Hans-Christoph Steiner @eighthave@librem.one

I never understood why arugula was a food until I grew it. It is intense and bitter, why would people eat it? When you grow it yourself, you just throw down some seeds where it gets some rain during the winter. Then you get massive amounts of it in the spring, and it is all bug free. Without really doing anything. If I had to grow all my own food, then I think I would probably end up eating a lot of arugula. Plus it tastes better when its freshly picked, not just pure bitterness.

I will go one step further and say that calling #FDroid an "unsafe app" by this standard is dishonest. It seems that some at #Google also agreed, since the older version of that screen was honest: "Blocked by Play Protect" instead of "Unsafe app blocked". Looks like the #GooglePlay team is still focused on protecting their #monopoly, this time using scare tactics. 2/2

This screen that #Google shows on #Android when installing #FDroid really bugs me. It is purely based on the integer value targetSdkVersion, without considering our security model, public audits results, track record over 10+ years, exclusive use of memory safe languages, or even what our code actually does. It is as if #FDroid marked anything that comes from Google as containing ads and trackers. 1/2

Code review is an essential part of team maintenance of #software. It must be a conversation . Pushing code without review might feel like getting things done, but it creates a form of technical debt. The other maintainers have not taken in the new logic yet, and therefore cannot act on it. That can mean duplication of work or breakage, since the other developer was not aware of the new logic.

looks like local/mesh device-to-device networking is finally getting good enough that #China is banning it https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/09/china-plans-new-rules-to-regulate-file-sharing-services-like-airdrop-and-bluetooth

I really wonder what was behind the decision by #Google to take the #Android open source developer reference, that anyone could build themselves, and make it #proprietary and only available online. Given all the other stuff that Google does, it is hard to see it as anything but a play for forced tracking of developers in combination with solidifying monopoly control over Android.

It used to be pretty easy to build a local copy of the #Android developer docs. It was quite nice because it was super fast to navigate. I even made a #Debian package for the offline version. #Google broke that back in Android 6.0 or so.

Why on earth does https://developer.android.com block #Tor connections now? It does seem like #Google is aiming to collect ever more data on #Android developers, maybe this is one thing they're doing to ensure they get decent IP data there.

In case you think housing subsidies don't work, consider that everyone in America who has a mortgage is living in subsidized housing because mortgages to buy houses are given huge deductions https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/23/magazine/vienna-social-housing.html

#LLM #chatbot tricks like #ChatGPT are looking ever more like #bitcoin and other #cryptocurrencies : they are mostly good for cheating, faking, and creating #disinfo.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/27/nyregion/avianca-airline-lawsuit-chatgpt.html

How does one deal with someone like L. Frank Baum, the author of the Wizard of Oz? On one hand, he was an outspoken #feminist and #suffragist, on the other hand, he explicitly advocated for the #genocide of the native Americans.