Other than all the scammy & microtransaction BS for the kids I’m always confused about this as well. I can count on one hand how many “new” apps I’ve installed in 2025 - one - the Bambu app for talking to the 3D printer.
I’ve got my banking apps, business apps, Strava, etc. the same now, for years. It would take a monumental effort from Apple for me to feel like “cruising” the App store, the idea is so patently ridiculous to me, I actually LOL’d thinking about it. Literally any other portable device is better to play games on - Switch, Steamdeck, 3DS, Atari Lynx, etc.
I have Apple Arcade as well (included with something else), I can’t even remember the last time I could be bothered to scroll that…
If Apple thinks more ads is a solution to some of their problems, things must be way worse than imagined over there.
I can’t speak for the author, but I attended a science conference earlier this year that was almost half science, half healing/meditation workshops. I’m not going to name names, but there were some
pretty big academic names there who also have clearly woken up to modern science being more than a bit cult like. Research a couple of areas of science that are currently verboten and see who & what you find there maybe?
It’s just quiet whispers in small conferences at the moment, but this is how the breaking of all spells begins. The momentum is & will continue to build, and probably quicker than many imagine (or will like!).
And intentionally so. "I'm not going to name names, but Many Famous People have done X! You'd be shocked if I backed my claims up with any support whatsoever, but I can't, because <vague morality implications>..."
I think we must have passed peak Apple this week or something…
I’ve had Clone Hero running badly on an ancient MacBook for my drums, so I decided to swap it out for an M1 Mini that was collecting dust on a shelf. I did a full erase, but I couldn’t get past its activation lock. At all.
This is a piece of hardware I purchased on my credit card, for my company, (luckily) linked to a phone number I control and an email address on a domain I can control, but Apple in their infinite wisdom are still locking me out of my own hardware because I don’t know the password the last employee used on the computer! I don’t want any data off it, thats gone, I just want the computer I spent money on to actually be usable!
I initiated a “recovery” process to unlock it (at Apples discretion?) and they’ve sent me an automated email saying the initial checks are passed and they will contact me again in 7 calendar days. Kafka-esque doesnt even begin to describe it. So for the next week I have to whistle Dixie!
I’ve been a massive Apple fanboy since I swore off Windows a couple of decades ago, giving them a decent high 6 figure spend over that time and influencing countless others to buy Apple devices. Well that very much ended this week & going forwards without Apple will be painful, but the message they sent me couldn’t have been any louder & clearer. The writing has been slowly creeping on to the wall for the last few years, between buckling to UK government pressure, the CSAM photo scanning nonsense, the absolute UI abomination of this new glass crap, this was my final straw.
I’m also going to be relaying their “message” very clearly and loudly now to any friend or family member considering another Apple device.
This happened to me[1] a decade ago, now. Left Apple hardware on shelf for a year or two, Apple in the mean time did their iCloud migration or something, and my login account could no longer unlock the device. It's been effectively bricked since.
A similar thing happened to me - I lent a phone to my mother-in-law and created an account for her. She returned the phone once her own phone was fixed.
A few years passed, and a couple of weeks ago my phone broke, so I wanted to use that one until I bought a new one. It turned out that Apple had permanently deactivated the iCloud account on that phone. I could make calls, but I couldn’t install or update any apps, even though I still controlled the email address that was used to create the Apple account. Not that 5S is very useful these days but still.
Not sure if the Chinese have figured out a way for the newer ARM-based ones yet (I realise it's already been several years since the M1 was released...) but I believe most of the older x86 ones have been cracked.
I've unlocked some old Thinkpads that were similarly left locked with a BIOS password by departed employees, officially not possible, but actually possible if you reflash the BIOS and EC ROMs.
A CH341A-based programmer with the accessories ("chip clip" cables and adapters) is available on AE for cheap (~$10) and will work to read/write the main BIOS.
If you need to recover the EC, then I believe anything that can work as a generic JTAG device, like an FX2LP dongle (~$5 or less, and useful for other things like a logic analyser) will also be needed.
