Music. Photography. Thoughts.
Wow, how time is flying – it’s Tuesday evening, and tomorrow at 13:00 (1pm) Bella will be with us since 2 weeks already. She continues to be a constant joy, is interested in the neighbours’ cats (but they are not so amused to find a cat who lives here), and she loves to play and purrs like a kitten…
Took this photo on Sunday short before sunset:
And like always, thanks for viewing, and for reading.
Today I’ve read an interesting thread about iPhones in a musician’s board, and much of it reminded me of the time when my last employer bought us all iPhones (SE 2020), just in case the internet would be down (that was during the pandemic).
One comment was:
“Kluge Menschen kaufen Apple Aktien statt Apple Geräte.“
which, translated by myself, means as much as:
“Wise men buy Apple shares instead of Apple devices.”
I had to smile a bit, but then I found this TechCrunch article, where someone calculated it (or rather, had it calculated with the use of ChatGPT).
Turns out that if you had bought Apple shares in the amount of what each consecutive Apple iPhone would have cost you, today you would have $147,000. Plus you would have done something good for Mother Nature… See also: here… 😉
Like always, thanks for reading.
One week and some 5 hours ago, Wilma moved in with us. And it has been a constant joy to have her around. By now she trusts us enough to let me get close with my noisy macro lens while she is having a nap, like this:
Okay, she got some chicken today, I guess it can’t get much better 😉 So let’s hush, and let her zzzzzzz…
Wispering: Like always, thanks for viewing
Just saw the first little parts of what will become Gnome 45 trickling in, like in:
:: Starting full system upgrade...
resolving dependencies...
looking for conflicting packages...
Packages (2) gnome-disk-utility-45.0-1 openpmix-4.2.6-1
Total Download Size: 1.87 MiB
Total Installed Size: 9.83 MiB
Net Upgrade Size: 0.03 MiBAnd why does that make me sigh, you might ask? Well, because the guys at Gnome think they know better again, and will again break existing and working desktops for you, me, or everyone (worst will be for “the big guys” who make desktops like Unity based upon Gnome). See this article in The Register:
GNOME 45 formalizes extensions module system
I’m using four Gnome extensions which I’d really like to keep, which are OpenWeather, Freon, the built-in Workspace Indicator, and GSConnect, so I looked up https://extensions.gnome.org/ to search for version numbers, and as expected, none of them has a 45 version yet. And while it’s all documented from the Gnome developers, I’d like to wait until all these – for me – important things have updates before I’ll get a desktop which again throws out the baby with the bath water, many thanks.
Looking for / thinking about alternatives? Nah, not really. I never really loved KDE, and XFCE isn’t an option for me either, nor are others which mostly mimic Windows (like Cinnamon & Co.), or Enlightenment. So let’s see how this turns out.
But there are worse news, especially for those of us who are using Android phones, namely Google’s planned “Privacy Sandbox”. See this article:
Google Chrome Privacy Sandbox open to all: Now websites can tap into your habits directly for ads
Time to look out for another browser, see also in https://www.androidauthority.com/chrome-ad-topics-rollout-3362364/ – and it’s getting worse, since this will probably end up in AOSP. Chatted a bit about that with Tad who is the lead developer of DivestOS, and he assured me that neither DivestOS nor GrapheneOS would include these bits. But Google with its former infamous “Don’t be evil” mantra seems to turn to Orwell’s Newspeak lately, which is really bad. There’s nothing “private” about their sandbox anymore, so dump these Chrome browsers, and get Mulch or Vanadium (or better, Firefox) instead. Best solution for Android phone users: install GrapheneOS in case you have a current Pixel phone, or DivestOS for those whose devices would also be covered by LineageOS, or whose devices are too old for GrapheneOS.
And no, Apple is not an alternative. Security based upon obscurity never worked, I’m only dealing with Open Source here, no time for walled garden crap.
Like always, thanks for reading.
Update, from September 12th, 2023:
Here are some more links, some new some old, but take your pick or read them all if you care for real privacy:
https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/07/google_privacy_sandbox/
https://lifehacker.com/how-to-disable-google-chromes-new-privacy-sandbox-track-1847276073
https://www.zdnet.com/article/heres-how-to-opt-out-of-google-chromes-privacy-sandbox-floc-trials/
https://techcrunch.com/2023/01/17/privacy-sandbox-topics-api-criticism/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy_Sandbox
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/03/googles-floc-terrible-idea
https://www.howtogeek.com/724783/how-to-opt-out-of-google-floc-in-chrome/
By far not the only sites and articles I’ve found, but enough to give you an idea why this is bad. And as I wrote above, it could be even worse on Android phones, where Google almost always has the ‘WebView’ authority, which means that any link you’ll click will be opened in WebView (aka Chrome), no matter if you have Firefox or other browsers set as your default. Only way to mitigate that is to use more private operating systems on your phones, like GrapheneOS (which uses their hardened Vanadium WebView), or DivestOS (which uses their hardened Mulch WebView, partly based upon GrapheneOS’s Vanadium (plus a few other goodies like an ad-fighting hosts file)).
Like always, thanks for reading, and for considering in helping to make the web a safer place to be.
Update, from September 30th, 2023:
Here’s another one. Do yourselves and us all a favour, and don’t use that browser.
Bella isn’t allowed to roam around outside just yet, so at the moment it’s often eat, sleep, and I also try to play around with her a lot.
We’d ordered a cat tree for her, which is now also her viewing platform sometimes:
And today I took a photo of her while I was outside on the veranda, and Bella was in Zuleikha’s room:
Like always, thanks for viewing.
Took this on the first day, some 5 and a half hours after she arrived at our home, in Zuleikha’s room. Cropped it into a 4:5 aspect ratio:
As always, thanks for viewing.
Our new little family member has arrived safe & sound, eats well, and is a real explorer. This is her after her first night with us, yesterday morning:
In yesterday’s late afternoon, Mitchie was out to work, and Zuleikha out to driving school:
And I took this one this morning with my phone, corrected the white balance with The Gimp on Linux:
Waiting on a cat tree which we ordered for her… and like always, thanks for viewing, and for reading.
Update: here are three more photos from today, short before lunch. And as you can see on the second of them, she not only has a chip but also a tattoo in her left ear…
Again, thanks for viewing.
Say hello to our newest member of the family:
Photo taken by Zuleikha, in our car, while we were shopping for cat food & stuff… like always, thanks for viewing.
“Pay or okay” is illegal, thanks to noyb. Also, Fitbit has some “take it or leave it” which goes strongly against our GDPA.
Btw: other sites like “Der Spiegel” or “Zeit Online” have the same illegal entry like Heise. They should all be sued imo. See here for example:
Like I wrote in the headline: that’s about time. And I also filed the same complaint with Mrs. Margrethe Vestager from the EU parliament.
As always, thanks for reading.
Yesterday I told people in the Wikiloops Shoutbox that in case they’d need help and none of us moderators is online, they should instead consider to call the Wikiloops Support Line… it’s free, and it’s fun! 🙂