I suspect this is a problem of fragmentation on Android. I've had issues when I tried other Clock apps than the Google one. Alarms would not be triggered for various inexplicable reasons. Or they reset if the launcher crashed for whatever reason. I don't have the time and energy to test this simple function that I rely on quite heavily. And that's why I stick with the stock Google app because it has never failed me personally no matter whose manufacturer's version of Android it ran on.

I think the telephone sort of fits. It's attributed to Bell but that's mainly because he wiggled his way into a US patent before his competition. The telephone has many fathers though: Bourseul, Manzetti, Reis - just to name three. The latter is also the father of the word telephone but died before it took off. There were many engineers tinkering so if Bell hadn't taken the crown, another person would have done it.

Bonus answer: penicillin. Alexander Flemming. A lucky, accidental discovery. If mold hadn't gotten sloppily into his cultures we might all have died of the plague or something nice like that.

[-] FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website 153 points 2 months ago

Yes, you must have missed it. And so it begins.

Google is moving to make Android less open source. I'm not sure more devs following suit is going be good for them or their users. The G doesn't give an F.

What we need is an OS fork that gets maintained. If not that, some other workaround that fools the Google servers. Because you can bet money that nobody made from flesh and blood is going to look at this inside Google.

Maybe devs can band together and form Middle Finger Corp. and designate one willing person as their contact to serve as registered dev for a gazillion apps. Follow the letter of the law, not the misguided spirit of it, in a manner of speaking.

If you are sitting on a mobile OS and you were afraid to fail like Windows, maybe now is the time to give it a go?

[-] FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website 81 points 3 months ago

Let's take a deep breath and consider what's happened. The Federal Court of Justice has sent the case back to the lower court. They have not ruled on anything. They have not said ad blocking is piracy. They have essentially said: lower court, you had 25 boxes to tick but you only ticked 24 in your ruling. Go back and do one that ticks all of them.

It's entirely possible that the lower court will change its ruling based on the intricacies of German copyright law, which is shit. But it's not very likely if you ask me. Regardless, whoever loses will appeal it again. This rodeo is far from over. And when it's eventually over the technology will have moved on, with any luck the law along with it, and the only beneficiaries will have been the lawyers.

So the headline should read more like "German court does not rule out that ad blocking could be a copyright infringement."

The argument that Axel Springer is just doing it for their love of democracy is also comical. Media pluralism is important, I agree with them that far, but they are stuck in an outdated mindset. They launched a silly tabloid Fox News wannabe TV channel and failed. They are trying to force eyeballs on their content like you are at a news agent. Meanwhile, news is happening on TikTok and so-called AI is going to reduce their page views to dust. By the time we get a final ruling they will have pivoted strategy 10 times to keep the c-suite in caviar while the established media business that made them successful is rotting away under their assess.

[-] FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website 40 points 4 months ago

I think you can trust the operational side of it. I don't think they've had many detrimental oopsies, the services work. I used them for a year and then jumped ship. One reason is the favorable comments by their CEO about the 47 administration, which I didn't like. Another reason is the nitty gritty - they don't clearly advertize what's part of what package and I felt that was by design to get you to upgrade. And they definitely see themselves as a basket for all of your eggs. If you are moving there because you want to degoogle your life you end up just protonizing it. It's better to spread around your stuff so you're not dependent on one provider. If you just want a good VPN and don't care about the rest of their services and the politics, you could make worse choices.

[-] FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website 80 points 5 months ago

Yes, we are. Please stop masturbating. Thanks.

[-] FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website 28 points 6 months ago

I think the sound you're hearing is a bunch of people creating throwaway accounts for this one. Not me though. I'm a saint.

[-] FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website 54 points 7 months ago

This is not the behavior of a friend.

[-] FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website 29 points 7 months ago

Will this drive the first wrongfully accused person to suicide or will it just somehow, magically, target all brown and black people? Stay tuned to see how much taxpayer money gets sunk into this tool.

[-] FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website 35 points 7 months ago

If you have a general practitioner that you go to for your normal illnesses, start there. If the ER doc didn't tell you to make an appointment with a specialist, maybe start smaller.

Stop googling. You didn't study this stuff. And my guess is it won't help with anxiety either.

[-] FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website 62 points 7 months ago

One of them doesn't listen at all. He's also dead so I'm willing to overlook his blatant lack of enthusiasm.

[-] FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website 114 points 8 months ago

If you want to know where it is going in the short-term, have a look at Orban's Hungary. Rightwing populist voted in and then got to work at dismantling the state. Control judges appointments, curb the power of the judicial branch, silence critical media, pick a group to scapegoat, buddy of Putin. The list goes on. Democracy only works if people defend it and from my outside POV there aren't enough people doing that just yet. It's worse in Trump 2.0 because this time he came prepared.

There are already horror stories about people being caught up wrongly in the deportation efforts. That's using very mild language for very traumatic events here. It's come to a point where erstwhile allies of the US are advising their citizens not to travel to the US. Because they have lost faith in the rule of law there. Take a minute to let that sink in.

If you're a US citizen, resist. The free state is under threat. If you're an immigrant, be careful.

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FriendOfDeSoto

joined 2 years ago