This is what most corporations want, esp for remote employees. I had a work supplied laptop and I couldn’t access via my machine account password. I could login via MFA but I couldn’t reset my local password. They made me initiate the account recovery, wait 8 days, and then I could change the password. I suspect my employer’s account synchronization tools mangled my password or changed it to a password in flux.
In that light, they are fulfilling a use case with greater market value than your conundrum. Is it annoying? Sure. Is it a problem? Debatable. You didn’t recover the passwords on the machine when your employee left. Maybe it’s your problem? Will you get in? Likely and eventually.
Same! I’m firmly starting to believe these studies are being conducted to confuse the public even further with regard to eating. The media have been focussed on eating/public health for a couple of decades now and during that period all I’ve witnessed is a rapid and sharp decline in general health and eating habits and increasing pointless discussion about it all.
All the time, energy and confusion just starts to enrage me now. Does the time of day you eat really matter? Maybe… but is there really any major difference in poisoning yourself before noon or after? If there is, is it worth discussing? Is it worth studying?
It’s really super simple - you are what you eat. If you aren’t, what are you?
If you put stuff into you that’s one step away from poison or toxic waste, don’t be surprised when the body reacts the way it does and eventually dies early. I’m talking about anything processed/manufactured (99+%) that comes from a factory.
If you want to live a long and healthy life, it’s no more difficult than just eating as much fresh and varied, un-poisoned fruits & vegetables as you like. That’s it. This advice can’t prop up billion dollar food, advertising, media & pharma industries though.
People think this is hard to follow as well because they are addicted to everything in processed food, lack time and their body is already in a constant high state of stress.
As soon as the diet changes to one of health & life, stress rapidly reduces, health improves, taste buds alter and suddenly within a short time, all that stuff you used to eat, tastes like the actual crap it really is.
Most of what you just said makes sense to me, and I believe you are right to draw the attention toward the elephant in the room: quality and variety of ingredients.
The reason why I'm writting this reply is this bit:
> I’m talking about anything processed/manufactured (99+%) that comes from a factory.
No. If we want a chance of survival we have to stop assosiating "factory" and "industry" to "bad". First, despite some of the bad press the food industry regularly receive is probably well deserved, overall food safety out of a factory is very good; much better than anything we ever had in history, and especially safer (if not tastier) than the equivalent homegrown product.
Highly processed food is a problem, be it out of a factory or fried by grandma.
I've worked a bit in this industry, and I can attest that even the less regulated industry will self-regulate periodic biological tests and put in place germ control policies that are much stricter than anything your local farmer will ever be able to do; just because of economy of scale.
And the same goes for the environment: If we don't want to exhaust natural resources we haveto resort to industry economy of scales. The quantity of energy and water that would be required to grow tomatoes in our gardens is stupidly wasteful compared to industrial norms. The quantity of detergeant and water needed to clean cooking pots for family-scale cooking is enormous compared to the quantity needed to clean tanks used in the industry.
I feel stupid to have to state the obvious but I'm starting to get really afraid of this trend that associates small scale with better safety, better variety and better economy of resources while the complete oposite is true.
This, this, this and more this!!! Sorry, the below is long, but I haven’t really shared before anywhere and it’s just flowed out of me this morning…
I dropped Facebook over 15 years ago, instagram maybe 7 or 8 years ago, Twitter just before Elon took over, Whatsapp and Strava I guess might be the only things I use considered “social” and I have all group notifications muted on WA at all times.
I’ve watched this parallel reality grow and evolve over the years and I hate it. Everyone everywhere seems to be permanently staring at a screen!
A month or so back, I watched my wife awake in the morning, she didn’t realise I was awake watching her (lovingly) - I got Black Mirror IRL - instantly upon awaking, without looking, she reached for her phone and the endless scrolling started, she was so engrossed, after 10 mins not noticing her husband awake, intently watching her, I had to say “Morning”. Later that morning, alone, I wept tears for myself, for her and all of humanity.
