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Submission + - Linux Mint needs to stop making apps and focus on Linux (nerds.xyz) 3

Submitted by BrianFagioli
BrianFagioli writes: Linux Mint is expanding its collection of homegrown software with Xepub, a new EPUB reader, and Clockenstein, a new calendar application supporting Google Calendar and CalDAV. The projects were revealed in the Linux Mint August monthly update, which was published on September 11.

NERDS.xyz argues that this growing collection of apps raises a bigger question about Linux Mint priorities. With Mint already based on Ubuntu, which itself is based on Debian, should its developers spend resources creating more applications that duplicate existing Linux software, or concentrate on Cinnamon, Wayland, hardware compatibility, upgrades, and the operating system experience itself?

Submission + - Journalist Calls Out 'Collective Amnesia' of Schools' Romance with Big Tech 2

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: The74 reports that in her new book, Coding Kids: Big Tech's Battle to Remake Public Schools ("the inside story of how Big Tech catalyzed, co-opted, and ultimately came to capture computer science and AI education in America"), Natasha Singer, a veteran business reporter for The New York Times, traces Big Tech's bid to persuade schools to embrace their products, with industry-sponsored curricula and tools growing at astonishing speed.

In his book review of Coding Kids , Aran Shetterly begins with a Spoiler Alert: "Turns out, Silicon Valley isn’t especially altruistic." He writes, "At the center of her book is the story of the nonprofit Code.org and its charismatic, Harvard-educated leader, Hadi Partovi. Thirteen years ago, Partovi produced a five-minute video called “What Most Schools Don’t Teach.” This 'audacious act of Silicon Valley influencer marketing...aimed...at a low-resourced nonprofit sector: public schools serving millions of children,' delivered a worrying message: Kids who didn’t learn to write code would be left behind. And the long-term success of the United States economy depended on training these students to fill a million open tech jobs. [...] No word in Coding Kids chills more than 'democratize.' 'Democratizing' sounds a lot like 'democracy,' but the tech-elite byword has nothing to do with a form of government; from the lips of the tech barons, it means enforcing ubiquitous access to their products."

Fast-forward to 2026, and now we're dealing with AI, and tech is reading from a similar playbook. Asked by The74's Greg Toppo, "Does this moment seem different to you?", Singer replies, "This moment is different, but also similar. We are in a moment in society where a lot of people have increased distrust of these huge tech companies, and we see a wave of parents pushing back against tech in schools. [...] We have had these cycles of tech in schools where there are all these promises about the latest tech, laptops, learning apps, massive open online courses, virtual reality, big data's going to revolutionize schools and like democratize access to education for kids and get them these great career skills, and we keep having these cycles. My concern is that we don't learn anything. One of the reasons I wrote this book is because it feels like we have collective amnesia. Now we're in the sixth or eighth cycle of this — and shouldn't we be asking questions about the push for AI in schools, based on what we've learned about the push for all the other things that came before?"

Submission + - Parents Demanding Tech Opt Outs Take Their Fight to Federal Court (edtech.law)

Submitted by Hasaf
Hasaf writes: On August 26, 2026, seven families from Lower Merion School District outside Philadelphia, PA, sued the District, the Superintendent, and certain members of the board, asserting violations of their Constitutional rights.

Plaintiffs allege that District leaders have presided over a digital free-for-all, where students of all ages can and do access online pornography, violent videos, gambling sites, and video games, including one in which the player’s goal is to escape from sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein’s private island. Instead of paying attention in class, students consume an endless stream of short-form videos, browse social media, and shop. They chat with strangers and bully each other. They frequently interact with AI chatbots, which not only help them cheat on their assignments and diminish what they have already learned, but have also sent grown adults into delusional spirals and have coached other young people to take their own lives. Lower Merion students do this and more at all hours of the day: on the bus, in class, at lunch, and during breaks, and also at home, late into the night, when their parents think they are doing homework.

The complaint, with exhibits, can be found there https://edtech.law/wp-content/...

The link to the complaints is also at the bottom of the article

Comment I had two and I hate it (Score 1) 245

by denisbergeron (#66299836) Attached to: Are You Sure You Want a Car With a Giant Touch Screen?

I had a Toyota Prius Prime 2020 with a ±12 inch tablet that control, sound, HVAC, and all the config menu of other electronic in the car. That was a great experience the system that control the screen will take minutes to load and keep the sound, and HVAC at the same level than the last time someone use the car, but won't connect to the device until it's completly loaded, and then it will reboot out of no where with the same process out of no where when you drive. So during several minutes, you can't control the sound neither what was on the radio or some white noise, neither the HVAC that act like morning and evening, we want to have the same temp.

