Lol.

Manifest Destiny even!

Ok now that I’ve read your Edit:

Podcasts no longer have RSS feeds that simply link back to an mp3 file that you directly download. Any podcast that is running canned ads (not ad reads that the host reads) is using what’s called Dynamic Ad Injection. This requires the podcaster to supply their distribution vendor with a key file that marks break points in the podcast that the system will use to slice the raw podcast file into parts, and then inject X number of ads into the break, and then reform the mp3 file for delivery. I imagine this can be done dynamically or as part of an automation that cranks out thousands of variations of the podcast file.

The reason this information is important is because it means that the PODCAST FEED itself is betraying you and your data. The feed is controlled by an ad delivery network, which works in partnership with the podcast, to inject dynamic ads based on demographic information the ad delivery network has, and they use metadata about your connection (such as IP address) to match you against a shadow portfolio of your data, or at least a pool of data that hits your demographic.

Now, one other thing here that is betraying you, is your flatmates. It doesn’t matter how much you protect yourself, because you are likely connected to your wifi, along with the other flatmates, and they’re likely not taking the same measures as you are to ensure anonymity online. So you could have received that ad not because of data collected about you, but because of data collected about everyone who uses your ISP-provided address to connect to the internet, even if they’re not listening to this specific podcast.

A VPN can mitigate most of that, as well as using a FOSS Podcast reader like you are. But if you have to listen to the podcast through Spotify, it’s still moot because the IP addresses you get via the VPN will become attached to your data profile from Spotify, which will then find its way back into the existing data on you which includes your apartment’s IP address.

The reality is Podcasts are big businesses and all the feeds for all the popular podcasts are owned by ad networks that collect data on listeners and then pair that data up with other data they collect from data brokers.

Spotify has podcasts, but I don’t use it for that, so when I read “analyzes the RSS feeds I subscribe to” I imagine they’re talking about through Spotify since that is the root of the conversation.

If you use Spotify as your podcast app, a VPN isn’t going to protect you. You should look for a FOSS Podcast app, especially if you subscribe to most of your podcasts via RSS.

Then the VPN layer would kick in, allowing you to download them anonymously.

Fat, in my feet? Ridiculous.

Thank goodness for Lemmy am I right?

What a wild quote, I had to read it twice.

I know that our library system is time based and will give patrons a limit they can renew. Probably something you can do with a script too. I think their software has a management console so they can remotely terminate the sessions.

I’ve always wanted to find sources of the monarchy calling American revolutionaries terrorists. Maybe that language wasn’t prevalent then.

Did it take you a full week to think of that reply?

I think I’ve read they prefer Liberapay, but I’m not sure exactly.

And if you want to help the team reach that goal please check out https://join-lemmy.org/support.

Mr. Parenti, are you a Marxist?

Parenti: This is my answer. I would wear that label proudly if I knew that you understood what I meant by Marxist. And when someone says: ‘You’re a Marxist now aren’t you?’ and their only intention is to give a buzzword which says ‘this guy drinks the blood of capitalist children’ or something, then I’m going to say no, I’m not your label, I don’t particularly want your label.

[…] Look, I wrote the book about the media. I don’t know what Karl Marx has to say about 20th-century US media, I think he had very little to say because you know… he left early. But there’s been a lot of creative thought and scholarship in Marxist literature and I feel that it’s a scholasticist thing [to say]: ‘Oh, you took your [Marxist] formula and applied it here…’

See, I don’t see these things this way because I’m a Marxist. it’s just the opposite. I started seeing these things and I started realizing that there was an analysis that had explanatory power for that. It gets very frustrating you know. For years I’d knock myself out trying to make an analysis, I’d come to the conclusion and I’d say: ‘Hey you know, the police are not neutral, they’re on the side of property and power.’ Then someone would say to me: ‘That’s Marxism, you know, you’re sounding like a Marxist.’

That’s Marxism… oh. Then I’d say: 'Wealth is largely unaccountable in many of the things it does in our democracy, I don’t understand, that isn’t what I learned … ’ / ‘Oh that’s a Marxist point of view, Marx said that you know.’ and it would go on, one thing after another and I said:

‘Boy, this Karl Marx was really something, you know, every time I put two and two together and come up with an analysis they give him the credit for it.’

Yeah, I hear you, defending America isn’t high on my list either.

I’m sure having a home goes a long way towards improving your mental health when you go without a home for long enough.

Most anti-communism has no basis in reality and often are myths perpetuated by state agencies. All Anti-Capitalist sentiment is rooted in the material realities of our world and life. To deny socialist historical reality is to deny your own history, and ultimately is an admission of your disingenuous support of the truth.

Historical Materialism is truth seeking in practice. It requires you to have a fact based, objective view of our past and present.

Also I don’t know why I would whine, because I’m not using lemmy.ml. That instance can have whatever rules they want. I wouldn’t block or defederate from them because of it either. But if you are not interested in seeking the truth and objectively observing reality, then I guess you can insolate yourself from it and keep your echos.

Do you mean the rule about not being Sinophobic? Is that really a hard rule for you to follow? I like to look at objective reality instead of just barking the same nonsensical shibboleths when the topic of China arises.

Ah yes, because they are all very different and diverse and definitely don’t kowtow to the same political group. A wolf in a different hat is still a wolf.

That’s how parliament works in the UK. Bunch of dictators over there in the Queen’s England.