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"1984 was a typo. 255-91-1755. That's me. I've been reduced to a series of digits. My Social Security number is in thousands of computers that buy and sell my life story."

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If you (like me) are watching for the 25th anniversary, you should check out the novelization! So amazing and with subtle differences from the film.

@kyle Nicely done. This ties in with a lot of related things like the right to repair.

Also your metaphor meshes well with my increasing belief that it's not about surveillance capitalism, it's actually surveillance feudalism. In capitalism people get to own things. In feudalism the serfs basically give up rights of freedom and property in exchange for the protection of the lord and manor.

Technically it's manorialism and serfdom if we want to be picky.

If you live inside a fortification where someone else writes the rules, decides who can enter, can force anyone to leave, decides what you’re allowed to have, and can take things away if they decide it’s contraband, are you living in a castle or a prison? puri.sm/posts/your-phone-is-yo

Want to honor your free software heroes? Nominate someone who's doing a terrific job at empowering computer users for a Free Software Award by October 28th: u.fsf.org/357

@purism …and here's a quick Quake II demo using the docked via usb-c (audio is from L5's built in speaker) - might be a bit more exciting than running (which also works):

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If you think these hardware cryptographic security measures are actually about customer security and not vendor control, I have printers to sell you that reject refilled ink cartridges and farm tractors you aren't allowed to repair.

servethehome.com/amd-psb-vendo

@purism And here's the connected to a usb-c hub that has a keyboard/mouse connected via usb and driving the external screen via dp-alt-mode. Needs some hacks still but we're getting there:

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Well that was a new one: I was rickrolled by my dreams last night and the song is still stuck in my head.

libhandy 1.0.0 released. 🎉

We released it a bit in advance to let application maintainers update their submodules in time for the GNOME 3.38.0 release. 😀 That being said, we expect distros to ship libhandy as any other regular stable library. 😉

download.gnome.org/sources/lib

Also, if this is the state of things in the iOS app store, what does that tell you about Android?

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It was a pleasure (as always) to be on @reality2cast. In this episode I talk about why past promises of mobile convergence were disappointing and what real convergence looks like (hint: a Librem 5) and also how I manage my child's digital persona. reality2cast.com/38

Due to FB and app developer pressure, Apple changed their mind about mandating apps ask permission before tracking users in iOS 14. That lobbying power should tell you everything you need to know about how much money is made through tracking in iOS apps:

arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/0

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@kyle when I rage-quit the use of any Google products I downloaded all of the data made available to me. 185GB, compressed. A lot of it truly shocking, as I do not recall opting in to its collection nor do I recall ever having the option to say no. I figured it would mostly be my GMail archives, but it was so very much more. It would not surprise me if there’s another 185GB worth of data about me that was not made available to me.

"Google is a popular target for this kind of request because almost everyone uses Google products in one way or another ... Moreover, Google frequently has GPS data that places a user's phone to within a few meters" arstechnica.com/tech-policy/20

It's so interesting that concerns over public health apps mean that you must opt-in to be tracked with built-in coronavirus features, but still must opt-out of all of the even more intrusive tracking that already happens on the phone by default: cnbc.com/2020/09/01/apple-goog

Since I’m not a huge fan of the “need” to carry multiple machines around with me everywhere I go, I’m setting up a Tails drive with the tools I need to act remotely in emergencies from any machine I can USB boot. My hope is that in the near future I can use a Librem 5 to handle my remote admin needs directly. Where apps do not exist for my specific needs, I intend to create them since that’s part of the beauty of open software and systems.

I can't overstate how influential Penny's computer book was on my ideals for computers: portable, always with you, flexible, extensible, easy to reconfigure/reprogram. It's why my first laptop was a Libretto and why my next personal computer will be a Librem 5 w/ a laptop dock.

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