bansheehash

Amen! The Android Developers blog (https://android-developers.googleblog.com, available as RSS at https://android-developers.googleblog.com/atom.xml) comes to mind - It includes updates on new compliance requirements to keep an app listed on Google Play, which I care about, mixed with a whole lot of crap I don't care about, like Google's latest shiny thing like Jetpack Compose, fluff pieces and marketing speak.

How did you solve this problem?

The child labourers of DRC will thank you for supporting their livelihood when you buy that Kobo you don't really need.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/oct/12/p...

Try VSCodium, which is VSCode without MS telemetry: https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium

If anyone is looking to understand more about the Gandhi phenomenon, I recently read (and highly recommend) Arundhati Roy's meticulously referenced introduction to "Annihilation of Caste". She does a terrific job of identifying the motivations of Gandhi and his supporters

https://www.amazon.com/Annihilation-Caste-Annotated-B-R-Ambe...

There's a lot that technology can do to fight climate change. I came across Treetracker (https://www.greenstand.org/), an app that tracks tree planting and pays planters per tree after verification.

Spinning up multiple crowdfunded instances of apps like this across the world could really bring back a lot of the green cover lost over the years.

If you're on Android, try a firewall-based system-wide adblocker like Blokada (https://blokada.org/index.html). It's very effective at blocking ads, including on mobile Chrome, and it's grandma-friendly (doesn't need root, nothing to maintain)

How does it fare against "Blokada" (also FOSS + no root required) in terms of battery use and features?

> It's one thing to be dumb, quite another to be extraordinarily gifted and to use that gift to do something which has no upside at all and plenty of downside

One could extend this argument to engineers who work for nefarious, privacy-violating ad companies, invasive surveillance...

URL: https://www.engagespark.com/wp-content/uploads/jd-fellows-te...

"Life's too short to worry about privacy" is precisely the kind of attitude that normalizes increasingly invasive surveillance and inadvertently feeds into the desire of companies to glean as much information as they can from their users' data. Why does the convenience of Facebook messenger have to come at the cost of privacy?

I think it's an appropriate response to criticise a company for implementing what can only be generously interpreted as a bug, if not a backdoor, and dismissing concerns when it was pointed out to them, all the while making specious claims about being secure and lulling its users into a false sense of security. Public outrage is a powerful tool in ensuring that companies don't get too adventurous in spying on their users for fear of getting caught and called out on it.

At the risk of raising the spectre of authoritarianism, I think the folks who held on to their religious beliefs in countries that enforce/d a particular religion (or no religion), or secretly organised protests against communist regimes would gape in disbelief at the choices of the current generation to use always-on digital assistant devices, communication tools and social media platforms that have been shown to be linked with government surveillance programs. Sure, your government may be democratic and benevolent at present, but what would stop an authoritarian President from using troves of already collected data to purge the country of its "dissidents"? It's not a far-fetched concept - Why do the UK fire and rescue authorities need access to the browsing history of citizens [1]? It will be all too easy for a government with all kinds of data on its citizens to establish a "citizen value" score [2] and optimize access to healthcare and other services based on it. Just the possibility of such a dystopian future should be a cause for concern on our willingness to exchange privacy for convenience.

[1] - http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/big-brother-watching-you-every-orga...

[2] - http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-surveilla...

Going by the argument of opposing regulation/"interference" by unelected officials, conservatives could claim that the FDA (also an unelected body of government, part of the executive branch) frequently oversteps its bounds when it bans substances and products found to be harmful. How is a harmful product supposed to be taken off the market - wait for legislation from Congress while the product remains freely available?

I think delegation of authority is inevitable in a complicated administrative system.

You might want to mention on your site that calls to US phone numbers from anywhere in the world are free on Google Hangouts (https://hangouts.google.com).

How does this compare with HospitalRun (http://hospitalrun.io), which also targets the developing world/resource-constrained market?

What do you mean by "modern"?

> (At least the fashion industry isn't killing us, though.)

The Bangladeshi children working 16 hours a day sewing dresses for H&M might have a thing or two to say about that.

Wait till someone points out that dev tools are not useful to the average user and should exist as a separate extension.

Where's the line?

Google Chrome developers just made a video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhPUaEuEaXk