Yep I had a case where I bought something online and it was not as described. The merchant didn't respond to emails, I filed the PayPal chargeback and the case was taking ages as the merchant wasn't responding. They finally responded on the last day to basically say I got my item. Despite all my evidence I provided it didn't seem to matter. So I again would have to respond and now wait for PayPal to rule. I was getting so sick of it, I just filed a chargeback with my credit card company instead and they gave me the money back right away upfront and did their own investigation after the fact and ruled in my favour.
I have had PayPal work for me for refunds many years ago, but the problem is often how long the whole process takes and how long your money is held hostage. By the time you maybe get your money back, you've already had to pay off that money on your credit card (if you used credit for the PP transaction). I've found that when I do a chargeback via my credit card, they often give me the money back right away and then do an investigation. If it were to not go my way the money would get taken back. I think this feels more fair depending on the case. Some cases are pretty clear cut and there is no reason to hold your money hostage while they confirm what you said is truthful.
Valve isn't doesn't have to appease any public shareholders every quarter. There are likely no real expectations apart from making some profit which I am sure they will easily do. Then they just do like they have done with the Steamdeck and leave it on their store as an item they keep in stock and make some decent side income on. Throw it on sale for all their big sales and get some nice sales bonuses off it here and there.
I think ultimately there goal is to push more people towards Linux so that more games get developed there. All of their hardware pretty much targets the Linux side of gaming, so they really are trying to get rid of the Microsoft monopoly on PC gaming which I think is great.
You mention that cables are better suited... but that is the whole point of Starlink. Getting cables everywhere is either not feasible or expensive. The rural properties are already mentioned as a very big source of usage right now around the world. But you also have everyone who is using it for some mobile purpose. Whether that be planes, boats, RV's, cars, military, etc... I've even seen people live streaming things using Starlink due to cell towers not giving good enough connections where they are.
While they may not be ideal or people living in Urban areas, they also aren't limited to selling to people who are physically connected by cable like a regular ISP would be.
I think you're underestimating the market here. Especially on the enterprise side when you start thinking of things like airliners, cruise ships, etc...
Good to know, as past ones I've signed only have taken a couple minutes. Worst case I'm keeping the petition opened and will sign up again tonight. I'll probably also throw a little message together as well to send to my MP tonight. I feel like that's about all I can do to make my voice heard about these matters.
Sadly spying on citizens is pretty bipartisan for most governments around the world. It seems hard to actually stop this kind of stuff. I've signed this petition which I'm sure will do absolutely nothing, but it feels like there isn't much else I can do. I didn't even get a confirmation email with the link I need to click after signing this petition, so I guess my signature is null and void. I've lost faith in our government doing anything to benefit the people.
Yes, but you're arguing against a police agency utilizing a tool to enforce existing laws. Whether or not you agree with enforcing immigration laws is your opinion, but it is a law and that is not personally what my comment is concerned about or addressing. I am referring to misuse, this would not be misuse, it would instead be a law you disagree with enforcing. Which I feel is off-topic from my discussion as it is centered around laws you disagree with, not about the underlying idea of Flock cameras being added.
If you have a problem with police being able to utilize cameras to enforce laws, please make your case about that. But if your problem is about a specific government agency enforcing laws that you disagree with, please move on. I'm not interested in a political debate about that.
I'm not American, I never mentioned America, and these cameras are being installed across the world. Not everything is about America and a single government agency. Sometimes it is about the bigger picture when having discussions. I also disagree with your very biased wording of such a discussion and don't wish to go down this line of unproductive discussion.
Unfortunately that's not how society works. I don't think I can think of any society out there where this idealistic model works. Of course I'd love for that to happen, but that's just not where we are at right now, nor would it be something that could happen overnight. We have to live with what we have right now. And right now the majority of people seem to welcome this technology and have no problem with it at all.
My view on the topic has shifted from "how can we stop this?" to instead "how can we make sure it gets implemented in a way that has the proper checks/balances to ensure citizens still have some right to privacy even when in the public?".
Personally, I am actually more concerned about the fact that every big store out there is using technology to track me as soon as I enter the store and likely has a big profile of data on me. I'm more uncomfortable with that reality and it's something that continues to happen with no restriction. Which is why I think I'd be okay with this technology as long as it has proper auditing and is kept fairly specific in when it can be used and who has access.
This is the main issue. People aren't going by what may be the best solution long term, they are going by what they feel and experience in the moment. Right now people feel unsafe and they feel these systems increase their safety and seem unphased by the privacy ramifications. I personally still am not sure how I feel as I do value my privacy, but at the same time I also understand how this can be a useful tool. Many tools the police have also invade my privacy as well to some degree.
It's so hard to draw a line of what is good or bad, and it seems like the majority are okay with this technology. Which I think means the conversation should shift from should we allow these cameras at all, to instead, how can we allow them to be implemented in a way that minimizes privacy risk as much as possible while still remaining a valuable tool to solve crimes.
