circuitfarmer

I have considered looking into this. Building one’s own TV might be the move.

Have you done it, and if so, any tips?

I mean, they say both things.

My advice is never use a smart tv of any kind.

It is getting harder and harder to find a dumb TV though.

I don’t play multiplayer because I don’t want to be cussed out by a 6 year old.

I play games to have fun. I’m not trying to prove anything to anyone.

Did they ever ramp down?

Especially when creators find interesting ways to work them in, which is pretty often, in my experience. They’re the one type of ad that doesn’t annoy me.

They all just invest enough effort to squeeze out some short term profits, earn their bonuses and then leave for another company to do it all again.

Amazon is not at all alone in this. Much of 2024 capitalism, at least within the tech space, works like this pretty much everywhere.

Ich auch

The only honest answer in the whole thread

And it is why we are starting to see so much more unrest regardless of what country you’re in.

Global communications are now such that it is impossible to hide a worldwide trend like this. It is also becoming easier to make direct comparisons between conditions country to country as a side effect of globalization.

The trend itself is not surprising, but it does highlight a need for action which is not limited to a single place.

RDR2 was a beautiful game and one of the few that gave me a serious emotional response at the end. But it was a bit long winded along the way, so I’m OK with this.

It will be largely dependent on your industry. But I do have a couple general comments:

1. If you’re coming from academia, you almost certainly value your degree more than an employer will, at least at first. Certainly, some industry positions will require a Masters and some may even be PhD preferred. But this is going to be an extreme minority of positions, such that there are far more people with MAs and PhDs than positions (same problem as professorships in academia). You will almost certainly need to cast a wider net than you might feel is appropriate.

2. Getting a foot in the door is almost always more important than finding the perfect role early on. Plan to iteravely improve your positions and “fall up.” Just as lecturing or adjunct positions are a reality of academia, job hopping is increasingly a part of industry life. If you do it right (try and stay in positions around 2 years, then start looking at other options) you’ll get a significant raise every time you hop – typically way more than you would get staying put. The perfect role may come, but it won’t be your first. Probably not your second either, so focus on building industry experience rather than one specific job.

3. Since you’ll need to cast a wider net, you may be applying for roles which do not require postgrad stuff. It will be necessary to show transferrable skills rather than relying on academic experience or accolades. I’ve felt that my academic experience has been helpful everywhere, but people don’t tend to get hired for that alone for most positions. It is imperative that you are able to show your worth in a way that is not pointing at a piece of paper. From a hiring standpoint, if it is between you with degree(s) and another applicant who may have far less academically but showed the skills, the employer will pick the other person most times, because they likely suspect you want more money on the basis of having the degrees.

Just a few things that come to mind. But of course, once you get those first couple roles under your belt, it’s a different story. “This person has years of good experience and results AND they have a PhD?” That’s when you start looking for the perfect role.

And especially for #2: job hopping is infinitely easier if you can land remote roles. I have been lucky enough to have been in remote roles for nearly 10 years. The same logic applies: show your worth. And, take that remote contract to start. The need to build experience is annoying, but it is a necessity, and if you’re coming from academia, it’s one thing for which you are automatically behind the curve.

I played the game for a long time. Then I went to industry and never looked back.

I totally, totally get people who stay in academia. I’ve had and in a way still have the dream. But: the struggle is just as bad if not worse than industry, while the money in industry is much, much better.

The existing MSFS is already effectively a live service. Lots of features which make it stand out are not available in offline mode.

I agree with all this, but I think it is all to say: ISPs support Net Neutrality when it behooves them.

The US had plenty of chances to avert this.

Don’t sell weapons to terrorists.

Shareholders demand ever increasing return. There is only one way any of this goes, and we are witnessing a total systematic collapse. It is a mathematical certainty.

You cannot squeeze blood from a stone.

It’s certainly possible. I do get ads that don’t seem relevant for me pretty regularly. But this last time I’m referencing: one of the first ads I saw that night was for our discussion topic.

I’m not disagreeing with you, so I’ll just mention it’s safe to say: whether it is digital fingerprinting or mic listening, the surveillance level is absolutely off the charts.

They’re not listening to your microphone, at least not while your phone is in your pocket or whatever, because they don’t need to.

I don’t deny that fingerprinting is powerful. But, I also have started to wear a tinfoil hat on the “mic always listening” issue. I have experienced (several times) ads for random things that I have only discussed – never searched for or had other interaction with in any way.

It wouldn’t be in my fingerprint, so the only other possibility is that others with a similar fingerprint to me had already searched for the same thing. Frankly, from an Occam’s Razor perspective, I just find it far less likely that we have such a hive mentality that everyone with similar digital fingerprints ends up having the same “random” discussions. At that point, “they’re always listening to your mic” seems downright practical.

This is one effect of a general lack of real consequences for corporations and those that run them.

The company has already determined their likely fine after being caught doing something egregious. The profit from being early to market is significant, and so long as it is considerably higher than the likely fine, they go for it. The expected real earnings are the difference between the profit and the fine. It’s all made worse since so often the fine is absolutely nothing compared to the profit, since the numbers these companies are dealing with are so damn big.

This is why you won’t see real change until we stop slapping corporations with fines and start slapping executives with jail time. That is literally the only way to break the cycle.