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Pfhortune

757 karma · joined November 19, 2014

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Pfhortune··on There's a high chance of devices being sold with GrapheneOS preinstalled in 2027
Amongst the several banks I deal with, only one uses Google's attestation framework in a way that blocks GrapheneOS.

That said, the website still works fine for that one.

Pfhortune··on US Republicans revolt against Flock AI surveillance as backlash intensifies
Is this a cynical play to gain points for the midterms, after which they'll promptly about-face?

I do wish the Dems would come out against both surveillance and datacenters, since they're heinously unpopular, but most are too cowardly to stand for anything but the most milquetoast positions...

Pfhortune··on Rakuten Kobo returns to U.S. retail as sales double
I do agree, but I am glad the option exists, in contrast with competing readers on the market. And I am very glad that it is an option that requires zero talking to activation servers or other infra.

The way they implemented this means that these Kobos can always avoid being e-waste even if Kobo disappears. Assuming they don't maliciously remove it, that is, but seeing as it was added fairly recently and is fairly obscure, I doubt they would bother doing so for current and past devices.

> And so far DIY e-reader do not seem great.

Being generous and expanding DIY to mean any "open" or "modifiable" reader, this ecosystem has actually be rapidly improving in quality and selection recently. A few new devices were announced recently, and I'm particularly interested in the new M5Stack offering since it has a frontlight and LoRA.

https://liliputing.com/lilbits-more-phone-sized-e-ink-gadget...

I wish I could recommend any Android-based readers, but the software ecosystem for them is quite poor. I would immediately purchase one if they offered a verifiably-clean AOSP or LineageOS option.

Pfhortune··on Rakuten Kobo returns to U.S. retail as sales double
https://qtekfun.com/random-stuff/bypass-kobo/

This guide is for a kobo that is already set up, but the procedure is mostly the same from step 5 onwards for a new device.

The only step that I think is missing from this guide is that you have to select a language before connecting the Kobo via USB, in my experience. Mass storage mode should work once you have picked a language.

I also did the same on a factory reset, used Libra Color, and that worked well. On that device I had to do some trickery to get the notes feature to work, which I think involved loading up some dictionary files. I can't readily find the guide I followed for that.

---

Edit: I'll also note here that this setup works flawlessly with Calibre! It is detected and syncs easily!

Pfhortune··on Rakuten Kobo returns to U.S. retail as sales double
I love that Kobos can still be set up completely offline. At the setup screen you can mount the device, set a flag in the config file, unmount/reboot, and boom, it's ready for your books.

My Clara BW is my daily driver. As much as I'd like to use an open reader, their rendering and screen quality are still not quite as polished as the corpo options.

Pfhortune··on GrapheneOS project: pixel 11 no longer supports hardware memory tagging (MTE)
Feeling like my Pixel 9 Pro was the best timed hardware buy I've made in recent years.

The 10 dropped the physical SIM slot and Google started with their device tree shenanigans that year, with little to no improvements in exchange.

I've got 16GB of RAM and 512GB in an ecosystem that shows every sign of regressing in capacities due to component price inflation.

Very interested to see what Motorola does next year, however.

Pfhortune··on Devices with GrapheneOS support should be available in 2027
New tablet support is very compelling! The Pixel tablet hardware is... passable... but Graphene on something more refined would be amazing! Especially something with a keyboard cover available (no idea if Motorola does this).
Pfhortune··on Casio F-B100W-1A
If you want a coin-cell powered watch with a couple of years battery-life, but still want notifications, the G-Shock GBD-200/300s have this feature: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCq1ei5cT_8

It's not great... but it's something?

Pfhortune··on Devices with GrapheneOS support should be available in 2027
GrapheneOS on a flip is my dream. I tried with the ZFlips a couple of times but Samsung's kitchen-sink approach is just not for me.
Pfhortune··on Fairphone is now officially available in the United States
Every time I've seen a card capacity limit like this, someone tries a bigger card and it just... works.
Pfhortune··on Fairphone is now officially available in the United States
Disappointed they don't have a wireless-charging-enabled backplate. And I was just about ready to pull the trigger...

I know wireless charging is wasteful... but I've got magsafe pucks everywhere in the house/car now... Let me have this one thing...

Pfhortune··on The applause that disrupted nothing – yet still led to an arrest
The lack of consequences for misuse of power will doom us all in the end.
Pfhortune··on Twenty-five years ago it was cryptography, today it's model weights
> The streaming services also don’t come with who knows what malware like pirated media can.

How does one put malware in media? Are we talking exploiting unlatched vulnerabilities in codecs, or are we talking random exe files?

Pfhortune··on GOG confirm they are working towards GOG Galaxy on Linux
> Have there been new games where they haven't been able to do so and offer installation solely through the GOG dekstop client?

No... but GoG does not prevent the publisher from instituting their own launcher/DRM/malware scheme. See reviews at https://www.gog.com/en/game/horizon_zero_dawn_complete_editi... and https://www.gog.com/en/game/pathfinder_wrath_of_the_righteou...