Two to three months ago, I had realised that while I wasn’t addicted to social media, I was absolutely addicted to news media/politics/etc. Like a key in a lock, it clicked one day, i’d wasted at least a decade, nearly two of adult life obsessively reading, commenting and talking about UK, global events & politics.
Worse than that, I realised how all the negativity from that world was directly feeding my own negativity and then into those around me. Then after another week or two where I blocked it out entirely at home, I felt “recovered”. My fingers were no longer blindly typing in web addresses in moments of boredom - I’d dip into a book chapter of technical paper for 5 minutes instead. Political podcasts were all dropped, replaced entirely with music and podcasts that don’t engage with political comment.
I was only granted this moment of clarity as I attended a technical conference for a week, where I was up at 7 every morning to hit the early sessions and not getting back to my hotel till nearly 10 or 11pm. Amazingly, the whole week, there was barely a whisper of anything about politics - I think I might have heard the word “Trump” once.
I was so full of energy and excitement about what i’d been learning and talking to people about all week, as soon as I returned to my normal reality, the world of international politics suddenly appeared to me exactly the same way a bottle of booze did after knocking alcohol addiction on the head. The mere mention of any of the MSM trigger words suddenly produced in me a deep feeling of revulsion.
I couldn’t imagine not knowing what was going on in the world 6 months ago, now I actively avoid any mention or conversation that might go that way. The sky hasn’t fallen in, foreign invaders haven’t taken my country, what has happened though is I’ve been devouring books and technical papers like a mad man, learning new instruments, creating art on the computer and finally facing my demons and creating art on paper!
My life has improved beyond all rational logic, probably moreso than quitting alcohol, which was also a horrible, slow growing, hugely negative addiction for me. My emotional state feels more balanced than ever as I’m finally feeling totally free from all the emotional manipulation these things ultimate come with. If something awful happens out in the big bad world painted by the media, I’ll deal with it when it happens as it happens in my actual reality. The best tools I can arm myself with are knowledge, gratitude and love. Sitting around arguing on political blogs has achieved the square root of fuck all and will continue to achieve that.
People seem shocked when they attempt to talk to me about politics and I just shrug my shoulders now. I shudder to think now about the energy I blindly invested into that world, never making one single bit of difference, just generating negativity inside of me, which then spirals out to those I most love around me. When you flip all that negative energy into positive energy, and honestly it really is that easy, you very quickly start getting the insight that maybe you aren’t just human, you’re superhuman.
I am not a big social media user, to be honest it is too stressful. Minimal social interaction is fine for me, and I'm happy with the boundaries IRL social encounters create where you can walk away (politely at the end of course) and it's over.
News and politics was a big waste of time for me too. Before 2015 I just kept up to date with big issues, but Brexit and then Covid really got me addicted to news and politics.
I ditched Reddit (with the API thing) and news websites about a year ago. It really is nice not knowing about every tiny event. It's not even necessary for being politically aware as so much of the "news" is hearsay and random Tweets turned into content by the media.
I have started looking at the BBC News business section every now and then. This really shows what a content factory other news media sites are. The BBC business page adds new articles maybe twice a day. There is no point checking more often than that (unless you go down a comments rabbit hole).
Sites like The Guardian have new articles hourly and sometimes multiple "live blogs" going on at once. That sort of output can happen in just the "business/economy" section, never mind the rest of the site.
Like social media there is just no way that amount of content can be useful, in fact it's most likely the opposite.
I'd bet she was probably scrolling through the endless stream of fear (war, poverty, crime), guilt (diets, fitness, beauty), and shallowness (jokes, celebrities). In those moments with loved ones, I choose to engage, explain what's happening, and make them aware of how it's making them feel. Then I guide them toward alternatives. We play, we cook, we read, we plant, we dance.
It isn't entirely our fault. It's deliberately made and constantly adjusted to be addictive, for the sole purpose of selling ads, swaying votes, counting more MAUs, and increasing valuations.
