“Android is Linux” is a bit oversimplified.

What the is issue, still simply, the way I understand it:

• Linux kernel contains drivers for the specific hardware used in devices (processors, modem, memory, display, camera, etc.)
• Each Android smartphone has different hardware configuration
• Hardware manufacturers want to guard their secrets, so they sign contracts and NDAs with phone manufacturers
• Phone manufacturers create a unique, dead-end fork of a Linux kernel that contains drivers and is configured specifically for that model. (There are exceptions, but generally)

So yes, Android uses a Linux kernel, but in most cases, a very specific one.

Why not replace it? This requires:

• Access to the bootloader and ability to read/write to internal storage on low level, and manufacturers lock it down.
• Knowing the hardware and the drivers. As mentioned, manufacturers will provide drivers only to their contracts. So someone would need to write a driver.
• Once someone writes a driver, it can be added to mainline Linux, available to all.
• That is why “mainlining” a device is a big deal - that means that the kernel for that device can be built, and going forward, that device will be supported for all future kernel versions.

Those are called pivots, and what you are saying seems plausible: there are vision algorithms to recognize and selectively spray weeds (see Bilberry ), recent prototypes with light-pressure grabbers to gather fruits and soft vegetables.

Even for harvesters, there are projects to automate harvesting and swapping the grain trucks (see Outrun ). GPS-guided (or assisted) tractors are already a thing.

Agriculture has some interesting innovations, but it often gets bogged down in corporate acquisitions and monetization.

DOJ did denaturalize many members of the German American Bund due to their ties with the Nazi party.

Source: You Are Not American by Amanda Frost, great book.

Osmin on PinePhone was… Tolerable. I’m just pleasantly surprised it worked okay with GPS being integrated into the modem.

Takes a long time to get a GPS fix (like old standalone GPS units), but it’s possible to provide A-GPS data to it.

Likes and up-votes on posts, achievements, streaks, levels, and so on… Somehow, we figured out that the human brain likes the meaningless number to increase, and humans will spend more time on a site, game, or app, and often do dumb things just to trigger a reward pathway from seeing higher numbers.

There is the “allow background usage” and “optimize”, but also, locking the app on the app switcher is supposed to help it stay alive.

Depends on Android flavor too. OnePlus OxygenOS, for example, does not respect the “do not optimize/sleep” setting, and will not let apps run in the background (or foreground) unless the app is in the invisible whitelist. E.g: WhatsApp is fine, but SimpleX is not.

https://dontkillmyapp.com/

You cannot use Proton Mail with another provider. And you cannot access Proton Mail from a regular email client (app) due to their encryption setup. (technically you can, but you need Proton Bridge proxy)

How good is LLM training data for a language spoken by less than 10 million people? Keep in mind that most of those people are probably multilingual (i.e. categorizing which language is which by person is harder), and language itself is similar to its neighbors. And then, again, terms.

I know someone who was a translator between two (less widely spoken) languages, and some specifics I recall from our conversations about work:

• Sometimes the translations use many technical terms, and getting those wrong (trusting LLMs) is not an option. (This was for some patents IIRC)
• Some terms simply do not exist in another language, and it could be up to the translator to invent a term to define and carry the information across. (This was for some government digital service, and the term was similar to “digital queue”)
• Tone and nuances are very difficult to translate. Phrasing can have implications and connotations. (Simplest example: “i am afraid” does not imply fear, it’s an established politeness phrase) Neutral in one language could be viewed as hostile in another, too. (And with politicians being petty, could have consequences)

None of those would be addressed with LLMs. Small training set for language (and language being similar to a few others) is an issue. Anything technical or non-existing would be prone to hallucinations. And tone is difficult enough to convey through text to begin with, let alone with LLM translation.

Most useful was probably this holder for two 1/2in PEX pipes. Printed in ABS, it holds cold and hot pipes in parallel, and uses a #8 screw for attachment. All commercially available holders are for a single pipe, and use nails. Hammering nails in tight spaces (and doing so twice) is not particularly convenient for me, thus, this contraption was born.

Other than that, stuff that is so practical it is easily forgettable: wall mount for a garage door opener, Y splitter for an exhause fan, various covers and containers.

That’s one of the few subreddits that still has interesting stuff. I don’t care about benchies and shiny dragons.

The complaints I see about custom OS the most:

• Bank or payment apps don’t work due to Play Integrity API (blame Google)
• Some other Google apps don’t work correctly (well… duh)
• Obscure functionality that is usually overlooked or intentionally ignored, but is a complete dealbreaker for that user.

Never forget: You as an individual have a responsibility to eat less meat, use less plastic, avoid buying products made by unethical companies, save water and power.

Businesses are just trying to make money, why are you being mean to them?

/s

I find Firefox performance on Android much better than WebView browsers (this is on GrapheneOS, so it’s the hardened WebView / Vanadium, perhaps that is why)

I’ve sold a few things (games and electronics and such) on eBay within the last year without much hassle.

I agree that The Dark Forest is better. The premise is so simple: Alien fleet is coming here in a few hundred years, let’s see how humanity will go nuts or prepare in a myriad of ways. (And also there are no aliens in the second book - I did not like them, they were too human attitude-wise and too inconsistent tech-wise)

Three Body Problem is what I call “big ideas” sci-fi. Large-scale problems, global crisis, often detailed world-building, sometimes decent plot, but boring characters, who often act simply as reader’s eyes / observers.

Many of Alastair Reynolds’ novels are like that, so was Red Mars, and even Blindsight and Rosewater.

Not everyone’s cup of tea, and I completely understand why.

Seeing lots of dislike for Matrix lately. Hosted a Synapse server for many years, never had issues with encryption keys, but have to agree that Element the company (formerly Vector, but they now control the protocol too?) rolls out more new things than they fix old ones. E.g: Element X is slower and calls are not backwards compatible (!). Synapse server keeps getting some (corporate-looking) auth stuff added while on-boarding and registration for plain accounts on self-hosted servers is still a pain. To give them credit, Element app is consistent across platforms (for purposes of convincing people and troubleshooting), and bridges work pretty well.

But it seems any self-hosted solution has its can of worms.

XMPP, being old, implements all modern-expected functionality as extensions, and servers are not guaranteed to have them (common argument). Spam was an issue as well (but simplicity of the on-device and server database allows easy message and attachment deletions). iOS clients for XMPP are meh and require integration with Apple push servers (Snikket and Monal do that, but for how long?)

Tried SimpleX years ago, loved the idea, but it was going through growing pains. In the same vein as metadata leaks for Matrix and XMPP, if you host your own SMP server with a few users, that exposes some info vs using default servers (along with thousands users)

The ones I know of are not really masquerading, but rather, funding themselves and/or directly related services (often hosting) via convenient ways.

• Conversations.im (XMPP/Jabber client) is $8 on Google Play, free on F-Droid and is FOSS. Dev runs their own instance.
• OsmAnd+ costs money on Google Play, is free on F-Droid, provides hosting of gigabytes of map data.
• Beeper (bridges from popular chats to Matrix) costs money (subscription I believe), but can be set up on one’s own (I run two bridges on my chat server).

What I do dislike is companies overusing “Open” or “Free” in their own or their product names, with no implication of Free or Open Source software. Similar to slapping “engineer” on non-engineering roles or “manager” on non-managerial ones.

To add to the list:

Here in the Northeastern US, weather patterns seems to shift forward. It stays hot till October. Even November might have a few summer-like warm days. And “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas” is ironic since there was snow on Christmas only 2-3 times out of last 10 years or so. Snow comes in mid-January