No, they aren't. No, you shouldn't care less. No, that doesn't matter. And unfortunately yes, it is.

I signed up for Ente last fall as a Google Photos replacement. The backup works fine. The Android app is prone to crashing so I don't use it as my go-to gallery app. The process of moving a big library of pictures away from Google was painful. Ente does a lot in terms of making it easier - but it's still a pain in the butt. Their desktop app runs poorly on old desktop hardware if you keep their machine learning on. The ML lets you search images content down the line.

I signed up for a year and I'm already looking at another solution. Laziness may win though because transferring the library was a terrible experience.

The German word for what is a cookie in North America and a biscuit on the British Isles is "Keks," which is a bastardization of the English word "cakes." It is interesting because "Keks" by itself is the singular noun that retains the plural -s ending from English. To pluralize in German it requires an extra -e.

No, I don't believe I can achieve absolute anonymity on the internet. But if you're in continental Europe connecting to the onion via a VPN you are turning the odds in your favor. It's probably not getting any better than that either.

Because you are new, you should read the forum rules before you post. Your post is in danger of being thrown out because you are asking a question in the "ad nauseam" category. It's new to you but not to the people who are here already. I think there are also links to finding communities in the rules.

On the fediverse you need to be your own algorithm. That means you need to search on your own and try stuff. The beauty of Lemmy is that there are a gazillion communities for all the niche topics under the sun. What good is me recommending a community about paper airplanes to you when you are not interested in paper airplanes? Also, a lot of niche communities are not teeming with activity.

It takes a couple of months of trial and error, following and unfollowing communities until you've created a good timeline for yourself. My suggestion is you don't waste time looking for random recommendations.

I would start by suggesting we look at fewer youtubers and their views on the subject. I'm tired of dumb facial expressions on thumbnails and exaggerated video titles that do not aim for calm, measured critique but to please the algorithm. And the algorithm likes controversy. So this linked video may be the outlier - I wouldn't know because I refuse to click through. These video links are more often than not efforts to increase views and thus nudge the video up in the ranking.

Is the death of the franchise nigh? Maybe. It wouldn't be its first. We have had deaths after TOS S3 and ENT S4/Nemesis. There was stuff in print or in games but nothing on screen until Star Wars became a success and the arrival of the binge streaming age/Star Wars again respectively. We may be on the verge of another lull. We are very dedicated fans of a franchise that needs to be bigger to be financially viable long term. But we are a big enough chunk of the market that executives will be tempted to bring it back.

Can Star Trek tell more stories? Sure it can. It depends on the writers. I was personally disappointed with the stories Disco and PIC told. They thought Star Trek storytelling needs to be Breaking Bad's mixed with Game of Thrones's and that equalled universe destroying threats that need to be fought every season. For SNW they learned that you can have a season long plot but you want to be more episodic. Academy is like that as well. There is a lot of fan service in them by design and references only a subset of viewers will catch. But I don't think that makes the shows less good or accessible to new audiences. And Marvel has established the easter-eggification of storytelling in modern franchises so a lot of viewers will want that.

Many scripts that became Star Trek stories were just sci-fi ideas that were then molded around the universe. There are still good sci-fi story ideas out there that can be told.

My fear is that we are at a ENT S3 point in time. It's a good season but not enough people are watching. Same with SNW or Academy. That's partially pissed off fans but also people not paying Paramount to watch it for reasons unrelated to the fandom. And the maneuvering around the Warner deal makes me fearful that all new projects will be shelved very soon for lack of funding and projected economic success. If the third lull is upon us, it's for economic reasons, not the lack of stories to be told.

Who are "they?"

Look at it as a semi-creative variation on the theme of "go to hell."

Yes, you must have missed it. And so it begins.

Google is moving to make Android less open source. I'm not sure more devs following suit is going be good for them or their users. The G doesn't give an F.

What we need is an OS fork that gets maintained. If not that, some other workaround that fools the Google servers. Because you can bet money that nobody made from flesh and blood is going to look at this inside Google.

Maybe devs can band together and form Middle Finger Corp. and designate one willing person as their contact to serve as registered dev for a gazillion apps. Follow the letter of the law, not the misguided spirit of it, in a manner of speaking.

If you are sitting on a mobile OS and you were afraid to fail like Windows, maybe now is the time to give it a go?

Let's take a deep breath and consider what's happened. The Federal Court of Justice has sent the case back to the lower court. They have not ruled on anything. They have not said ad blocking is piracy. They have essentially said: lower court, you had 25 boxes to tick but you only ticked 24 in your ruling. Go back and do one that ticks all of them.

It's entirely possible that the lower court will change its ruling based on the intricacies of German copyright law, which is shit. But it's not very likely if you ask me. Regardless, whoever loses will appeal it again. This rodeo is far from over. And when it's eventually over the technology will have moved on, with any luck the law along with it, and the only beneficiaries will have been the lawyers.

So the headline should read more like "German court does not rule out that ad blocking could be a copyright infringement."

The argument that Axel Springer is just doing it for their love of democracy is also comical. Media pluralism is important, I agree with them that far, but they are stuck in an outdated mindset. They launched a silly tabloid Fox News wannabe TV channel and failed. They are trying to force eyeballs on their content like you are at a news agent. Meanwhile, news is happening on TikTok and so-called AI is going to reduce their page views to dust. By the time we get a final ruling they will have pivoted strategy 10 times to keep the c-suite in caviar while the established media business that made them successful is rotting away under their assess.

Yes, we are. Please stop masturbating. Thanks.

If you want to know where it is going in the short-term, have a look at Orban's Hungary. Rightwing populist voted in and then got to work at dismantling the state. Control judges appointments, curb the power of the judicial branch, silence critical media, pick a group to scapegoat, buddy of Putin. The list goes on. Democracy only works if people defend it and from my outside POV there aren't enough people doing that just yet. It's worse in Trump 2.0 because this time he came prepared.

There are already horror stories about people being caught up wrongly in the deportation efforts. That's using very mild language for very traumatic events here. It's come to a point where erstwhile allies of the US are advising their citizens not to travel to the US. Because they have lost faith in the rule of law there. Take a minute to let that sink in.

If you're a US citizen, resist. The free state is under threat. If you're an immigrant, be careful.