FriendOfDeSoto

Etar allows notifications after an event has started. In your example you would have to do the math in your head but you could make it work.

Is this a bad use of so-called AI? Yes. Is this illegal? I’m going to say no. One of the reasons why Google tried this is because in various markets they’ve been dragged to court or coerced to fund news initiatives because they used snippets from publishers in their search results word-for-word. A not insignificant number of publishers has been lobbying pretty hard against them for giving you their headline and a couple of phrases as a snippet. Those publishers are dumb if you ask me but they were able to bend laws to their will and limit the usefulness of the link, the cornerstone of the internet. So you can sort of understand their motivation why they would try this. And it was only a test from what I’ve heard. So bash Google for all the truly evil shit they’re up to. This issue is dumb but not really worth the outrage.

I suspect this is a problem of fragmentation on Android. I’ve had issues when I tried other Clock apps than the Google one. Alarms would not be triggered for various inexplicable reasons. Or they reset if the launcher crashed for whatever reason. I don’t have the time and energy to test this simple function that I rely on quite heavily. And that’s why I stick with the stock Google app because it has never failed me personally no matter whose manufacturer’s version of Android it ran on.

The comment was the first one I ever made with that account.

With that account. Can I read that as ‘but I have others that have been banned for understandable reasons’? If so, you give me no indication why I shouldn’t take my hunch to the grave.

Whether or not I agree with your take on decentralized social media is irrelevant. I believe that trolling on other platforms, or indeed this one, will not further the cause you have summarized.

If I had to hazard a guess, your comment managed to violate another guideline or contained unsuitable language. I would also not be surprised to learn that if we managed to get ahold of the person who deleted your comment we would find out that you had a history of questionable comments and that’s why the moderative leeway afforded to you may have been cut short. The fediverse will not benefit from a crusade into other platforms in the same way coca cola doesn’t advertize with the slogan “hey, you fucking loser, you would benefit from this cool beverage of ours.”

I’m basing my guess - and I could be wrong of course - on the fact that you think I was gatekeeping rather than describing the status quo.

You gotta be able to back up a claim like that with screenshots or something else other than hearsay. It’s my impression that no one really GAF about the fediverse, or only pays lip service to it like Meta, which explains why it’s so nice. It’s only us nerds here willing to be our own algorithm. So I have a hard time believing this. Also, who still cares about comments on YT?

Seconded! LMMS is a good free DAW to get started.

I think your definitions don’t quite match common use. When people think about sideloading, they think about installing apps from a third-party source that are not approved by the primary vendor. That’s precisely what Google is going to block.

See the end of my pervious comment. The fact that we call that “sideloading” in common parlance is a magic trick Google has already played on us and we ate it up. Resist.

The way I understand sideloading is installing an app through a way that isn’t Play. So F-droid - as one example - is sideloading because you need to go through the overly dramatic warning messages to enable the install from unknown sources. If all the devs in F-droid’s repository theoretically registered with Google, nothing will change. The only difference is that Google wants to know who made it. They make it harder and shittier and thus limit our choices, yes. But they don’t block everything outright.

The problem arises for apps, whose developer doesn’t want Google and by legal extension the American judiciary to have access to their information. That’s a privacy concern that I find very concerning too. I’m not defending Google’s choices here. I hate it. I also don’t like the inevitable hyperbole going the other way.

Not defending Google but I have a but (no typo - although I’m the proud owner of a double t version as well. But I digress.)

Google is not getting rid of sideloading. They are implementing a registration process for devs and then do a check if they have the info on record before allowing an app to be installed. It is possible for you to download an APK from wantsomalware dot com and install it as long as the developer registered with Google - as all the malware dipshits will manage to do on burner accounts, which will not curb the spread of malware, which is their stated aim. Technically, your bank could distribute its app on its website as long as they registered with the Goog. But it will render abandoned projects uninstallable and that’s the rub.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like this either. Twisting their words though isn’t helping either.

Corey Doctorow pointed out that it is mad that we call it sideloading. Installing an APK is the same, whether it’s coming from Play, F-droid, or the dark web. There should not be this distinction. Lobby your politicians on this matter. G will not GAF about this petition - it’s PR for the cause at best. Only the tag team of legislature and judiciary can set this right.

