They are the epitome of the adage that their earlier stuff was better. For me, they jumped the shark when Roman Catholic bells were ringing.

This is shitty behavior by the company (and a reminder not to rely on online services for anything, not even storing your shopping list). But it isn't Doctorowian enshitification. It isn't a focus shift from consumers to suppliers to then be able to hold both captive, squeeze them dry, and making the service worse in the process. This is just new management pissing off nerds.

First thing, disable all auto backup on your phone. This is step 1 for anything.

If you have access to a computer, log in to Photos through a browser and delete images there and it won't affect your phone's storage. Maybe test it with an image if lesser importance before you bulk delete.

You could also move your locally stored photos to a different, temporary folder. Then delete the backed up ones in Photos. Then move the local files back.

I wouldn't rely on the Google Takeout images. If the standard settings applied, the images will all be in Google's compressed format. Granted, most people in the world couldn't tell the difference. But it might be better to keep the best quality for the future.

And those folks aren't on here because they already do their socializing in person. A frightful thought.

Florida Man strikes again.

What's wrong with these people? The rabbi had time to sink to the floor, the priest is clearly passed out on the floor, why is the pastor still walking into the bar? Are they all blind and deaf?

The deeper message must be that just out of shot an imam and a Buddhist monk are looking at each other puzzled exchanging remarks like "They really cannot learn from each other, can they."

(I do get the bar joke, internet. No need to well actually me. This was very much tongue in cheek.)

I feel like the Atari 2600 is quickly becoming for so-called AI what the "how much is a gallon of milk?" gotcha question had become for politicians who run for office. A rather pointless bit of news.

As Scotty said: the right tool for the right job. An LLM is maybe not a chess engine and that's fine too. Why would we expect these models to be Magnus effing Carlson if they cannot reliably summarize an email or recommend eating pebbles?

Yes, we are. Please stop masturbating. Thanks.

I think this USSR quote is a good answer:

We know that they are lying, they know that they are lying, they even know that we know they are lying, we also know that they know we know they are lying too, they of course know that we certainly know they know we know they are lying too as well, but they are still lying. In our country, the lie has become not just moral category, but the pillar industry of this country.

(Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn)

In any authoritarian system where indoctrination starts young you'll probably have a fifth of the population that's high on the coolaid or never questioned anything due to ideology or intelligence (or both). The rest know they're lying, etc. And keep their mouths shut because they don't want to go to Siberia or El Salvador.

This is not the behavior of a friend.

One of them doesn't listen at all. He's also dead so I'm willing to overlook his blatant lack of enthusiasm.

If you want to know where it is going in the short-term, have a look at Orban's Hungary. Rightwing populist voted in and then got to work at dismantling the state. Control judges appointments, curb the power of the judicial branch, silence critical media, pick a group to scapegoat, buddy of Putin. The list goes on. Democracy only works if people defend it and from my outside POV there aren't enough people doing that just yet. It's worse in Trump 2.0 because this time he came prepared.

There are already horror stories about people being caught up wrongly in the deportation efforts. That's using very mild language for very traumatic events here. It's come to a point where erstwhile allies of the US are advising their citizens not to travel to the US. Because they have lost faith in the rule of law there. Take a minute to let that sink in.

If you're a US citizen, resist. The free state is under threat. If you're an immigrant, be careful.