I’ve been using Linux for a long time for personal purposes and I understand what the blog says. But I also feel like it doesn’t have to be this way: Linux should be easy to use, with little hassle, friendly to newbies, with a community of support.
Over the years Linux desktop has indeed improved, but still with much problems to use. We should adopt a growth mindset instead of sticking to asceticism.
I'm partially degoogled thanks to Hacker News as well as "Tech Twitter."
And as much as I don't think people can be completely "degoogled", we need some healthy competition to keep juggernaut's power in check. And hopefully we can nudge it towards more privacy-aware and open practices.
Interesting.
Would be really helpful to see a more detailed expert audit on the reverse-engineered source code, and point out to the actual privacy offenses, and analyze how dangerous they really are compared to other social media apps (Twitter, Facebook, ...)
FWIW, people are already using Apple Pay and Google Pay through a phone with fingerprint sensors. So... it's really not a new thing we're sacrificing privacy for convenience.
Thanks for the work. It's quite some materials to compile. I love how you organize your thoughts and knowledge together and I've just started doing that too.
This could be the right step towards algorithm transparency. It is critical in the information age we're in, while Facebook is promoting alt-right conspiracies, and YouTube is feeding flat-earthers.
Yes. There are more technical issues to resolve. (e.g., How do we verify the algorithm they present is the actual algorithm they use?) Perhaps third party audit, APIs for third parties to test the algorithm? We need constructive criticism than cynicism.
If I understand correctly, Urbit is a new OS kernel and application layer, with a new weird FP language on a weird VM. Its first app is a crypto ID system.
As much as I want to believe it, Linux is still quite lagging in the personal computing area, where hardware support, graphics support, creativity application support, and enterprise support are still far behind Windows/Mac. Linux still has a long way to go.
The author used one game as the indicator of the success of the whole platform. Doesn't seem to me as a good reasoning.
However the Stadia platform doesn't seem to be gaining a lot of traction, mostly because of -- I guess -- the network bandwidth requirement, and the limited library?
First I don't think Snowden was celebrated by many because he was a good hacker and "hacked" the documents. He was celebrated because he released it. You don't have to be a hacker to contribute to and even be important in digital rights movement.
Also what exactly made you think he was exaggerating?
Looks like they're trying to continue the development of the "Smartisan" phone company, which has produced interesting products despite meager market share and even cashflow issues (https://technode.com/2018/11/19/briefing-smartisan-confirms-...), and build their own ecosystems around their own hardware instead of profiting from the hardware itself. But all previous attempts proved unsuccessful (Firephone, Facebook, ...), I wonder how they'll attract consumers? Mobile devices haven't seen many groundbreaking innovations for a while and the market is saturating (at least seems so in China).