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29 posts total
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 Work-wise, little worries me more at the moment than:
Iโve become quite good at explaining that, yes, of course, Iโll happily do so, but that it will cost at least the same, and probably more, and will take longer, than if theyโd given me the instructions and let me do it from scratch, because I essentially need to do that first, and then look at however many pages of machine sludge. Thunderbird for Android is now in F-Droid! https://f-droid.org/packages/net.thunderbird.android/ (There is also a beta version: https://f-droid.org/packages/net.thunderbird.android.beta/)
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 @neil
An interesting opinion piece on The Register, about how major FOSS projects, and associated conferences, are struggling to attract younger developers. https://www.theregister.com/2024/07/15/opinion_open_source_attract_devs/?td=rt-3a  @neil I once had the notion, as a property law academic, that fragmentation of copyright interests should be constrained in the same way that restrictive covenants are supervised by the courts. There was a member of staff at (IIRC) Berkeley with similar ideas. But things have moved on so far now, making reasoned arguments about ยฉ๏ธ is like dissecting a train wreck after it's happened. It's like, go ahead guys, when the whole thing collapses I hope some of us can find enough food to keep us alive. I struggle with the notion that tech companies do not understand consent. IMHO, they do understand consent. They understand that seeking consent - freely-given, specific, informed consent - won't get them where they want to be. To my mind, that's not a misunderstanding of consent, but a determination to avoid consent. That's typically why one sees language of "choice" and "control" and "transparency" to describe an opt-out regime. They're not confused. It's by design.
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  @neil crashlytics which used to be under twitter's fabric (now under google's firebase) used to have a page in their docs telling you how to set up a dialog asking the user whether they want metric collection or not. there was a warning saying most users would choose no, so it is advised to not show the dialog at all. New blogpost: An introduction to 'ethical licensing' > Technology ... has always been political. Iโve very little time for discussions which try to separate โtechโ and โpoliticsโ. The same is true with licensing models. Over the last couple of years, Iโve seen more people talking about โethical licensingโ. And, while Iโve yet to see an โethical licenceโ come up in the course of my work, I thought it might be an interesting topic for a blog post.
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( I should that it was @luis_in_brief who pointed me towards this, and he gave me the actual link: )  My blog posts, into which I put considerable time and effort, and which (sometimes) contain material not covered elsewhere, are probably part of commercial LLM training data. Does that comply with the licence? No. Does it infringe copyright? Probably, IMHO, from an English law perspective. Other jurisdictions, YMMV. Is this "stealingโ or โtheftโ? No. I get that this is an emotive topic, absolutely, but I thought we had moved beyond โcopyright infringement is theftโ 15+ years ago. You know what would be nice? An "open firmware" project, where people produce and share FOSS firmware for common household devices, replacing the manufacturer's firmware with a decrapified version. A smart TV? Reflash it with FOSS firmware, which removes tracking, calls to the manufacturer's servers, and any Internet-connected services that you don't want? A printer? It's now yours. No ink subscription, or need for an app to print remotely. And so on. A man can dream, eh.
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Starting such a project is relatively straightforward. Reverse engineering firmware is hard, though ๐ญ I love writing code but I don't have the skill required or the time to acquire it. (Talk to me in ten years, when my kids are older.)  In this blogpost, Iโll show you how to use OBS - a fantastic FOSS audio and video mixer - to inject your own adverts into your video call streams, so that you too can offer people the chance to pay you ยฃ3/month to turn off adverts in your calls with them. You can do partial ads (in the corner of the screen), interstitials, full screen video replacement, and scrolling subtitle ads. Works with all video conferencing software.
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 @neil I should do this for work calls, I mean yeah we both entered into a contract with certain expectations but I need more money @neil I can see possibilities in hardware was well. "Please present a valid credit card if you would prefer not to be struck by this vehicle for the next 30 days or 15 encounters, whichever comes first."  Today's #FreeSoftwareAdvent is Organic Maps Organic Maps is a privacy-focused, community-developed, open-source navigation app, for Android and iOS. Don't forget to download your maps ahead of time. I used it recently in Germany, and I was impressed.
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 @neil @organicmaps it is using #openStreetMap, so it is as good quality as your local mappers make it... so, contribute to the map in your local area! @neil @organicmaps The route planning is amazing. The hiking trails it found in our Odenwald were better than the official ones. @neil @organicmaps Strongly seconded! And wonderful that it works just as well without any 'Net connection.
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@neil what about #LibreWolfBrowser ? With #ublockorigin , #SkipRedirect , #JShelter , #clearurl as add-ons 
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@neil I have had 6 calls so far today. Each one has used a different system: XMPP (Sandra) Signal (Dad) VoLTE (Mum) Teams (client) WhatsApp (client) Jitsi (client)
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 @neil This situation is getting absurd. The amount of different places that I get notifications is completely out of hand. Interesting! "I'm trying to log in to my account, and am being rick-rolled. Why? Tusky [an Android fedi client] does not support usage by accounts on some servers because of their association with hate groups."
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 @neil Good. It's like.. 3 servers serving fascists. *Happily posted from my tusky app.  If your complaint is that there is too little fun / shitposting in the fediverse, you are following the wrong people. If your complaint is that there is too much fun / shitposting in the fediverse, you are still following the wrong people.
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@neil ... and if you follow the right people, your feed is juuuuuust right! ๐ 
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@neil I was "forced" to deGoogle my phone because I have a Huawei, and let me tell you it's an absolute pain in the ass. The "big" apps all work fine, but all the small, local administrative stuff don't. The transportation app didn't work. The health insurance app doesn't work. The delivery app doesn't detect my location. Payment app entered captcha loop. @neil
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Gregory's Server
@neil my general experience is that the only way to know if a short generated email by chatGPT is appropriate is still to consider what I would actually write/explain and then compare to what chatgpt said. At that point I could have just written the email myself.
@neil
This brings to mind Pauli's review of a particularly poor physics paper: "It's not even wrong."
@neil Happily this hasn't happened to me yet. Although I have had several vendors on the other side proudly present terms that were clearly created by an LLM. And yes, it takes *ages* to sort them out and make them fit for purpose.