I think they are just being intentionally ignorant on the topic due to their dislike of the system overall and I don't think that is fair of them. There is lots of videos even of YouTube via bodycam videos with many police departments making good use of these cameras to aid in solving crimes. I'm sure there are many articles and maybe even research out there which would show this.
I think it's just a way to try and dismiss the cameras without trying to tackle the heart of the problem. When you have to contend with the fact that the cameras have a lot of useful purposes, it makes arguing against them much more challenging. If you can pretend they are not useful, it may be a way to try to stiffle any productive discussion around them.
I've already watched many dozens of bodycam videos on YouTube where the Flock cameras we used to help track down suspects of crime, so I feel like this may just be a case of you being ignorant on the topic. You can argue on the other merits of such a system, but I think you're being a bit silly making an argument that these don't help solve crime.
I still feel so conflicted on things like the Flock cameras. On one hand I understand that they have the capability of incredibly enhancing the ability for police departments to solve more crimes. Especially things related to vehicle theft, they could likely track down your stolen vehicle very quickly especially if they have a wide network of cameras.
However, my concern is always about the possibility for misuse. Even if I trust the current government, it doesn't mean I will trust a future one. What if they use the technology to track/monitor people like investigative journalists? We've already seen a recent state passing bills that would make it harder for investigative journalism to happen. So it's not even out of the realm of possibility for this technology to get used in ways that even would be deemed "legal" as they can simply expand the laws to use it unreasonably in the future.
There is also the other obvious concern which is surrounding things like data breaches or other unauthorized access issues. There have already been many people exposing some large security flaws in a lot of the devices currently out there.
Where I am stuck is how do we balance the huge set of benefits that can come from this kind of tech, with the tradeoffs? Ultimately this tech is unlikely to stop being implemented as governments and even most of the population is largely unbothered by mass surveillance. I almost don't even bother bringing up discussions on these topics with non-tech people as I have yet to find someone who seemed to care at all about this. If anything they are very in support of this technology being implemented as they seem unable to understand the tradeoffs due to it often requiring more technical knowledge. They just see all the positives it can give, and don't grasp the negatives.
Ultimately people usually desire safety, and these cameras definitely can give people more safety. Is it possible to balance safety with proper privacy safeguards?
Yeah that does make sense, though I have found the DDG AI to give me some pretty misleading, incorrect, or just completely off answers which prompted me to throw the !g on the search to see what the Google AI would have given. I'm sure this is overall because of there being more training data, however I do think that is a good reason to simply not bother with the DDG AI. If the AI is going to provide mediocre or wrong answers a lot, then it seems better to just not have it.
Unfortunately I have seen far too many people, especially less tech savvy ones rely pretty heavily on the AI summaries provided by the search engines. And I think it can be a bit dangerous to have these results be super unreliable in what they state. The Google one also isn't perfect, but I've at least found it's a bit more accurate. However I personally don't really care for either. As I mentioned in my OP if I already made the choice to use a search engine, it's likely because I don't care for an AI response as I could open up Claude/ChatGPT or whatever's interface and ask the question there if I just wanted AI.
Yeah for sure. When I was using Kagi for example, I had to be far more specific especially if I am looking for things that are more local such as local businesses. I personally don't mind having to do this and I knew when signing up for something like Kagi that it wasn't going to be able to use information it has tracked about me to give me these kinds of "better" search results. So at the end of the day there is a trade-off that has to be made for privacy. Sometimes I do throw the `!g` bang in there if I want to be redirected to Google in order to get those more localized/personal results and knowing I am trading off some privacy.
Yeah that is actually I think the biggest issue with search in general right now is that I feel like 50% or more of the search results I am getting are AI generated fake sites. Even worse is that sometimes they are malicious and pretending to be what you might be searching for. I personally would much rather companies spend money on AI tools that help filter out this kind of crap, versus investing it into AI summaries at the top of the search. Overtime the summaries are just going to end up being based on data crawled from AI generated slop sites.
I just stopped paying for Kagi as I personally found I stopped using search as much now that I am paying for an AI chatbot. So I have now switched to using DDG. I personally think Kagi did often have better results. I sometimes find myself adding the `!g` bang to my search so I can get the Google search results as sometimes DDG lets me down. I didn't do this much at all when I was using Kagi.
But this is also just my anecdotal experience and I haven't been on DDG for long yet since Kagi, so my perspective may not be proper yet.
To be honest, I didn't find DuckDuckGo's AI on the top of their search to be very good anyway compared to the one Google has. However can't say I have cared much as typically if I am searching I don't want an AI response, otherwise I'd just go straight to an AI chat interface in the first place.
I have had PayPal work for me for refunds many years ago, but the problem is often how long the whole process takes and how long your money is held hostage. By the time you maybe get your money back, you've already had to pay off that money on your credit card (if you used credit for the PP transaction). I've found that when I do a chargeback via my credit card, they often give me the money back right away and then do an investigation. If it were to not go my way the money would get taken back. I think this feels more fair depending on the case. Some cases are pretty clear cut and there is no reason to hold your money hostage while they confirm what you said is truthful.