epicide

Honestly, this is true for all streaming, not just Spotify. Stream if you want, but also buy albums from them if they offer it. Merch is even better.

Hell, even if you... acquire the music files unofficially and go buy a t-shirt or poster, the artist is still probably getting way more than they ever would have from you streaming all their albums on a loop.

I've been using one of the Kobo Clara devices running Plato (built in Rust) for a few years now. Other than a couple of minor bugs early on, I've had no issues.

It's largely the exact device that I want my book reader to be:

* Small and lightweight

* Nice epaper screen

* No need for an internet connection whatsoever

* Natively understands EPUB

* Just reads books -- no ads, no markets, no apps, no upsell

The built-in Kobo firmware isn't great. IIRC Rakuten/Walmart hoover up and sell your reading habits, etc. Hence one reason why I don't connect mine to the internet (running Plato probably fixes this, but restarting the device doesn't immediately go into Plato). The device is also weirdly sluggish with the default Kobo software, and much faster in Plato.

> You quickly get used to regularly checking things you actually care about, and the rest has to wait until YOU care.

This was the biggest thing for me. Before, I was paranoid that if I turned off notifications, I'd miss something important. As though I didn't miss notifications anyway.

Getting used to regularly checking (important) things also has two wonderful side effects (at least it did for me):

* My "mental notification system" got better. Because I was less dependent on my phone doing it for me, I developed the skill more on my own. * The apps and services that I checked less and less frequently became more obvious in how unimportant they were to me altogether. I have far fewer apps and accounts now, making me MORE punctual overall.

That's precisely why I don't ever accept the bribe. If I don't like the non-discounted price, then I don't buy it. Now they neither get the data nor the sale.

What's frustrating is that a lot of grocery stores do this. If you sell something absolutely necessary, such as basic foods, you should not be allowed to do the whole "mark it up to mark it down" strategy.

Also, a tip for most grocery stores (at least in the US): enter in any area code plus 867-5309. Chances are high that somebody has registered it. It's better than sharing with a family member because so many people are using it, the data becomes less useful.

Alternatively, ask the clerk to "use the store card". Usually, they will oblige.

You absolutely do not need a camera crew, a sound crew, set designers, and caterers to make a film. You need a director and scriptwriters, but those can be the same person. Do many film sets have all those? Absolutely. But one can still make a film without them. Some of the best films ever created were mostly the product of one person with a budget less than half that of the average car.

Would you be able to create big-budget movies without said big budget? Of course not. I obviously like some of those too, but who's to say that the larger budget made them better? It feels like you're conflating art creation with art business, but they are not the same thing.

Capitalists who capitalize on creative outlets need capital to incentivize them to do so. It's basically circular.

Those of us who create for creation's sake need no other reason. I create because I want to, not because I want to use it to gain capital.

Sure, those lines get muddy when you want to do it professionally, but that's a separate argument.

Because employers don't tend towards security. In fact, many actively punish somebody for "sandbagging" or simply taking too long if they even suggest a security concern.

I think you mean "subsidized" instead of "inflated".

Sure. If you really wanted to, I think the pages are simple enough that you could add your own CSS tweaks via a basic browser plugin (or whatever is the current go-to plugin for doing this).

For me, I only use a forge's viewer/navigation for cursory glances or sharing links to others. If I need to spend any real time digging, I'll clone the repo.

Hiring and firing people aren't symmetric actions.

They're asymmetric because hiring more people costs more than just the salary. For example, some folks' entire jobs are to recruit and hire people. Once they are hired, you have to onboard them, etc. So the more you hire, the more you have to pay the folks with supporting roles (either directly or by way of them not having infinite time/capacity).

Firing people isn't free, either. It comes at the cost of bad PR and severance, but the latter is voluntary and calculated by the company, and the former is quickly forgotten by anybody that matters to a publicly traded company (investors).

That means not hiring those two people in the first place is usually cheaper than firing them later.

To the original point: Cloudflare isn't hiring fewer people; they are firing people. If they are trying to grow (like every single investor is counting on them to do), then why would they fire people (the cheaper action) now when they would likely need to hire people (the more-expensive action) later in order to meet that increased growth?

The charitable answer would be that the people they are firing were deemed unable to adapt to using AI for all of this supposed increased productivity. But Cloudflare aren't saying that. In fact, they're saying the opposite by stating it's not about individual performance.

Because firing is not a zero-sum for hiring.

Hiring 1 developer instead of 3 is not the same cost as firing 2 developers.