... . It's so much politics, every day again, on so many television shows. Is it also perceived as such in the USA itself? In Belgium, for many reasons, politics isn't 24/7 discussed everywhere, everytime.

I hope the people of the USA will make the right decision. But, looking at it from Belgium, I'm also so tired of, since 2016, looking at every presidential election in the USA as being the one that will possibly sent the world into chaos. Every night-show, podcaster, ... that I'm able to watch on YouTube can only discuss the situation from the point of view from one side. This makes the programs that once were very entertaining to watch, much less fun. So since I don't have any impact on the outcome, I'm skipping many of these shows that were once a nice discraction. I'm curious if in the USA itself the people are also taking distance from this rethoric on television to not let it impact their daily lives too much.

I'm an Ubuntu-user. My wife and myself have a Windows laptop from work and my kids also from school. Not to have to buy another laptop for personal use I made an Ubuntu-usb-stick to boot from any of these four available laptops. I'm not a power user. I need some office-apps, web-browser, ... . And gaming is done via Gforce-Now cloud gaming. If that makes me a noob 🙂 I mostly don't have the time anymore to tinker with all this anymore. Been there, done that.

I'm not a hardcore gamer but I'm a fan of cloud gaming, first Google Stadia (rip) and later Gforce Now. And Gforce Now supports Steam games so the more games available in the Steam-catalogue, the better.

Thank for bringing this up. I'm currently using a Samsung Galaxy S10e. I mostly use the smartphone from my pocket:

• listening to podcasts with earbuds on;
• running with Strava on;
• working in the garden with music on;
• checking messages with my smartwatch on;
• driving my car with Android Auto on;
• ... . Of course I also use my smartphone itself for messaging, shopping online, banking, ordering takeaway, ... . And a larger screen would definitely be more comfortable in these cases. But having a larger smartphone when I'm currently using my smartphone while it's in my pocket, is a step back. In fact, for use at home I still have a Samsung tablet to have a bigger screen die when that's more useful. When I would switch to the SG S23 version, it seems that the dimensions of the new device are quite similar? Dimensions: S10e: 5.60 x 2.75 x 0.31 inches (142.2 x 69.9 x 7.9 mm) S23: 5.76 x 2.79 x 0.30 inches (146.3 x 70.9 x 7.6mm) Zenphone 10: 5.77 x 2.68 x 0.37 inches (146.5 x 68.1 x 9.4 mm)

So as long as the basic version of the SG s-series is sold in the above dimensions, I'm not worried 🤞

Living in Belgium, I'm happy with the social security that's available here and the chances for a good education, etc. But I'm confused as to why this all isn't available for everyone in the USA. The USA is a world leader in so many domains so I would assume that this would benefit its inhabitants first.

I didn't want to go into it too much but in Belgium there isn't a political with more than 25% representation. So each government has to be a coalition of several political parties. There isn't a system where the winner takes it all. A voter in Belgium doesn't identify itself with one party for life. So we often switch between political parties. Here's no 'us against them' culture. And because the outrage against other political parties isn't a thing, it also isn't a daily thing in the media.

I'm glad that the EC countered the argument of Apple strongly. Because you'd assume that the legal team of Apple consists of some capable lawyers, possibly even old members of the EC? At some point I'm scared that even the EC would be outmatched but we're not there, it seems.

This got mee googling Nextcloud and I think I'm going to give it a try 😱

I have both a Lemmy and Mastodon account besides my Twitter and Reddit account. Every person and channel I follow on both Twitter and Reddit, I immediately follow on Lemmy and Mastodon once they have an account and channel over there. But it's all about content and interaction. Keeping track of the Ukraine war, for instance, was difficult on Mastodon. But posting on Mastodon was a much nicer experience in regard to interaction with members over there.

I know I posted this at the 'the police problem' community. But I thought that when pulled over by the police, giving your drivers licence, to show you're allowed to drive, doesn't do any harm. It's common practice in Belgium to check if all your 'papers' are in order. And if so, you're back on your way.

Watching it all from Belgium, it seems that the contested speech of Trump is purposefully aimed at:

• making the previous wrong remark yesterday's news;
• flooding the news/people with controversial remarks so it's impossible to 'keep count';
• raising the bar of what shocks Trump-supporters and -opponents.

This reply thread is the information I needed from this topic 👍

Thanks for this extensive explanation. I'll be on a holiday in the USA with my family this summer. And kind of on a road trip between Washington and New York and back. With all the rights that I have ... when asked for my ID ... aren't you just going to advise me to ... ... ?

Last Week Tonight, on the other hand, I still find and satire and informative.

Thanks for the warning 🙂 Sometimes I still think I have as much spare time as 10 years ago 😉

Thanks for the effort you put in this response. Is it a good summary when I say that Belgium in population and area can be compared with a metropolitan area of any major city in the USA? And best should be compared as such?

I'm very much surprised with the migration figures being as high as you mention. Europe is surrounded with countries in war in Eastern-Europe, Middle-East and Africa. And many of our migrants are refugees.

All the migration towards USA is mainly from south of the USA, correct? There's no war going on over there, so do these migrants also poor living conditions and are mostly fortune seekers? Or are their lives in danger from the government in these countries?