Pfhortune··on Light Flip Phone
Assuming it's like previous Light Phones, it's Android with a custom launcher and proprietary app framework.
Pfhortune··on Apple defeats liability for not scanning iCloud for CSAM
> hanks to Google efforts switching to GrapheneOS mean tons of apps either not working or break every few months.

I've been using GrapheneOS for years and that hasn't been my experience. There are two financial apps that don't work for me, and that's it. Pretty much everything else I use is fine. But, to be fair, I'm very scrupulous about my apps and tend to avoid installing an app for every little thing that wants me to.

Pfhortune··on Dumber Mini: A Nokia-Style Phone with WhatsApp and Maps
I want to love all these "alternative" phone projects but shipping Android 14 in 2026 is just a non-starter. IIRC the Sidephone also runs an old version (12 or 13). Why does this keep happening?
Pfhortune··on After wearing the Pebble Time 2 for two weeks, I'll never buy another smartwatch
I wanted to love my Garmin watches so much. I've tried a couple of Forerunners and an Instinct 2S. The hardware is great, but the software UX is so poor... I had to memorize an archaic maze of presses/long-presses to get to various features.

Just putting the watch into DnD mode required flipping through a ring of shortcuts hidden behind a long press menu. My Pebble can do this with a shortcut I assigned to a back-button long-press. Pebble's shallow-menu + shortcuts system is brilliant.

I ponder what Garmin is like in an alternate dimension where _they_ bought Pebble and used their UX chops for their own devices...

Pfhortune··on European "age verification" "app" forcing everyone to use Android or iOS
There's plenty of ways to make games outside of Roblox. Maybe they could sit down together and work through some Löve2D or Godot tutorials? No one can take that away arbitrarily
Pfhortune··on Georgia homeowners are being forced from their homes to power AI data centers
> A question is whether infrastructure needs to be built. Unfortunately, yes. Because we live in an economy that only works if things grow, we can expect life to be worse if things don’t grow.

The infinite growth beast cannot be sated. If we keep feeding our communities, populace and resources into its maw, it will still eat us all in the end.

I agree that infrastructure buildout is important, but the incentive is backwards: we need to build infrastructure for communities, not for the quarterly-growth ouroboros.

Pfhortune··on Georgia homeowners are being forced from their homes to power AI data centers
So... you would be fine with your home being leveled to make way for power lines?
Pfhortune··on Democrats Pick Up the Global Digital ID Agenda in Project 2029
Establishment Dems looking at the GOP's plummeting approval rating and looking for ways to sink their own numbers, faster.

Like cutting your own brake lines after you watched your opponent drive off the cliff in front of you.

---

Also baffling: why the hell would you take a manifestly unpopular thing, image wise, and try to make your own version of it, but liberal-er?

Pfhortune··on Apple's weird anti-nausea dots cured my car sickness
If you're like me and want an open or non-google-play alternative to these, this is available on F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/dev.davidv.motionsickness/

I can't vouch for it (yet) but am going to give it a try!

Pfhortune··on Leave Me Behind
This really resonates with me, and reminds me of all that I've missed in the years since COVID and going full remote. There's magic in a room when a mob programming session results in a breakthrough that just can't ever be replicated remotely. Not sure I'd jump to sign up for a daily commute again, especially where I live now, an hour away from a major city without traffic, but I do miss that.
Pfhortune··on Why Everyone's Picking Up a PSP Again in 2026
I fondly remember loading up a janky version of MAME that only ran Pac-Man via the newly discovered kxploit on my PSP in ~2005. That sent me down a two-decades-long road of fiddling with so many devices, making them my own.

I have huge respect for the folks who spent countless hours freeing devices like the PSP from the control of the corporations that wanted them locked down. I think we'll need a lot more of that spirit in the years ahead...

Pfhortune··on I switched from Mac to a Lenovo Chromebook
I'm interested in the hardware on this... does anyone know if this laptop can boot arm64 Linux natively? Perhaps with an alternate bootloader install?

I've read about plenty of other Chromebooks that can do that, but I can't find any info on booting Linux on this one.

ChromeOS would be so much more compelling if it could be degoogled... An Ungoogled-ChromiumOS would be amazing.

Pfhortune··on BYD overtakes Tesla and Kia as the best-selling EV brand in key overseas markets
I believe they're specifically referring to energy policy. As they said:

> massive growth in Chinese renewables while the US opens up national parks for drilling and cancels solar/wind projects

The protectees in this case are fossil fuel interests.

Pfhortune··on BYD overtakes Tesla and Kia as the best-selling EV brand in key overseas markets
Would be great if we could buy/drive these in the US. Funny how we have a "free market" only when it is convenient for certain interests...
Pfhortune··on U.S. war in Iran has cost $25B so far, says Pentagon official
[citation needed]
Pfhortune··on Microsoft and OpenAI end their exclusive and revenue-sharing deal
Humans can be held accountable. States have not yet shown the will to hold anyone accountable for LLM failures.
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