Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

I have been trying to disentangle myself from Google services as much as possible, but there are two use cases I am having trouble with: Maps to quickly find business opening hours and contact info & Translate, especially for Catalan and just long texts in general. I'd appreciate some input!

I love #OpenStreetMaps, and it does increasingly include the names of businesses. But that quick click to see whether they are open, link to their website, check if the menu has vegetarian options is missing. Suggestions?

I know there are some alternatives to Google translate. DeepL does great with Spanish, but doesn't have Catalan. [I don't rely on these for communication but there are scenarios in which I like to double check that I didn't miss something or that I am using an adequately colloquial phrase]. I also don't know if the alternatives’s data policies and such are much better. Does anyone have any insight?

Down the line I might like to build up the courage to switch to LineageOS or similar. If anyone wants to talk to me about that I'd be open to it as well.

(I also feel like there must be some hashtags for folks trying to dump Google, but I have no idea what they might be.)

Research into the effects of social media is being skewed by social media itself.

https://theconversation.com/is-big-tech-harming-society-to-find-out-we-need-research-but-its-being-manipulated-by-big-tech-itself-240110

The research I referred to. The technical term is "automation bias".

https://www.brainfacts.org/neuroscience-in-society/tech-and-the-brain/2024/why-ai-can-push-you-to-make-the-wrong-decision-at-work-090324

in an op-ed the New York Times declined to publish, Sanders sets forth a vision:

"While Democrats will be in the minority in the Senate and (probably) the House in the new Congress, they will still have the opportunity to bring forth a strong legislative agenda that addresses the needs of working families.

If Republicans choose to vote those bills down, the American working class will learn quickly enough as to which party represents them, and which party represents corporate greed."

#EPA staff fear #Trump will destroy how it protects Americans from pollution - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/nov/11/environmental-protection-agency-staff-react-trump-second-term "Workers face being targets in what could be Environmental Protection Agency’s biggest upheaval since its founding" guaranteed, I would have thought...

I heard this term mentioned by one of the hosts of the excellent "If Books Could Kill" podcast (when talking about Sam Bankman-Fried, who's like the quintessential case of this), and my god does it clearly define something I've been needing a term for since forever. This phenomenon explains like half of what's wrong with the world today.

If you write an article whose title starts "I asked an AI..." you are a terrible writer and should just hang it up now. You're out of ideas. We get it. We're not judging, but please, for the love of all that is holey, just stop.

The long shadow of the Great Financial Crisis is still darkening people's lives. I have undying enmity for everyone who played a part in that travesty.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/11/bank-servicers-whittling-away-at-hard-won-protections-against-foreclosure-abuses-the-maine-example.html

We often hear a familiar refrain: “you don’t have an expectation of privacy in public.” This is not true. In the United States, you do have some expectation of privacy—even in public—and it’s important to stand up and protect that right. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/09/you-really-do-have-some-expectation-privacy-public

The life of posts “Social posts die with the passage of time, whereas blog posts gain life from it!” https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2024/blog-vs-social-posts/

@cogdog This is probably true because blog posts are found (after the initial rush of subscriptions) by search, while social media posts are found via the algorithm.

The danger, of course, is that eventually search will be completely replaced by the algorithm. This has already happened for a lot of people who live their lives in Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

I'm not exactly sure why, but Hubzilla doesn't seem to (consistently?) notify me when people "like" my posts, or perhaps when people "like" the comments I leave on other people's posts.

Hubzilla *does* notify me when people leave new comments on "conversations" (that's "threads" to Mastodon users) that I've interacted with previously.  Like, when I've commented on someone else's post and then a third person also comments on the same post.

The resulting experience is.... kind of pleasant actually.

The House is set to vote Tuesday on a bill that would let the administration destroy nonprofits it claims support terrorism. https://theintercept.com/2024/11/10/trump-nonprofit-tax-exempt-political-enemies/

You probably haven't heard about this if you follow only U.S. media, but Israel is engaged in old-fashioned ethnic cleansing in northern Gaza. https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/editorial/2024-11-10/ty-article-opinion/netanyahus-ethnic-cleansing-is-on-display-for-all-to-see/00000193-12ac-d3a2-a3d7-5bed1d8d0000

Communication metadata reveals more than you might think, and knowing why that matters is an important part of any security plan. https://ssd.eff.org/module/why-metadata-matters

@dcz It's also not a wise move w.r.t. to energy consumption, environmental impact, and the best way to accelerate #climatecrisis. Also read https://wimvanderbauwhede.codeberg.page/articles/frugal-computing/

So following Pareto principle, you want to find a sweet spot between energy consumption and code checks.

Even if I had the money, I would still reduce pipelines to a bare minimum to avoid wasting energy.

~f

While looking at some details of my prepaid card I got reminded that phosh-osk-stub lacks special layouts for numbers, digits, PINs and phone numbers but not for much longer. If all goes well this will land for 0.44. While at that I looked at making calls's USSD dialog a bit easier to use:

#phosh #LinuxMobile #gtk

At this point, every election post-mortem is just poking a dead body with a stick. Save the alive bodies!

The actual effects of the IMF's and World Bank's policies - wealth extraction and crushing poverty.

https://roape.net/2024/11/06/when-the-imf-and-world-bank-visited-my-father/

"Everybody needs energy—every farm, food production plant, and transportation vehicle depend on it," Oliver said. "This could really impact people. This process can be done at just above room temperature and it's reusable. You don't need to have a refinery; you can potentially use this method on a farm."

Biodiesel is cool af. Glad to see it's still getting r&d attention. I used to drive a bio-diesel powered park-and-ride bus, and people always knew it was coming from the french-fry smell 😍.