> People keep claiming that Facebook has no users anymore and that Meta's numbers must be fake
I only ever hear this stuff from people that don't use Facebook. It's a self-selecting crowd and they have their fingers in their ears and theirs eyes closed shut while yelling into the void trying to convince themselves everyone else is just like them. Except all that's out there is the same echo chamber of people that also are doing the exact same thing.
that's what happens with stuff that is so popular it becomes infrastructure. It's like the guy who goes "ew I haven't touched Java in ten years" while half the stuff he uses runs on it. WhatsApp in some countries is less of a ChatApp you use than a thing you live in.
Like the psychology bit that Freud seems absurd because all that's left to us are his mistakes because the rest has been so thoroughly absorbed you don't even realize it
I found with FB if you’re in some community that uses it then that’s it, you either use it or miss out.
For a long time my running group used it, and while it still does, the WhatsApp community is more used now. My (Catholic) church still uses Facebook for many announcements along with its own website.
You're probably being downvoted as most here are conflating WhatsApp and FB as both are owned by Meta so you're distinction is moot in the context of this discussion.
Nah, I'm getting the impression from having a Facebook login and it looking like the platform best representing Dead Internet Theory. That's compared with other Meta platforms I've invested a lot less time in trying to cultivate a social network on which friends actually still communicate on, so it's not like I'm part of some self-selecting group of hardline opponents.
I can remember when my Facebook feed was full of travel and baby pictures (not to mention much earlier days when it was how you got invited to parties) Now when I log in, the feed is full of slop, with maybe one actual update from someone I last saw in high school 20 years ago. That's not just because they're filling the feed with slop for the sake of it. If I navigate to a friend's profile their most recent updates are probably their last three birthdays, each with generic greetings offered by 3-5 people presumably not close enough to have their phone number. My last few friend requests are all bots. I'm sure people still habitually click the app and scroll for a few moments, and also sure it might be different for communities in India or Brazil but yeah... it really isn't what it used to be for regular people who heavily used it for at least a decade and couldn't care less about privacy concerns or Zuck's politics. It's gone from social network to third rate clickbait feed which happens to be a default app on more phones than the better ones...
As for Threads, there was something about the way they tried to entice signups with the world's dullest clickbait that just didn't induce me to see if anyone actually used it for stuff.
I still log into Facebook monthly to see updates from my parents/relatives, who still use it somewhat regularly. I can't remember the last time I saw a post from anyone I know personally under the age of 60, aside from the one guy who posts political rants every day.
I hear a lot of people talk about Facebook Marketplace, but that's not a thing where I live, that probably pushes up the numbers a lot. When I do log in I sometimes check on some of the retro tech/homelabbing communities and they seem pretty popular with many posts a day, so there are definitely people there.
Microsoft already has a Linux, it is known as Azure Linux or cbl-mariner depending on the variant. It is not setup for being a general purpose OS. It is what we are supposed to use as our OS for Linux based services in Azure.
I just dont buy what the author is selling. Windows NT kernel is _good_. The userland is what is fucked and hated by many. But also Windows is more than just an OS it is an entire enterprise ecosystem. Stuff like Active Directory is a big deal and intimately intertwined with Windows.
Also, if there was a push to replace Windows NT with Linux you would have heard about it nnow. That is going to be a huge project and almost impossible to keep under wraps and without leaks. Microsoft isnt Apple when it comes to leak secrecy.
Europe cant afford to have enemies on both sides. It will align with the US reluctantly because even a bat shit crazy US is better than Russia. China plays it too close to the chest to be a friend.
I think Europe can handle Russia by itself quite well. The Baltics are vulnerable, but Poland will definitely kick Russia's butt in a military engagement. Poles will defend EU's eastern flank.
I expect Europe to distance itself from US. Let's see.
I think you are underestimating how entrenched and strong US lobby is. European governments are filled to the roof with US boosters whos whole wealth is tied to what US wants. Even people like Macron have been bribed by US companies for decades.
And now with huge hard right turn in europe all those “nationalists” will just bend over even more to get US lobby money and consulting contracts. They are already tied to national oligarchs so they welcome Trump and will likely sell off Ukraine to get “peace” and slowely dismantle EU. The aim is that every country will follow hungary and slovakia - corrupted, weak and undemocratic.
It looks like the behavior of EU governments contradict what you wrote. Germany is not selling off Ukraine (last week Merz re-affirmed full support for Ukraine's security)
And the US are now being hated by Europeans. Supporting Donnie's latest lunacy is not a winning political move in EU. For example, France, Germany, and Sweden sent troops in Greenland to protect against US, all those US boosters in their governments be damned.
So I think what I wrote makes sense: EU will distance itself from US and will be able to protect itself against Russia. It helps EU that today's Russian military is not the one from 1943/44/45 - but it is the one from 1918 (corrupt and ineptly led).
Most of the western europe would have carved up Ukraine already to get “peace”. But baltics/nordics/poland won't budge. Western europe is scared to send weapons let alone send any actual military help. When crowdfunding is rivaling countries support then it doesn't look like they are taking it seriously.
