Absolutely agree with this @organicmaps are amazing
https://mstdn.social/@W_Lucht/111903110020482060
Have I my mentioned how totally awesome @organicmaps's new "Outdoors map style" is - a mode that highlights tracks and trails?! It's absolutely splendid, and amazingly accurate even for small paths (built on OSM).
By the way: #OrganicMaps is fully offline, requires no registration, has no ads, no tracking - and works very well. So it depends on donations, like the fediverse does! Use and support them if you value it
Watt-Wise Game Jam
"Build delightful games that use as little energy per second as possible in order to make games and computing more sustainable, and to discover new directions for software aesthetics. [...] We are developing both hardware and software estimation techniques for measuring energy consumption. Participants can use our open source power estimation tooling while developing their games to optimize for using less power. "
PSA for folks in North America. There is a solar eclipse coming up on April 8. Get your eclipse glasses now, so you are not left scrambling.
Interesting: “Introducing Pkl, a programming language for configuration”
I fear the future of the web is a division between two philosophies. That it is a place where people go to find things made by people who care OR that it is a slowly stagnating database to be queried, mined, and deconstructed so that a person can be given something generated by a machine run by people who don’t care at all (except for money).
The further we let the line between author and material drift the more we get just “content”. And the closer we get to the second nightmare.
Study finds that once people use cargo bikes, they like their cars much less - https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/01/study-finds-that-once-people-use-cargo-bikes-they-like-their-cars-much-less/ "Even some one-car households ditched vehicles in favor of cargo bike-sharing." #transport
Google announced that starting in June 2024, ad blockers such as #uBlock Origin will be disabled in Chrome 127 and later with the rollout of Manifest V3 (#Mv3).
The new #Chrome manifest will prevent using custom filters and stops on demand updates of blocklist. Only #Google authorized updates to browser extension will be allowed in the future, which mean an automatic win for Google in their battle to stop YouTube #AdBlockers .
#ManifestV3 is deceitful and threatening to your privacy, and now is a good time to switch to #Firefox (@mozilla) and/or #TorBrowser (@torproject) if you haven't done so already!
EFF (@eff) on Google’s Manifest V3:
⚠️https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/12/chrome-users-beware-manifest-v3-deceitful-and-threatening
⚠️https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/12/googles-manifest-v3-still-hurts-privacy-security-innovation
Chrome Manifest V3 Transition Timeline (2023-11-16)
🚩https://developer.chrome.com/blog/resuming-the-transition-to-mv3/
🆕 blog! “Rebuilding FourSquare for ActivityPub using OpenStreetMap”
I used to like the original FourSquare. The "mayor" stuff was a bit silly, and my friends never left that many reviews, but I loved being able to signal to my friends "I am at this cool museum" or "We're at this pub if you want to meet" or "Spendi…
👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2024/01/rebuilding-foursquare-for-activitypub-using-openstreetmap/
⸻
#ActivityPub #fediverse #FOURSQUARE #geolocation #OpenStreetMap
Amazon seems to have (quietly) gone back on its promise not to sell facial recognition to law enforcement.
Remember: temporary corporate beneficence is not a substitute for real laws to protect people. Ban it.
https://fedscoop.com/doj-fbi-amazon-rekognition-technology-ai-use-case/
The #UX situation on desktops regularly pisses me off: desktop apps technically are much better suited to providing a system-wide, consistent and easy UX. But #SurveillanceCapitalism means that all the money for development is going to the web, where tracking is built in and each site defines its own core UX patterns. So now the desktop can't keep up in terms of developer time, and sadly the web is often easier. 1/
Almost five years ago, a prominent tech journalist told his readers to ditch Google Chrome for Firefox. Why? Because Chrome was turning into spyware.
This year, Chrome IS spyware, pure and simple.
The advice is more sound than ever.
It's a big day Canada!! How many signatures can we get in 90 days to get a Parliamentary #Mastodon #Fediverse server!? #CanPoli #CdnPoli
"We, the undersigned... call upon the Government of Canada to enact policy and dedicate budgetary resources to enable the Parliament of Canada to provide an open, trusted, federated, social media presence for use by all members, senators, officers and other employees of Parliament as appropriate for communication to all Canadians.”
https://www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-4769
This isn't a joke
Microsoft instituted a new policy limiting academic accounts to 20 GB only
FOR ENVIRONMENTAL REASONS
McGill has no internal, local research data storage service because they went all-in on Microsoft services
And yes, CIHR requires that researchers hold on to original research data for 5 years after a grant ends
Meanwhile Microsoft is boiling the fucking oceans with its AI bullshit