This is probably true in general, but as OP asked specifically about furry art, the situation is quite different. Furry art platforms like Furaffinity etc are much less profit- and algorithm-driven than platforms like Amazon and Ebay. It's an entirely different ecosystem that exists largely outside the huge platforms.

So it's a normal thing in the US for car dealers to add a markup? It's pretty much the other way round here in Germany, car dealers give you a rebate on the listed price and you choose the dealership that offers you the best price.

A really tiny channel I like is Don't Look East. Currently less than 3000 subscribers and most videos just get a few hundred views. He does unscripted travel vlogs about rarely visited destinations, mostly in Asia and Eastern Europe. For example he recently travelled the entire Thailand/Myanmar border by motorcycle.

I don't hate the technology itself. What I hate is the whole grifter culture surrounding it. For example there are dozens of examples of people promising some game using the blockchain, touting it as "the future of gaming" or "the metaverse", creating a token, making millions from it and then delivering nothing, or a barely changed UE template. On the other hand, there are few if any examples of projects using a blockchain that are actually useful, at least for anything besides basic monetary transactions.

So whenever I see a project mentioning the blockchain, the scam alarm bells go off in my head and my skepticism rises 1000x.

Instances can defederate with other instances, effectively blocking them. For example your instance has blocked lemmynsfw.com and quite a few instances block lemmy.ml. It's not the best instance to choose if you want to federate with a lot of other instances.

Can't say that I have. Do you have a sample video with the kind of music you're talking about?

Maybe my reading comprehension is failing me here, but where's the ultimatum? He hasn't made any demands with a specific time limit and repercussions if Scholz didn't meet them. He has only stated his preconditions for peace talks.

• "Children of God" by Mary Doria Russell: Second and final part of a sci-fi series about a Jesuit mission to an alien culture that goes wrong. Like the first part, it's an emotional rollercoaster with a great cast of characters that you really grow attached to (and who often meet tragic ends). The author also created a really interesting alien society made up of two separate species. Oh, and the title might sound like it's a preachy religious book, but it's very much not. Would never have expected it, but this is now one of my favorite sci-fi series.

• "Memories of Ice" by Steven Erikson: Third book of the "Malazan Book of the Fallen" fantasy series. All three books I've read so far were enjoyable stories, but also very complex and not easy to read for sure. I love how the author creates a fantasy world where stone-age cultures play a pretty big role and where pre-history in many ways shapes the current world of the book. Also, quite a good cast of characters, which I didn't necessarily expect given that it's "epic fantasy".

Mag ja gute Absichten haben, aber empfinde ich als extrem problematisch und fehlgeleitet. Damit wird den Kindern beigebracht dass eine KI vertrauenswürdig ist und das Gespräch mit echten Zeitzeugen ersetzen kann. Es wird sogar explizit darauf abgezielt, dass die Kinder eine emotionale Bindung zu ihr aufbauen.

Menschen mit weniger guten Absichten können dann aber genau so einfach eine "Zeitzeugen" KI erstellen die den Holocaust leugnet. Und statt dass den Kindern eine Grundskepsis gegenüber KI-generierten Inhalten beigebracht wurde, sind sie dann umso vulnerabler gegenüber Manipulation und Desinformation.

I'm 100% sure they exist and I'm 99.9% sure there won't be any contact over the next 10 years. It's entirely possible there will never be, though I do hope otherwise.

Ich sehe das ähnlich wie du. Ich bin nach 5,5 Jahren immer noch bei meiner ersten Arbeitsstelle. Hätte ich wie viele andere seitdem mehrmals den Arbeitgeber gewechselt könnte ich vermutlich inzwischen deutlich mehr verdienen. Jede zweite Woche schreibt mich irgendein Recruiter auf LinkedIn an. Aber irgendwie ist es mir den Stress nicht wert. Meine Arbeit ist relativ stressfrei, Kollegen sind freundlich, ich schufte mich nicht zu Tode, kann von Zuhause arbeiten und muss fast nie Überstunden machen. Ich verdiene genug um ganz gut zu leben und auch etwas zu sparen. Die Karriereleiter kann mir erstmal gestohlen bleiben.

I read books for personal enjoyment, basically never for learning or self-improvement or anything like that. I only ever read one book at a time and mostly in the evening before going to sleep.

I'm in my early thirties. My reading speed varies quite a lot based on the book and my mood, but I've definitely noticed that I've become "worse" at reading in recent years. Too many digital distractions I guess. That said, if I do manage to read for 2 hours before going to sleep, I sleep so much better than if I watch a movie or doomscroll on Lemmy or whatever.

I mostly read sci-fi and fantasy, sometimes historical novels. I think this year I've finished 4 books so far, and dropped one quarter-way through. There were definitely years where I've managed way more.

Just tried this out, it seems you're right. TIL. Always thought it would be the local equivalent of defederation.

There are a couple active English-speaking communities there, like /c/europe@feddit.org, but you're right that most content on the instance is in German. It's more that their userbase is also pretty active on other, English-speaking instances and I'm pretty sure that by blocking the instance, you won't see any of those posts and comments either.

Feddit.org is bilingual and has a lot of users participating on English-language communities. So maybe better to block the individual communities if you don't want to decrease the userbase you can interact with.

As a lowly programmer at a small software developer, getting to read some documents with "NATO SECRET" stamped on them. (The content itself was pretty boring and mundane though, not that I'll say what it was...)

Just looked this up. It looks like the new generation just shows up as an MTP device instead of an external drive. That doesn't stop sideloading books onto the device, it works as before.

However, they've seemingly stopped allowing the "download and transfer" option for Amazon-bought books, which was an easy way to get them into Calibre and remove their DRM. So that's something to keep in mind for sure if you want to buy ebooks from Amazon.

As someone who has sideloaded a ton of books onto their kindle, why?

Sure you can become honorary Europeans along with the Australians. You'll be expected to send a Eurovision candidate though!