Kzad_Bhat @Kzad_Bhat@chaos.social

Found this on the ground this morning near Hackescher Markt

If anyone knows Christina from Berlin and Christina wants it back, let me know

Wo wir die Demokratie verlernen? In der Schule!

https://krautreporter.de/3184-wo-wir-die-demokratie-verlernen-in-der-schule

spoke to visiting college students this morning, tried to inspire them

So a friend just released the best thing: randomly generated queer Nordic valknuts. Make your own, Norse fans! https://rainbow-valknuts.glitch.me/

Eine bekannte von mir sucht aktuell dringend eine queerfreundliche WG oder Wohnung in Darmstadt (eventuell Frankfurt / Mainz). Budget ist 500€ warm.

Person hat es schwer, daher #BoostWelcome ❤️

#Trans #Queer #LGBTQ #Darmstadt #WG

Wegen Glyphosat-Belastung: Imker kippen verseuchten Honig vor Ministerium aus - ZDFmediathek

Zwei Imker aus Brandenburg sind sauer: Ihr Honig ist mit Glyphosat verseucht. Aus Protest gegen die Agrarpolitik schütten sie die klebrige Masse vor dem Ministerium in Berlin aus.

https://www.zdf.de/nachrichten/wirtschaft/landwirte-protestieren-gegen-glyphosat-belastung-in-honig-100.html

Keine Werbung mehr in der Post: Wie Amsterdam 6.000 Tonnen Altpapier spart! - In Amsterdam findet man keine „Bitte keine Werbung“-Sticker an den Postkästen, sondern welche mit „Bitte Werbung“. In der Hauptstadt der Niederlande darf nämlich nur dann Werbung in den Postkasten gelegt werden, wenn man das ausdrücklich will. Dadurch spart die Stadt jährlich 6.000 Tonnen Müll. #ShareDichDrum

So I was recently asked why I prefer to use free and open source software over more conventional and popular proprietary software and services.

A few years ago I was an avid Google user. I was deeply embedded in the Google ecosystem and used their products everywhere. I used Gmail for email, Google Calendar and Contacts for PIM, YouTube for entertainment, Google Newsstand for news, Android for mobile, and Chrome as my web browser.

I would upload all of my family photos to Google Photos and all of my personal documents to Google Drive (which were all in Google Docs format). I used Google Domains to register my domain names for websites where I would keep track of my users using Google Analytics and monetize them using Google AdSense.

I used Google Hangouts (one of Google’s previous messaging plays) to communicate with friends and family and Google Wallet (with debit card) to buy things online and in-store.

My home is covered with Google Homes (1 in my office, 1 in my bedroom, 1 in the main living area) which I would use to play music on my Google Play Music subscription and podcasts from Google Podcasts.

I have easily invested thousands of dollars into my Google account to buy movies, TV shows, apps, and Google hardware devices. This was truly the Google life.

Then one day, I received an email from Google that changed everything.

“Your account has been suspended”

Just the thing you want to wake up to in the morning. An email from Google saying that your account has been suspended due to a perceived Terms of Use violation. No prior warning. No appeals process. No number to call. Trying to sign in to your Google account yields an error and all of your connected devices are signed out. All of your Google data, your photos, emails, contacts, calendars, purchased movies and TV shows. All gone.

I nearly had a heart attack, until I saw that the Google account that had been suspended was in fact not my main personal Google account, but a throwaway Gmail account that I created years prior for a project. I hadn’t touched the other account since creation and forgot it existed. Apparently my personal Gmail was listed as the recovery address for the throwaway account and that’s why I received the termination email.

Although I was able to breathe a sigh of relief this time, the email was wake up call. I was forced to critically reevaluate my dependence on a single company for all the tech products and services in my life.

I found myself to be a frog in a heating pot of water and I made the decision that I was going to jump out.

Leaving Google

Today there are plenty of lists on the internet providing alternatives to Google services such as this and this. Although the “DeGoogle” movement was still in its infancy when I was making the move.

The first Google service I decided to drop was Gmail, the heart of my online identity. I migrated to Fastmail with my own domain in case I needed to move again (hint: glad I did, now I self host my email). Fastmail also provided calendar and contacts solutions so that took care of leaving Google Calendar and Contacts.

