Hans-Christoph Steiner @eighthave@librem.one

One of the hidden benefits of using #NoScript is that it forces delays when going to sites that are a rabbit hole of distractions. While temporarily enabling #Javascript for a site, I often ask myself, "do I really need to see this?" And often, the answer is no. And that makes me happy. Humankind has worked for millenia to make information accessible. Now I think sometimes we've made it too easy, especially for distracting fluff.

Hey #plant people: anyone know a good source to see photos of house plants in their native habitat? Like I'm a big fan of #cyclamen, I thought they were tropical because they're so colorful. Turns out they are #native right here where I live. I have a very nice #shamrock, and I'm wondering what they look like in #nature.

If the "U.S. banking system remains resilient and on a solid foundation", as #US Treasury says, then why do they need to take a special action to bail out #SVB depositors who should have gotten insurance for themselves? To me, this looks like yet another #bailout for the wealthy and well connected.

No bailouts for #SiliconValleyBank or its depositors. Insurance has always been there, and those companies that didn't buy it are the ones responsible for taking that risk. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/mar/12/silicon-valley-bank-collapse-no-bailout-janet-yellen

The real #privacy protections of using a #VPN come from putting all your eggs in one basket: force all your DNS and traffic through the VPN provider. Then nobody else sees your real IP address, etc. As long as the VPN provider does everything right, doesn't get hacked, or doesn't have to comply with secret government orders, it does provide a real privacy improvement. But I have a real hard time buying into putting so much trust into one service. I wonder if it is possible to be so good

One thing I haven't figured out how to do well is to simultaneously laud good acts while blasting the bad acts. For example, #Google insists that Chromebooks be unlockable so users can install any OS. That's great! The same Google insists Chromebooks cannot allow "Unknown Sources" even though #Android always has. This looks like plain old monopolistic abuse. Or the #Chromium team works in public and behaves much more like a free software project, while #Chrome forces users to login. Any tips?

Just tagged v2.2.1 of #FDroid fdroidserver tools package, and uploaded it to pypi.org, #Debian, and our #Ubuntu PPA. This version has passed autopkgtest in Debian/bookworm, so it looks like it should make it into bookworm without further work https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/fdroidserver

The #AI #ChatGPT #Bard etc story repeats the #Bitcoin story in terms of how it will impact society. They are built on the kernel of a useful idea, but their structures heavily preference harmful use cases. #Bitcoin enabled #ransomware, tax fraud, investment scams, dodging sanctions, while only providing a slow, energy intensive payment system. #AI texts enable #disinfo, #cheating at school/work, #TechnicalDebt, devaluation of human labor, all to provide an #climate-damaging, error-prone search