Turns out I did not… remember the time™️.

Cue a dance number of Thriller but it happens in a pyramid with mummies.

How does this make you feel:

https://www.ywt.org.uk/nature-reserves/fen-bog-nature-reserve

… in the UK. And thank goodness.

I didn’t know Mullvad did a DNS service as well as a VPN, let alone that it has some ad blocking profiles. Thanks for that!

See it. Say it. Sorted.

I didn’t ask for this. 😭

Can the EU stop winning?

I’ll get back to you on that, but just to be clear transphobia on a medical level is more about gaslighting trans people and / or denying them the treatment they need.

The doctor in question could also campaign against allowing trans rights, spread misinformation or personally deny them a referral to get the treatment they need.

Wait times for trans-specific procedures can be astronomical compared to other procedures in the same country. Think years in wait time.

I don’t think most trans people complain about doctors mentioning what genitals or conditions they may have in 1-1 conversations.

All of that said, I am not trans myself, so I’m not the right person to ask. It’s best to ask trans people themselves about their experiences in the healthcare industry, but they have unique challenges.

I thought it was fairly clear, but I’ll elaborate.

If a trans person is discriminated against by their doctor, then having a mechanism to warn other trans people away from that doctor so they don’t waste their time or go through unpleasant experiences would be useful.

Same can be said of therapists etc.

To be honest we should probably have a way of publicly rating medical professionals in general, regardless of whether you are trans or not, but trans people probably need it more than the average person.

So much negativity in these comments.

Having read the guidelines, I think they’re pretty reasonable.

I’m sure it’s not perfect, but this could help people. A trans relative of mine has been mistreated by specific doctors, and being able to signal to others to stay away from these person could really help others.

Right now, the worst that can happen is that someone is wrongly flagged and a small minority of people dislike them, but the good it can do is greater.

Not so sure about that, a quick search through my emails reveals emails from mend.io and codesandbox.io that had no trouble getting to me.

That said, I have found that even some sites that have .io don’t have it in their emails, they use a slightly different domain.

So maybe some sites have been whitelisted or it’s one of many heuristics Google uses.

French ice cream

Don’t blame the French for this. Take responsibility for your atrocity.

One problem I have with it is that it’s harder than ever to get to the members list. You have to click a thing at the top of the screen rather than just swiping from the right.

Otherwise I’m mostly happy.

What is MK supposed to mean?

I live in the UK, and because of Brexit we won’t get this. Thanks Nigel Farage.

And users are fully within their rights to circumvent the blocks

This is factually false (depending on your country).

From a quick Google search (ironic) the following seems to be true:

Blocking is not, in itself, illegal. However, circumventing restrictions on content, like what YouTube has added recently, is.

See this article: https://blockadblock.com/adblocking/adblockers-dont-break-the-law-except-when-they-do/

Oh wow that really is expensive. Americans do make more money on average than Europeans, but goddamn does your stuff cost a lot of money sometimes.

I think it’s €15 here?

EDIT:

Ah, for the family plan. Just reread. Not sure what that is here.

I hadn’t thought of it from a privacy perspective.

I couldn’t imagine using YouTube not signed in because of the dogs**t recommendations you get then. I imagine if you’re signed in the privacy loss is not significantly less than if you paid for Premium too.

I also use GMail so I’m already f***ed from that. I’ve basically given up on privacy at any other time than when I want to do private things, and I use a VPN and private browser.

Controversial take but:

• YouTube are fully within their rights to crack down on adblockers, as they have done in the past. Content delivery is not free, and they are not a charity.
• YouTube provides two ways to “pay” for your content: with ads, or by paying for premium.
• Tech companies have an unhealthy habit of making things free or cheap to gain a userbase, then increasing the price. The biggest problem with this imo is that it sets expectations with users that these things should be free
• I am not going to get into an argument about what price is “fair” or whether Google can “afford it”. All I know is that for now, they continue to run YouTube, but nothing stops them from shutting it all down tomorrow if they decide it’s not profitable enough.

As for myself personally, I watched YouTube with ads for the last 2 or 3 years, and more recently I decided to start paying for YouTube Premium.

YouTube Premium made sense for me because:

• I was spending more than 3 hours a day on YouTube (in the background or as the thing I’m actively watching.
• I could afford it now that my financial situation had improved
• Creators get significantly more money from YouTube Premium watchers (or so I’ve heard)

Before all of that, I used to use YouTube Vanced (RIP) and NewPipe, both great though not entirely legit ways of bypassing ads and downloading videos. I still use the latter to archive the really good content I come across.

If you’re ok to pay for YouTube, but it’s too expensive for the value you get out of it, there are alternative approaches. You can spoof your location and buy YouTube Premium in another country, like Turkey or India, and get it for as low as $2 a month. Google doesn’t crack down on this much at the time of writing.