IIRC, early in the presidency, after the first meeting with Zelensky, everyone realised that you had to give Trump a gift if you wanted to avert his gaze and avoid being publicly humiliated like that South African PM who showed up empty handed.

As a result, when Starmer was summoned to the white house he presented Trump with an invite to a royal audience. Trump loved this gift. Very Trumpian. Now it’s time to make good I guess.

Oh man. This just obfuscates the corruption.

Here in Australia there’s a few Trump sycophants that pull this type of stuff occasionally, or try saying “make Australia great again”, and just nutters that put Trump stickers and whatever on their cars.

The only explanation I’ve been able to develop is that they enjoy the reactions they get from people. In the same way siblings antagonise each other for a cheap thrill, these guys just like the feeling of antagonising people.

Our recent election has shown that Trumpism doesn’t get much love here in Australia.

I dont have the hardware so I’m using “open web ui” to run queries on models accessible via huggingface API.

Works really well. I haven’t invested the time to understand how to use workspaces, which allow you to tune models, but aparently its doable.

Very dramatic.

We do have “op shops” which are like a charity that sells clothes and toys that have been donated to them.

We do buy a lot of stuff from these places, and visit almost every week. The thing is, the range of stuff is very limited. For example, they might have a dozen shirts for toddlers, all in different sizes, so at best you get one shirt.

We dont really have “car boot” markets or flea markets here. We have farmers markets for fresh produce but not second hand items.

We have a toy library where I volunteer once a month. This is an amazing resource and our kids always have different toys that are really well used by loads of kids. It really is great.

The thing is, Toddlers grow quick, and they’re pretty gross, so you have to change shirts several times a day. Realistically you need 12 shirts, which they will ruin or outgrown in a few months.

On fb marketplace, any day of the week, there’s people selling boxes of kids clothes for a few dollars, all the same size. Every few months you box up everything thats too small and pass it on to the next person. From a shop, the only other option, a box of 12 toddlers shirts would be maybe $60. Of course you get pants and undershirts and jackets and whatever. So youre saving several hundred dollars each time.

If it were just a matter of going to some other place or using some other app then ofc I would do that, but fb market is the place parents sell their toddler clothes in my area.

Well, sure ok it’s “avoidable” in the sense that I’m not forced to engage with facebook or any other company or platform.

However, the imposition on my daily functioning and ability to interact with my peers would be severely disaffected.

If there’s a group of a dozen people that I know in person who are interacting on whats app, then if I want to interact with them I need to use whats app.

Removed by mod

I’m so excited for you to tell me how you think the Web works.

No, it’s not.

Not really. I use my tech for both.

How does that matter?

Logging in to fb marketplace in a containered tab isn’t a big deal.

LOL. Settle down mate.

You can call me names if it makes you feel better.

I couldn’t care less if fb knows I’m selling toddler clothes.

I, and everyone else who is not 15, will continue selling my junk on facebook.

Not really. I engage in my business to make money, not to fly the privacy & freedom flag.

I think everyone feels that way. All you can do is just try to stick to the bits you really need.

I would def think about paying someone to manage your business page.

That’s not really true.

I live in a fairly small city. There might be other platforms but they’re not in common use.

I can list a box of toddler clothes and they’ll sell in a week, while other platforms perhaps they won’t sell at all.

Oh my sweet summer child. One day the light of idealism will fade from your eyes just as it does for everyone who is not 15.

I’m not contributing to pissing away freedoms and privacy, but I’m not going to inconvenience myself on ideological grounds.

Its bad, but a govt service is the best implementation.

Facebook is kinda unavoidable here.

I have young kids, and marketplace has saved me thousands of dollars. Kids need a lot of different stuff at different ages and it’s nice to be able to flip the stuff you dont need anymore and get the stuff they do need second hand.

Also messenger, what’s app. My apartment building has a what’s app group thats invaluable. I talk to customers on messenger.

Just cheaper.

I said it’s android.

Its going to be a problem but it’s not yet.