Kyle Rankin @kyle@librem.one

I'm excited to announce that our Librem 14 laptop will now feature BIOS and EC flash chip write protection via a dip switch on the motherboard: https://puri.sm/posts/librem-14-features-bios-and-ec-write-protection/

I've been using a cheap repeater to boost Wifi in my van, but I just replaced it w/ a USB WiFi card w/ a weatherproof antenna mounted under my cellular booster. Inside it's connected to my RPi media PC and the onboard RPi WiFi is configured as an access point. #vanlife #geeklife

I discovered http://cardgames.io games work great on my #Librem5 as a Gnome Web local app with its own launcher icon. While I already had solitaire and other games, this adds games like cribbage that don't have a native Linux app.

In related news: scruffy, fast-healing Canadian man was abducted outside "bike lock" factory. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2249275-material-that-cannot-be-cut-would-make-the-ultimate-bike-lock/

I'm moving up in the world: I just got a cold LinkedIn solicitation to start my own pizza franchise. What can I say? I'm just a straight shooter with upper management written all over me.

I finished War and Peace! What a surprise ending! #spoilers

I did not expect it to end with a philosophical essay on the contrasting forces of necessity and free will and the impact of that conflict on the science of history as compared to harder sciences. This book has it all!

We are continually disappointed by false promises of mobile convergence. My thoughts on why: real convergence means taking your desktop computer with you wherever you go. Fake convergence is the opposite: stretching a phone to fit a larger screen. #Librem5 https://puri.sm/posts/investing-in-real-convergence/

A post-tax-filing whiskey is a tradition around here. It works when it's a refund year but especially when it's not. #itwasnt #lastminutetaxes

One of the most damaging philosophies #infosec copied from IT is a belief in user inferiority. Too many security decisions are rooted in a patronizing notion that users are children and that trust and agency must be taken from them and given to infosec staff/vendors.

So thankful my wife and I can work from home. Year-round school starts this week: mandated 230 mins/day of work w/ multiple daily zoom calls. For 3rd grader this will require much parental supervision. Don't know how single parents/others can do it.

It blew his mind that a single deck of cards you can buy for $1 could mean a hundred different single and multiplayer games. I immediately taught him solitaire, and cribbage is next. Society would never invent such a thing today.

I'm a free software nerd because explaining what a deck of cards is to my son became an object lesson in open standards and vendor lock in.

For hundreds of years a new card game meant new rules but the same deck. Now everyone has to monetize w/ custom cards and expansion packs.

I'm digging the new boot splash screen that made it in the #Librem5 Dogwood PureOS release. I especially like the graphical feedback during system updates.

A beard is basically a swap partition for your mouth.

Oh Snap! https://linuxreviews.org/Linux_Mint_20_Blocks_And_Removes_Snap_Citing_Backdoor_To_Canonicals_SnapCraft_Store

"This has been going on for years and is an essential part of the mobile app economy."

Unless you remove the financial incentive, there's no hope for #privacy on Android/iOS. Their app ecosystems are built on selling user data and no amount of prompts or checkboxes can fix it.

https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/7/8/21311533/sdks-tracking-data-location

Movie remake: Terminator, but T-101 has 2020 facial recognition tech with current false positive rates. Twist: Sarah Connor is black. #privacy

First SARS-CoV-2, then H1N1 G4 and now actual Bubonic plague? #yearofpestilence https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/bubonic-plague-triggers-health-alert-in-china-after-herder-is-infected/2020/07/07/bfb8f874-c004-11ea-8908-68a2b9eae9e0_story.html