Honestly never had a clue. Thanks for the share.

Super cute. My partner crocheted a similar style bag for myself a couple years ago. I love it. 💜

May it be so.

I second.

Please… No… 😭

It’s terrible how companies like this can do anything they want with impunity.

This tool seemed so beneficial.

Agreed. I don’t think it will go anywhere right now, but until politicians actually try to push this, it will never gain traction. With the number of voters that support it though, I’d like to think this can eventually be a winner for politicians…

https://archive.is/GVGOu

Hmm.

It would be a huge undertaking, but a Fitness and Health tracker / aggregator that could replace Google Fit and the likes.

I really can’t bear how Google, Apple, Samsung, and all these big companies are the primary holders of our most intimate information. I’ve put some measures in place to limit who gets what, but it would be a huge boon to be the sole maintainer of my own info.

The problem is that the various apps and devices which report data won’t immediately support syncing with a FOSS upstart…

The app I use for grabbing my weight and BMI can only sync with a few other apps. The app I use for calorie and diet tracking can likewise only sync with a few apps. They happen to have Google fit in common, so I use that as an intermediary to transfer weight to the calorie/diet app. All my steps, exercise, and sleep stay in Zepp, separate from them all.

It sure would be nice to have one service/application to rule them all and a secure method of storing one’s own personal information without having to give it to the tech companies. Sure, use one of the many cloud services but encrypt all the data so that they can’t steal it. Yadda yadda.

One can dream.

“People think that when you’re mentally ill, you can’t think straight, which is insulting,” she told the Guardian. “I understand the fears that some disabled people have about assisted dying, and worries about people being under pressure to die… But in the Netherlands, we’ve had this law for more than 20 years. There are really strict rules, and it’s really safe.”

She embarked on intensive treatments, including talking therapies, medication and more than 30 sessions of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). “In therapy, I learned a lot about myself and coping mechanisms, but it didn’t fix the main issues. At the beginning of treatment, you start out hopeful. I thought I’d get better. But the longer the treatment goes on, you start losing hope.”

After 10 years, there was “nothing left” in terms of treatment. "I’ve never hesitated about my decision. I have felt guilt – I have a partner, family, friends and I’m not blind to their pain. And I’ve felt scared. But I’m absolutely determined to go through with it.

Honestly and genuinely, I’m glad to see all that she has put into this decision and glad the state is allowing it. Now she doesn’t need to cause further pain to others through a traumatic suicide and she can gain the peace she’s been longing for.

Each day, so many lives are snuffed out of existence without a second thought. She has given this an incredible amount of thought, time, and work.

Rest in peace, Zoraya. 💜

P. S. There’s thousands of live today that want to live. They don’t want to die. And yet their lives are taken away in an instant. Perhaps we should focus on saving them rather than making someone like Zoraya feel even worse.

Trunk Monkey Mobile would have been better. 🐒

😭😭😭

I honestly find this incredible, but yeah… I know people who enjoy being advertised to… and who like “shopping” even though they start out with nothing in mind. Advertising works on them and probably those spam emails I can’t believe people click, which only perpetuates the problem. And apparently it’s worth billions to keep up the commercialization.

Haha. Are you telling me that we all don’t mutually love these attempts to personalize advertisements? There’s nothing better than knowing our personal information is being used for our benefit this way. Look at films like Blade Runner. I can’t wait to have bright fluorescent ads on every corner and open space.

Without these things, how else am I going to know which medication I should be insisting my doctor prescribe me? And clearly this insurance company with the funny ad is totally going to be there on my side when something happens. That’s why they made the commercial, duh. So I would absolutely be certain I can trust them to quickly and fully process a claim.

There’s nothing cozier than the snug embrace of consumerism, where we find a peculiar warmth, as if cocooned in a comforter spun from the very fibers of advertising’s allure.

I love ads. I love what Microsoft and the likes are doing.

Said no one ever

I’m really glad to see other sites and news orgs picking this up. Here is the piece:

https://www.artsonia.com/museum/art.asp?id=123418418

Makes unfortunate sense. I was also hoping somebody figured out how to liberate it, but I imagined it might be highly tied to the Google app.

• ChatGPT 3.5 isn’t bad.
• Copilot is… undecided.
• Gemini I think I like the best in the realm of free AI, but I need to use it in a separate browser (Firefox nightly) and would prefer an app or even a PWA.

Anyway, I felt confident this was the case but people surprise me with how they can manage freeing apps and/or providing separate frontends altogether.

Sorry to hear that. Truly. Growing up, bullies made life hell.

I think one of the most important things I’ve been able to gift my kids is the ability to accept others as they are and not treat them like shit (which is ever so easy by default it seems).

The most interesting thing about my eldest child’s troop is that nearly every youth is neurodivergent. I mean, in terms of autism for instance, members are on the opposite sides of the spectrum. It makes for challenging interactions at times, but I’m so proud to see how they work hard to be inclusive and navigate said challenges.

They affectionately call themselves the “Weirdo Troop” and take a strange, wonderful pride in being so different especially in contrast to other more homogeneous troops.

Recently a youth was visiting the troop to see if they might join. Their pronouns are they/them and the kids all got along really well. I was curious how this was going to go if they were interested in joining because of their mom occasionally misgendering them as she/her. The scouts use the gender recorded on the application rather than a birth certificate to determine how to place a child. They/them pushes things to a new realm.

Even though both boys and girls are allowed in the scouts, there are rules in place to keep them separated during events like camping. A trans boy is clear. (Well, for those accepting because there remain troops with bigotted leaders.) But… how do you handle tent divisions and male/female leadership quotas when a person doesn’t identify as binary? Unfortunately, they didn’t decide to stay and were just testing the water. I kind of wish they did though because I got along well with their mom and it’s nice to click with parents when possible.

There’s no denying what has happened and what continues to happen in this organization and other organizations for youth (including religious groups). The wickedness of humans cannot be escaped.

My hope is that such organizations may continue to exist for all the good they do and that efforts to prevent and address the deep sickness will prevail.

You’re saying you believe the organization was founded on the principle of seeking out youth for the purpose of abuse?