Five retailers—Loblaw, Sobeys, Metro, Costco and Walmart—control 75 per cent of Canada’s food retail market. In processing, the Canadian market is even more consolidated in some cases. Just two corporations—one of which was owned by Loblaw parent company George Weston Ltd. until recently—control 80 per cent of the bread-making market, for example.

Sobeys gets no Compliments from me, and Galen Weston would best be represented wearing a yellow no-name shirt with “money-sucking oligarch” written on it.

Interestingly, Reddit was open-source between 2008-2017. I’m hoping we can kind of re-capture the feeling of old Reddit without botspam, adspam, and more focus on community and improving experience than on “premium features” and monetization.

‘Shrek’ villain, i.e. Lord Farquaad?

I’m cheering for the open-source team to successfully surpass Bard and ChatGPT eventually.

Hahaha that’s one of those things. “Look at me, I spent a bunch of money to get a bored looking monkey face, it’s exclusive!!!”

This article makes a handful of good points, as I do think university research should be shielded from government influence and politics, but most of this article speaks like a pro-China propaganda piece.

The issue is that the CCP has outsize influence on that country’s companies than a typical government, even if they aren’t state-owned, and the state has been known to put pressure on US and Canadian politics through those kinds of apps and technologies.

So yes, the US government, the Canadian government, Big Tech like Google, Apple, Amazon spy on us already and siphon plenty of data, but that shouldn’t be a reason we allow any and all countries equal access to our private data.

CNN knows that many Fox “Entertainment” News viewers have a Tucker Carlson-shaped void they want filled so they are selling out to coax them to their network. CNN uses the “both-sides” argument to excuse them chasing headlines and ad revenue.

Here in Canada Clearview AI facial recognition tech was ruled as a privacy violation. I hope tech like Fusus similarly stays out of here, and that both states and Canadian provinces move their asses on more comprehensive privacy laws and personal data processing and retention limits.

Privacy and freedom of expression should not be a left-vs-right issue.

What some right-wingers tout as “free-speech” in practice stands for “freedom from being criticized”, “right to speak harm to others without consequence”, and “right to a receptive audience for their speech”.

The “free-speech” the EFF advocates for is not that.

As the law and technology develops alongside our ever-evolving world, it’s important that these neither create nor reinforce obstacles to people’s ability to speak, organize, and advocate for change. Both the law and technology must enhance people’s ability to speak. That’s why EFF fights to protect free speech - because everyone has the right to share ideas and experiences safely, especially when we disagree.

The RARBG team were Legends. Sad news, but I am wishing them the best for their futures.