I’m running e/OS in my old Poco F3 right now.

I switched from LineageOS because I though, e/OS would be easier to ungoogle.

In the end, it just defaults to way more compromises than I would have made on LineageOS.

Over all, it’s actually just LineageOS with MicroG preinstalled, a really bad launcher, an ugly 2015-ish iPhone icon theme, and a few mediocre apps preinstallex, that usw these ‘Murena’ services that claim to be an alternative to Google services, but they are neither more secure/foss nor reliable.

Their appstore is rather Bad. Yes, it essentially combines something like APKMirror and F-Droid in one app, but it requests a Google account to access PlayStore Apps.

Imho, LineageOS with MicroG, no GApps, F-Droid and APKMirror and a few foss apps is the Vetter solution.

I have my sync services selfhosted through a NAS and simply use WebDAV (backups), CardDAV and CalDAV. This was harder to set up in e/OS than in basic LineageOS, because e/OS is trying to push their own Murena services for that. And if I didn’t have all of these selfhosted, I’d rather use Proton services instead of Murena.

Over all, really sketchy. It’s like a custom Rom that claims privacy but actually just wants you to möge to their own service.

Well, they have a small point though:

By allowing to upload to a third party image host and allowing to embed images from other sites directly into Lemmy, the load on servers could be reduced while also allowing for larger/higher quality files.

This would obviously come with a downside to privacy.

The current solution would be: upload a highly compressed file to Lemmy and then link to the external high-quality version in the post.

An alternative solution from Lemmy devs could be, to allow external sources and hide the image until the user confirmed they want to load it from an external source. Or just… Add a toggle to settings to automatically load them.

I mean, with federation and all, everything in Lemmy is an ‘external’ source anyway unless you trust every single federated instance. So why not allow external image hosting/file hosting sites as trusted sources.

Stremio is basically just a foss streaming app that doesn’t do much and relies on customization through extensions. There are extensions that add streaming services and extensions that grab recommendations/popular series & movies from different sources. The basic idea is, that you should connect all your streaming services to it (through extensions) and than add stuff like rottentomatoes and IMDB to it, to get recommendations. Then you select or search for whatever you want to watch and Stremio shows you, which of your connected services has that particular stream available. Technically completely legal and fine.

However, it’s often (ab)used for streaming directly or indirectly from filesharing protocols. So, instead of adding Amazon Prime or Netflix extensions to it, which discriminate against FOSS clients by only delivering low-quality streams, you could add something like Torrentio. Torrentio is an extensions that can use various torrent trackers (both free, insecure ones, like 1337x or Piratebay, as well as private trackers) to look for available torrents for the thing you want to watch and then it acts as a torrent client and streams the video file directly from that torrent.

Torrentio can also be set up, to use a Debrid service. A Debrid service, is a cloud service that acts a bit like a cloud storage that can download files from torrents or filesharing sites (often through a premium subscription at that service, that you don’t have to buy yourself) and then allows you to download these files from the cloud storage. Most importantly, it decouples you from the torrent, acting a bit like a proxy or VPN, and keeps your IP safe by doing that (e.g. to avoid law enforcement). It also allows you to start a torrent download that has few seeders and then let it run possibly for weeks and get notified, once your Debrid has completed the download. And lastly: a good Debrid service basically ‘seeds’ the files other people have downloaded on that service to all other people on the service, that request the same file. (We call that ‘cached’) Through that, you can get most popular torrents in a matter of seconds, which effectively allows you to stream them fast and reliably, like from any streaming platform.

Again, Torrentio can use a Debrid service like that, which makes it secure, reliable and convenient. A really good Debrid service should cost around 3€/month and will have basically all films and shows from all big streaming platforms (Netflix, HBO, Prime, Disney,…) already cached in 4K HDR+ Dolby whatever. This basically offers you a much better service than any other streaming platform, doesn’t serve you ads, preserves your privacy and does all of that for the small cost of 32€/year and living in a legally dark grey area.

Torrentio has a small flaw, when used with a Debrid: Torrentio uses torrent trackers (1337x, NYAA, EZTVx…) to find a fitting torrent and then requests that from your debrid service. If you are lucky, your service has that torrent cached and you immediately start streaming. Otherwise, your debrid has to start downloading the torrent and will only serve it to you a while later.

An alternative extension for Stremio is Debrid Media Manager (DMM). It basically tracks, which files are cached on your debrid already and then allows you to specifically request those already cached files, making it start the stream more reliably. However, most debrid services don’t really like having their cached files tracked, for legal reasons, and sometimes close or obfuscate the API, which makes DMM a bit less reliable on some debrids. Then again, the Torrentio service that downloads tracker information also likes to fail sometimes.

I have both installed (using the same debrid) and default to DMM and only check Torrentio when DMM fails. Other people have it the other way around.

IMHO, Android still has the best ecosystem of TV remote navigateable apps. The problem is just Google.

I have a ‘Google TV’ android based TV.

It started out terrible, but after removing or disabling almost all apps and installing couple replacements, it’s great now.

