A furious China launched “punishment” drills around Taiwan on Thursday in what it said was a response to “separatist acts”, sending up heavily armed warplanes and staging mock attacks as state media denounced newly inaugurated President Lai Ching-te....
It’s a show of power to their own population in China, a drill of invading Taiwan, and an opportunity to push the line a bit further every time they do this, until a Chinese soldier sets a foot on Taiwanese land. They don’t care how it looks internationally, as “how it looks” doesn’t have any real consequences or at least they are worth the benefits.
I think this has an effect most people don’t think of: Media will just lose it’s value as a trusted source for information. We’ll just lose the ability of broadcasting media as anything could be faked. Humanity is back to “word of mouth”, I guess.
Beta and moreso Alpha are tags that indicate a software is not ready for use in production environment, because it is either not secure or stable enough. Otherwise it wouldn’t need to be tagged as Alpha or Beta.
I don’t get how a software can be in alpha or beta version and by the developers be called ready for production environments. It doesn’t make sense by itself. In some way it’s not an honest way of communication, telling us two contrary things at the same time.
Alpha versions are actually quite severe. It means that features can be removed or added breaking the whole system. It means not providing an upgrade path for database changes. It means new bugs will be introduced by new features. Beta normally means a feature freeze but still not considered stable enough for production, due to bugs and security issues. RC, a “release candidate” is almost ready but you give it a bit more of testing time to make sure no critical bugs are left. And after that you get the version that is safe for productive use.
They are far away from a productive version, but telling us to use their development version as such.
TL;DR – A proposed system to get 300 million Americans to practice “complete democracy” together in a fast, efficient, and meaningful way without relying on representatives....
I can only advice to try out a color E ink eReader in person. Their screen is usually low contrast and dark, to a degree that you need to use it with backlight by default, which kinda defeats the purpose of an E ink eReader. For E ink, monochrome displays are still the way to go, and if you really need color, a device without E ink.
Lavender has been fed with information that targeted people often hide in healthcare facilities. The threashold for labeling anything as a target that is related to medical or humanitarian support is passed easily obviously. A food truck that we are informed about and gave clearance for? Anyways, threashold is passed, Lavender says, so … approval stamp for drone attack!
I wonder if the intention could be purely financial as well: Once the backdoor is in, you can sell it for millions to a company which sells the service of breaking into systems. Or it was such a company itself that pushed the backdoor into the code.
By default Firefox collects data and sends it to their server, which Icecat doesn’t. I don’t want having to use another service like NextDNS to protect me against the application that I want to be able to trust because I’m using it for a lot of personal data.
From the mozilla website itself:
Identification:
When Firefox sends data to us, your IP address is temporarily collected as part of our server logs.
And then the data that I don’t want to share with other entities:
Interaction data includes information about your interactions with Firefox such as number of open tabs and windows, number of webpages visited, number and type of installed Firefox Add-ons and session length, as well as Firefox features offered by Mozilla or our partners such as interaction with Firefox search features and search partner referrals.
Technical data includes information about your Firefox version and language, device operating system and hardware configuration, memory, basic information about crashes and errors, outcome of automated processes like updates and safebrowsing.
There’s certainly a trade-off by not having Telemetry, and I prefer privacy over some “slightly better development”. It is not necessary for good development.
Websites collect information, but I expect that in a public space, and also aggregating information across websites isn’t so easy. However, I have higher expectations for my web browser. When something is installed on my laptop, it’s like my house, and I don’t want anything to access my private space without permission.
Even worse, Firefox has it implemented as Opt-Out. Telemetry by default and without asking the user isn’t good practice. At the very least, they should give users a choice before enabling it. Yet, they collect everyone’s IP address and other information at least once when you start up Firefox for the first time. This doesn’t deserve my trust.
I don’t want to play a game of ‘what do I need to opt-out for privacy’ with an entity that I need to trust. Why would I use Firefox if Icecat gives me the level of trust that I need. It’s a personal choice.
Privacy always comes at a cost. We are all different and have varying preferences based on our experiences and perspectives. Deciding how much privacy one wants to give up for convenience or other benefits is a personal choice. There’s no need to judge others for that decision. To each their own.
I appreciate your detailed description of the probable benefits of telemetry. While I acknowledge there are benefits, however, before accepting a given set of telemetry, I would like to know with sources and in exact terms (not just ‘improved UI’) what enhancements were made to Firefox that couldn’t be achieved without telemetry. I want to decide for myself if those features are truly important enough to justify sending my personal data to the developers. Only then can I make an informed decision, and it still wouldn’t necessarily mean agreement. It’s not paranoia; it’s simply refusing telemetry for any reason given.
I just tried osmand. It took forever to locate me and then the map would freeze for minutes, then the blue arrow would finally jump to my location. It seems useless for real time navigation, is that normal? Google maps works fine on the phone (Android) so it’s not the hardware. Is there maybe some setting I haven’t found?...