Still, knowing something is bad for you isn't enough to make you stop, right? Yet, once you are out, you can choose to help others, especially the ones you care about.
One of the most insidious things about politics news is that there's always more non-actionable trivia factoid bullshit that you can read instead of anything productive
Trump said this? Supreme Court said that? Some poll is up? Okay. That doesn't tell me if we're in danger in my town, that doesn't tell me who's protesting, whose meetings to attend, what our threat model is
It's a sugar fix and it's frustrating when I step back and realize that really caring about politics would start with me leaving the house
maybe just thinking or being internet heroes doesn't matter. Maybe the real change happens at leaving the house.
But I wonder, if that is real change too. Like, maybe the system is so fucked up that even that wouldn't have an impact. Should I invest my energy into such a gamble? maybe, there is no right answer. a part of me who has watched movies and watched good guys win makes me want to say yes but uh reality says otherwise for the most part.
But maybe reality happened because there are people who are on the fence like me who said nah, noone else would do it, then peer pressure happened and welp nobody did anything and that became an evidence for the next generation who can again say nah and the cycle of suffering repeats.
But can this cycle truly change with just the will of one person like me? I doubt that my presense makes a change.
I have started to think that the best way I can make real change is maybe by open sourcing / working in a non profit / maybe helping them with some linux expertise in my community since I love linux. I can set up self hosted stuff for them so that they can control their infrastucture. I can reduce their costs from these bloated app subscription hell holes, maybe help these non profits and donate to the right causes and work on fixing my life too. Does this make sense?
Wow, I was writing a comment trying to defend watching a news, and I realized that basically I have almost become miserable due to news.
Please read the previous comment that I have posted on hackernews for some reference about "freedom", basically its about freedom and how I feel like a lot of issues are political and thus I don't trust the people of the world to do whats right and therefore the world won't always grow/ I am not an optimist , also here's a cookie if you did read my whole post there!!
I feel like politics is the (truest?) way of making real change. Unfortunately, I doubt that I can enter into politics and I also doubt that people in my area would vote for me. I bet that they would much likely more follow racial, caste based issues rather than tackling real things. And I doubt I will ever get funding from someone for speaking against the absolute rich in my country. maybe my life would be in danger, that's more likely. My appearance is also really nerdy and I love tech. I doubt if people would think of me as a leader. I loved giving speeches in class but I wonder if I can bring real change in the system.
To me, its this system that feels so convuluted man. Like we have freedom and not at the same time.
Do we have the freedom to bring real change?-> I feel yes
But can I bring real change though? -> Maybe
Is it worth trying? -> I don't know
I feel like news essentially boils down to the is it worth trying? option. No need to be a hero, I feel like I wanted to be different / mature so followed news, but I mean, from a completely logical point of view, Idk man.
This is what I have in question. Is it worth trying to do discussions and bring a political reform as to what I believe/ experts say at the same time into reality.
Like georgism, nuclear etc.
Is it worth discussing these things even though they might be a headache but maybe the mere discussion of them increases their likelihood of being spread and maybe adopted.
Are my thoughts having a real impact.
I feel so tiny in this world man. I feel like money buys influence but I am not a sociopath who can play a billionaires game for my "good" political ideas to be implemented, and If I become something like that, then what's the difference b/w me and them.
I feel like a lot of billionaires are freeloaders. NO Matter how much risk you take, it shouldn't be rewarded as such. It almost feels like the freemarket isn't efficient in this sense. I genuinely don't know :/, but the fact that you can almost buy presidencies is... wild.
Should I still watch the news? like, uh, are you getting what I am feeling? I feel like I can't bring real change so why bother but a part of me believes that the fact that I am saying it is wrong and needs to be proven wrong. I wish to be an optimist, I wish for the world to be saved, because I see people suffering. I wish to bring an impact, or maybe die trying. Would the french revolution had happened if people gave up on news? Or have the people getting news from sources whose only agenda is to stop anything like french revolution from happening (billionaires?) and they want us all to fight each other.