The I had a E-Mach Mustang, less anoying, does't reboot, was fast to boot, but all those sub menu to find your configuration, and the OTA update that erase you config, even the saved radio station in the first year. But all those submenu to change the car behavior, but again I don't know how they can do something else with all the config you get to choose in that kind of car

Submission + - Reddit Bans 11-Year Account For Announcing a GPL Game, stress testing EU DSA (reddit.com) 3

Submitted by DF5JT
DF5JT writes: On July 26 I posted a single announcement in r/backgammon: GNU Backgammon for Android, GPLv3, the first standalone backgammon engine on F-Droid. Reddit's spam filter removed the post and permanently banned my 11-year, 30,000-karma account — the result is publicly visible at reddit.com/user/OE1FEU. To this day Reddit has given no reason whatsoever, although Article 17 of the EU's Digital Services Act makes a statement of reasons mandatory. The only appeal channel is a 250-character web form that sends no confirmation and never answered; Reddit's own help text admits: "you may not have received a message to your inbox." A GDPR export of 11 years of data came to 7.2 MB, every post truncated after a few lines, with zero data about the ban decision. So I spent one day escalating through every mechanism the EU provides: certified out-of-court dispute settlement at Austria's RTR, complaints with the Austrian and Dutch Digital Services Coordinators, the data protection authority (citing the ECJ's SCHUFA ruling on automated decisions), noyb, and Austria's consumer association. Bonus finding: the European Commission's DSA Transparency Database contains 14,067 Reddit statements of reasons for that week — none for my ban — and the Commission's own feedback form limits reports to 500 characters and crashed with a 500 Server Error. Is the DSA enforceable for ordinary users, or just paperwork?

Submission + - College Students Are Rapidly Losing the Ability to Read (futurism.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: In a new essay for The Chronicle Higher Education , university-level literature and writing instructor Tyler Jagt recalls how not a single one of his students could get through an assigned 20-page article, something that he had read "without complaint" as an undergraduate a decade ago.

One student confessed that the reason they didn't finish was that they kept losing track of what the paper was about. And there's no doubt that they're not alone.

Jagt cites the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress reading assessment results released last year. It showed that 12th grade reading scores were at the lowest level since the assessment began in 1992. Nearly a third of those 12th graders scored below the assessment's "basic" level in reading, meaning they likely "cannot draw general conclusions based on concepts presented explicitly in a text." Younger children aren't better off: a recent report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation found that 70 percent of fourth graders, or around two million kids, can't read at a proficient level.

"What I am seeing in my classroom is no longer a hunch," Jagt writes. "There is a measurable, generational collapse in sustained reading and writing, and the academy is responding to it with improvisation and exhaustion rather than the structural overhaul it requires."

Pupils arriving unable to read is an increasingly common complaint from college-level educators amid the explosion of generative AI. Many students treat AI as a genuine learning tool — perhaps to summarize a lengthy article they can't understand, for example — becoming reliant on its speedy responses to race through coursework.

More flagrantly detrimental to learning, plenty more use the tech to generate entire essays and solve math problems — or, in a word, cheat. That many universities have partnered with tech companies to provide students with access to their shiny AI models has only served to rubber stamp and accelerate the tech's adoption in the classroom, marooning individual instructors to figure out how to work around AI on their own.

Submission + - J. Craig Venter, genomics pioneer and founder of JCVI and Diploid Genomics, Inc. (jcvi.org)

Submitted by joshuark
joshuark writes: The renowned genomics pioneer Dr. J. Craig Venter died on April 29, 2026, at age 79, following a brief hospitalization for unexpected side effects from cancer treatment.

Venter is best known for racing to sequence the human genome, founding the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI), and creating the first synthetic bacterial cell.

“Craig believed that science moves forward when people are willing to think differently, move decisively, and build what doesn’t yet exist,” said Anders Dale, president of JCVI. “His leadership and vision reshaped genomics and helped ignite synthetic biology. We will honor his legacy by continuing the mission he built—advancing genomic science, championing the public investments that make discovery possible, and partnering broadly to turn knowledge into impact.”

Comment LineageOS and others ? (Score 2) 53

I use lineageOS on my phone (Motorola Ace One) and none of the Google App. everything is from F-Droid.
I'm very happy with it, the battery last multiple days since I don't have any bloatware on the phone.
I was a Samsung Ultra User, I have the S22 Ultra (512), S23 Ultra (512) and S24 Ultra (1t).
The moto camera aren't has good then the Ultra Camera, but they are enough good.
Nobody follow, me I don't have silly advertizing popup on my phone.

FY Google.
I just hope that the new policy doesn't affect OpenSource Android like LineageOS!

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