A Pot Prophecy

This lecture did not age well. In fact the “bad guy” here was quite right!

Later in the episode the young man (23 and a home owner!) neglects his child (who of course dies, cause cannabis bad) for a cannabis party. Which is what happens when you use pot. Every time. /s

I read this comment when this clip was recently posted on Reddit.

Here’s a hypothetical rebuttal the 23 year old could have said if the conversation continued
“You know what your problem is? What’s the problem with all you types? You only see people at their worst. You say you’ve seen it happen before, seen people crash and burn from this or that, and I don’t doubt it, because it’s your job to go after the people who are crashing and burning. But you don’t see all the people keeping it together, because they don’t make any fuss to be seen. I guarantee you there’s countless people out there doing “this and that” which you subjectively think is immoral, and they’re fine. I guarantee you there’s old men who smoked weed every week of their life and died happy men with big loving families. I even guarantee you there some other officers in your precinct who you respect and maybe even admire who are doing marijuana or something more, and you can’t tell. Your perspective is warped because it’s your job to fixate on the 1% worst of society, but there’s nothing obligating you to balance that out by spending the rest of your time with people who have it together. You’re never called to the scene of a family having a nice picnic, so do you assume nice picnics never happen? And anyone who’s had decades of a good life with family and friends, yet they’ve also smoked marjiuana, aren’t going to tell you about it to let you in on the more tame reality of things, because the moment you knew, you would try to destroy their lives, make them crash and burn so your prophecies would become self fulfilling.”

Bezbozny on Reddit

Friends Don’t Let Friends Use Chrome

Today, ad blockers and privacy apps can ship filter list updates themselves, often using giant open-source community lists. Manifest V3 will stop this by limiting what Google describes “remotely hosted code.” All updates, even to benign things like a filtering list, will need to happen through full extension updates through the Chrome Web Store. They will all be subject to Chrome Web Store reviews process, and that comes with a significant time delay.

Ron Amado for Ars Technica

How is this not monopolistic abuse by the owner of both the largest video platform and the most widely used internet browser on the planet?

I’m a weirdo Safari user (There’s dozens of us!). I’d encourage folks to use Safari or Firefox. Not Chrome or Edge. Just as importantly, install a good ad blocker. AdGuard, Ublock, Ghostly, etc. Both on your desktop and your mobile devices. It will save you from predatory ads that track you across the internet, malicious code in poorly moderated ad networks, a terrible user experience of junk thrown in your face, and better battery life.

Subscribe and support the sites you use, some of which include a version of their service without ads!

Delayed thoughts from Wikimania 2023

I had this bit saved in my drafts for a while now. Getting it out there even if unfinished.

I’m currently sitting in a gigantic convention center. It’s part of a larger multi-block series of interconnected hotels and shopping malls. It’s in Singapore, which is 9,545 miles from my home. The furthest distance I’ve ever been from home, my family.

It isn’t the first time I’ve traveled since Covid. But it is the first time being around this many people and having to be “on” for long periods of time.

Im surrounded by happy people who are excited to be with one another.

It’s overwhelming, in what is quickly becoming “in a good way”.