Here are some other alternatives that I moved to:

Gmail → Fastmail → Self-hosted (via Cloudron)
Google Contacts → Fastmail → Nextcloud Contacts
Google Calendar → Fastmail → Nextcloud Calendar
Google Search → Bing → DuckDuckGo
Google Maps → Bing Maps → OpenStreetMaps and OsmAnd
Google Analytics → Matomo Analytics
Google Drive → Nextcloud Files
Google Photos → Nextcloud Files/Gallery
Google Docs → Collabora Office (Nextcloud integration) and LibreOffice
Google Play Music → Spotify / Plex → Spotify / Jellyfin
Google Play Movies/TV → Plex → Jellyfin
Google Play Audiobooks/Books → Audible/Kindle
Google Play Store (apps) → F-Droid / Aurora Store
Google Android → Lineage OS → Ubuntu Touch on PinePhone (coming soon?)
Google’s Android Apps → Simple Mobile Tools
Google Chrome → Mozilla Firefox
Google Domains → Hover
Google Hangouts → Matrix and Nextcloud Talk
Google Allo → Signal
Google Podcasts → PocketCasts → AntennaPod
Google Newsstand → RSS
Google Wallet → PayPal and Cash App
Google Voice →Ting Mobile

Migrating away from Google was not a fast or easy process. It took years to get where I am now and there are still several Google services that I depend on: YouTube and Google Home.

Eventually, my Google Home’s will grow old and become unsupported at which point hopefully the Mycroft devices have matured and become available for purchase. YouTube may never be replaced (although I do hope for projects like PeerTube to succeed) but I find the compromise of using only one or two Google services to be acceptable.

At this point losing my Google account due to a mistake in their machine learning would largely be inconsequential and my focus has shifted to leaving Amazon which I use for most of my shopping and cloud services.

The reason that I moved to mostly FOSS applications is that it seems to be the only software ecosystem where everything works seamlessly together and I don’t have to cede control to any single company. Alternatively I could have simply split my service usage up evenly across Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple but I don’t feel that they would have worked as nicely together.

Overall I’m very happy with the open source ecosystem. I use Ubuntu with KDE on all of my computers and Android (no GApps) on my mobile phone. I’ve ordered the PinePhone “Brave Heart” and hope to one day be able to use it or one of its successors as a daily driver with Ubuntu Touch or Plasma Mobile.

I don’t want to give the impression that I exclusively use open source software either, I do use a number of proprietary apps including: Sublime Text, Typora, and Cloudron.

https://www.kylepiira.com/2020/01/09/why-i-quit-google/

Back in the day on a project using #subversion we started reading out the entries from the #Battletech history almanach once the revision numbers climbed high enough.
#memories

Was würde eigentlich passieren wenn man den Böllerfans anbieten würde, dass sie böllern dürfen, aber dafür 2 Monate auf das Auto verzichten müssen weil Feinstaubfahrverbot.
Das könnte lustig werden, ich tippe Mal die Schnittmenge Böllerfans und FridayForHubraum ist sehr groß.

"Umweltsau"-Satire des WDR - Empörung kam laut Analyse von rechts

Nach der Aufregung über ein satirisches Lied zur Klimaschutz-Debatte, das der Westdeutsche Rundfunk (WDR) auf Facebook gepostet hatte, deutet eine Analyse darauf hin, dass Rechte und Rechtsextreme die Empörung gezielt angefacht haben. Rechtskonservative Medien sowie Politiker griffen das Thema auf. Die bereits vielfach geäußerte Vermutung, dass die Empörung maßgeblich von rechten Social-Media-Accounts befeuert wurde, - 1/10

Der meiner Meinung nach wichtigste und beste Vortrag des #36c3 wurde von @f auf der #cwstage des #chaoswest gehalten und darum leider nicht in andere Sprachen übersetzt:

Friedemann Ebelt: „Achtung Vorratsdatenspeicherung: Es wird ernst“
https://media.ccc.de/v/36c3-114-achtung-vorratsdatenspeicherung-es-wird-ernst

Zusammenfassung:

Trotz klarer Gerichtsurteile gegen anlasslose Massenüberwachung wird in Arbeitsgruppen, Ausschüssen und Spezialgerichten an neuen Rechtsgrundlagen für eine EU-weite Vorratsdatenspeicherung gearbeitet. Es geht um Hintertüren in der ePrivacy-Verordnung, einen Fahrplan von EU-Rat und EU-Kommission, ein Überwachungskonzept von Europol und Versuche, den EU-Gerichtshof zu einer Revidierung vorheriger, grundrechtefreundlicher Urteile zu bewegen, während zur selben Zeit in Deutschland die CDU den Terror-Angriff von Halle/Saale instrumentalisiert.

#Vorratsdatenspeicherung #VDS #Massenüberwachung

#CalvinAndHobbes by #BillWatterson for December 29, 2019 - GoComics

https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2019/12/29