gregknicholson

10 ms·

31.
by gregknicholson 7y ago
> What we really need is a universal internet messaging protocol like Email, something that everyone agrees on and can deliver the rich experiences people expect today I believe the lowest common denominator will eventually win, somethin
32.
by gregknicholson 7y ago
> I’m sorry that the author doesn’t consider a real reduction in emissions a real difference. Building a new (electric) car also produces emissions. It may be that we produce less emissions overall by continuing to use existing cars.
33.
by gregknicholson 7y ago
> How? How do we usually stop companies from being monopolies? Do that. I don't accept that phone operating systems are a natural monopoly and that it's OK to have only 2 companies in a position to control them.
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by gregknicholson 7y ago
> What is the alternative? Stop Android from being a monopoly. This solution has the same problem as the Windows browser ballot — it starts from the assumption that the OS must continue being a monopoly.
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by gregknicholson 7y ago
I use Syncthing for this. I have a computer that I use to play podcasts, and the subscription list (a file) is synced to my main computer, so I can edit it from there. Syncthing is also on my Lineage OS phone (until my Librem 5 arrives) so
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by gregknicholson 7y ago
> technologies to fight with climate change Climate change isn't a technical problem; it's a social problem. “Advanced” economies rely on otherwise-unnecessary consumption of resources, irrespective of environmental damage, bec
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by gregknicholson 7y ago
"Non-techy" is Impostor Syndrome for "somewhat techy".
38.
by gregknicholson 7y ago
More generally, always consider: what is the maker's motive? Is it to make the best tool for conversation, or is it to make money? If it's both, how important is each?
39.
by gregknicholson 7y ago
No problem! We'll just check the source code for Chrome. ... Ah. We can't. Chrome is closed-source, because Google wants to... Say, why is Chrome closed-source? What do Google add to Chromium that they don't want you to see
40.
by gregknicholson 7y ago
I read this a while ago; it's some of the most inventive, imaginitive science fiction I've ever come across.
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by gregknicholson 7y ago
If you don't like PayPal's service, choose another company instead. That's how capitalism works, right? (Yes, I know that's impossible. My point is PayPal is effectively a monopoly.)
42.
by gregknicholson 7y ago
Hmmm... Those "July 1st" canaries weren't there when I submitted this (at around 2019-07-02T07:00Z). I suppose they're on US Pacific Time and cut it fine on the deadline.
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Warrant Canary – Purism(puri.sm)
3 points by gregknicholson 7y ago|1 comments
44.
by gregknicholson 7y ago
s/Firefox/Europe/g and this is already happening. I suspect we're just training people to click the Whatever button. As that's most “normal” people's response (I am not normal), the courts will eventually rule
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by gregknicholson 7y ago
> implementing features exactly as they define and "are paying for". The reason they're paying so much for it is that you didn't do the refactoring last time. Every time they refuse a refactor, all their future costs
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by gregknicholson 7y ago
Such as switching their browser to be based on Chromium, which is controlled by Google?
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by gregknicholson 7y ago
> There’s no monopolies—if you want to launch a competitor, start a studio, pay Amazon a bunch of money That does sound a lot like Amazon is a relevant monopoly here.
48.
by gregknicholson 7y ago
That's market forces for you. If you just chase money all the time, you always end up with shoddy crap — there's no incentive to be any better than barely adequate, so you're constantly riding that line. We only end up with n
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by gregknicholson 8y ago
I would certainly pay more to avoid Google.
50.
by gregknicholson 8y ago
> I’m now only left with two options regarding the fate of Metastream: stop development of a desktop browser version, or pivot my project to a browser extension with reduced features. Is there some reason you can't make a fork/
51.
by gregknicholson 8y ago
> the creators of the open source browser Chrome Chromium is open source, and Chrome may _look_ 99% identical, but we have no idea what hidden differences there are between Chromium and Chrome, because Chrome isn't open source.
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by gregknicholson 8y ago
Register a domain you like and start the transition now. It doesn't have to be quick. Gmail has an option to forward all incoming mail to another address, so when you do eventually leave you won't miss any mail.
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by gregknicholson 8y ago
Perhaps it would harm the business model of their proprietary software, Pocket.
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by gregknicholson 8y ago
There is no problem with a voice assistant sounding male or female; what's the problem with some other voice assistant sounding genderless? > It just sounds wrong, and I can't quite say why. Maybe you're used to all people
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by gregknicholson 8y ago
A non-human voice is a valid goal, but a human non-gendered voice is a different thing. Please recognise that agender people are both human and genderless.
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by gregknicholson 8y ago
We already have them. I'm agender and I'm typing this from my workplace (during lunch). The response to this AI voice demonstrates that a lot of people automatically hear any human(ish) voice as either female or male, one or the o
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by gregknicholson 8y ago
Elevators I'll grant you, but the power grid, railway and traffic lights are all controlled by governments, councils and NGO-type organisations — they all have reliability as their primary concern, not churning out units for profit. An
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by gregknicholson 8y ago
We shouldn't have to conjecture about this. We should be able to read and understand the algorithm.
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by gregknicholson 8y ago
I wouldn't trust my life to proprietary software, because its makers' motives obviously don't align with my own. If my safety was really paramount, they'd open their software to scrutiny. It's unethical to leave lif
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by gregknicholson 8y ago
You could keep the site free while still allowing people to pay for it if they want to. (A service like Liberapay might make this easy for you to do.)

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