I'm curious why you think China will decline or be eliminated, I always thought that China was a reliable as a production/trading partner and that they planned for decades ahead with programs like Belt and Road Initiative unlike western politics that only looks as far as the next election. Very open to correction on this though, thinking about it not sure what formed my opinion on this.
Maybe we do care about truth, freedom and privacy but the majority of rest of society will happily accept any T&Cs just to get access to whatever the next digital sliced pan is and as for truth and accountability, if they were two sides of the same coin on the ground people wouldn't bend down to pick it up as possesing it looks too much like responsibility and inconvenience.
I used to work for a large financial services company who bought 4 storey office block and fitted it out with very small but with own door individual offices that had internet and a connected desk phone so that companies could rent them and say they had more than a box office address in that European capital, I never found out what the rent was.
The only option for cookies is to accept these terms and conditions, I thought implied consent was explicitly not allowed due to GDPR?
"To help personalize content, tailor and measure ads and provide a safer experience, we use cookies. By clicking or navigating the site, you agree to allow our collection of information on and off Facebook through cookies. Learn more, including about available controls:
No. 2 is interesting, our national lottery in Ireland has an app that you can scan the barcode on your ticket to check if you have won or not, at some stage they updated the app and the scan picks up the barcode even before you center it on the screen and tells you if you have lost/won instantly, I though it was my IT background that made me uncomfortable with it happening so fast, wonder what other examples like this exist where the result/action being too fast causes doubt with the user?
Thanks for posting that, there are a lot of quotes that resonated with me. I've had a personally and professionally tough year and will be losing my job in the new year, 50/50 my own fault for disengaging after a reorg at that start if the year. I'm not overly worried and will be taking the payoff to throw my hat in the small startup ring but this quote still struck a chord and made me feel more positive:
“If you hit a wrong note, it’s the next note you play that determines if it’s good or bad.” (Miles Davis)
Enjoy the holidays everyone and remember to look out for each other, we lost a close family member to suicide and new born nephew that only lived a few precious hours this year. Family and friends first, and no more letting others decide my future are my goals for 2026. If anyone is struggling, even if you can't see it people want to help, take that hard first step and ask for help, friend/family/doctor/helpline/anyone, it gets easier after that, it's a step I took myself a few years ago when in a bad place mentally and it turned my life around, my only regrets are I didn't ask for help sooner and I kept my struggle and recovery largely private, I will regret to my dying day that I wasn't more open to my extended family and maybe if that person saw someone else recover they might have taken another road. Apologies for the ramble, the quotes and typing this comment caused a small unplanned reflection on 2025, I was going to delete all this but thought it might help someone. Thanks HN for keeping things interesting and once again pointing me at something that made a difference!
I'm Irish and have a common [email protected]
At some point the head of a national hospital thought he had that address and wasn't using his official email for everything, I got several emails that should not have been for me and some were quiet sensitive, I always emailed back the sender to let them know and eventually I emailed his secretary as it kept happening. I've also received purchase order confirmations from Australia, building contracts from Canada, HR emails from a university to which I had to confirm I had deleted the mail as letting them know led to GDPR investigation
Judge raised concerns over whether or not the man was in breach of the anonymity order granted by the Circuit Court judge if he had submitted details of the case, which could identify the alleged victims, to the online AI tool.
I can see a valid use for a version of chat control where the communications of all elected officials are retained forever and audited on a regular basis for doing anything illegal, proposing anything illegal, actions not in the public interest, cronyism etc. All data should be released when they die, 10 years after they leave office or upon conviction of a crime related to political appointment.
I think most people don't want to interact with computers and people will use anything that reduces the amount of time spent and will be be embraced en-mass regardless of security or privacy issues.
Lots of options, little will power, consumer and political. Unions, monopoly legislation, tie CEO salary to a multiple of employee salary and probably 100 other smarter ideas than those.
Why would you trust a VPN when any TLA/CIA/NSA/FBI can set up 1/10/100 options relatively cheaply. Unless you go through TOR or use a false MAC address you have no guarantees, even then fingerprinting and fake TOR exits points are a serious risk if you are trying to be truly anonymous.