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Gavin boosted

UK's age verification laws are creating a dystopian internet where you can't access sites without proving your identity first. People are finally waking up to how terrifying mandatory identity verification really is.

What's happening in the UK:
• Users must verify identity to access many websites
• Government-mandated age checks spreading across platforms
• Real names and documents required for basic internet access

The "show your papers" internet is here.

Gavin boosted

Yes. YESSSSSS. Leave Spotify! It's a Gordian knot of underpaid musicians, design darkpatterns, and attempts to Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish open web standards like podcasts. And that's before you get to the investments in military drone tech or the profiting from mass disinformation.

Use literally any other music service, I beg you.

variety.com/2025/music/news/ki

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard
Variety · King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard Pulls Music Off SpotifyBy Ethan Shanfeld
Gavin boosted

SCAM ALERT: my pensioner wife received a text today supposedly from the DWP, advising her she needed to apply for her Winter Fuel Allowance for this year, and the deadline to apply is tomorrow (29 July). There was a link for her to click. When she showed it to me, the first thing I noticed was the phone number - it had a +63 international code. That's the Phillipines. Plainly a scam. Be careful out there!

I'm back on the after letting my subscription expire for a few weeks. They gave me a discount though, but it is still quite expensive.

I did think about signing up for a Revolut Metal account, but that would involve having a Revolut account.

I had better cull some other subs, as they're starting to get out of hand again.

Gavin boosted

I recommend not overthinking literally everything. Some things are simple, surface-level things, and that's fine. A little escapism never hurt anyone. Just enjoy life for a moment.

Gavin boosted

Also maybe this my long winded way of saying geeze i wonder when the US capital market gonna collapse but I guess that’s why all the tech ceo and vc’s are begging the President of Corruption to use policies to save them from actually having to compete on fundamentals..

* points to more affordable and way more advanced BYD as banned from sale in the US *

“Yay free market capitalism except when I’m losing then it’s policy rigged nationalistic monopolies aka socialism for billionaires “ 😜

I don’t like the thought that Netscape Navigator, which shaped my adolescence, came from the same mind as the Techno-optimist manifesto.

I’m guessing the money went to his head.

Gavin boosted

@gavin57 For me, it helps with recycling and making the most out of old hardware.

Finding off-the-shelf lean distributions that are *designed* to be lean - as opposed to modifying Windows install scripts that strip it right down - gives a usable, intended, supported experience.

And 100% on the 90's vibe. That sense that the computer is there to follow your instructions, not force you to be a consumer of its design, products, services, content, etc...

Great shout.

Continued thread

The one thing about desktop Linux is, you have to go out of your way to use it —it is rarely pre-installed on a new machine, therefore it is a conscious choice by the user.

That puts the control in our hands. I think that’s why it takes me back to that simpler time.

That’s not to say desktop Linux is archaic. Far from it. In 2025 it is incredibly good.

This may sound a bit odd, but I think the thing that attracts me the most to is that it transports me back to the 90s dial-up era of computing --where anything goes and where the people using computers and the internet really wanted to be there.

Not like Windows and the modern internet, a place where we often feel forced to engage with. Where every move is tracked and monetised. Where every website requires multiple clicks before you can even start reading the article.