Man, I don't know, can we bring real change? I have seen people do it, but can I? Should I? I don't know. Its so messy and breaks my heart. Definitely hard to explain as I wish to be an optimist but am stuck being a pessimist/realist (almost murphy-esque in the sense that anything can happen, will happen) with my logical deductions.
The questions boils down to ,
is ignorance bliss? or should I pursue the truth of knowledge even if its bitter, maybe I can live my life built around that bitterness, that things are real, that I don't have to be an optimist. You have picked ignorance, and there is no wrong answer but I wish for a discussion so that someone can help me pick my answer.
You seem to believe that not following the news leads to ignorance?
My question to you is - Is following the news even a form of participation?
I would argue that news has an incredibly high noise to signal ratio. Most news anchors and talking heads and commentators talk a lot but convey very little. It's obvious they understand very little and ultimately focus on regurgitating what is "commonly understood" that everyone else also repeats. Plus usually there's heavy biases involved - so many implicit assumptions every time they open their mouth. Hardly any nuance is conveyed.
Anyways let's forget news for a second and discuss how to make some kind of impact, some kind of change.
To my mind at least 3 options occur to me:
1. Writing. Don't write to a wide audience, write to a narrow one. Really get in deep on a political issue.
2. Start local. Participate in town council, or similar, get involved as an active member in local politics to gain practice/exposure. Don't need to be a politician or be elected yet.
3. Or my favorite - focus on some technical solution for helping people to organize perhaps..
I mean I don't watch traditional news and more youtube from genuine indpendent journalists who are transparent about their reporting and even their company in general. (Tldr news) etc. and I am way more focused on the economy side of things.
I do watch a lot of atrioc and I think that he's a decent enough source to be trusted compared to journalists in the sense that I get both fun and news at the same time but yeah.
Like I said (I think) I am way more interested on things financially and so plain bagel who I consider to be an excellent finance youtuber who isn't a grifter and literally has no incentives to sell you a course or something. ( crazy that I feel like I have to mention it, that's how scummy most finance youtubers are)
Even then, even such amount of news which I consider to be a signal makes me depressed. I may have a left leaning bias but that's because of the incompetence of the govt. and I am not even an american but its interesting to watch american politics because it impacts us all and my countries politics is a shit hole that its not worth watching, both parties suck, (tbh america is same, bernie is the only person that I trust for the most part imo)
My point that I was trying to make is that maybe mass scale of people depress me with what is happening in the world. I wish to be ignorant but I wish to know if that makes sense.
Regarding 3rd point, to me 3) is also my favourite as I love finding technical solutions to organize/build etc., yet I find it that I am not an effective oranizer for stuff, maybe I am better off just helping non profits in their mission that might align with my political beliefs, but I wonder if I can do it without it being my full job or taking full time efforts. Like, decentralizing the communications by moving to matrix or helping them in self hosting their stuff comes to my mind. Does this make sense? Do non profits need this?
Let them be rich. Stoicism would recommend you not try to control what isn't in your hands to control; just accept it. Can you imagine that centuries ago, the same rules of class, power, and money drove society, and some very smart philosophers came to the right conclusions? Let it be. Meanwhile, those hands, freed from frustration and fear, can build the extraordinary.
Has nothing changed from thousands of years ago from the greek democracies though?
I thought that we have changed for the better, if not, then well, I am forced to accept it. But it is so fucking sad that we have to accept that same rules of money drove society and it would continue doing so. That's really fucked up if we think about it.
I warned anybody considering it, during the COVID era, that buying a watch as a long-term investment was a terrible idea. Good advice at any time, particularly during COVID though. Buy a watch because you love it and will wear it! It’s taken slightly longer than expected, but looks exactly how I imagined.
A Rolex GMT BLNR (Batman) was hitting grey market prices in the UK near £20k at its peak, whereas they are down at around £11k. Still selling over retail (~9.5k), but a huge correction.
