ddq (u/ddq) - Readit News

ddq commented on Apple vs. Facebook Is Kayfabe infrequently.org/2025/08/... · Posted by u/pchristensen

adrr · a day ago

That would make reddit, bluesky, slack etc a miserable experience where you have to switch apps all the time. There’s an option to force it pop out to a browser, go set it. I bet most people don’t want to switch back and forth.

ddq · 16 hours ago

Then make app switching better, replace the overlong animation with a snappy transition and make returning to the original app seamless. They're loading these phones up with RAM, they should be able to support true multitasking. The UX should be as natural as alt-tabbing between apps on desktop, and could be made even more fluid with proper design. But that's clearly not a priority.

ddq commented on Will Smith's concert crowds are real, but AI is blurring the lines waxy.org/2025/08/will-smi... · Posted by u/jay_kyburz

hliyan · 21 hours ago

This phenomenon of pushing technology that end consumers don't want, seem to be driven by a simple sequence of incentives: pressure from shareholders to maintain/increase stock price -> pressure on business to increase market share, raise prices, or at least showcase promising future tech -> pressure on PMs to build new features -> combined with developers' desire to try out new technologies -> result: AI chatbots/summaries on things we didn't ask for, touchscreens on car dashboards, AI upscaling etc.

ddq · 17 hours ago

After decades of consumerism, most consumers already have most of what they need/want, so in order to keep selling widgets, corporations must manufacture demand. Enough big screen TVs have already been built and sold to give every American a fully functional 60"+ screen in every room in their residence, enough lightly used ones to go around to completely negate the need to manufacture more. But profit must not go down for any reason, so they must invent gimmicks to push the latest and greatest model onto a public that can't even tell the difference without marketing propaganda.

The entire global economic system depends on the unceasing transformation of natural resources into a stream of disposable crap for the benefit of the ownership class and shareholding leeches. It's obviously unsustainable, but so are the mortal lives of those who benefit from the system. What incentive have they to save a world in which they will no longer have any stake? Better to live out their days in comfort and wealth by cutting down the saplings under whose shade they will never sit.

I say enough is enough.

ddq commented on A dive into open chat protocols wiki.alopex.li/ADiveIntoO... · Posted by u/Bogdanp

palata · 24 days ago

The problem I see with chat protocols is that it's all about network effect.

How do you get people to leave WhatsApp for something better? - You don't. They just stay on WhatsApp.

One problem being that if you want better security (Signal), you lose a little bit in UX. If you want better UX (Telegram), you completely lose the security aspect. So WhatsApp seems like a local optimum: relatively secure, and you can find your friends there.

Then we can discuss all we want about the merits of Discord/Slack/Matrix/Zulip, but the truth remains this: if you ask someone who mostly uses Discord what they want you to use for your new community, they will say Discord. If they mostly use Zulip, they will say Zulip. People don't want the better solution, they want the least effort.

I have seen multiple open source communities (who spend a fair share of their time complaining about how people don't support open source instead of using the proprietary alternative) choosing their chat system: people were fighting between Slack and Discord, nobody gave a damn about using an open source system. How hypocritical...

ddq · 24 days ago

At this point, I simply want to pick whichever protocol has the highest concentration of my kind of folks. The Discord audience is not it.

ddq commented on The United States withdraws from UNESCO state.gov/releases/office... · Posted by u/layer8

rexpop · a month ago

Deeply, deeply deranged to suggest that Israel—a $600B economy—is "wagging the dog" of our $30,500B economy.

ddq · a month ago

"Deeply, deeply deranged" is fairly inflammatory language to express your own reductive ignorance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws#Anti-BDS_laws_in...

ddq commented on Houdini of FL: autistic savant in prison for taking tools he inherited en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar... · Posted by u/felineflock

thegrim33 · a month ago

He was in solitary confinement that long as a result of his repeated escapes. Not for the initial charge. Whether you agree with the way it turned out or not, the way you phrased it is completely incorrect and misleading and just rage baiting.

ddq · a month ago

On the contrary, that detail makes it even more enraging. A real life Jean Valjean.

ddq commented on How bad are childhood literacy rates? vox.com/culture/419070/ch... · Posted by u/pseudolus

smogcutter · a month ago

For my sins, I teach middle school. There’s plenty of different angles on this, but I’d like to highlight a recent one that may not immediately occur to people here without young children: COVID retirements hit the elementary schools particularly hard.

Teaching high school on zoom is one thing, now imagine teaching 3rd. So the veteran elementary teachers retired or quit, and there’s no adequate pipeline to replace them, especially in underserved communities.

Coming through the system now is a cohort of children whose k-5 teachers have been a rotating cast of subs and ineffective new hires, and it shows.

ddq · a month ago

This to me is the most urgent moral issue of the day: our active stunting of our children's development. Our collective misguided and counterproductive approach to pedagogy does not cultivate a learning mindset but rather stifles children's enormous natural aptitude for exploratory play. We are doing it wrong and we know it. The curriculum we use isn't worth paying minimum wage to teach.

It could be different. It must be. We have role models to imitate, better methods to follow, resources and tools galore. What is needed now is organization toward common purpose. How does the internet bystander locate effective organizations to disrupt the march of folly? This is a situation where the pilot has gone mad and we must seize control of the aircraft but are too paralyzed by social forces to act.

ddq commented on Supreme Court's ruling practically wipes out free speech for sex writing online ellsberg.substack.com/p/f... · Posted by u/macawfish

lelanthran · a month ago

> The grandparent post didn't say "transgender treatments" they said "transgender issues."

You don't think that transgender treatments is a transgender issue? If you think it is then my response is perfectly on-topic.

> Do you believe that the mere concept of questioning your gender identity or expression is something that should be kept from the minds of minors?

Depending on your jurisdiction, there are messages you can't target to kids. Why should there be a special exemption for this?

Besides, my belief on this is irrelevant; the only transgender issue that has gotten pushback en-masse from the clear majority of people world wide has been transgender treatments on minors.

IOW, this (treatment for persons unable to give informed consent) is a very unpopular position.

ddq · a month ago

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ddq commented on Grok: Searching X for "From:Elonmusk (Israel or Palestine or Hamas or Gaza)" simonwillison.net/2025/Ju... · Posted by u/simonw

Y_Y · 2 months ago

> Grok's personal opinion

Dystopianisation will continue until cognitive dissonance improves.

ddq · 2 months ago

In the '70s they called it "heightening the contradiction".

ddq commented on Jack Welch, the Man Who Broke Capitalism (2022) forbes.com/sites/kylewest... · Posted by u/throw0101b

kamaal · 2 months ago

>>I suppose some Americans would have preferred a situation where China stayed Communist or collapsed.

The definition of Communism per the west, is something that always fails by default. The way Chinese define communism is doing whatever it takes to win.

When you remove all the abstract words behind this game, a simple philosophy is if you do the right things you win. You can call it capitalism, communism or whatever you want.

ddq · 2 months ago

Market Daoism?