Recently, I've researched browser battery consumption for laptops. Every test I've seen rates Firefox the worst out of the big 3 or 4. Are there any settings/extensions that may have been overlooked for these reviews that can be used to help Firefox be more energy efficient?
Readit Newsnatex commented on I've started using Firefox and can never go back to Chrome techradar.com/in/features... · Posted by u/p4bl0
natex commented on Good Riddance, TurboTax. Americans Need a Real ‘Free File’ Program nytimes.com/2021/07/19/op... · Posted by u/abawany
With all the wrongs about Turbo Tax and monopolizing tax filing - criticisms are appropriate. That said, I much prefer the US system. The US IRS already knows what how much tax an indiviual owes just like the Dutch government. Having to manually file taxes is a feature, not a bug IMO. The only difference is that the US IRS assumes you'd want to itemize and customize your tax return by default whereas the Dutch government makes standard deductions the default. I wouldn't want the government to just send me a number of what I owe. Sure you can challenge it, but I prefer the default to be that the citizen files taxes and the government can tally up the proposed taxes against the data they have and either accept or challenge it.
However, this Turbo Tax monopoly needs to go. There should be a free (OSS) software that can file the taxes.
Not sure why this comment is getting downvoted. Seems like a rational opinion? What am I missing?
There's a serious argument to be made to keep the government out of areas which ought to be free market territory. If there's not enough demand for internet in these areas to justify multiple service providers, perhaps that's OK, because to provide the service would be a waste of resources... Just because internet is a utility does not mean the government ought to be the one providing that utility.
Also, this just reinforces the argument for projects like Starlink -- which could change the game in rural broadband. Conservatives have a lot of motivation to oppose government programs and that does not necessarily make them corrupt.
What America needs is more intellectual + centrist + pragmatic conservatism to counter Trumpist BS, not necessarily more government programs....
A municipality's decision to implement common locally-owned internet as a public utility IS the free market. The State should not get to decide what's a "waste of resources" for me and my neighbors.
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I’ve read some criticism towards this script and/or these kind of scripts in the comments. The criticism should instead be directed towards Microsoft, which decided to treat their customers (even alleged „Pro“ customers!) like babies and force useless bloatware, ads, telemetry and the absolute worst update system of any OS ever upon their users, thus making these kind of scripts necessary to begin with.
> The criticism should instead be directed towards Microsoft,
Totally agree that MS deserves criticism as you correctly point out. However, criticism towards the script and similar is equally valid (and important).
natex commented on Google Play service fee reduced to 15% for the first $1M/year android-developers.google... · Posted by u/h43k3r
I imagine that it's speculation but it's reasonable speculation, since maximizing profits is pretty much the sole goal of a publicly traded corporation at the end of the day.
I don't think that supports the speculation since as the GP stated, Google is actually doing the opposite of maximizing profits in this case.
natex commented on Google Play service fee reduced to 15% for the first $1M/year android-developers.google... · Posted by u/h43k3r
Worth remembering that as good as it is that Google is reducing it's abusive taxation on third party developers, the primary reason they're doing this is to try to quiet the majority of developers asking for stronger government regulations against this taxation without actually reducing their profit much, since the large companies which bring in the majority of revenue still have to pay full price.
Basically, they're hoping that this will stop some app developers from demanding the right to use third party payment processors, which would likely be used many of the larger >$1 million revenue publishers.
The Android Police article about this cites an example from iOS, that "On Apple's App Store, the 98% of developers who qualified for a lower revenue share rate were responsible for less than 5% of Apple's total collected revenue"
Is your feeling on what Google's hopes speculation, or do you have some inside information?
Most people have minimal to fear from an audit. If your taxes are complex enough that you’re concerned then use a professional not TurboTax.
I have used TurboTax pretty much my entire working life and never have been audited. The one time I decided to use a professional due to "complex" tax issues that year, I was audited, which became a huge pain in the ass.
natex commented on Pseudophilosophy encourages confused, self-indulgent thinking psyche.co/ideas/pseudophi... · Posted by u/pseudolus
As somebody who makes a living "as a philosopher" in areas that overlap with CS, decision making, logic, AI and appear to be more scientific in nature, I may find this article emotionally somewhat appealing but still don't think it's a useful view about philosophy.
The first and foremost thing about philosophy laymen should realize is that the vast majority of philosophers do not consider philosophy a science. They also kind of agree to disagree about what philosophy is and what the subject matter of the discipline is. To put it bluntly, I'd say the majority of philosophers silently agree that 80% of all publications or more in philosophy are nonsense or bullshit and only the rest is even worth reading, but they all disagree about which 80% percent...
So Yes, I sometimes did also have the suspicion that some colleagues are bullshitting and obscuring intentionally, but overall this is not a helpful attitude. If you don't like a particular philosopher's work, you generally don't read and support it, and that's it. Calling the work pseudophilosophy will only enrage people who disagree and not help with anything.
Things are different in neighbouring disciplines in the humanities. After many years in the field and having to do with some of these disciplines, I believe I can say with some confidence that some of them are indeed pseudo-sciences. I don't want to mention which and why for fear of being identified later. All I can say is that there are disciplines and sub-disciplines/fields of study in the humanities that bear all the hallmarks of pseudo-science: extremely small communities, lots of jargon, few journals controlled by everyone in the communities, bouncing articles back and forth between those journals, constantly mixing empirical theses with some philosophical claims ("ideal models"), and so on. I'd be fine if these disciplines would at least apply the fairly stringent standards for publications in philosophy, but they don't even do that. These disciplines have overall lower standards in comparison to philosophy and often make unfounded empirical claims based on qualitative studies or studies with way too small sample size.
I appreciate this comment but I have some questions/comments:
> I may find this article emotionally somewhat appealing but still don't think it's a useful view about philosophy. The first and foremost thing about philosophy laymen should realize is that the vast majority of philosophers do not consider philosophy a science.
I don't think the article was making a claim about philosophy being a science. On the contrary, it seemed make a pretty clear distinction between them and highlighted some perils of falsely mixing the two.
"Often implicit empiricist assumptions in epistemology, metaphysics and the philosophy of language are relied upon as if they were self-evident, and without awareness of the threat that those very assumptions pose to the author’s own reasoning. We can call this phenomenon scientistic pseudophilosophy."
"While pseudoscience can perhaps be counteracted by science education, the cure for pseudophilosophy is not science education but philosophical education."
> If you don't like a particular philosopher's work, you generally don't read and support it, and that's it. Calling the work pseudophilosophy will only enrage people who disagree and not help with anything.
The article wasn't about disagreeing with opposing philosophers' work, it as a critique of those non-philosophers who "fail to grasp the content of many of the philosophical claims and arguments that they criticize"
"There are two kinds of pseudophilosophy, one mostly harmless and the other insidious. The first variety is usually found in popular scientific contexts. This is where writers, typically with a background in the natural sciences, walk self-confidently into philosophical territory without realising it, and without conscientious attention to relevant philosophical distinctions and arguments.
The insidious kind of pseudophilosophy, which I will focus on here, is an academic enterprise, pursued primarily within the humanities and social sciences." (e.g. phenomenon obscurantist pseudophilosophy)