No, in a lot of ways the open Android roms keep getting better, despite every possible obstacle being thrown in their way. It’s easy to make a mature platform sound like it has “stalled”, when you’re comparing it to alternatives that are still so unusably bad that they have nowhere to go but up.

Do what you want, but get real. If you care more about making your ideals happen, maybe stop debating internet randos so feverishly, and start making pull requests.

Nothing that has or will happen can stop the parts of Android that are already open from remaining open. Yes there will be fewer choices. Yes this means alternative ROM makers will have no choice but to shoulder more of the development burden themselves. And yes this means there’s going to be significantly fewer open Android devices and new manufacturers will have to make the intentional effort to make and sell new devices that are free by design - a few of which already exist.

But no matter how many obstacles open Android has, the thing you’re ignoring is that it’s still in a far better place than mobile Linux. For a start, any device that respects rights enough to be Linux compatible will automatically be compatible with free and degoogled versions of Android as well.

What these growing problems are is a galvanizing call. Samsung, Xiaomi, and OnePlus, and Google were never our friends. Whatever their imperfections, at least Pine64, Purism, BQ, Planet Computers, Murena, Fairphone, F(x)tec, Volla, and SHIFT have sold hardware that was rights respecting by design. We need more companies or other organizations to do that, and we need to choose to buy and promote more devices like that.

And as that happens more, open Android and Linux are going to benefit equally, but there’s no getting around the fact that for now and the forseeable future, the open Android variants are still far more mature, far more feature-complete, way closer to the kind of user experience the vast majority of people expect, and far more established.

And again, probably the biggest missing thing we need there is an app marketplace that competes more directly with Google Play, that gives more devs good incentives to want to switch away from Play.

You might have better luck looking at the distros themselves. They’re not exactly great on any device yet, but there are cases where mobile Linux distros work at least equally or a little better on select Android phones than they do on dedicated Linux phones.

I get where this argument is coming from, but I don’t think there are meaningful differences in the success of gpl or other copyleft licenses, vs permissive ones (except maybe cases where someone was willing and able to enforce the gpl in court). Companies are no less capable of doing EEE with copyleft. There are also plenty of permissively licensed software projects that have gained a lot of popularity, just like some gpl ones have.

The difference in traction between Linux and BSD probably has more to do with the same kinds of forces that allowed Android to succeed and then crowd Windows phones out of the market.

While I support the continued progress of real Linux phones, have a Pinephone, and even wasted all of yesterday trying to make a working build of Armbian for retro handheld I have; I think it’s more practical to focus on open Android distributions, getting more phones out that can support multi os’s and buying those, and growing a robust app market system that can compete with Google Play.

F-Droid is almost there, but being open-source doesn’t mean something has to be free of charge. F-Droid should be extended, or possibly an additional app manager be established, that still promotes software freedom and privacy, but allows for devs to charge for their apps as well.

I love seeing Godot games do well.

That really only addresses one kind of conception of deity, namely the mono-theistic, primarily Abrahamic variations. As one alternative, if you let go of the idea that a God or Gods must be omnipotent, then things become relatively more sensible. In polytheism for example, you have deitys who are associated with all kinds of things, some that we consider positive, and others we consider negative. These kinds of models at least tend to more accurately fit the way things actually go in life - sometimes justice prevails, sometimes it doesn’t.

Or as another model, there’s the highly dualistic Cathars. For them there was two principles, one Good, the other Evil. Their argument was essentially that God’s power was inseparable from God’s nature, and thus God is incapable of doing anything that goes against their nature to do - including any harm even to evil itself. This model is very reminiscent of the kinds of criticisms people often have of those who practice strict nonviolent ideologies - that their ways and methods lack potency, or any efficacy to adequately deal with malicious forces.

Not all models even assume God is benevolent. Most Gnostic branches outright believe that the chief deity of this universe is either blind and inept at best, or outright malevolent.

At least as far as I understand some Buddhist cosmologies, the Devas, while being powerful beings roughly equivalent to most polytheistic religions, they are neither considered to be the creators of reality or the universe, nor even have complete dominion over it, or even complete knowledge of it. They are also subject to samsara just as we are, and suffering ultimately is inherently baked into reality. An interesting quirk of some Buddhist sects is the notion that even deitys from other religions can be persuaded to follow Buddha’s teachings to follow the path out of suffering.

And then of course there are the pantheistic and panentheistic models, which stress the inseparability of deity and universe. The “we are God” groups. Why doesn’t God end the suffering and evil in the universe? Yeah, why don’t we do more?

Just wanted to give some examples to illustrate that there are a lot of religions with a lot of perspectives on what’s called the problem of evil. Want to be clear that I have no interest in changing whatever your beliefs are. I just think it’s boring and unfortunate that people usually only bring up the problem of evil when they’re using it to criticize the easy punching bag religions.

Pirate anything you want, and buy from anyone you want to support.

Digimon World for ps1 seems cute at first, but then becomes nightmare fuel in a lot of places.

There are absolutely alternatives, that are particularly important for people with high blood pressure, and anyone wanting to potentially lower their risk of stomach cancer. If you get your salt in the form of miso, it appears the soy counteracts the harmful effects of sodium. Even more, there are potassium-based salt substitutes that have already been shown to have huge benefits for mortality risk. Currently I use an iodized 66% potassium salt. It’s every bit as good as regular salt, and I think this kind of stuff needs to be in every home.

hyperpalatability is insidious. Healthy foods are delicious and packed full of flavors that the vast majority of people have never had the pleasure of experiencing - because all of your palates have been utterly fried by highly refined pseudofoods that are packed full of added sugar, salt, and fat.