Most importantly:

• FLauncher replaces the Google launcher and thereby removes almost all ads and ‘recommendations’
• TV Bro is a FOSS webbrowser for TVs that has build-in add-blocking
• SmartTube is a Foss YouTube client that just works great and brings Add- and Sponsor block
• Stremio with Debrid Media Manager and Torrentio (both using a Debrid service!) for streaming in general
• Jellyfin if you have a home server

All of that is FOSS and would work completely without Googles involvement, if you find a way to flash a custom ROM onto a TV or TV box.

Alternatively: Anything with an ‘air mouse’.

An alternative to Android, I have used before, was just Linux with oversized app icons and then a G20s (Pro) remote. These cheap chinese G20s remotes work great as a mouse, similar to a Wii mote. Especially with the G20s Pro you can even set numerical passwords for everything and then just type it on the remote. They also have microphone that only works when you press the button. So if you have some tts service on you device, this is also a solution. I haven’t found a solution for it yet, but I believe, using T9 typing as a text input would also be a great solution when using these remotes.

There are also air mouse with a full keyboard built in, like the W1, W3, Q40… But I think, they are all a bit too heavy and too big, feel clumsy at the slight benefit of having a keyboard.

And then there are devices like the A8, which are just small keyboards with a touchpad, that also work as an air mouse, but fail as a remote IMHO. But that entirely depends, on how much typing you want to do on your TV.

Up until a couple decades ago, basically all religious texts were distributed without getting consent, giving credit or forking over royalties to their original authors. Rhymes and songs, even images, were observed and then repeated or noted down and spread.

By todays definition, that’s piracy. Piracy is exactly the same thing, just in a digital world.

Therefore, if piracy isn’t halal, most religious texts and imagery aren’t halal either.

Now, looking at it the other way around, to confirm that:

Theft is illegal. So the question stands: is piracy theft?

That depends on the definition of theft. The old meaning of theft, so the thing, probably ruled over in religious texts, is: The unlawful taking of the property of another.

Now, can you take something from someone else, without them loosing it? I’d argue: No!

So, piracy isn’t theft. Piracy is copying or repeating.

Depends in the goal.

If they are interested in Hardware, there is no better solution, than buying a hand full of cheap, “knock-off” Arduino Nano or RP2040 boards, a couple of LEDs and resistors and then let them Experiment with Arduino C, which teaches C programming in a fun and meaningful manner.

If they should get actual useful skill, start with Python. It’s easy to learn. It’s widely used for small, single-person projects, e.g. for gathering and analyzing data, running simulations, organizing something, interacting with APIs…

For any project, where I’d say, that it can be done quickly by a single person quickly on the side, Python is usually the best option. Even for experienced programmers. But especially for people that are new to programming or learning. It’s easy, approachable and (because everything is handled by some library) quite safe to work with.

It’s by far the most useful language for anyone that isn’t a full software developer. And it’s among the easiest to learn.

Also, when teaching Python, consider teaching with Jupyer documents. It immediately shows, what the short block of code is doing, instead of writing a huge and long script file, then executing it and struggling with debugging where students might not even know, how to start. An easy to host solution to supply Jupyer to a whole class is JupyterHub. If you aren’t concerned about your students data, Google Colab is a JupyterHub for free.

And now, finally, if you want a course that has some practical use (e.g. data analysis and math stuff) while also doing fun things and being incredibly interactive because of the use of hardware… Well… It’s python again.

Let them write a short branching story using Ren’Py. It’s easy and will get them engaged. Go on and switch to Jupyter/Colab and do a bit of data scraping, data analysis/math or image filters. Basically introduce numpy, then pandas, then scipy, beautiful soup or openCV. Pure hard skills, that are applicable in many jobs. But realistically, due to time constraints in normal courses, all you want to do here, is numpy to get into it and automate math homework, followed by pandas, to load and automate excel files. And finally, let them do something with hardware, by programming a RP2040 in microPython. It’s not as widely adopted as the Arduino ecosystem, but it’s good enough for the simple stuff students will be able to learn, and you don’t have to introduce a completely different language.

I will revolt, once this tries to attack my privacy.

I’m fine, as long it complies technical requirements that applications will implement sooner or later, while preserving my privacy by simply defaulting to 1900-01-01 or something.

The systemd change ‘just’ adds a birthday field to the user data, where you could store (or don’t) the users birthday, that then could be used by other applications to request an age bracket.

The Arch-change doesn’t effect real arch Linux. It modifies the archinstall script (so, irrelevant, if you install according to Wiki) to ask the user for their birthday during installation and stores it for systemd.

Unknowingly?

Ingress was quite transparent about the goal of gathering real-world data to allows development of future technologies like self-driving and navigation.

It’s the reason, why I started playing it around 2012.

OK, yes, that obviously makes sense, considering the amount of these Charakters.

I know about it, but didn’t recognize the code. So I assumed, they encoded some text to make it harder to read. So I tried decoding it.

Turns out, if you decode this in UTF-16, it turns into a japanese sentence

契ȑ璝寣䇘앖噣삈

Which means (according to DeepL)

The sound of the wind rustling through the trees

And now I’m confused, why.