That’d be great if it was true but there have been rumors that development largely reset when they left. Guess we’ll have to wait until they release credits to know for sure.

the devs given any reason to doubt them

I agree that it’s super early for much speculation, but Dan Houser and a few other key players left Rockstar after RDR2. He and Michael Unsworth (who I think also left the studio with Dan) were two-thirds of the GTA 5 and RDR2 writing team. Without their involvement, I fear a scenario where the core single-player narrative has less gravitas, around which much of the detail and realism of the gameplay and game world has previously resolved, and the company leans more into the success of its GTA Online style gameplay.

I’m sure they can still be wildly successful with that formula, but it will be a huge disappointment for me personally.

I can’t disagree. But as one facet among others, I also think “concern” is reasonably warranted in conducting a comparative assessment.

Edit: also worth highlighting: “there’s nothing wrong with being against gay marriage because it’s a political opinion” is certifiably homophobic. How much responsibility Kagi’s moderators bear for not removing that comment or otherwise explicitly advising that homophobia won’t be tolerated is debatable, but it’s not great.

Seems fair, in reference to Kagi:

Unrelatedly: I’m concerned about the company’s biases, as it seems happy to use Brave’s commercial API (allowing blatant homophobia in the comments) and allow its results to recommend suicide methods without intervention. I reject the idea that avoiding an option that may seem politically biased is the same as being unbiased if such a decision has real political implications.

When we were trying to book a hotel, my partner clicked on the top link of a Google search, which was of course a sponsored link and took her to some completely off-brand intermediary whose website was designed to mimic the appearance of the hotel’s. She completed the booking there before ever realizing it wasn’t the hotel itself, and when I quoted the same stay directly with the hotel it wound up being some $100-$200 cheaper.

I had to have a lengthy phone call with their customer support and exchange a few emails before they finally agreed to refund us. I suppose we’re lucky they even had a reachable customer service, but I was and remain infuriated by the conditions that created the situation in the first place.

No argument here. There’s a global paradigm shift needed to break out of that mindset should it even be possible, but it still boggles my mind in the meantime the resources invested in sustaining this ecosystem.

That came as a surprise to me too. 2.5% is just so little.

“Tracking protection” sounds more like “alternative tracking.”

Google’s Privacy Sandbox initiative, just like its name implies, was designed to be an alternative to cookies that will allow advertisers to serve users ads while also protecting their privacy. It assigns users to groups according to their interests, based on their recent browsing activities, and advertisers can use that information to match them with relevant ads.

Lot of time, money, and effort toward a moderate improvement rather than just not perceiving users as products. But…improvement is improvement.

What’s the downside?

Me? Not at all. I actually posted this out of concern because, as I’ve said elsewhere, I’m a Firefox user, and my layman’s impression was that its reputation has been improving over the past couple years. I assumed its user base was doing the same as people grew increasingly concerned with Google’s intentions.

Apparently ZDnet has some reputational issues itself I was unaware of.

Boy that paints a grim picture.

I don’t think so. The article claims Firefox lost some of its lead developers to Google when it started developing Chrome and then took a long time to regain its footing around 2017. That sounds about right to my recollection. I had admittedly switched to Chrome myself for a while (I’m not terribly tech-savvy, maybe a little more than average) but switched back to Firefox last year. I am still pretty deeply embedded in the Google ecosystem though in other ways.

This is a very good example of the skewing I imagined. If you’re unable or prohibited from using Firefox on work devices (as many environments restrict), all that workday traffic will be coming from “approved” browsers.

Haha yeah, when I say I had a cell phone, I mean that I was essentially reachable at all times. I didn’t start using text messaging regularly until like…2009, and didn’t use it for anything else until I got my first Droid a few years later.

Fair point though, my response was very American-centric.

I prefer CHEAP, ACIDIC coffee because I did the pourover too fast on mediocre store-bought grounds that are too fine, LOL.

😄. Get yourself a decent burr grinder, a French press, and some Aldi oat milk (if you don’t want black) and you can make as good a cup of coffee as you can get at the best coffee shops.

As a relatively elder millennial (1987), I’d concede the title of last true pre-internet generation to Gen X. My family got AOL dial-up when I was in 6th grade, which was a little behind the curve compared to my peers, but not much. So I certainly lived through a seminal transition period as the internet developed and became…what it is today.

But the hallmark experiences of the pre-internet times, payphones, paper maps, coordinating with others, I only did so in my limited capacity as a child. I had a cell phone by…10th grade, I could at least print out MapQuest directions, etc.

I remember a lot, but didn’t truly interact with most of it.

Neutral party here, I read it naturally as a supplement to your comment, not an opposition. I don’t detect an argumentative tone personally.

Comcast said it “promptly patched and mitigated its systems,” it said it later discovered that prior to the repair operation, between Oct. 16 and Oct. 19, “there was unauthorized access to some of (its) internal systems that (it) concluded was a result of this vulnerability,”

Where “promptly” means at least 9 days later. I understand patching production systems isn’t just a point and click operation, but vulnerability and patch management is a competency that Comcast is responsible for. The fact that they’re not named as a defendant in the suit is really, really weird.

Hey go easy on yourself, we’re all phallic.

Haha, sorry to confuse things further but this is not true .

Tldr, “till” is its own word and is actually older than the word until, and they’ve been used synonymously for centuries. 'Til with an apostrophe is acceptable but has been less common, and til without an apostrophe is even less common.

Pride can actually be defined as pleasure derived from an achievement. There are meadows in your community right now with a sizable population of randy toads that would otherwise have been ripped out and replaced by cheap, cookie cutter (I assume) housing, if not specifically because of your interest and contribution.

Intent needn’t be part of the equation. Pleasure + achievement = pride. I’m proud of you for saving those meadows, for goodness sake take some for yourself!