hersh

I just checked to see if I missed a big update.

There's still no Linux client, and it cannot sync files on Android (it only supports photo backups).

I can't work around that limitation on Android with FolderSync, either, the way I can with Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, or any WebDAV- or S3-compatible server. Since it uses E2EE, any uploads need to go directly through the app, so integrations are difficult.

It doesn't seem to have a search feature, either, at least not on Android. I can't imagine there's any content-aware search on the web UI, since that can't be done server-side.

There's been some interesting research in homomorphic encryption over the past couple years, which might someday lead to encrypted server-side search. But I think there are still major hurdles to actually implementing it securely and efficiently.

There are drawbacks to end-to-end encryption (E2EE). I'm not aware of any E2EE cloud storage systems that have the features Dropbox provides. I would LOVE to know of any that...

1. Support at least the big 5 platforms (Android/iOS/Mac/Windows/Linux).

2. Have a functional web interface.

3. Support sharing and collaboration.

4. Have a search feature

5. Sync to the local filesystem on a folder-by-folder or even file-by-file basis

6. Integrate with other tools (e.g. android file picker)

It's not easy to do all that with E2EE, like a functional web interface, search, and integration.

ProtonMail's search, for example, is limited to subject and metadata, and that's specifically because they DON'T use E2EE for that.

I'm willing to compromise some of this for the sake of E2EE, but I'm not at all surprised that feature-first services are more popular than privacy-first services.

Has/will this be revisited? It's quite a large instance so I sure hope this can be sorted out.

Sadly, there's no official LineageOS for the OnePlus 10 or 11 series. I remember back with the 7 series it was officially supported on launch, and OnePlus sent units to open source developers. I don't think OnePlus cares that much about the development community anymore.

https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/#oneplus

I doubt any billionaires have that much money "sitting in a bank".

Most wealth is non-liquid. For example, if you found a company that becomes massive, and you maintain a controlling share, then you could be a billionaire on paper while having no real money to spend -- the only way to turn that into "real" money would be to sell shares in the company, and thus lose control of it. If the company is doing good work, it could be better to retain control and act through the company, by ensuring that it pays employees good wages to do good work for the benefit of society. This is not completely incompatible with profit in theory, though in practice...yeah. I'm not sure if there are any such billionaires in the world today.

The real problem is more fundamental to the economy, in that it fairly consistently rewards bad behavior.

Larry Page basically became a billionaire overnight when Google went public. I don't recall Page or Google doing anything especially evil or exploitative before that, though their success was certainly built in an unsustainable economic bubble.

If Amazon didn't treat its employees like shit and poison the entire economy, then Bezos could probably still be a billionaire and I wouldn't necessarily hold that against him.

Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple.

I don't think he was ever a billionaire, though he's certainly done quite well for himself. Since leaving Apple, he has founded several new companies and projects, focusing a lot on education and philanthropy. He was also involved in founding the EFF.

He's an engineer first and foremost, and several of his projects never achieved mainstream success, partly for being, IMHO, ahead of their time -- for example, a programmable universal remote in the 80s, and a GPS-based item tracker in the early 2000s.

As far as I know, he has never been involved in any notable scandals.

Google's blog (linked in the article) offers more info on the changes. https://blog.google/products/maps/updates-to-location-history-and-new-controls-coming-soon-to-maps/

The key points are that Google Maps location history will be stored on-device, with an option to back it up (encrypted) to the cloud so if you switch devices you can keep the history. The default auto-delete will be three months, and you can increase or disable that limit.

I guess that means location history will no longer be accessible via the web site.

I don't think Google has implemented any E2EE system for backups before (correct me if I'm wrong). I wonder how exactly this will work.

I wish Apple followed these rules. So many deprecations in their man pages and developer documentation have no details at all. No idea what the supposed replacement is. No idea of the underlying reasons. No idea when it will cease to function.

This is why I still see "launchctl load" everywhere. It's been deprecated for years, but the replacements are overcomplicated and not clearly communicated in official docs. When Apple finally pulls the plug, so much shit out there is going to break.

When they deprecated python2, they withheld implementation details and any timeline. Then they finally axed it in a freaking minor point release, without even replacing it with python3. AAAAAAH

Can't be arsed.

It means you don't care to put in the effort required.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/arsed

This opens the door for more, as well. It means breaking the reliance on CUDA. Meta originally developed PyTorch and it's still a large contributor. This means more resources will go into open backends instead of CUDA.

No no, you misunderstood. Everyone gave their explicit consent by clicking "agree" to the 80-page terms of service!

These are not "normal" tablets, but Boox's line of ePaper-based readers are the only Android tablets that distinguish themselves sufficiently in my already-large family of devices. I've used "normal" tablets with full-color LCD/OLED displays, on both the Android and iPadOS side, but I rarely find a good use for them. I've found them to sit in an awkward space with neither the convenience of my phone, nor the utility of my laptop.

The ePaper-based tablets are ideal for reading, but I do not relegate them merely to the "e-reader" category because they allow you to install Google Play and run basically any Android app. This makes them more flexible and powerful than most e-readers.

It comes with a built-in browser optimized for monochrome, and you can also install third-party alternatives like EinkBro.

That said, it's only for advanced users, and it's not a perfectly smooth experience. Just getting Google Play running on it requires jumping through some hoops, and you will find that most Android apps simply don't work well on a monochrome display (though Boox does offer color models, I have not used them myself).

I was hoping, for example, to use my Boox tablet to play Go, but despite the fact that Go is very much a "black and white" game, most of the apps use shading and colors that look like absolute ass on a black and white display. Some of them do not properly support the 4:3 aspect ratio either. So I don't want to set unreasonable expectations here. These are niche devices.

Despite these drawbacks, I really appreciate having an ePaper device. It complements my device family (phone, laptop, etc.) in a way other tablets do not.