it’s been asked a lot and I’ve seen others respond about how the passcode and account username that were added in the last few years are steps in the process to make accounts not dependent on phone numbers. I’ve just given them the benefit of the doubt that someday we won’t be tied to a phone number anymore

The advantage for vendors will be a wider selection of processor choices and the possibility for the large players to use their own chips however much of it the result of licensed IP. Applies to ARM and RISC-V. Also Intel and AMD both being US companies making modern international politics of self reliance important

I have comaps installed but overall I don’t think it matters a great deal which open street maps app you use, they’re all really similar. I try to contribute business info when I remember to do so but there doesn’t seem to be any yelp/google business equivalent. Need something that hosts user reviews and pictures and some way to moderate that in a decentralized enough community way. Can’t beat Google maps without the business pages and crowd sourced data

This is easier to set and forget. I’m cool with subscribing and occasionally doing a one time donation when I’m feeling spirited

The free is enough for me but I’m willing to pay that sub to support them

Fossify launcher is buggy but at least it’s always been open source to my knowledge. Actively developed. All the fossify application. I use them

It’d be good for comic ebooks, PDFs, documents. Pretty much stuff you’d use with a tablet. I see the appeal of a one device covers it all. Phone, tablet, if it had a solid desktop mode, office productivity. Don’t have faith in these mobile first OSs to do it all well though

One of the reasons I prefer Matrix even though anyone I know in real life uses Signal so I use Signal practically everyday but Matrix sparingly. Federated matrix servers. I worry how resilient Signal can be if enough countries ban it, not really confident in the US or EU countries or any countries long term for encrypted chat for the Signal Foundation, and also signing up with phone numbers. Phone number providers being another point of regulation

I think Proton mail is worth it just to diversify off Google but I don’t lend much faith in how effective privacy will be with email. The free service is enough for that. If I wanted more faith in encrypted communications, encrypted chat applications. I sub to proton for drive and VPN. ProtonPass has all the email aliases for throwaway websites

It’s time the community open source movement starting gaining a lot more traction on mobile. We need better hardware support and standards for a streamlined non-Google/Apple/MS platform. Something not beholden to any single company or country

The US just pulls headline. I remember a long time ago seeing the CCTV setup in the UK and being pretty WTF is going on here. Then I remember Czech Republic talking about internment camps citing US Japanese internment camps as a good example of justification. Then I remember Italian court cases over seismologist not warning people enough/not being predictive enough to prevent deaths in a major earthquake. Or the groping of a girl and being let off because it didn’t last enough time for it to be considered bad by the judge. For all the headlines the US has. Then of course I feel like it’s been at least 15 years of trying to pass anti-encryption/anti-privacy laws. US makes headlines, but something about European conservatism/traditionalism/paternalism makes the whole continent feel like a powder keg to me. Also the neo-Nazis

Their only chance there was the late 90s to early 2000s. MS is one company compared to the totality of mega corporations using Linux and MS also uses a lot of Linux. More money at play in the server market than the general desktop OS market. Linux is the server OS

The US government increasingly uses Linux. Other countries pick up Linux at a faster rate than the US. A higher percentage of people use MacOS today than 20 years ago

Mobile desperately needs hardware with first class open source drivers and firmware to get away from Google/Apple/Microsoft controlled software platforms. Phones have been super powerful for a long time beyond what most need. We can take hit in theoretical peak performance to build up a better ecosystem until the market is large enough that the big money has to address the market

I’m certain a lot of politicians and veterans are bitter over the lack of universal adoration they get in their own countries. Politicians certainly annoyed with how easy it is for victims of war and veterans against war speaking out against enlistment. Politicians and the rich want their populaces to be patriots whereas the Internet makes people jaded when learning their countries history and present in detail.

I’m certain that’s the real reason internet censorship picked up steam. The Internet has poisoned the well for so many countries when trying to build out some unified national message of righteous action. Can’t like how negative the public reacts to bills described as for child safety. Internet makes it real easy to call it another manipulative cry of wolf. It’s got to be the #1 marketing trick for the rich and powerful. #2 being those foreigners are evil. But shit now people see people across the world are mostly just getting by not even participating in politics or don’t even have any voting power and are just caught in the crossfires of the power hungry

Today there are no heros from the invasions across Asia west to east. In recent times you don’t get a marketing bump for fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, Libya, wherever. That’s problematic for patriotism and public support for future war fighting. Every government leader now has a mixed legacy while alive that makes their memory mute in history compared to WW2 and earlier leaders who committed just as much or likely far worse terrors but enjoyed widespread domestic support while in power and adoration in retirement.

National anthems before sporting events are tacky whereas just like 15 years ago damn near everyone bought into those. I swear one day there will monitoring software and crackdowns on hitting the mute button during national anthems and commercials