I think much danger still lies ahead for the mid/high brands like Rolex/Omega/etc. Large 2nd hand watch dealers have very high stock levels. Watchfinder for instance currently has over 2.5k pre-owned Rolexes. Many of these will have been bought well over RRP and I think will still struggle to find many buyers at current prices.
The pre owned retailers are going to find themselves in a real bind as prices reach parity with OEM pricing, as why would you pay more for a preowned item? Previously it was because you wanted the watch NOW! But I don’t think Rolex can continue to play games with the customer via their dealer network much longer in current market conditions, so I would expect OEM availability has to improve, further hitting those grey/pre-owned retailers. In fact, I think in the lead up and during COVID Rolex especially did a lot to damage their reputation with many customers and potential customers. Anybody who has played cat & mouse with a Rolex approved dealer will know exactly what I mean.
Additionally, I think the social/economic landscape has changed greatly in the last two years since COVID, that this might just be the start. I personally know a lot of people that won’t wear luxury or luxury looking timepieces out, due to either fear (theft, numerous recent UK news stories of often violent daylight robbery) or embarrassment (many people feel a sense of guilt wearing £10k+ on their wrist when around people struggling to pay for basics). This sentiment doesn’t hurt them much if it’s short-term, but it massively reduces your buyer pool if it persists long term and your customers are primarily the middle class.
As somebody else mentioned, the top tier luxury/niche brands like Patek don’t need to worry about such matters, their pool of buyers is so small and immensely wealthy, while their yearly output is even smaller than this, demand will always outstrip supply.
> Additionally, I think the social/economic landscape has changed greatly in the last two years since COVID, that this might just be the start.
This is a good point. Not only is there the theft and social guilt aspect, but there's also the unwanted association with "influencers". 5 years ago no one knew what watch anyone was wearing unless it was a Rolex, but now the general public is far more aware of other brands and what they cost.
It’s not just California, just look at almost anywhere. Same story across the UK - taxes and prices ever increase, quality of everything and every service continues to decline. The greed and corruption on display by nearly all politicians is beyond brazen. Lucrative contracts for friends that deliver no value, insider trading, tax avoidance, offshore accounts, communicating government business on burner phones, deleting emails, fiddling expenses, huge infrastructure projects running vastly over budget then being cancelled, etc. What amazes me is how few realise the level of outright theft of their own hard earned money, and seek some form of comfort in blaming the other side, believing their team will fix it next time. There are even some that try to put it down to incompetence.
The corruption is now so deeply rooted and endemic throughout all of society, government and media it’s impossible to know where rooting it out could ever start and end. So probably the only way to turn the tide is for everyday hard working people to start rejecting it and rejecting to support it in any way, shape or form, everyday throughout their own lives. No single person or group can fix this and any claiming to be able to is both a liar and a fraud.
Back in the VCD/SVCD/DVD/PS1/PS2 days, piracy was absolutely heavily interwoven with organised criminal gangs. I couldn’t comment on the current state, but I’d be surprised if there was enough money in media piracy for organised crime to even glance at it, given the vast and easy profits now available in narcotics and fraud.
“HK silvers” were industrially pressed and printed CDs and DVDS you could buy in any market street in SE Asia. Later they started flooding into Europe. For a few years you’d often see illegal DVD sellers outside supermarkets in the UK with all their warez spread out across the pavement for sale.
There was even a local enterprising porn DVD seller in our local area that went around all the local pubs flogging pirated porn DVDs to the inebriated chaps just before closing time. Illegally pressed pirate disks that he purchased from another criminal who mass illegally imported them for resale. These weren’t disks he burnt off with his home PC.
Many of the large FTP sites when I was involved in the piracy community 20 or so years ago certainly seemed to have nefarious links as well if you dared to look or think (so you generally didn’t). Sure, some were just illicitly set up on fast college/university networks by enterprising students, but there were certainly many running around that time that were funded by organised crime.
*edit - I mention above I doubt organised crime is interested in media piracy now, but on reflection I suddenly realised how I’m probably quite wrong on this. There are plenty of illegal IPTV services (re streamed PPV, commercial channels, streaming providers) being illegally sold through the same people & channels as narcotics.