Which part of Western Europe is afraid to send weapons? Britain who sent Shadow missiles to Ukraine? Germany who sent tanks? France who committed troops on the ground if there is a peace treaty in Ukraine?
Germany, UK, and France have continuously asked for all territory to be given back to the Ukraine-which is the opposite of wanting to carve up Ukraine. Another one of your posts that is contradicted by reality.
I wish you were right and western europe will get involved with actual troops. Hopefully the situation is changing… but “reality” is that germany sent like 20 tanks. Ukraine has over 1200 in their disposal. Poland send almost 400… i mean even Netherlands (to their credit) sent 5x more tanks than Germany.
I guess as the situation will get more dire, western europe will have turn around but its been going on for what 4 years? They better do stuff. Because if hard right - likes of AfD gets into power there is high chance they will just leave Ukraine to Russia.
Farage whos been campaigning for Trump in US multiple times? Meloni who is Elon Musks bestie going on dates together?
Their disapproval of Trump is simply calculation. They would have been hurt too much otherwise. Once most of europe will go their way (europe has huge hard right turn incoming) the rhetoric will change. It will be normalized, they will sell europe in name of anti-regulation, lack of innovation and “incompetence” of other eu states.
Campaigning for Trump was useful for Farage when Trump was a fun edgy character that his base liked. This Greenland stuff is deeply unpopular across the entire political spectrum in Europe, there is no way to back selling off a sovereign territory to the US and have a hope of winning an election.
That's the same thing what am i saying. But what do you think Farage would do if he was already in power? Contradict his ally? They would cook up some angle so both of them would get something out of it. Farage is already busy downplaying the situation and steering the discussion away.
You think Denmark is not the US’s ally? They would happily cook up an angle but there is absolutely no world where that angle involves selling Greenland and that appears to be the only result Trump will accept, presumably so he can go down in history as the first President to expand the United States in a long time.
I don’t buy this at all. Russia is a relatively small economy with a tiny fraction of the EU population. The US is not going to launch a shooting war with Europe. Europe is not going to back down here. This Greenland thing is deeply unpopular in the US. It’s only a conflict because of one senile old man who will be dead soon.
It's not just 1 old man. Most of the wars Trump does is just a logical continuation of the military industrial complex strategy, he just doesn't hide it at all.
Venezuela was already a target, Panama was already conquered, and I'm sure Greenland was in plans already.
The US already has 1) a base in Greenland, and 2) and agreement with Denmark that they can arbitrarily increase their presence there. America could increase it's presence a hundredfold and start putting missiles there, and Denmark would be fine with it.
America is threatening Greenland for one reason: Trump wants to brag that he added Greenland to America.
Venezuela has been an issue for all administrations since Bush. Greenland has never been an issue because there is absolutely no rationale for it. The US can put as many troops there as it likes and is welcome to try to profitably extract minerals from a frozen wasteland. This is just Trump wanting legacy because he’s a narcissist.
> Europe cant afford to have enemies on both sides
Neither can the US. Imagine Europe supporting China in exchange for China backstabbing Russia - entire Ukraine and Belarus and maybe even Kaliningrad suddenly are up for grabs for EU while China gets Russian territories that it has historical claims to. Then China gets access to European technology (ASML and Airbus) which means that the US stops having massive technological advantage and suddenly the conquest of Taiwan starts being more realistic. China and Europe are too far away physically to come in direct conflict, especially as EU doesn't care about being a superpower.
This is unimaginable right now, but the more EU decouples from the US because of its unreliability, the more it might actually work out.
No one wants Kaliningrad now because it's 100% Russian. Annexing it means adding a Russian fifth column to your country.
I'm surprised by this, but my general opposition to ethnic cleansing has been weakened by understanding how Russia uses Russian migration to subvert nations from within. Transnistria, an independent Russian dominated portion of Moldava, exists entirely because Russians moved there in large numbers with the support of the Russian government to give them an ethnic wedge. Were I in charge in Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Poland or the Baltics, I would seriously consider expelling all ethnic Russians.
No I didn't. Nuclear missles are only relevant when the existence of the country itself is at stake. But when the war is at the edges of the country, then losing territory is preferable over nuclear war.
Think about it - in case shit hits the fan, would you rather cede some territory like Alaska or Guam, or would you start nuclear war which results in complete annihilation of all major US cities?
Germany is used to that, and it never seemed to deter them in the past. Us has a hard time deploying lots of troops vs Europe. Shoulder and truck launched weaponry, 3 shifts, 7 days.
It’s repeated over the last several centuries with similar players. Not sure there was a Germany before Freddy the Great. Austria was different and had different concerns.
Prussia and Britain defeated France, Austria and Russia in the 1700’s. Prussia and Britain defeated France in the 1800’s. Germany then threw away this association to catastrophic results in the 1900’s. The US is doing such dissociation now.
It will not align with the US if that means territorial losses. Russia is an economical lightweight that's causing a bit of a headache on the eastern border but for the EU looking weak would make things so much worse.
