FWIW I appreciate people like the author's old self. I am one of those who hates and simultaneously appreciates being corrected when I'm mistaken. I hate being mistaken and I appreciate the opportunity to correct the mistake.
While much of what the author says is true, I'm not so cynical as to think that it's impossible to change others.
The fact that you can change yourself — as the author acknowledges — means you can change others, because much of self-change comes from your observation of others. Perhaps it's the approach that matters most.
I'm kinda glad that it's VW blocking GrapheneOS users in a cynical way. When my parents got a VW Jetta they never stopped complaining about it and never bought one again. So it tracks that they'd also be the car manufacturer to block GrapheneOS and stomp on their user's privacy.
It's an easy market to win at this point. The bar has been lowered so much. Already have a nice car? Just don't display utter disdain for your user's privacy and you get our $$.
I'm at a loss here tbh because that sentiment is what the article is about. But yes I did edit the comment to make it less personal and more about the sentiment that has led to these changes in the VISA requirements.
They are not just asking for more money, from TFA they are imposting additional requirements like better Japanese fluency etc. In general they are raising the bar for who is allowed to live there, and all of that protects Japan.
VPNs do not allow you to connect two devices directly, they have to go through the VPN. They also do not allow you to connect devices that are not on the VPN. Iroh does P2P connections and punches holes through NATs when needed, so you can connect directly to devices on different networks that are behind firewalls.
I applaud the Japanese for being capable of recognizing that many parts of their culture are unique and worth preserving. That what makes Japan Japan is not just the land and the name, but the people and their culture.
> people aren't transgender because their hormones are imbalanced. The reason transgender people do hormone replacement therapies is so that they can change their hormonal balance.
Not so sure, it could have to do with their hormones. I recall experiencing mild gender dysphoria during a period when my testosterone was recorded as below normal. When it returned to normal the dysphoria went away. It could be that some choose to say, "Since I think I'm a girl, perhaps I should swing the hormones even further in that direction."
I'm just one data point though, would be curious to hear other's experiences with dysphoria and what their blood work shows.
EDIT: And think about it, it's a logical contradiction to say that "hormones have nothing to do with it but write me an Rx to mess with my hormones so that I'm more of a girl."
Dependents of an AI-megacorp for our "facts"? Our software? Our work?
It's possible these companies will become everyone's boss, and will dictate to everyone what everyone is allowed to work on, think, say, do, believe, etc.
Before Big Tech springs that trap, we must support and divert resources to open models.
> We’ve therefore launched the model with safeguards that mean queries on some topics will instead receive a response from our next-most-capable model, Claude Opus 4.8.
Certainly, if you want to be even more involved in writing the code, more power to ya!