Nope this move is entire *because* of the Sept APK lockdown. Now they can allow third-party app stores while still taking fees from every Android app developer regardless of store, and maintain full and total control over users and developers. I'm surprised Apple didn't think of this.

There is unlikely to be any change in the malware levels because Google is set to know *everything* about the developers of literally all android apps. They are doing this by rolling out their new verification program which will require all apps regardless of how they are installed and from what app store, to be signed *by Google* after the developers pay their fees to Google. Whereas before google was unhappy to lose their 30% cut, now they've engineered a way to take a cut from *all* developers in all app stores. And they will be collecting detailed personal information about all developers including government IDs. I believe Google is couching this move as a way to clamp down on malware while abiding by the various legal judgements that censured them for their 30% cut and forced them to open up Android to third parties. In short they can have their cake and eat it too.

If https://keepandroidopen.org/ isn't convincing to this crowd, I don't know of anything that will. Google's set to hold more power over Android and would-be app developers than even Apple. It's evil genius level.

Google kind of relented and will allow you to disable this "feature" requiring a multi-step process that takes 24 hours. It could be reasonable, given Android's malware problem, but I can't help but wonder if there's not a better way, but it wouldn't serve Google's purpose to increase their control over Android users.

https://keepandroidopen.org/

I guess I wasn't clear enough as you do not seem to understand the issue. Google is requiring *all* apps, regardless of how you install them, or from what app store you install them, to be signed *by them*. This means that every app available on F-Droid must be signed (and developer dues paid) also or it won't be installable. This not something F-Droid is willing to do because the whole reason F-Droid exists is to give users access to software by open source and other developers who can't or won't pay the Google tax and fork over their information to Google.

If F-Droid were to participate in Google's scheme to extort developers, it becomes a huge liability for the open source developers themselves, should Google suddenly decide their app violates their policies and IP, and slaps them with a lawsuit (even if frivolous).

The whole thing is quite nefarious. Google used to take a 30% cut in their app store, but they were legally censored for it (the whole reason we're here talking about this). Now instead of just the 30% cut they can charge literally all android app developers a fee (one-time for now, but that could change quite easily), and hold control over all of them even when they don't even use the Google play store. It's evil genius really.

But as the other poster said, no one really cares, sadly.

Nope. Google is still set to kill F-Droid later this year when they turn on mandatory developer certificates which will require developers to pay Google and hand over their personal information, regardless of what app store they want to distribute through. This will essentially kill F-Droid for casual users (their main target is almost certainly NewPipe). Yes you can still use F-Droid but you'll have to do a 24 hour delay before you can install F-Droid.

I meet them all the time. Most of them are in their 50s and have used computers their entire adult life.

At what point will approved American models affirm that the 2020 election was stolen?

To be more clear, in winter if tipped to the appropriate angle *for winter* snow doesn't accumulate because the panel is too steep. But that is tipped too far for summer, so you would need to tip it back to a summer angle. If you choose a middle of the road angle (90 - latitude) that works all year round, then snow will definitely accumulate where they are planning to build and would need to be cleaned off. So either way there is manual work (or at least a mechanical complexity) to either tilt the panels twice a year, or to clean the snow off.

We move our panels manually twice a year. Labor is a sunk on the farm (employees are paid no matter what they do) cost so we don't even consider it. Just another job on the farm.

We used to be investing in solar and wind in a big way and backing away from coal-fired electricity. But now that MAGA is taking over Alberta, they are ensuring that nothing stands in the way of that sweet sweet oil and gas money.

I wish. This is Alberta, MAGA country (I'm not joking), the Texas of Canada, full of trump supporters who really do want to give Alberta lock, stock and barrel to Trump---they have a delusion that they will be treated as an equal partner when this happens. US citizenship and everything (provided they are white). Nevermind affording healthcare. They couch all this in terms of an "Independent Alberta."

Meanwhile, the premier fancies herself a bold and visionary leader just like Trump and deeply admires everything he's done. She wants to ensure money (including public money) keeps flowing to her friends in the oil industry. She's already put a stop to most large-scale renewable projects in Alberta saying they blight our beautiful landscapes. Oil and gas do remain extremely important, but renewables is an area Alberta was really leading the way in until recent years. Half the farmers in my area have microgen solar in the corners of pivot circles and marginal areas of their farms and making good money too.

For ideal winter power generation, solar needs to be tipped at those latitudes and from the experience I have with a 450 kw microgen site, snow does not accumulate on panels at that angle, so they should be pretty good. As you say it's a no-brainer and in fact battery storage should be required as well.

I happen to know that a very large multinational company was in the planning stages to build modular data centers across the US with built-in solar and batteries, but the Trump administration put a stop to it and urged them to burn lots of gas instead. It's just nuts. Solar and battery might not be able to make the data center net zero, but it goes a long way to reducing its footprint and in particular its drain on the local power grid, not to mention the economy and livelihood of the locals who have to pay more and more for electricity thanks to the demand of the big data centers..

Can't blame the Chinese. Or really Amazon. They are only selling what Americans are demanding.

You can use the Google Chrome extensions store from Edge and install any add-on directly. Edge is really just Chrome.

Mod +1 informative. To bad I don't have mod points. Hopefully someone reasonable will do it for me.

We used to call this simply, "Machine Learning." Pattern recognition using neural nets, etc. Always was more than a database lookup. Now it's called AI.