That is peak shittiness. Thank goodness your Mum has you to advocate, and I shudder to think of how many others don't and were shafted or continue to be shafted.
Their competition for PDF Reader; Foxit, jacked their prices up considerably this last year too. It used to be an affordable alternative. They too got greedy (I assume since Adobe was getting away with it!) and have lost a considerable amount of customers in both the consumer end-users and the business side.
PDF becomes increasingly more used and 'standard' with the fracturing of ability to edit them or do 'advanced' tasks like merging multiple PDFs.
There are some alternatives which are free but also either Freemium or just plain questionable in their usage. I don't want to trust some random company and I don't want to be nickel and dimed for basic features like merge.
I spent a long time testing and trying tools.
Sadly nothing as comprehensive as what Acrobat offers, but not an option at their pricing. Same with Foxit. I use PDFsam for some basic merge stuff. An interesting project is also Stirling PDF. but pdfsam is like Freemium and Stirling I'm pretty requires docker and it's also not in all languages.
No for real, a lot of right-wing thinking comes from just parroting disinformation and being in their own echo chamber circles.
Educated people are more likely to 'lean left':
Environment: Higher education institutions often emphasize critical thinking, questioning of traditional norms, and exposure to diverse perspectives. This can lead individuals to adopt more progressive or liberal views.
Diversity: College and university settings are typically more diverse, exposing students to different cultures, ideas, and lifestyles.
Rationalism: Educated individuals may place a higher value on scientific reasoning and empirical evidence, which can align more with policies and positions typically associated with the left, such as support for climate change action and public health initiatives.
Perspective: Higher education can lead to an understanding of economic inequality and systemic issues. Educated individuals might support policies aimed at reducing inequality and improving social welfare.
Career: Many educated individuals work in fields such as academia, healthcare, and social services, where left-leaning values like equity, public good, and social justice are prevalent.
Generational: Younger generations, who are more likely to be college-educated today than in the past, tend to have more progressive views on social issues, such as LGBTQ+ rights and racial equality.
Education is also 'pushed' by a lot of adults when I was a kid. I thought it was kinda normal / lame because duh, of course it's important. I didn't get grasp deepl WHY until I was older and realized it's really a root causal issue of today's problems.
I was curious but only enough to get it summarized:
T-Mobile is trying to get customers who filed FCC complaints about recent price hikes to drop those complaints. However, at least one customer, "mjsztainbok," is refusing to back down, citing T-Mobile's broken promises and misleading claims. T-Mobile's "Un-contract" and "Price Lock" guarantees appear to have been violated, with the company's explanations being unsatisfactory. Customers feel cheated, and T-Mobile could face legal and regulatory troubles, including a potential class action lawsuit, over false advertising. The issue is unlikely to go away anytime soon for the "Re-carrier."
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel condemned the report, saying in a statement that the country’s military “is the most moral army in the world, and no delusional decision by the U.N. will change that.”
Who's delusional... 🤨
Most Moral Army... Uh huh. Kill those women and children. Moral my ass.
It's not antisemitic for criticizing Bibi. Especially that he's acting like an asshole dictator.
He's done a great job nosediving Google too. I have relied on them in the past but they stopped being competitive or improving. Search results, literally their origin... Is so shit now. I've moved to other tools. I pulled the plug on we hosting after they neutered 'unlimited' storage, even if I was in the percent which probably used the least storage. I just liked having the option. You can't call them on the phone. They don't protect email privacy. Their translate used to be my go to also. It's not improved in years despite people crowdsourcing improved translation. It's just a pile of enshittified crap. Worse than it was before.
Fuck Broadcom. I liked VMware and their products and actually paid for them as a consumer. Broadcom is a had fisted money grabber and care little about anything else. This will not end well for any businesses they serve to. Why? Because they’re focused on milking the cow dry, not spending money on anything. Despite their R&D claims. They have a history and have shown who they are before, and said who they’re planning to continue to be. Flee while you can.
Companies need to stop using TWITTER for anything. They’re walling up the garden we built, and it’s a cesspool of bots and run by a megalomaniac charlatan.
Don't take it personally. It's just a few trolls who think they're superior. Your question is valid and I'm also interested in alternatives too. I have home assistant, but it's another thing entirely to more easily swap out Alexa for some equally well supported mic/speaker hardware. I'm sure this will change with people being motivated not to give Amazon subscription fees and 'to finally' cut the online requirements. I would love local voice control so that I'm not reliant on phone apps if the internet goes out.
Agreed. I can't seem to find something that I can migrate to which doesn't require a huge reprogramming effort. I would love local control but don't want to spend my Saturdays and freetime struggling to figure out why it's suddenly not working. Alexa is shitty and doesn't have tons of flexible control, but it's 'uptime' is very good, and does well for playing audio for the fam. self note... Get away from Spotify while I'm at it 😭
I too would like to change from Alexa echos to something else. But I don't know what devices are readily with omni-directional mics and easy to migrate to. I use Alexa for simplicity but would gladly fill the gap with Home assistant and recommendations on good replacement mic/speakers.
You are correct, but that doesn't mean they all use the same model. Apparently in the USA, it's as much electricity as the entire state of Utah. Also apparently Texas is a big home for it:
Correct. While there is little to no progress on it, officially I believe they are still trying to be. That said, I was definitely thinking about NATO when I wrote that. Apologies for the mistake.
