mastodon - Link to source

Age verification is spreading like cancer.

First they came for adults site and social media; now they are already discussing about putting VPNs and app stores behind #AgeVerfication 🇬🇧🇦🇺

What’s sold as “online safety” means #surveillance via IDs checks or face scans.

Privacy & anonymity protect journalists, whistleblowers & activists.

We must fight against age verification - or the free web dies!

👉 More: tuta.com/blog/age-verification…

First they came for Adult sites And I did not speak out Because I was not interested in Adult sites Then they came for Social Media And I did not speak out Because I was not interested in Social Media Then they came for the VPNs And I did not speak out Because I was not interested in VPNs Then they came for chat apps And I did not speak out Because I was not  interested in chat apps Then they locked the whole web behind ID verification And there was no one left To speak up against this

Age Verification: What countries require you to perform ID checks & for what websites and platforms? | Tuta

Will the age verification era kill anonymity? As more countries are passing age verification laws, let's take a look at what countries already require it, and for what services, online sites,and social media platforms.
Tuta
#surveillance #ageverfication

mastodon - Link to source
The way you install software updates on Galaxy Buds has always made very little sense to me. Why do I have to wear the earbuds to update the software? just connect and update and leave the audio routed to the phone speaker. Other companies, notably Apple, do this absolutely fine and it's seamless. This process is just annoying.
in reply to aaron

gotosocial - Link to source

Winter blue tardis

Well, that's a new way I guess. Apple just, makes it work, even google needed time here to allow payments, 15 days to be exact... Apple just does some things pretty well I guess, including currency changes and updates, except when the whole MACos thing gets bugged, then we yell at them like all the others. I hope the update for those samsung earbuds brings some cool stuff you can play around with. Do they sound better than airpods? I wonder.

mastodon - Link to source

You know that #Linux is becoming mainstream on #desktop computers when a Czech consumer magazine focused on product testing, #DTest, recommends switching to Linux.

"However, there is another solution. Fortunately, it is no longer true that only Microsoft operating systems are suitable for ordinary people and that only eccentric IT wizards with a silicon soul can use anything else. Now, a number of GNU/Linux operating systems offer a level of ease of use that is at least comparable to that of MS Windows."

A photo of a Czech article which is about the end of Windows 10 support and Linux as a viable alternative even for ordinary users.
#linux #desktop #dtest
in reply to Jiří Eischmann

mastodon - Link to source

Francesco P Lovergine

The hard truth is that 'ordinary people' nowadays do not use computers; they use mobile devices. When they also need to use a keyboard, their usual choice is a tablet with a keyboard. A computer is generally a last-resort device, and most people find both Windows and Linux equally unfriendly because they are not designed for mobile-first people. I know tons of ordinary people who no longer own a computer or use it very rarely.
in reply to Francesco P Lovergine

mastodon - Link to source

Jiří Eischmann

@gisgeek Desktops are still used for any serious "computing" work and I have seen very few people who do it on mobile devices (happily). My sister works for a pharmaceutical company and major source of frustration in the company is that they only have an iPad with an external keyboard as their work device. Most of them have purchased their private laptops to do any serious work tasks.

That said, it's true that many people don't have to do any serious "computing" work or not frequently. Those are just fine with phones or tablets.

@Francesco P Lovergine
in reply to Jiří Eischmann

mastodon - Link to source

Francesco P Lovergine

I found that such idiosyncrasies with tablets stem from people's past experiences and specific bad choices by some apps that enshittify the UX. I'm not a mobile-native, and as such, I still find it more productive to use a laptop (and a desktop is better than a laptop). Very young people have exactly the opposite experience.
in reply to Francesco P Lovergine

mastodon - Link to source

Jiří Eischmann

@gisgeek her experience is recent. She joined the company last year and purchased the laptop one month after joining on advice from other colleagues. She is 35, so not a young generation, but also not old.
She says the tablet is OK for work on the go: quick replies, checking info etc. But once she gets home, she takes the laptop because any long writing or working with spreadsheets is just cumbersome on the tablet: the screen is small, the keyboard is not comfortable to write on... I'm pretty sure the youngest generation is more comfortable with it, but even among them it's hard to find someone who would want to write e.g. a thesis on it.
@Francesco P Lovergine

mastodon - Link to source

I'm doing bad, bad things. Have signed up for a Claude Pro account and installed Claude Code. I'm starting a project that may or may not go anywhere, and most here wouldn't care about it anyway, but it'll be cool if it works the way I want.

