Monopolies are just an effect of capitalism in its current form.
I’m more concerned with the games companies who aren’t even monopolies, and are already seen as shit services run by shitty people (unless anyone actually likes Ubisoft, EA, and their launchers???)

Gamers have respect for Gaben, and I’ve heard more faith and less worry about his son taking over than practically the entire team of owners from Valve’s competitors. They have a monopoly because it’s a good service, and the fact that it’s has a user base as big as it does shouldn’t surprise anyone: they seem to be doing things right enough to not be a bother. That’s what matters more than the inevitability of a business getting big - there’s a lot more Nuance and that doesn’t just magically happen, nor is just pointing it out helpful in sensible critique.

I find that hard to believe, since I would go to India sometimes twice per year when younger (for over a decade).
In 2005 we were told to be cautious of I think cabbage containing dishes, because it was making many people sick. It was also common for milk to be sold highly pasteurised and in blue bags within the city.

I’ve also had questionable and not good food from those little backstreet fast food places whether in Atlanta, Minnesota, Arkansas, and I even had a rather average Chinese dish from near Santa Monica (which I didn’t rate well).

There’s a good chance you were in the right area for good food, but that also exists here (example: Camden Town, which has been a ‘Foodie’ destination for a while now), or the plethora of food festivals all around London.
I apologise if I gave the impression that they’re hard to find: they’re really not.

Mostly a stereotype perpetuated by cheap or hastily found dining places.
When you get fish and chips from a good place that handles fresh catches, there is considerable flavour, yet buy from the fast food place in the middle of a high street and you’ll get a soggy representation from the frozen cod.
Same situation with a good roast, or a cottage/shepherds pie, or pie and mash that isn’t just a casserole with a hat, etc.

Honestly I’ve stepped foot in 39 US States so far, and it’s a similar thing there. I just think the “British food bad” thing has stuck as humour, there’s plenty of theories about it I won’t get into but it’s just a thing I suppose.

What I’ve noticed is YouTube recommending me more obscure videos, from very small creators.

I very much appreciate whatever they’re doing, regardless of how these bigger channels are being hit by it. Yesterday I got recommended a video by an elderly woman, showing a mug warmer she bought. It was very sweet, had less than 30 views and it was a lovely contrast to the flashy, over edited videos stretching a paragraph to 10+ minutes.

Not saying the big channels are bad, I just personally like the small time channels and appreciate that YouTube has been (at least with the algorithm it has set for me) giving these small channels a shot at getting an audience.
I’ve connected with a lot of people from smaller channels, joined communities etc. yet this is much more difficult with the larger ones (in some I’ve been to, over the years, the chatrooms they set up are so huge the moderation sometimes just gives up or doesn’t even exist in any practical way).

Whilst this is true, it’s also a good reason to move to self hosting if possible.

I’ve been slowly removing my reliance on these ad filled services, even though the apks I use have ads removed, and this news just gives me more reason to ramp this up since these same APKs may no longer work without some trickery by 2027 (if they go with this plan).

Still, this all seems like constant patchwork as any and all effort is being taken to rid ourselves of control over our devices. It’s an iffy situation and I just hope people smarter than myself will continue fighting, in some manner.

I saw a doctor in Amsterdam about it and he slid me €20 and kept saying, “I’m a real doctor”. They really do things differently in Europe!

I hope they don’t block VPN access.

Used to with friends who are no longer with us.

The folks I would do this with, hang out at a spot frequently, have either moved away or died.
It’s been very hard to get to that point again, however Cannabis communities, particularly in Amsterdam, have really been a help at socialising and making friends. I’ve made more friends there since last year than I have for several years prior.
Folks are always up for a coffee and a toke!

I ate an extra large pizza to myself yesterday…

I’m still normal weight it was just a night, however stress eating is no joke…

I have a theory that initially a lot of these works were made for a laugh, like an old timey joke picture, and over time people kept adding meaning to them.
Like someone makes a rude and crude painting of a giant cock with eyes, makes people laugh, and a few thousand years later some bloke in a trilby goes “hmm, yes, it seems these people worshipped a penis god at this point in time. Also it clearly reads a prophecy, ‘deez nuts’. Fascinating.”

I can already hear the static whenever we got a phonecall and the receiver was too close.

Back in the day I ran a small Shout cast server. Once had around 40 listeners. It made teenage me happy. In a broken voice, between tracks, I’d pretend to be a radio guy on my cheap desktop microphone (those white/grey/cream sticks, you know the ones I’m sure).
“Yo yo yo, that was a SICK beat, let’s get on down to some more funky tunes!!!”

Fun memories.

Then you had bands like SOAD, who released an album titled “STEAL THIS ALBUM!”
Some music stores put their own stickers on the cd cases saying things like, “please don’t”, it was a great time.

Jesus did it all the time in his Accord.

BBC has been ramping up the scare mongering lately. I mean, moreso than usual. Maybe I’m just noticing it more though.

I’m like the Simpsons. Season 1 was choppy, I had a good rise and plateau’d during some golden years.
However I’m now into Season 582 and my writers have been replaced with chimpanzees doing a terrible impression of Arnold Schwarzenegger on loop.

This is what I use. Stremio, Torrentio add-on for Torrent sources, and a bit of tinkering so I don’t see the paid options. Works pretty well for single episodes of some shows (for others I download the box set).

Edit: I mean it works for full shows, but when I really like a show enough I’ll have a hard drive copy.

When I was in university, one of the source materials required was at an absurd price. The lecturer made a point that it makes no sense to spend that much money on something we are unlikely to use beyond the module, so she encouraged us to use Z-Library and provided links. I really miss her, she was an absolutely fantastic lecturer.

I spoke in public once.
I mean, granted it was to apologise for that thing with the onions, but people listened!

That looks quite sophisticated for the purpose, I love it. If a phone repair man pulls out one of these, the alarm in my head to make the good coffee will most certainly go off.