Some projects that kind of do that come to mind:
Beeper, which is a hosted Matrix server (probably Synapse) with bridges to other messengers, and a client (probably derived from Element?). But it’s all called Beeper to be more “normal”.
Snikket is a “rebranded” prosody XMPP server, Conversations client for Android and Siskin IM client for iOS. Also, all are Snikket, no scary abbreviations and different app names.
Average user does not care, as long as it works.
It always seemed like shouting in a room full of people. Any coherent thought instantly became an unreadable mess due to the post character limit. Never understood live-tweeting. You could DM some company’s support person… but why?
And I blame link shorteners’ existence on twitter, too.
So did “Amazon”… :/
PinePhone is $200. But the manufacturer offloaded all development onto the community.
Librem actually pays some developers, but their phones are $700+. And you will find many complaints about refunds.
Cheap prices are possible by economies of scale by manufacturers, but same manufacturers guard their proprietary hardware.
Also, how “pleb” are we talking about? Many people DGAF and just want their calls/text/apps to work.
Does NovaCustom just buy phones and installs iodeOS on them? Or are they involved in development of either?
This is the manufacturer, SHIFT: https://www.shift.eco/en/shiftphone-8/ Hardware does look easy to access, and should support custom OSes.
This is iodeOS: https://iode.tech/iodeos/, which looks like LineageOS + additional features and privacy-as-a-service kind of deal.
The most obnoxious case of needy apps I witnessed was when I disabled Google Play Services on a OnePlus phone. Every default app (including Phone and SMS!) would spam notifications saying something like “Google Play not found, functionality is limited” every minute or two, while the real impact was minimal.
…made by developers with a special student/hobby account, only for a limited number of devices.
Half-assed “solution”.
On Android, there is Quicksy, and yes, it uses phone number sign-up for ease, but it seems more private than corporate apps.
Without phone numbers, there’s Conversations.im. There are some public XMPP servers with open registration, but you would need to find one, e.g. sure.im by Tigase lets you make aan account, but I don’t remember if calls work.
Are you looking to self-host something as well? Snikket is all-in-one chat+calls, but you would need to host a server. (Still based on Conversations and XMPP)
IMO not as good as The Circle. Although it follows one character, they move between so many departments, it reads more like a collection of short stories.
My best guess (especially if taken by the water) is a juvenile bald eagle. They don’t get the distinct white head feathers until 2 or 3 years old.
Although, Golden Eagles live around the Rockies, too. But the pose makes it difficult to see details and size.
From this year’s spooky season movies, Happy Birthday to Me (1981) was a hidden gem. While it seems like a typical slasher, the ending was quite unexpected.
Rotten Tomatoes ratings are really low though, so probably not everyone’s cup of tea.
Did you read The Every yet? It’s a sequel, but instead of anti-privacy, it leans more into greenwashing, and how only the powerful corporations can save us from a climate disaster.
Welcome to Gemini!
There’s a widespread movement in design circles to reduce the contrast between text and background
This was the trend circa 2012 too, at least I recall Microsoft’s pages and software becoming less legible. Not sure if I got used to it, screens got better, or it went back to higher contrast.
.kkrieger for those who want to look it up
Numerical marketing is nonsense all around.
Video, which was always counted by vertical resolution (lines on analog TV), suddenly became horizontal with 4K, 8K, and it’s not even close, 4K usually referring to 3840x2160.
There are three entirely different things that “5G” can refer to: the mobile network standard, 5GHz WiFi standard, or 5Gbps network connection.
The best explanation I saw several years ago: Large tech companies drive change through competing individual teams and projects. So some manager pitched a half-assed idea, somehow convinced upper management to go with it, got developers to heroically implement it, and might have gotten some bonus for doing so. It doesn’t matter if there was no value as long as some decision maker thinks there is (or does not care, or numbers were fudged anyway).
It is literally change for the sake of change.
Ironically, this was the first thing I tried for Matrix deployment circa 2019. Worked like a charm… Until a reboot. Then, since I did not know where anything was installed and how it worked, I had no idea where to even start.
I guess it would make more sense now that I know a bit more.
IIRC app stores downrank apps that are not regularly updated too, hence the vague “bug-fixes and improvements” updates in many apps. But seriously, how much could a developer update in a calculator, habit/medicine tracker, sky map, or any other app that is a complete feature?