I've already hit my rate limit twice in three hours. The initial stuff used lots of tokens.

I am now prepared for all the hate that I will no doubt receive.

This entry was edited (20 hours ago)

Zach Bennoui reshared this.

mastodon - Link to source
android copies from apple. apple copies from android. do you know what I would love to see apple copy from android? the ability to still get notificaitons, but not wake up my screen! I will wake my screen up when and if I want to look at them. you don't ened to do it every single time a notification comes in. I want my notifications, I just don't always want to look at them. s please apple, please copy this one from android. make it a setting you can turn on or off. then you would have the best of both worlds.

mastodon - Link to source
If you want to do a fun thing this weekend, maybe write a little webxdc app for your family or friends chats? There are many to fork from, see webxdc.org/apps and for development docs webxdc.org/docs
And for development tooling
GitHub.com/webxdc/webxdc-dev which simulates a multi member chat environment to run your app, before you post the zip file to a chat of yours. Everyone can start it. No app stores. No logins. No gafam. With built-in end-to-end encryption. Cheers.

GitHub - webxdc/webxdc-dev: A development server for webxdc apps

A development server for webxdc apps. Contribute to webxdc/webxdc-dev development by creating an account on GitHub.
GitHub

mastodon - Link to source

„Leistung heißt für mich, dass jemand viel arbeitet, etwas aufbaut, ins Risiko geht. Leistung heißt nicht, dass jemand etwas geschenkt bekommt und sich dann noch weigert, Steuern zu bezahlen.“

Blinkist-Gründer @sebklein im ARD-Morgenmagazin zur #Erbschaftssteuer für Unternehmen.

#erbschaftssteuer @Sebastian

mastodon - Link to source
For anyone who likes using new apps, give FastSM a try. It's a Mastodon and Bluesky client currently in alpha development, but it has progressed fast within the past few days.
The development of this client is a very clear demonstration of what can be achieved if someone puts their mind to it. For years there has been the need for a number of Mastodon features to be included in a specialist client such as this, but they've never really happened. This combines many of these with an excellent application design.
It includes the ability to quote posts, mute conversations, filtering, scheduling and so much more.
Moreover, the developer understands that an application does not need to be complex in its structure. For example, pressing Enter on a post allows you to read it in detail. That seems a basic feature but people unused to technology like a number of things: they like lists, to press Enter to open something and Escape to close it. It makes people feel more comfortable in their working.
As a final bonus, the app is the best I have seen working with JAWS. JAWS has some difficulty with reading the contents of edit controls in some other clients and that is not the case here.
In summary, the developer has already done a great job at this early stage.
I believe this is the latest link to it:
github.com/masonasons/FastSM/r…

reshared this

in reply to Bri🥰

mastodon - Link to source

Kaliah

@Bri Yeah. I agree. I think I might've been much more on board with this if, in downloading my mastodon client, I wasn't also stuck downloading github, radio, a file explorer, a feeds app, a telegram thing, a smart home integration thing, and whatever else that I would literally never want or care about. I agree that if you want this, that's fine and good, but I think you should be able to part out the things you don't want so it's not a giant bloated mess for anyone who only wants it for one or two things. But of course that's just my humble little perspective lol
@Bri🥰
in reply to Bri🥰

mastodon - Link to source

Kaliah

@Bri I appreciate what TC was trying to do, but I think, in my opinion, it just tried to do way, way too much. For most users who just wanted a basic mastodon/twitter/telegram client, it was a very, very bloated option. And then you get into the update stuff, half the updates to a program I regularly used were things I didn't care about because they expanded things like github, the radio, whatever the smart devices thing was, ETC. It kind of sucks when you're regularly being nagged to update your program when half the updates are things that don't matter at all to your use case. I realize this sounds a bit like I'm ranting on you or your app, and that's not my intention, I just think it wanted to be far more than it could be viably.
@Bri🥰

mastodon - Link to source

if you have or use Bluetooth accessories, or you know anyone who does, read and share:

