A California jury on Wednesday found that Meta and Google were to blame for the depression and anxiety of a woman who compulsively used social media as a small child, awarding her $3 million in a rare verdict holding Silicon Valley accountable for its role in fueling a youth mental health crisis.

The jurors concluded that Meta and Google should pay the woman $3 million in compensatory damages, with Meta on the hook for 70% of that amount.

The jury also decided that Meta and Google's actions should trigger punitive damages, which means there will be a separate phase of the trial where the jury will decide what amount of damages are appropriate to punish the multi-trillion-dollar companies for their conduct.

"My retirement got wiped out!"

versus

"I was never going to retire."

By "people", I just mean my friends and a bunch of other jailbreakers on YouTube, but whatever. I have a few friends. One is a trans girl, which I mention because apparently it's common for trans women to love tech, and the other two are genderfluid AFAB. Well, anyway, I prefer new electronics that you can do a lot more stuff with and I don't understand the hype on using and blogging on a 10 to 18-year-old electronic device?

More than 350 years after the death of legendary French musketeer d'Artagnan, his remains may well have been found under the floor of a Dutch church.

Jos Valke, who is deacon at St Peter and Paul Church in Maastricht, helped unearth the skeleton and is 99% certain that the remains belong to Charles de Batz de Castelmore, a close aide to France's Sun King Louis XIV who was known as Count d'Artagnan.

D'Artagnan was killed during the Siege of Maastricht in 1673, but later immortalised in the adventure stories of Alexandre Dumas as a friend of the Three Musketeers.

Israel’s parliament has advanced a contentious bill to impose the death penalty on Palestinians convicted of terrorism to its final vote, after the Knesset’s national security committee approved the measure on Tuesday.

The legislation, initiated by the far-right Otzma Yehudit party led by the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has drawn sharp criticism from opponents who warn it would mark a significant escalation in Israel’s penal policy. Members of Otzma Yehudit have worn noose-shaped pins in support of the bill.

Beanis, I Like Fartin

the FCC ruling yesterday got me thinking about my router, it’s probably due for a replacement by the time the theoretical end of firmware updates baked into that (natural eol is likely around the same time) takes effect. I’m having trouble finding good options particularly in regards to openwrt at least.

We currently use two asus rt-ax3000 routers in mesh mode. One attached to the modem because it’s in a really shitty location, and one attached to our home server. I have 3 items that need 2.4ghz for smart home automation and everything else runs 5ghz, 2 laptops phones etc.

Everything I can get in local stores isn’t supported by openwrt (neither are the current routers). Looking at using older hardware we have spare (a MacBook Pro 2012 or rpi4) seem to have a track record of underperforming. What are the recommendations for upgrades from here?

Follow up question is am I overthinking it? Would the MacBook Pro or rpi4 with a second Ethernet nic running a firewall before the routers also fix the issue of not getting security updates?

~🫲~🥴^🫱^

Before I ever knew what dialectical materialism was, I had some years on and off with interest in frameworks like MBTI and its "cognitive functions", or to a lesser degree, Enneagram. And though I've never been big into Zodiac for various reasons, I have some awareness of how it works too.

What these kind of frameworks have in common, a thing in common that is at odds with diamat, is the tendency to view personality as something static that you are born with. The born with part would be fine on its own if it wasn't trying to outline whole personalities; sure, genetics give us various tendencies/predispositions and this when combined with similar material conditions and choices will surely lead to somewhat different outcomes. But this is not the same as an entire personality being in our DNA. And observation of cultural differences would support this distinction. I recall Dario Nardi, for example, one of the more serious names in MBTI for trying to observe and categorize it scientifically, talking about some variation in how types show up in different cultures. For example of differences, people who get categorized as extrovert in the US tend to be more gregarious and bubbly than in some other cultures.

But more than that, of critical importance is understanding the nature of change. Diamat suggests that dramatic change can occur. However, it's also not a thing that is going to tend to happen as a matter of whimsy via waking up one day and deciding to be a wholly different kind of person. Instead, friction resulting from contradictions will give rise to motive, motive may give rise to changes, and sufficient changes may transform from quantitative to qualitative.

With this in mind, it's not that we should expect personality to go wishy washy and change all the time, but we should also not expect it to be static throughout life. And to view it as rooted in underlying static characteristics in a person is ego more than science (no personality framework I'm aware of has managed to link genetics and personality - what limited science there is in it, is more about observing surface-level trends). In a hyper individualistic society, it may be reassuring at times to try to ground oneself in a framework of personality. But this can also have the side effect of individualizing systemic problems. "Capitalism is causing problems again? No, no, it's because I'm an XYZ going through standard XYZ troubles, that's the real cause."

This makes people less literate in understanding the world, more stubborn about who they are even if who they are is detrimental to themself and others, and works hand in hand with liberalism. Liberal likes to get swept up in this idea that no matter who you are, it's still valid. It doesn't have a proper answer for how this applies to people who chronically do terrible things to others.

In other words, we come back to one of the lies of modern western thinking, which is the ability for any given human being or institution to be "neutral". If we agree that this is nonsense and there's no such thing as a neutral, impartial view, then it follows that personality frameworks are also not neutral and impartial. This, I think, is easily observable in the fact that they tend to tell you what is the "good side" and the "bad side" of any given personality you could have.

So these systems are not neutral scientific observations, but are frameworks that are impacted by the society they come from. A personality framework coming from capitalist society will serve capitalist interests. A personality framework coming from a communist vanguard could look very different.

But it is also hard for me to imagine a communist vanguard seeing the need to hyperfocus on the individual in such a way. People are more alike than they are different and much of what they need is the same basic needs met. This is the primary problem that needs solving, via having control over the means of production and distribution, not validating every little contextual cultural quirk that a person has as something they were born with.

I say, believe in your ability to change. Just expect it to be a dialectical process that is impacted by the conditions you're in (which can also change), not through willpower alone. Dramatic change probably won't come in an instant. Instead, it may sneak up on you, after months or years of gradual changes made.

Be wary of systems that present themselves as neutral and come from bourgeoisie society.

And recognize the shared struggle for liberation. That's worth far more to be literate in than personality systems.

The only surefire way to keep your devices from being searched and seized is to simply not bring them with you on your trip. If you can’t leave them at home, consider mailing them to and from your destination.

Another option is to leave devices that contain sensitive information at home and instead bring throwaway travel devices you’re willing to have searched or confiscated. This doesn’t need to be an expensive proposition. You can reformat and repurpose an old phone or tablet, or purchase refurbished older models that are comparatively cheap. Then buy a temporary SIM card or eSIM so that you’re not using your usual number. Remember to let contacts know that for the duration of your trip you’ll be reachable at a different number.

Create a travel account for these devices. You can do so by starting a fresh account in the App Store or Google Play. This should ensure that if you’re forced to log into your device by authorities at the airport, the only information they’ll find is data you’ve put on this specific piece of hardware. CBP agents are supposed to only be able to look at data that’s local on the phone.

"I requested that if Thai ships need to pass through the strait, could they ​assist in ensuring safe passage?" Sihasak told reporters late on Tuesday.

"They responded that ⁠they would take care of it and asked us to provide the names of the vessels that ​would be transiting."

Iran has ​told the United Nations Security Council and the International Maritime Organization that "non-hostile vessels" ​may transit ⁠the strait if they coordinate with Iranian authorities, Reuters reported on Tuesday.

In a post on X, Iran's embassy in Thailand said that passage of the Thai ship reflected the close ties between the ​two countries.

"Friends have a special place," it said.