One of the early Samsung Android phones. They dropped „support“ less than a year after release and even during that time refused to acknowledge serious bugs.

The community built Android versions managed to fix most bugs, and even made dual touch possible, but then again could only do so much without all sources. And usually they were not the most stable either.

On the one hand having a smartphone with touchscreen, apps etc. was amazing. On the other hand Samsungs bullshit meant I wasted a lot of time chasing a properly working software for my phone that it should have had from the beginning.

That posture makes you look less fat from the front. And like half a centaur from the side.

What is the „new experience“? Usually that means enshittification.

During the search of his property, the police found an underground nuclear shelter, which was built during the Cold War and equipped with Nazi insignia.

Usually Non-Nazis do not decorate their underground nuclear shelters with Nazi insignia.

It’s great that you want to support your kid and hopefully get them away from the focus-destroying dopamine traps that are many „kid friendly“ apps. But please ask yourself what your kid likes first, not what you want them to be interested in. It’s perfectly fine to restrict tablet time and let him focus on what he likes, be it computer stuff or football or cycling or reading or painting or whatever. If he really interested in Linux and nor, xor etc that’s great, but don’t force it on him.

And that is coming from someone who bought and built his first own computer around that age and wrote his first few lines of very basic basic code not long after. Not because it was expected of me, but because I was interested and given the opportunity to follow those interests.

So, if that kid is interested in computers, Minecraft is a great game for kids. It encourages creativity, problem solving, perseverance and, maybe later, collaboration. It’s also possible to play together and scale their experience to their age: get started in creative or peaceful, then let them discover mobs and mods when they are a bit older, then let them play with friends.

If the kid likes building and Legos, you might want to look into Lego Boost and Spike, although they are rather expensive.

Oh, and paint. Kids love paint, be it MS paint, Paint.net or any other open source alternative. Show them that with a computer they can create, not just consume.

Not an American, but as an iPhone user who has had Android phones since cupcake before: iPhones „just work“, they are a lot less janky than Android, the ecosystem is smooth (although admittedly and intentionally less so when leaving it), they get updated for longer (and at the same time!) and apple has a much better privacy track record than the competition (a low bar).

Yes, I would prefer to install my apps from anywhere I want on the device I should own. An open source phone from top to bottom would be my dream, but Android is about as far removed from that as an iphone. Google took Linux and made it into a Frankenstein nightmare that is wholly dependent on them.

Just try to stick to open source and make your phone respect your privacy and see how far you get. Start at the usually locked bootloader, install a rom without google and see how few apps are left that do not require google services. And even then you are most likely dependent on binary blobs for the drivers, meaning the manufacturers can (and will) pull the rug from under your efforts as soon as they no longer feel like updating their shitty built of Android for the device in time.

I do not have time for that. What I have is enough money to buy a phone that comes as close as possible to my idea of safety, freedom and privacy without constantly jumping through burning hoops. If I am to be in a cage, it better be golden.

If something happens after we die, what’s the point of it all?

No matter if anything happens after death or not, or what happens, we can not know and we don’t seem to be able to comprehend it either way. So we can not know if what we have got is comparatively good or bad. The only thing left is to make the best of it. Because why not?

Brought to you by Carl’s Jr.

The FBI and NSA actually advocated for end to end encryption recently. So either they have finally come to their senses or they have acquired the ability to break everything easily.

Perfect for the mall ninja crowd

If that’s a dns server, that will help with a lot, but not against everything. Some malware has hardcoded IPs to phone home, so they don’t need to look up any ips.

Taiwan #1!

And half of it is used by Chinese spyware.

Could you maybe skip the answer and go directly to asking „how are you?“ back?

Is there like a gay Andrew Tate around somewhere?

But HER EMAILS!!!1

I am

I care very little about people’s peculiar beliefs, however you should know about Jehovas witnesses:

• they are absolutely a cult and dangerous.

• they believe joining their cult is the only way to achieve eternal life. Everyone else is doomed.

• they put a very high focus on „saving“ people, aka bringing them into the cult. In fact, how many people you brought in is a big factor in determining your worth. Members are absolutely convinced they are doing good and actually saving souls. At least the normal folk who don’t abuse their brothers and sisters.

• members are discouraged from forming bonds and meaningful interaction with non-members, unless it serves bringing them into the cult.

• if someone leaves the cult, other members are forbidden from interacting with them, even within families. Except for the purposes of stalking and harassment of course.

• obeying authority without question is very important. The children obey the parents. The wife obeys the husband. The husband obeys those above him in the pecking order. This creates a fertile breeding ground for domestic and sexual abuse, which are dealt with „internally“, aka swept under the rug.

That said, most of them are normal people trapped in a very bad system. They can be kind, absolutely lovely people, or huge pricks, or pure evil, everything people outside the cult can be. It’s just that every single one of them needs to pull you inside, for your own good.

A JW to non-JW relationship is not possible in the long term. Either your daughter will be absorbed by the cult (because he can’t let his wife and their children be condemned) and distance herself from you and her former friends or he will leave and be shunned by his family and friends inside the cult. Anything else will not be tolerated by his community.

The best you can do is to find out about their methods and dangers and also prepare your daughter to never give up thinking for herself. I hope she is level headed enough to understand that it is not going to go well, even if he is a genuinely good person.

There is not „your encryption key“ because there is not only one.

The cloud backup (protected by the pin) includes the contact list, NOT your messages. Those are encrypted on device with a key that is on device and can not be recovered by anyone from the cloud.

At least they are not hiding it.