Research & info: whisperpair.eu

^ has a "is my device vulnerable" link

Wired story: archive.is/pWKtT

#WhisperPair #bluetooth

WhisperPair: Hijacking Bluetooth Accessories Using Google Fast Pair

WhisperPair is a family of practical attacks leveraging a flaw in the Google Fast Pair implementation on flagship audio accessories.
whisperpair.eu
#bluetooth #whisperpair

mastodon - Link to source
2 years on Mastodon. According to my calendar, though I’m pretty sure that’s the date when I signed up for mastodon.social. In May 2024 I switched to dragonscave.space, and for 1 year and 1 day now, I’ve been on someplace.social and am still enjoying it.
Regarding clients, Tweesecake, Pachli, and Mona were my go-tos, with Tweesecake now being replaced by the awesome FastSM.
I’ve learned a lot on this platform, from getting to know Tailscale and Linux servers to many other great applications and much more.
It took a while to gain the engagement I have now. As I mentioned earlier, Mastodon often seems quite boring, but once conversations evolve, it’s actually quite fun to chat with all the different people.
At this point, I think I’ve found a solid base of users to interact with and enjoy communicating and discussing things here.
Thanks to everyone sticking around, reading my random tech rambles, boost spam, or complaints about all the other stuff life throws at me. And thanks to the developers of the clients and Mastodon itself. Looking forward to more good times here.
This entry was edited (23 hours ago)
in reply to johann

mastodon - Link to source

JamminJerry

@jdking92 I don't know about other people, but I do it because I want too. I am interested in weather, and I know of a few people that live near me that are interested, and there could be others I don't know about that might be interested as well. I could ask why people post sports stuff, but I don't because it is there mastodon, and they can post what ever they want, even if it might be something I am not interested in.
@Joseph King

mastodon - Link to source

RE: hachyderm.io/@BenjaminHCCarr/1…

Für alle die sich Fragen ob wir es hier nicht etwas mit dem Datenschutz übertreiben.

Die #ICE in den USA nutzt eine App von #Palantir um Leute zum deportieren zu lokalisieren.

Die Daten dafür kommen u.a. aus dem Gesundheitsministerium.

Polizeiliche Überwachung mit #Palantir wurde für BW eingeführt und soll in Deutschland für weitere Bundesländer eingeführt werden.

Benjamin Carr, Ph.D. 👨🏻‍💻🧬 (@BenjaminHCCarr@hachyderm.io)

‘ELITE’: The #Palantir App #ICE Uses to Find Neighborhoods to Raid Palantir is working on a tool for ICE that populates a map with potential #deportation targets, brings up a dossier on each person, and provides a “confidence score” on the person’s c…
Benjamin Carr, Ph.D. 👨🏻‍💻🧬 (Hachyderm.io)
#palantir #ice

mastodon - Link to source
Nice, just made my first app with Claude Code, a swift UI app reminiscent of Babble from back in the day. You can type in text, select a language and a voice installed on the system, speak the text, export audio as .wav, and change volume, pitch, and speed. Only took me about 10 to 15 minutes to build. Very impressed. If anyone wants this I'm happy to upload the code and Apple Silicon binaries to Github.

mastodon - Link to source

Today on AppAddict - Tailscale: The Best Free App Most Mac Power Users Aren’t Using - Someone asked me to name the best free app available to Mac users in 2026. I didn’t hesitate before choosing Tailscale.

Tailscale is a VPN, but not in the usual sense. It’s a private, encrypted, identity-based network where your devices recognize each other no matter where they are. It uses... - appaddict.app/post/ailscale-th… - #Mac #macOS #Apple #AppAddict

The Tailscale App on my home computer

Tailscale: The Best Free App Most Mac Power Users Aren’t Using

Someone asked me to name the best free app available to Mac users in 2026. I didn’t hesitate before choosing Tailscale. Tailscale is a VPN, but not in the usual sense.
appaddict.app
#apple #MACOS #mac #appaddict

mastodon - Link to source

You’re not depressed, you just need:

- 8 hours of circadian rhythm appropriate sleep

- a diet that prioritizes protein

- aerobic and anaerobic exercise 3-5X a week

- electrolytes, creatine, methylated multi, caffeine and magnesium

- family/friends who love you

- 10 million dollars

#Humour #Sarcasm

#sarcasm #humour
This entry was edited (1 month ago)

mastodon - Link to source

I looked at the new Yamaha MGX series digital mixers. Not that I'm in need of an audio mixing console (I'm not these days), but they're new, and I wanted to see what they're all about. Looked pretty good, until "oh yeah, by the way, it has a 4.3 inch touch screen."
Yep, that's how you make me instantly uninterested in your product.

I have decided that if I ever can set up my studio again, I will just mix everything in the box, and then get a decent analog mixer for use with analog synths and outboard effects... but who am I kidding? That probably won't actually happen before I lose what hearing I still have left. Fun to think about though.

This entry was edited (1 day ago)
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