People often think about the DMCA as the law that was created in the wake of Napster to address online sharing of music & movies without compensating copyright holders.

A less discussed part of the law is that it banned repairing electronics without permission from the manufacturer as long as they use DRM to prevent it which practically everyone from Apple to John Deere does.

Every 3 years we get to request exceptions. This time we got this exemption.

ifixit.com/News/102368/victory…

Victory Is Sweet: We Can Now Fix McDonald’s Ice Cream Machines

The Copyright Office just handed down a big Right to Repair win: we can now legally repair commercial food preparation equipment, including McDonald’s machines.

^{Elizabeth Chamberlain (iFixit)}

My spreadsheet of the longer-term implications of #COVID19 infections has now reached 1,100 studies. Recent additions show COVID and Long COVID causes fatigue, heart arrhythmias, reduced white blood cell count, T-cell exhaustion, lower quality of life, cognitive impairment, insomnia, erectile dysfunction, and persistent liver damage.

docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d…

COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2 Studies

^{Google Docs}

'It is fine not to like a piece of Free software' and other oft-unstated FOSS-related freedoms

“Free software”, according to the FSF’s definition, embodies four freedoms.

There are plenty more than that - or, at least, many freedoms which are inherent in, or arise from, those four freedoms - most of which go unstated most of the time.

This is far from a complete list, but rather my jottings based on ponderings and observations from the last few days, across a couple of different (intentionally unstated / unlinked here) things.

neilzone.co.uk/2024/10/it-is-f…

#FOSS #BeKind #blog

'It is fine not to like a piece of Free software' and other oft-unstated FOSS-related freedoms

^{neilzone.co.uk}

@Tutanota I just realised that all the comments I have added to my contacts over the years, including family-related and medical important information, are gone...

github.com/tutao/tutanota/issu…

Bugs are becoming more common recently, and this one made me lose data. I'm quite disappointed.

#Email #OpenSource #FOSS #Security #Privacy

Lost all my contact comments on Android · Issue #7818 · tutao/tutanota

This is not a feature request (existing functionality does not work, not missing functionality). I will request features on forum or via support. I've searched and did not find a similar issue. Bug...

^GitHub

🔥 The Tuta Team is on fire! 🔥

Get excited for next week's update:

✅ Actions in email notifications, e.g. quick delete
✅ Your Contacts' birthdays added to the Tuta Calendar
✅ Dark icon for iOS
✅ New colors in Dark Mode with better contrast & better readability

I bet you don't remember when #wget briefly considered switching to using #libcurl back in 2007.

daniel.haxx.se/blog/2007/10/27…

Hi everyone,

#ThreadsAndCoffee, a digital English speaking #FiberArts club based on FLOSS softwares, has had its 1st session today and will repeat next week!

Join us on saturday,
2d of november, at 8:30am UTC,

on JitsiMeet
(I expect you to have a microphone if you're able to talk, but camera is optionnal, even though it is useful to show your work!) :

meet.jit.si/moderated/1bfd60a6…

Please boost this post if you like the idea, like it if you plan to come!

#Knitting #Crochet #Sewing

@fiberarts

Welcome to the RB family, OwnDroid 🥳

apt.izzysoft.de/packages/com.b…

OwnDroid lets you use Device admin and Device owner privilege to fully manage your Android device. Thanks to joint efforts with its author, this app is now reproducible (starting with v6.1 which will go live with the next sync in less than 6 hours)

#reproducibleBuilds #IzzyOnDroid

„OwnDroid“ – IzzyOnDroid F-Droid Repository

Manage your device with Device owner privilege

^{IzzyOnDroid App Repo}

#curl is in the Mini

(via Alejandro Pablo Revilla)

Holy shit. The LA Times didn't just squash a Kamala Harris endorsement. They buried an entire series of articles about Donald Trump.

"According to internal memos viewed by TheWrap, the series, tentatively called 'The Case Against Trump,' would have ran throughout this week. The endorsement of Kamala Harris would then have been published on Sunday."

thewrap.com/la-times-case-agai…

LA Times Planned 'Case Against Trump' Series Alongside Kamala Harris Endorsement Before Owner Quashed It | Exclusive - TheWrap

Patrick Soon-Shiong's interference with the paper's editorial freedom has sparked a crisis that includes canceled subscriptions and several high profile resignations

^{Ross A. Lincoln (TheWrap)}

We've been having great conversations at the Ubuntu Summit in The Hague this weekend - it's been fantastic to be with so many other open source projects, like @frameworkcomputer @ubports and of course, @ubuntu !

#UbuntuSummit #OpenSource

My family is a Linux family: both my parents and my wife use Linux, and so will the kids once they have their own computers. Apart from my Dad, they're all non-enthusiasts.

Yet, none of them use a beginner-friendly distribution. My Wife, who's by far the least technologically inclined of them all, is a very happy and satisfied NixOS user. A distribution that's the exact opposite of beginner-friendly.

How is that possible? None of them maintain their systems. I do that for them. In the past two decades, what I learned from helping friends and family with their computers is that the vast majority of non-enthusiasts have absolutely no desire to install and maintain an operating system, or even programs. They're much happier if someone else does that for them.

Therefore, while I see value in distributions aimed at beginner enthusiasts, I see very little value in distributions aimed at non-enthusiasts.

I wrote a few more words about this topic on my blog too.

#linux #desktop #gnome

It’s almost like #Israel has a Dahieh doctrine, first developed in #Lebanon, in which targeting and destroying civilian infrastructures is literally the military strategy.

Does this break international law? Well, of course.

Does it matter? Of course not, this is Israel.

Natürlich für Werbung:

Moderne Datenkraken: Smart-TVs tracken sogar HDMI-Inhalte
heise.de/news/Moderne-Datenkra…

#privacy #werbung

Moderne Datenkraken: Smart-TVs tracken sogar HDMI-Inhalte

Smart-TVs werten sogar dann Bildinhalte aus, wenn ein HDMI-Zuspieler genutzt wird. Die Analysen dienen gezielter Werbung.

^{Mark Mantel (heise online)}

#AndroidAppRain at apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid today brought you 8 updated and 1 added apps:

* Canta: uninstall any app without root

Canta updates are stuck on F-Droid, so they reached out to us to have the app included here, and we gladly accepted.

Enjoy your #free #Android #apps with the #IzzyOnDroid repo

IzzyOnDroid F-Droid Repository

This is a repository of apps to be used with your F-Droid client. Applications in this repository are official binaries built by the original application developers, taken from their resp. repositories (mostly Github, GitLab, Codeberg).

^{IzzyOnDroid App Repo}

#halloween #witches #skating

Some witchery taking place

11 Social Media Platforms You Probably Forgot Existed (And Why They Failed)
https://www.mentalfloss.com/posts/defunct-social-media-platforms?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

Posted into All Mental Floss Stories @all-mental-floss-stories-mental_floss

11 Old Social Media Platforms You Probably Forgot Existed

Still miss your old Friendster account? Discover why that and other once-popular social media platforms got discontinued here.

^{Shayna Murphy (Mental Floss)}