They hacked right through my ROT 26 encryption!

Yes, look at how they are pushing age verification. It's actually a decent implementation, if you accept the basic premise that there is a reasonable interest in protecting children from adult services and material.

In fact it might be an improvement over what we have now, where people have to show ID to enter certain venues or buy certain products. The checkout is anonymous, unless you have to show the clerk your ID to prove you are old enough to buy alcohol.

They way they have implemented it, you verify once, ideally with the government who already knows who you are anyway, and then your device can validate your age on demand. There is no way to tie the validation to an identity, and no two validations are relatable so it can't be used for tracking.

If they don't fuck up the crypto it will be an improvement over what we have now. It's actually shitty that the UK is no longer in the EU and won't benefit from it.

I'm not saying that as an insult that's just a literal fact.

It is extraordinarily expensive to train a police officer. Much of this expense is because of corruption. Most of the training that we give them these days is pseudo-military training that looks cool to idiots. Think gravy seals. But we still have to pay for it all and the city has to pay for it.

The upshot to that is doing the actual job is incredibly boring. It's mostly pulling people over and giving them tickets. Something like 70% of police officers will never even draw their sidearm.

However the job pays reasonably well given how bad the economy is and has a clear career path to retirement. Along with a lot of opportunities to make extra money on the side.

So the problem cities had was people would go through all the training get bored out of their mind at the job and quit and go do something else. So they started to do testing to detect people or too smart. People who would get bored.

I haven't done it myself but I have friends that have applied to be a police officer and been turned down and when they looked into it it literally came down to they were too smart and the algorithm said they would quit the job after 6 months to a year haven't gotten all that expensive training...

As a result we intentionally select dumb people to be police. As an added bonus if you need them to bust heads at a union meeting they're all on board...

Dumb people tend to be violent because when you're not all that bright you quickly run out of options. Like the old saying goes, War is the continuation of political policy by other means...

So you get a lot of police officers beating their wives. You get a lot of cops shooting people they shouldn't be shooting. That sort of thing.

And you get a lot of cops spying on their exes.

They're a well known and well understood solutions to this problem. Other countries have done them. But America generally isn't up for that

I think the EU would care, especially since Android is currently open and Google is taking something away. Apple gets away with it because they have been like that from day one.

Ah, yes. Well, we will have to wait and see I suppose. I would be surprised if they ended up killing F-Droid though, I really can't see the EU being happy about that.

Not sure that's the case, and above the bit you quoted it does also mention that there will be a special version for hobbyists that has different terms.

In short I think it's too early to say. It sounds like they haven't figured out what they are going to do yet.

Is that so? I can't find a source for Google saying that. Do you have one?

In any case, I think we will have to wait and see, because I can't imagine the EU being okay with them banning open source developers who refuse to register in that way.

I never thought I'd say it, but 2027 might actually be the year of the Linux desktop. There is gathering momentum for moving from Windows to Linux, with some major tech news sites doing extended tutorials and reports on it. Linux desktop user numbers are rising, fast enough that Microslop is trying to de-shittify Windows before too many people abandon it forever.

Most of all though, thanks to Valve compatibility has got a lot better. Not just for gaming, although that is a major part of it, but for Windows apps in general. Also, it has become a lot easier to write cross platform apps that aren't awful, and which feel native to each of Linux, Windows, and MacOS.

There are still issues, but unless Microsoft can really turn things around, and with AI making new hardware unaffordable for many, it's just possible that Linux really breaks through in the next year or two.

That's not what is happening. The first time you enable sideloading, there is a 24 hour cooling off period. After that, installs are instant. And there is probably no delay at all if you get F-Droid from Google Play, only if you download the APK and install it that way.

The other issue is that Google is requiring all developers to register if they want their apps to install on certified devices. Certified means runs Google Play and passes the security checks that some apps (e.g. banks apps, Google Pay) require. This is already an issue for Graphene OS users, because such apps will refuse to run for them due to the lack of certification.

It's hardly new though. Apple has required it since day one, and on Windows drivers need to be signed which means identifying yourself to a certificate authority. I imagine the solution will be the same as it is on Windows - someone will register and then sign F-Droid and all the apps offered on F-Droid. If you didn't know, F-Droid builds apps itself. The app source must compile on F-Droid's servers, with various limitations like not having any dependency on Google Play Services.

Like it or not, these things have been here for years and are not going away. They are cheaper than employing humans to answer the phone and direct calls, or handle web chats. So it's better that they get good, rather than remaining crappy and unable to understand what you need.

Of course, being corporate reps, they will still not be very helpful, but that's the world we live in.

Do not generally make it a habit to admit to their crimes right? And people who sympathize with criminals also do not generally let people know that they sympathize with criminals.

What I'm saying is that your cop buddies aren't likely to tell you that they think it's cool to spy on ex's using police resources. But based on a lot of the statistics we have about them at least 40% do...

If nothing else getting ammo to win a divorce is something you can get a lot of people behind regardless of how the information is obtained.

As for defund the police that was largely a scam and something pushed on you by right wing media. Whenever somebody on the left wing says something blisteringly stupid you can bet Fox News and oan will be there with a megaphone to make damn sure you hear it over and over and over again.

You will not hear any of the perfectly reasonable reforms and solutions the left wing proposed. Funny but those always seem to get buried...

That's driving up RAM prices for the next 10 years then yeah we could have the year of the Linux desktop. Not from Qualcomm but from steam.

Microsoft completely shit the bed on Windows 11 and steamos can run a hell of a lot of games with it only being held back by anti-cheat software that could easily be ported over and has been by some companies.

That would bring millions and millions of people to Linux for the better performance on 16 GB machines.

The trouble is video cards. Valve made the steam machine but it's an entry level set up selling for $1,100 because of the cost of the ram needed for the video card...

We've got 10 years of ram shortages already scheduled somebody should be entering the market to supply more RAM and they are not. That's because anyone who tries knows that the big three will just run them out of business with a short-term price cut.

Basically all of computing is being held back by monopolies and antitrust violations. Which is absolutely nothing new. I mean Christ it was Microsoft before it was ram producers...

Whatever you do and whatever hobbies you enjoy politics intrudes on it.

Honestly it just smells like a scam to me. Like those man camps that have been floating around for a while. Wealthy people aren't smart they're lucky and ruthless.

Sure but you CAN use it to bribe the president. Progress!