I think there will be fork and there will be fork. A company like Samsung will continue to take what Google churns out, put their more proprietal stuff on it, and ship it. Probably not as Tyzen any more but who knows. I suspect a FOSS fork will never go back to Google after the last version that didn’t require this dev register check. They will find a way to maintain feature parity with it but it will be delayed.

Forks haven’t worked that well for Samsung Tyzen or Amazon because they never gained enough users, nor probably contributed they enough to the bottom line given the investment. It remains to be seen whether the more privacy conscious people can move the needle enough for a FOSS version.

It’s always nice to read Corey eating at the buffet of corporate shenanigans and leaving no crumbs.

If this developer registration really comes to pass and/or has staying power, I suspect there will be eff it we will just fork it movement. A FOSS Tyzen or Fire version of Android that would then not go back to whatever Google does with their Android updates. That would probably work better if all the privacy-friendly Android devs banded together, which probably won’t happen.

At the same time, I don’t think the last word has been spoken on Google’s plans here. They haven’t implemented it yet. And even if/when they do, I suspect there will one or two courtrooms that will hear about this shit in excruciating detail. If European devs could rally behind this flag there is a good chance the EU will use its golden formula of 50% good intentions and 50% wanting to eff American tech giants to intervene on privacy grounds.

I found Heliboard with the added files for swiping action just as good or bad as Gboard.

It turned out to be a Twitter clone from ten years ago and I realized I didn’t need that any more. If I didn’t need to reach some people who cannot overcome the hurdle the fediverse proper puts up before being enjoyable, I would not be using it today. But media popularity post-Elon-Twitter and relative ease of setup have given the platform relative heft. But it’s not open and not really federated so it’s masquerading and we don’t really want you know whose money is paying the bills behind the scenes either. If anything, the fediverse can learn from Bluesky a thing or two about onboarding people who cannot be asked to invest the time to make Mastodon enjoyable. It will take time, much more time, to get people, especially non-techy ones, to the new normal of being your own algorithm. I see Bluesky as a stepping stone in that direction that will survive in its own niche.

First thing, disable all auto backup on your phone. This is step 1 for anything.

If you have access to a computer, log in to Photos through a browser and delete images there and it won’t affect your phone’s storage. Maybe test it with an image if lesser importance before you bulk delete.

You could also move your locally stored photos to a different, temporary folder. Then delete the backed up ones in Photos. Then move the local files back.

I wouldn’t rely on the Google Takeout images. If the standard settings applied, the images will all be in Google’s compressed format. Granted, most people in the world couldn’t tell the difference. But it might be better to keep the best quality for the future.

Wow. It’s like they have discovered the concept of biases. A coffee table book of umbrella pictures would’ve had a similar effect no doubt.

For their next study they will surely test dihydrogenoxide in its liquid aggregate state for wetness.

This pretty much applies to all search engines. Because of that I don’t see the point of it being posted in this lemmy.

Security is one thing. I was more thinking about the pain of having to move everything again when the single provider goes bankrupt or becomes politically intolerable or gets swallowed by the kraken.

The solution should not be one single provider. Use Ente for pictures, maybe Proton* for other cloud storage and Docs replacement, look into a Nextcloud server hosted by another provider for calendar and email. Don’t put all your digital eggs in one walled nest.

*Proton is plagued by a CEO who can’t keep his mouth shut about politics. Look into that and how you feel about it before you sign up. Their VPN is good but I wouldn’t use them also for email to make switching less of a headache - and I don’t think you could use your own domain there anyway.

Proton has a good calendar service but if you want to change color labels you need to be on the more expensive tier - and they don’t really tell you that ahead of time. Which p’ed me off so much I moved my calendar to a Nextcloud server instead, which works great. It also got me off Keep, Drive, and I’m working on Gmail.

My review came with an asterisk. I mainly wanted to point out how to get it free so you can make up your own mind.

I don’t remember if I bought it on Google Play so I don’t know if you would need to. You can though test drive it guaranteed for free if you sideload the F-Droid app store and get it from there.

I stopped using it about two years ago because it felt it took forever loading feeds and switched to Tusky, which has less functionality (e.g. no post scheduling) but loads faster, I think, and works well for my limited needs. Fedilab’s menus never put me off. But I never went back.

So that’s a review that needs a pinch of salt or two.