I'm not sure giving mineral resources is reliable. See The Ukraine–United States Mineral Resources Agreement of 2025 and "Trump says Zelenskiy, not Putin, is holding up a Ukraine peace deal" a couple of days ago.
If this is how little you think of an app with ~50 million monthly active users, I take it making apps with a billion MAU is something you routinely do during your toilet breaks, or...?
Sovereign-by-design but still runs a software stack that is largely written and maintained by a US staff...
All of these isolation sovereignty iniatives are window dressing to the bigger problem that the EU and other countries are massively dependent on proprietaey US-centric software stacks.
You mean the same Germany that uses its domestic access to the bargain basement cloud providers like Hetzner and Contabo to de-anonymize Tor users for international law enforcement?
Or the Germany that bought Crypto AG along with the CIA to backdoor encryption hardware?
> Sovereign-by-design but still runs a software stack that is largely written and maintained by a US staff...
Id argue that very few software components are written (let alone maintained) by US staff. This is basically another major player (there are other sovereign clouds) reading the writing on the wall and doing what is necessary to avoid losing business or being irradiated from the market.
CloudFlare CEO, take notice. Look how the big boys do business and maybe learn a thing or two.
CloudFlare already does business that way — eg, enforcing local laws inside the country.
CloudFlare’s objection to Italy’s demands were that Italy demanded CloudFlare censor websites outside of Italy for everyone, globally. CloudFlare refused to do so and said they’d stop providing services to Italy.
Do you realize what you’re asking for in ClodFlare listening to Italy? The US will get total say over what content can be hosted anywhere in Europe (by CloudFlare), due to that precedent being set (and their greater ability to coerce ClodFlare).
Your comment is contradictory: you phrased it as respecting sovereignty, but your actual demand is that CloudFlare allow the US to enforce edicts on the EU.
Well if you look at the SKUs they're discontinuing, they're taking out all the lowest end models with more VRAM to save the allocation for the higher end models with jucier margins. For example the 5070 Ti costs $500 less than the 5080 but both have 16 GB of VRAM. I imagine that for the near future, they'll have the 5060 8GB, 5070 12GB, and 16GB will be limited to the 5080 for consumers willing to spend $1300 on a GPU.
I am a recent 5070ti purchaser so I'm also feeling lucky, though if they exit the gaming market entirely I suspect the drivers will all go to crap soon thereafter
Scott Adams was influential on me in my younger years but he was always a bit out there and that caught up with him eventually. The brain rot that took him in the last decade made him basically unreadable.
Absolutely categorically false: I daily-drove such a config on openSUSE for 4 years, 9-5 Mon-Fri.
One portrait, one landscape: fine. 2 portrait flanking one landscape: fine. Laptop + 2 external displays, 1 big in portrait, 1 small in landscape: fine. 2 screens, vertically stacked: fine. 2 side-by-side, one big one small: fine.
Everything works exactly as expected. Panels stay put. Some apps can't remember their positions but they can't on any WM or desktop.
Very dissimilar resolutions gets tricky but that's down to Xinerama not Xfce. It's true on all X11 desktops.
Xfce can do fractional scaling on a per-display basis to get on-screen features the same size, but it results in some displays getting slightly blurry. Tolerable for short-term use but not all day every day, for me.
But Xfce is 100% usable in heterogenous multihead and indeed handles this as well or better than almost any other mainstream X11-based desktop.
I very recently upgraded from a dual fullhd to a dual 4k setup and I was genuinely surprised how little problems I had setting everything up to the high DPI displays. I am genuinely interested in hearing what pitfalls might still await me.
Most HighDPI issues on X based DEs is from lack of fractional scaling, which means the scaling needs to happen in the applications instead (with separate configs for each UI toolkit), leading to lots of weird issues with inconsistently scaled UI elements on monitors sized such that integer scaling produces an inappropriate scale.
It doesn't affect all monitors, but some DPIs really don't play well with X. The fractional scaling you get on Wayland leads to some element of blur instead, but that's a far lesser evil, the jank is a bigger issue IMO.
This is why I switched from XFCE to KDE. I still use XFCE for server desktops (if they have one) as it gets out of your way and lets you do easy things easily. I did spend a while recently trying to figure out how to get a Gnome desktop to autostart a terminal and ended up mucking around with installing desktop extensions just trying to specify a startup command.
I've been using XFCE for several years on 4k screens and I agree that it's not great out of the box.
Once you've set it up it works pretty well though.
Now if only I could remember what I did to get it working nicely...(luckily I've had the same installation of XFCE on my machine for the past 5 years so haven't had to fiddle with that in a while)
You can do some xrandr magic to make it better and set a virtual rendering target that keeps things consistent across screens. It's a bit of a pain to work out though.
I only ever hear this stuff from people that don't use Facebook. It's a self-selecting crowd and they have their fingers in their ears and theirs eyes closed shut while yelling into the void trying to convince themselves everyone else is just like them. Except all that's out there is the same echo chamber of people that also are doing the exact same thing.
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