Shit like this is why I can't abide GrapheneOS or their cheerleaders.

It's legitimately the same attitude as Google itself. This parental, condescending tone, acting as if wanting freedom to control their own devices is somehow irrational. Continuing to push this toxic idea that handcuffs are the only way to protect users. Like a sysadmin at a workplace, but without the justifiable reasons.

I called it pop when I was a kid, then I grew up. I don't call it soda though. Now I just call it whatever is actually in the can.

You're talking about laws. They're talking about the IRS.

The IRS doesn't make the laws. They're an agency like any other, and a very important one.

Strictly speaking, tax filling software, even the free ones, have simplified it all so much that for people who have a single source of income from work and not a lot of tax forms to collect (most Americans), it's pretty trivial. Maybe 30-60 minutes, once a year.

Less than ideal but far from the grueling, soul sucking work I was told would plague my adult life when I was a kid.

That's why the IRS is finally doing their own online filling system. No more making Americans shell out for software, so everyone gets a nice, simple tax season.

Vote for people who will increase funding to the IRS so they can manage all this.

The reason it's been like this for so long is because they don't have the manpower or (until recently) the technology to handle the sheer numbers. Lobbying from TurboTax and shit also played a big part, but even without that, they straight up can't afford to do all this when they've been strangled of funding from decades of conservative legislation.

The fact that an entire generation thinks the only proper way to install software is through an app store is absolutely terrible. Talk about a boon for the gatekeepers, Apple and Google did a bang up job training them to trust no one else.

Their reasons mean nothing. It's my device. I shouldn't have to worry about an application installed on my device being policed because the developer got a hair up their ass about people downgrading.

The phrase "more secure" is becoming meaningless as it keeps being used as a blanket excuse for literally every user hostile change.

I'm seeing a lot more of these MSN, "Microsoft Start" links lately. You can't even get to the original article through this trashy page or read the whole thing without downloading an app. It's like AMP links but significantly worse.

I don't know where people are getting these, but please stop giving Microsoft clicks by sharing them. Link directly to the article.

https://metro.co.uk/2024/09/08/esas-salsa-satellite-will-plummet-back-earth-this-evening-21568170/

Not only does it still exist, newgrounds is unique in that it is a long-running website from the early days that is still being run by the same person (never bought out or sold), still has no ads (despite funding issues), still has the same basic focus, still hosting the same content, and is still more or less exactly the same despite some UI changes.

Granted part of that is there hasn't been any real pressure on it, but still.

Genuinely, it is the kind of thing that I would want to put behind glass, because it is an abnormality in this wasteland we call the internet. It's this beautiful little corner that has been allowed to remain as it is, unmolested by the terrible bullshit around it.

There aren't any good search engines anymore, because there isn't a good internet anymore. SOE has buried the internet's wealth of information and centralization starved out all the spaces where information used to be. Hell half the forums that used to appear in search results aren't even online anymore, and live only in the way back machine (which doesn't come up in results).

There's so little to find anymore compared to the halcyon days of search engines we remember.

I'd 100% donate to them if they accepted donations.

If they accepted donations, you wouldn't want to.

The reason uBlock Origins surpasses all the others is because of who the lead dev is, what they believe, and why they do it. They are absolute hardline and believe in what they made. It's not a job.

You don't need to be that kind of person to be a good developer, but when it comes to something like an adblocker and privacy protection, you want people like him who won't falter or sell out. You want those true believers.

If he accepted donations, then he wouldn't be the kind of person that made uBlock Origins what it is.

If it's a romhacking site, it wont have the actual ROMs, just the patches. It never would have survived 20 years if it had been hosting ROMs.