My biggest vice is still salt. I have mostly been doing a decent job of reigning it in, but on one occasion recently I ate a bag of chips. Then a few minutes later had a plate full of home-cooked whole grain noodles with a variety of vegetables, in a light savory sauce. It was a meal I knew should have been gourmet, but because I had just consumed significantly more salt than I was used to, I literally could not even taste what I was eating.

Food is very much like drugs. There is a real addiction to it, but if you can work through the difficult beginning stages and commit to getting and keeping the junk out of your life, it becomes all upsides. Longer lifespan, better “healthspan” (ie., less suffering and chronic disease), and contrary to popular belief, food becomes more enjoyable.

It wouldn’t be so bad if 3rd party sellers would just be more consistently clear about which models and variants they’re selling.

The thing that annoys me is the way virtually all of these phone models have minor variants that go undocumented in the store pages. I ordered my last phone online, after first searching to make sure it was a model that was supported by the roms I like. The store page advertised it as unlocked, and that it supports GSM. Both of these things are true, and yet it turned out to be a “Verizon” model variant (believe it supports both GSM and whatever Verizon’s networks are called these days, cdsm). It sucks because this small variation casts doubt and may reduce which roms I can install (haven’t gotten around to flashing one yet). And the other annoyance is that even though it does work fine with my carrier, I still get an annoying notification every time I reboot my phone that complains about the SIM not being a Verizon one even though it works just fine.

Just focusing on the article and FDA statements - it reminds me of a chapter in Colin Campbell’s book, The China Study. He was part of some of the committees that were involved in drafting dietary guidelines, which ended up including the now-infamous idea that fats should be reduced. In his own book he lamented how it turned out, but from his perspective it had more to do with the over-emphasis on specific nutrients (like fat, but it’s also worth noting that these early guidelines did contribute to the rise of the supplements industry as well).

When these guidelines are made, what they become is essentially a hodgepodge of ideas that try to placate both nutritional professionals, as well as industry lobbyists (who are always involved in these committes and aggressively try to push their own recommendations).

So in the case of these new guidelines what I think we’re seeing here is more of the same. In nutritional science there is a scientific consensus on which overall dietary pattern is considered most appropriate for the wellbeing of the general population (which is to say it currently has the largest body of evidence to support it’s benefits and efficacy). That would be the Mediterranean diet, as described by Ancel Keys. Contrary to popular belief this is not a diet that’s all about eating chicken all the time and guzzling olive oil by the gallon. “This approach emphasizes a plant-based diet, focusing on unprocessed cereals, legumes, vegetables, and fruits. It also includes moderate consumption of fish, dairy products (mostly cheese and yogurt), and a low amount of red meat.”

(As a sidenote recent research on a new “green Mediterranean diet” variant has been demonstrating that these dietary patterns produce even greater health benefits when the plant-based side of the diet is emphasized even more).

If you squint hard enough you can still see the bones of the Mediterranean guidelines in these new FDA guidelines. But now where things get self-contradicting is their statements on saturated fat. To be clear, no matter what any half-baked health influencer spouts, the evidence on saturated fat is so voluminous and thorough it could not be more concrete. Saturated fat absolutely increases your risk of cardiovascular disease, and should strictly be limited. The recommendations from Harvard:

“The American Heart Association advises a limit of 5% to 6% of your daily calories, while the Dietary Guidelines for Americans says 10% is fine. Registered dietitian Kathy McManus, who directs the Department of Nutrition at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital, suggests a happy medium of 7%. That happens to be the typical amount of saturated fat in the heart-friendly Mediterranean-style diet.”

And yet in these new guidelines you get misleading recommendations to, on the one hand, limit saturated fat, while on the other hand, they’re now going to promote potentially high sources of saturated fats as “healthy”; those being dairy, eggs, and nuts and seeds.

Some things are a step in the right direction. The emphasis on whole foods is good. But I think ultimately it’s going to lead to more confusion, and it’s dubious as to how helpful it’s going to be. It also still makes the mistake of overemphasizing single nutrients rather than overall dietary patterns.

And I dunno, it probably doesn’t matter. Unless we can truly eliminate the toxic food environment (that is, the absolute cornucopia of harmful “foods” that completely dominate every grocery store shelf and other food menus, oftentimes being the most deceptively inexpensive choices), then that’s what the vast majority of people are going to keep choosing.

Bad nutrition both in the comments and the FDA. :-\

I say, “Just search it.” Not interested in being free advertising for Google.

Wireguard, I find it both simpler and easier to use than OpenVPN.

dd. No other iso writing utility has worked as consistently, even if my usb devices would gain weird glitches after using it.

Believe it or not I am a person who goes out of their way to avoid using the terminal, so this is very much vouching for the software itself rather than the ux it’s based on.

My current phone lacks a headphone jack and I hate it. It would be okay if it was replaced with two usb c ports, but there’s only one which means I either choose between headphones or charging, or I must use an adapter. Or wireless, but I don’t want yet another fucking battery to charge.

There’s a world of difference between default, but optional, immutability, that can be freely augmented with admin privileges and a bit of learning; and a full on lockdown that’s tantamount to DRM that requires a person to make unsupported and security-compromising modifications to their entire system to bypass.

Also “the future of…” anything reeks of cult of inevitable progress. Things move and branch multidimensionally, and trying to shoehorn all systems into being the same is just pathological.

It’s weird that they would tout “disabling” apps as a gained feature. Like yeah it’s slightly better than bloatware being able to continue running with no recourse, but that ignores that the more original state of computers used to (and still do on x86 systems) do nothing to get in the way of the user being able to delete whatever the hell we want.