Dear authors, and if Netflix or whoever is listening, you too:

If you're out of fun ideas for historical drama, alternate history or the like, how about this: an all-female gang in a European capital, renowned for coming up on top against male gangs and taking good care of their members, and one which may have endured for generations. You don't even need to invent most of it if you don't want to. This gang really existed and they were known as the 40 thieves or the 40 elephants: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forty_El…

Please write something in this setting. Please!

19th- and 20th-century gang of female shoplifters in the UK

^{Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)}

Gotta love it. Two 90 year old men, Mike and Joe, have been friends all of their lives.
Long
When it's clear that Joe is dying, Mike visits him every day. One day Mike says, "Joe, we both loved football all our lives, and we played football on Saturdays together for so many years. Please do me one favour, when you get to Heaven, somehow you must let me know if there's football there."

Joe looks up at Mike from his death bed," Mike, you've been my best friend for many years. If it's at all possible, I'll do this favour for you.

Shortly after that, Joe passes on.

At midnight a couple of nights later, Mike is awakened from a sound sleep by a blinding flash of white light and a voice calling out to him, "Mike--Mike."

"Who is it? asks Mike sitting up suddenly. "Who is it?"

"Mike--it's me, Joe."

"You're not Joe. Joe just died."

"I'm telling you, it's me, Joe," insists the voice.

"Joe! Where are you?"

"In heaven", replies Joe. "I have some really good news and a little bad news."

"Tell me the good news first," says Mike.

"The good news," Joe says," is that there's football in heaven. Better yet, all of our old friends who died before us are here, too. Better than that, we're all young again. Better still, it's always spring time and it never rains or snows. And best of all, we can play football all we want, and we never get tired."

That's fantastic," says Mike. "It's beyond my wildest dreams! So what's the bad news?

"You're playing on Saturday."

This month in Servo…

🔒🔑 early SubtleCrypto support
🎨💡 ‘mix-blend-mode: plus-lighter’
📦↔️ CSS size keywords
📏🏎️ faster layout and compositing
📱🌃 OpenHarmony nightlies

More details → servo.org/blog/2024/11/08/this…

I've seen a number of toots today advising people against scanning random #QRCodes because they can be used in a number of malicious ways.

There are a number of legitimate ways people can use such codes to trick others, and it can require some deeper understanding of how systems work to avoid them. For that reason, I'm not going to contradict that recommendation, but I will add to it.

QR codes are usually just URLs encoded in a visual, machine-readable form, so they aren't necessarily more dangerous than a link. The danger comes from the fact that most scanner apps will directly open whatever URL you scan without giving you the opportunity to consider whether that's a good idea.

You can reduce the risk of scanning such codes by installing a better app which requires manual interaction to open URLs after decoding them.

For android users I recommend "BinaryEye", since it's open-source, ad-free, and has a bunch of other useful features.

Its github page links to both F-Droid and the play store:

github.com/markusfisch/BinaryE…

#privacy #security

GitHub - markusfisch/BinaryEye: Yet another barcode scanner for Android

Yet another barcode scanner for Android. Contribute to markusfisch/BinaryEye development by creating an account on GitHub.

^GitHub

I just released version 0.4.1 of #rsop, a stateless #OpenPGP ("SOP") CLI tool based on @rpgp:

crates.io/crates/rsop/0.4.1

This release adds support for the 'revoke-key' command.

For more on #SOP, see datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft…

#PGP #GnuPG #StatelessOpenPGP

#AndroidAppRain at apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid today brings you 9 updated and 1 added apps:

* Raccoon for Friendica: a mobile client for Friendica by @dieguitux8623 & team 🛡️

RB stats: 328 apps (27.1%)

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}

There is some kind of issue with my Whatsapp ("Waiting for message, this may take a while" and my messages not sending), so I've been using @matrix with a couple of people, and it's working great. Stuff like location sharing just works, and my favorite different feature is that you can react to a post with multiple emoticons.

It looks like Whatsapp has some kind of key exchange error. I'm not saying matrix never has that (although I've never had it), but it tells you what the error is and gives you tools to diagnose/fix it. But Whatsapp is "User friendly", so it just tells you to wait forever.

There are many “what should we do next” thinkpieces, but this one is mine.

If you want an abstract summary, the idea is “we need to run a year-round parallel campaign apparatus that just introduces people to progressive ideas by making their lives better in whatever ways we can”.

That is a staggeringly huge project and if it does even happen, I can only be a tiny part of it, so I will need your help. Contact info is at the end of the blog post.

blog.glyph.im/2024/11/its-time…

Deciphering Glyph :: It’s Time For Democrats To Get More Annoying

Deciphering Glyph, the blog of Glyph Lefkowitz.

^{blog.glyph.im}

⚙️ #EtchDroid umí vytvořit instalační USB disk z mobilu

🔗 infoek.cz/etchdroid-umi-vytvor…

#android #linux

The 2024 Web Almanac has been published:

almanac.httparchive.org/en/202…

I have contributed to the chapters on accessibility and sustainability.

#WebAlmanac #WebAlmanac24 #HTTPArchive

The 2024 Web Almanac

The Web Almanac is an annual state of the web report combining the expertise of the web community with the data and trends of the HTTP Archive.

^{Rick Viscomi (HTTP Archive)}

#COP29 will be the third consecutive COP held in an authoritarian state, and the second consecutive #COP hosted by a petro-state.

chathamhouse.org/2024/10/azerb…

Vlaams Belang neemt het initiatierecht op in Antwerpen, samen met VB stellen we alvast ons mobiliteisplan voor:

"Straten weer van ONS"
- TOTALE ban op niet-vlaamse automerken op onze wegen
- Vervanging van de gehele busvloot door Vlaamse Van Hool
- Uitfasering van niet-vlaamse fietsen, met subsidies voor aankoop Norta en Thompson fietsen
- Vloeken in het verkeer mag enkel in het vlaams