Buy the paper version, cut off the papers with a paper knife, and scan to PDF, with text layer. Takes half an hour for 300 pages, a book I’d read several hours. I paid for ownership, I’ll own it. Legal in many countries, research the legal situation of your country of residence.
I remember there was a time Google tried to be the best search engine out there, by ranking first what has most value for the user. Now it is ranking first what brings them more money, hence undermining Google’s credibility, and making itself less ueful for the user. The enshittification of Google for everyone to see.
For nearly two years now, Google has been gradually rolling out a feature to all Chrome users that analyzes their browsing history within the browser itself. This feature aims to replace third-party cookies and individual tracking by categorizing you into an interest category and sharing that category with advertisers. It’s...
I’d expect that the advertisement is relevant to the content of the page. But I don’t know, as I haven’t seen a single bit of advertisement for the last 15 years.
Every product should include the price of what it costs today to repair the damage done to the environment by that particular product. That way the external negative effects get internalized to the individual that takes the decision, and also the damage can be covered.
Does anyone here have a BOOX e-paper tablet? I’m a big fan of e-paper devices—I love my Pebble smartwatch, Kindle Paperwhite, and Light Phone II. I’ve been eyeing the Tab Ultra C for quite a while, and I am considering the pros and cons. Mostly, I intend to use it for browsing the web and maybe some light note taking and...
The color screen of e-readers is too dark for me and substantially lacks contrast. It’s very noticable. The layer for pen recognition already makes the screen darker, but the color display is adding a lot more to the darkness and lack of contrast. I would only go with an e-reader with black/white screen and even without pen recognition.
Furthermore, e-readers are much more fragile than mobile phones. The design of their screen leads to a high probability of getting broken which is a common thing, search “ereader screen broken” online. My Boox e-reader fell 50 centimeters and the screen was broken, which renders the whole devide unresponsive.
The pen recognition is not as precise as on tablets. You can draw with it, but it’s a bit annoying and not for detailed work.
So my suggestion is to go with a device that costs less than 200 USD and do anything else than reading on a phone or tablet.
China launches 'punishment' war games around Taiwan (www.reuters.com)
A furious China launched “punishment” drills around Taiwan on Thursday in what it said was a response to “separatist acts”, sending up heavily armed warplanes and staging mock attacks as state media denounced newly inaugurated President Lai Ching-te....
Slack users horrified to discover messages used for AI training (arstechnica.com)
Microsoft’s VASA-1 can deepfake a person with one photo and one audio track (arstechnica.com)
GoToSocial is a new ActivityPub social network server for the Fediverse (github.com)
This service is still in Alpha release but is already deployable and usable, and federates with other Fediverse servers....
Almost all Chinese keyboards have severe security flaws that can be (mis)used for mass surveillance, report reveals (citizenlab.ca)
Cross posted from: beehaw.org/post/13390116...
A Theory for a Modern System of Democracy
TL;DR – A proposed system to get 300 million Americans to practice “complete democracy” together in a fast, efficient, and meaningful way without relying on representatives....
Kobo's new color E Ink eReaders start at only $150 (www.pocket-lint.com)
Roku’s New HDMI Tech Could Show Ads When You Pause Your Game (kotaku.com)
‘Lavender’: The AI machine directing Israel’s bombing spree in Gaza (www.972mag.com)
a notable point in here, particularly given the recent WCK murders:...
'xz utils' Software Backdoor Uncovered in Years-Long Hacking Plot (unicornriot.ninja)
Floorp, a Firefox Fork with an awful name, has moved some components inside a private submodule. (github.com)
See also https://forum.endeavouros.com/t/floorp-going-closed-source/52783...
Is osmand normally terrible?
I just tried osmand. It took forever to locate me and then the map would freeze for minutes, then the blue arrow would finally jump to my location. It seems useless for real time navigation, is that normal? Google maps works fine on the phone (Android) so it’s not the hardware. Is there maybe some setting I haven’t found?...
The Anti-Ownership Ebook Economy (www.nyuengelberg.org)
this is a very lengthy piece but quite interesting. from the introduction:...
Wendy's Is Introducing Uber-Style 'Surge Pricing' (www.foodandwine.com)
How Google is killing independent sites like ours (housefresh.com)
Google's Chrome Browser Analyzing Your Browsing History with so-called "Privacy Sandbox" Feature
For nearly two years now, Google has been gradually rolling out a feature to all Chrome users that analyzes their browsing history within the browser itself. This feature aims to replace third-party cookies and individual tracking by categorizing you into an interest category and sharing that category with advertisers. It’s...
From fiction to reality: Could people ever embrace a ban on flying? (grist.org)
Thoughts on BOOX Tab Ultra C? (shop.boox.com)
Does anyone here have a BOOX e-paper tablet? I’m a big fan of e-paper devices—I love my Pebble smartwatch, Kindle Paperwhite, and Light Phone II. I’ve been eyeing the Tab Ultra C for quite a while, and I am considering the pros and cons. Mostly, I intend to use it for browsing the web and maybe some light note taking and...