This sounds like defeat - essentially retreating into niches that only a handful of enthusiasts will be using, while leaving the mainstream to Google etc.
why is everyone so negative about anything alternative. it won't succeed and all. how do you know? maybe it's not defeat. maybe you'd be better off without any devices.
Don't want to exonerate the regime - they are an Islamist dictatorship. Though, so is Saudi Arabia and I'm not hearing about mass flight from there. Maybe just a little bit because one is sanctioned and the other is not?
I don’t see any involvement of evil western forces. Local clever guys took their chances. Happened in every part of broken Soviet Union. So many amazing stories about smart guys taking material possessions of disappeared KGB.
The story of Eastern Germany is much more interesting. Capital from West Germany was directly steering the process.
> Yeah, because millions of people are just stupid remote-controlled robotic zombies who will, upon a command of the CIA, go into the streets against Basij thugs who are willing to shoot at them.
Not the CIA anymore. Today, it's done by "semi-governmental" organizations such as the NED[1, 2] or RFE/RL[3] or in this case, its persian-language incarnation Radio Farda[4].
You can agree with their overt goal of strengthening pro-democratic forces in authoritarian countries, (though the question remain: with what authority and who sets the objectives they are promoting?)
Even then, the list of countries in which they don't operate should raise some questions: No activity in Israel, Argentina or the Gulf states, even though those countries are also generally regarded as autocracies (Gulf states) or are currently experiencing a massive slide towards authoritarianism (Israel, Argentina). It just happens that those countries are all allies of the US...
We did listen to the RFE, as well as London, during the Communist years.
Yeah, the West is not a bunch of angels. But among people who view the world as one big conspirational system, there is a visible lack of understanding that many of the domestic regimes are worse than that.
If any country maintains a massive secret police against internal dissent, it is a good indication that the Dear Leader is hated by the population.
As of 2025, most European countries do not maintain a massive secret police against internal dissent, though some particular events are worrying. But prior to 1989, there were massive secret police systems all over the former Eastern Bloc.
"with what authority and who sets the objectives they are promoting?"
Does it matter? Why?
The Iranian system in particular derives its authority from Allah, and? Did Allah actually confirm their authority? Nope.
> It enables us to reach the look and feel of a $100+ million dollar Pixar, Star Wars, or Marvel film without the budgets we could never have without insane luck or nepotism.
I can understand filmmakers wanting this, but less so audiences.
The problem is that then everything will look like Marvel or Pixar or Star Wars.
The other problem is that as audience, I now can never be sure if a detail was put somewhere intentionally by the filmmakers or if it was just a random AI addition.
I just don't agree everything will look like Marvel or Star Wars.
Everything looks like that now because the loss of DVD sales has altered the economics of movies so drastically.
These tools should ultimately empower a golden age of experimentation and unique film making.
I know for myself, I will absolutely be into this some day but it is just far too early. For me, I can see the potential of AI generated video but that is something for the 2030s. Right now it is like the digital audio workstation in 1992. It needs another decade to mature.
These are bad examples, but they're just what I have in front of me.
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe" is a fitting quote.
There's going to be incredible stylistic diversity.
> I now can never be sure if a detail was put somewhere intentionally by the filmmakers or if it was just a random AI addition.
If it's in the film, it was intentional. What you won't know is whether it was serendipity. And the fact is quite a bit of filmmaking today is already serendipity.
I absolutely agree with the author that we should normalize "finishing" projevts again - but I think there are some practical differences between "finished" and "abandoned":
- There might be security vulnerabilities in the project's code that would endanger users if not fixed.
- There might be vulnerabilities in dependencies that required that the project updates to a newer version.
- If the project uses external APIs, those might have breaking changes, be shut down, etc.
- Last but not least, the environment itself that the app is running in might have breaking changes, e.g. the OS going out of support.
If a project really is finished but the author expects people to keep using it, then as a user, I'd expect that the author still does the above maintenance from time to time, so the project stays functional and safe.
The complaint from the people is "it's difficult to cancel a gym membership". A metric to judge the success of a policy tackling that could be the # of complaints to consumer protection associations, authorities, politicians, or bank chargebacks.
Yeah. Another way to collect that metric is surveying people to ask them if cancelling their gym membership was easier
I do get the previous commenters hesitance though. It feels like you are holding mambani to a higher stnadard that anyone in america has held corporation in regard to something like the blatant wage theft they commit. Seems a bit of selective enforcement
https://www.deutsches-museum.de/
Also recommended:
Arithmeum Bonn: https://www.arithmeum.uni-bonn.de/
Miniaturwunderland Hamburg: https://www.miniatur-wunderland.de/ (not really a tech museum but definitely of interest to techies)
In Switzerland:
Technorama in Winterthur: https://www.technorama.ch/
Verkehrshaus Luzern: https://www.verkehrshaus.ch/
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