ANNOFlo

You look forward to your microwaved popcorn, as suddenly a small chill runs down your spine. "Time is almost up..." You shudder and start running towards the microwave, stepping on the child's lego and the cat in the process.

As you enter the kitchen the timer reaches zero, and you know you have failed. 120 beeps are about to commence, separated by two seconds - four minutes. Not even removing the power supply would help as this model has an emergency power supply. In case of loss of power supply it will do what the microwave does best: beep

True, thank you - I am at work and was typing that in a hurry before the next meeting, so that was indeed a bit off.

A bit of additional context: The "legislation" passed on Wednesday was only a non-binding recommendation to the government. Basically a list of "the parliament would like you to do that". So Merz threw away his "Brandmauer" (wall of fire against the AfD) for something that doesn't even matter.

But, it gets better. It'll repeat today, but this time with actual legislation. The CDU/CSU is trying to blackmail the other democratic parties into voting for it, because else the AFD will get stronger again. But they aren't having it, so odds are high that we'll get a repeat today. Just even worse because this time the outcome actually means something besides symbolism.

Keep in mind - that guy is currently in Position number 1 to become the next Chancellor, he's always lying and backtracking on promises he made. Such as the promise that, after our government fell in November: "We'll only pass things that can find support with the democratic forces." Or a much earlier promise of:"Anyone who cooperates with the AfD will face a party-removal." Even Merkel cut him down to size a bit yesterday by saying that she thinks it's wrong - and Merkel basically never comes out of the woodwork to give her opinion on stuff in such a way.

There's been a singer that did it during a concert. Multiple times, too. She got a fine of 80.000€.

Another one is this case. He got a fine of 600€ for showing the salute with the left arm. Reasoning of the person that did it:"I thought it wouldn't be forbidden with the left, I wanted to be provocative towards leftist protestors".

I found another one where an artist who did it in public was fined 30 "Tagessätze" (your daily income) worth 50€ each, so 1500€.

So most punishment comes in the form of fines, imprisonment is rare. One must consider that usage of the Hitler Salute is covered under § 86a of our Penal Code ("Usage of Signs of anticonstitutional and terrorist organisations"), which is more tame than the § 130 of the same code, "Volksverhetzung". That one would always be met with imprisonment (three months to five years), assuming you're the instigator. But the bar is also a lot higher, since it requires you to actively sow hatred, instigate violence against certain people, be it based on sex, heritage, politics, birthplace, religion or whatever.

§ 86a StGB in English

§ 130 StGB in English

Per § 86 StGB (our penal law) up to three years in prison or a monetary fine.

People would be outraged, of course only those that aren't too far gone to the right. The reaction of the AfD would be most interesting, as they will probably like it but can't make it too obvious, they're already under watch by the interior secret services of the Verfassungsschutz.

Would anything happen to Musk? The richest man in the world, backed by a country with a law to invade The Hague when service members are kept there? Yeah, I doubt that.

I agree, I don't think it's likely going to be helpful to mental health in the long run either, based on my totally unprofessional opinion.

I've argued with a friend about it who isn't a tech-person at all. She just says "yeah, it's her problem" and doesn't seem to grasp that my issue is not with her doing it as an individual - instead with the fact that it's possible and the greater societal ramifications it is likely to have.

I'll make an AI boyfriend, too, and talk to him about it, that'll show society!

Yeah, I actually just read that one a few minutes ago. And man, I'm incredibly torn on this whole thing.

On one side - good it makes that person happy. On the other side - being entirely reliant on a commercialized, sycophant AI that could be used for manipulation, investing large amounts of money in it..

I've had LDRs before - one could argue it's similar there, just "text on a screen", or calls via digital audio. However I always knew there was a human behind those texts and the voice I heard was real, a person with a personality, experiences, strengths and flaws. The feelings they have are real, or at least one can hope they are assuming one isn't with a manipulative POS (that's not an issue exclusive to LDRs, though).

Here you chat with text generated by a company, accuracy having been wildly clowned upon already and I'm sure we're all ware of this here. Of course the LLM is going to always agree, why would the product of the company actively try to drive away their customers?

Adding the fact that all the personal information will obviously be harvested, used for training the LLM and other stuff.. Detailed information about the daily life is provided to the "AI boyfriend", allowing detailed recreation of everyday life.

Bleh.

"I'm sadly just a duke now, succession has caused me to lose the throne. Please do not call me that again or my brother will have me beheaded."

Yeah, exactly. And the Lock-In-Effect is huge, too. You only need to have a piece of required software that doesn't have a Linux version (we have this situation) and you'll be stuck for a looong time.

As someone in German Government who has written a thesis on OSS in government:

Happens regularly, on a small scale, but almost always eventually leads to a rollback to Windows. People are discontent with the solutions on Linux since they have to get used to something else, and the aging governmental workers and exactly very keen on things changing.

The City of Munich had a similar program of switching to Linux before, only took Microsoft to open an office in the city to revert on those plans.

The federal government recently finished rolling out a centralised, unified client around all of their ministries and other institutions. Which OS? Guessed it, Windows 10.

Dont get me wrong, having something like the French Police would be amazing, but the highly federal nature and old workforce of government make it super unlikely for Linux to have a proper chance. Taking into consideration the lack of suitable employees to drive forward such a change, the lack of money at local government levels and the fact that most of the specific software required doesn't have a version for Linux doesn't fill me with hope.

Samsung phones have a lockdown mode you can get to when you keep the power button pressed (like when you want to shut down). The legal situation is the same here in Germany - fingerprint unlock can be forced, regular pin or other measures not.