It sounds like you found a very nice place to live! Congrats to you!

I can honestly say I lived through that exact scenario (except not father, but another family member) recently. Fully agree, horrid experience. So many people come to you and act like they care, but they just want the latest gossip. I’m sorry about your father.

It’s been known for a long time that they listen in. “hopefully” it’s only keywords and items like dishwasher.

I’ve been stressing to family that sentiment analysis is so easy and cheap now. They usually respond with “what’s that”? To which I reply "Take the entire history chain of messages between you and everyone in your contacts. Then simply ask ‘Is this conversation pro or against the current administration’, or ‘Are they pro or against ICE’, or ‘are they pro-life or pro-choice’, or literally anything else. In <10 seconds every conversation you have is sorted and collated, and note that at no point did a human read the message, but now has enough information on the conversation to justify a warrant.

Sentiment analysis should terrify everyone with how easy it is to sort every communication. So I say it’s not tin foil hat.

That has been snapping them into reality.

…fair

I honestly don’t think so. I think they’re up there, but tech “enthusiasts” (read, tech bros and people who think random gadgets are cool) probably are. They’re happy to waste their money and give money to meta. Creeps are definitely number 2 or 3 though.

Yeah? Welcome to the goddamn conversation morons. What do you think we’ve been saying for years now?

If I’m forced around people (family, friends, coworkers) who would wear them my go to would always be “I’m sorry, I’m not comfortable discussing (whatever topic) while being recorded”. I think that’s the best way to reinforce each time that it’s weird, there’s a constant recording of everything said, and that the people around them think it’s weird

I love that big tech was so arrogant they just plum forgot or choose to ignore why those died then.

And then above it they still chose the one thing everyone was mad about, a camera. All they had to do was not put a camera in there but they couldn’t resist.

Too many people tell me they prefer small towns because people are “nice”. In my experience, absolutely not. They may say hello to you, but that does not mean they are nice people. My experience aligns with yours. Selfish, ignorant, nosy. After you leave they’ll immediately start talking about you, your family, and anything else gossipy. Not much else to do in a small town.

Say what you will about big cities but no one gives a damn about you and its great. Someone rude to you? You can literally never see them again. It’s wonderful.

but nextdoor is happy to keep racism alive, it’s the bread and butter

You’re lucky then. For me there was at least a double digit percentage of just plain racism.

Photo of black man walking: “ANYBODY KNOW WHO THIS IS?!”

Car broken into: “I BET IT WAS THAT MEXICAN”.

Absolutely vile place. Boomers talking to other boomers with no filter, an HOA board given a social platform.

Not to mention the “one size fits all” engine ue5 is known for being bloated, and thus its a shit engine for anything that needs a high framerate

That’s where the money is now unfortunately. It’s not about making a good product, it’s about convincing gamers that it’s a good product.

Relevant XKCD

societal pressure shouldn’t ever be used to pressure someone in or out of a career in that way. I’m sorry for your mom

before anyone immediately smashes “downvote” and comes here arms raised, “AI” includes ML, as in models specifically trained for this, and models have been around for 20+ years. AI != LLMs

My Hyundai EV is honestly very great, I got the kona

We’ve seen your feedback since launch, and we’re reading all of it

Oh well, thank god they read it. Here that everyone, call it off, they read the feedback

So your first bit, “Why is it cool to shit on a 4 year science degree”, your example says why I found it sad that she gave up on her science degree. The opposite of “shitting on a 4 year science degree”

If you’re upset about wasted potential -> becoming a nurse, then you missed the point of my entire comment and went right to your own conclusions. If you’re upset that a career like a chemist (or a doctor, or a lawyer) require more training and pay better than nurses then you need to take it up with society as a whole. I’m talking about my friend who gave up on a much higher salary and strong career prospects to be a housewife and went with rural culture approved choice of being a nurse, and how gender norms were a non-zero part of her decision.

Point out where I said either of those things.