I am very annoyed by TV and streaming services. I have a very nice TV which I specifically chose because it had Google TV builtin, so I wouldn't have to suffer through any third party TV interfaces.
My gosh, it is not very good. I get advertised TV shows I cannot watch all the time. I have legally purchased several streaming services (netflix/disney/prime/apple/etc.) but I have to open each service as a separate application to just browse.
I do not own a TV license, but I will be advertised shows on iPlayer which I _legally_ cannot watch.
My friend has an illegal IPTV subscription, something in the order of $100 for 12 months of access. This has one single interface that lists thousands of live channels, across multiple countries. It has streaming content from every paid streaming service in one searchable / sortable / listable interface. The provider also has their very own branded 'streaming service' which has content in true 4K HDR. Films ripped from 4K disks in full bitrate.
With the rise of Steam / Netflix I have only not paid to consume media when it was not available in my region, now we have another half-dozen services the content has become fragmented.
I currently pay 4x for 1/10th of the service my friend does with illegal IPTV.
Piracy has become attractive again. I'm not sure how this is going to get solved.
Really I want a service where I pay my $10 a month and can stream/watch _everything_ and the royalties just get paid to the content creator. Much like Spotify does for music. I wonder if we will get the same content fragmentation in music streaming in the future; Swift's new album only releasing on Tide, for example. I hope not.
Well, I had personal contact with several large-scale pirates, and AFAIK, they were not involved with organized crime, they were merely well-placed to do high volume transactions.
My first job I had a peer, a low-level contracting employee. We worked in the NOC of a regional ISP. Therefore our backbone was a powerful T1-T3 in the early 90s, and we had comparatively massive storage capacity. This fellow was basically college-age, and he amassed a gigantic repository of pirated software which he termed "AHAB". Most of the other staff in the office knew about his AHAB repository, and he distributed the stuff via anonymous FTP. Often we would partake in such AHAB hauls, but I tried to stay away and stay ignorant of the inner machinations of this stuff. I was ostensibly a legit employee for a legit ISP.
Then not too much later, still mid-90s, I went to work for a VAR of SPARCstation clones. The IT boss guy was a prolific pornographer. He was well-known on the relevant Usenet groups by a pseudonym. I had no trouble figuring out his identity, and his office was obviously set up so coworkers couldn't find out about all the porn he viewed on the job. His big Sauder desk was facing the door and the monitor was not visible by anyone in the room except him. So he also took advantage of the employer's decent Internet connection and our sizeable Novell storage network, to store his porn and trade it, I guess for free, with other Usenet posters.
I'm curious--when you say "a prolific pornographer," do you mean watcher or, uh, performer? Reading it I think the latter but it sounds like you mean the former.
Those FTPs were not publically accessible -- the users, numbering in the dozens or hundreds at most, were software crackers, dvd rippers, couriers, etc. So normally a 'top site' FTP would see a steady incoming flow of brand new pirate material that the site owners could use in the money-making side of their operation.
Worth mentioning that After Effects can export CSS/SVG/canvas animations with the free bodymovin/Lottie plugin. This is my personal go to for creating web key frame animations and elements.
Not every after effects feature is exportable, but it’s the best and most reliable solution I’ve found for this type of workflow, maybe due in part though to my previous experience with AE.
It's mirrored on the link. You can either download the full 7z (on the right side of the screen) of all Mac & PC versions, or expand the right hand box and download each individual application.
I’ve got my banking apps, business apps, Strava, etc. the same now, for years. It would take a monumental effort from Apple for me to feel like “cruising” the App store, the idea is so patently ridiculous to me, I actually LOL’d thinking about it. Literally any other portable device is better to play games on - Switch, Steamdeck, 3DS, Atari Lynx, etc.
I have Apple Arcade as well (included with something else), I can’t even remember the last time I could be bothered to scroll that…
If Apple thinks more ads is a solution to some of their problems, things must be way worse than imagined over there.