One often overlooked aspect of picking a like, whatever tech thing?
Checking out the community behind it. I'm like... not rly into dealing with insecure manbabies and Linux brodudes so yeah. Being rude to ppl asking stuffs is a super big red flag.
(Kind of like, surprised I ever tried Linux tbh, community in some of those spaces is more toxic than #Overwatch.)
Why, I mean why why why do we need an app to show the ticket to Ed Sheeran's concert???
Why can't I just get the pdf instead of installing the app, create an account there and import the ticket from my online account?
Sometimes I wonder what the world is becoming. And yes, I feel like a proud boomer who regrets the old days of tech. Just send me the damned pdf!!!!
Just published a blog post tearing into hCaptcha’s so-called “accessibility” mode.
It’s not accessibility. It’s a cookie. And to get that cookie, you now have to submit your email and send a code via SMS to an U.S. phone number. It fails silently. It doesn’t confirm anything. You click “Confirm Code” and get “An error has occurred.” No cookie. No fallback. No support. And if you somehow get it? It’s a third-party cookie your browser probably blocks, and it expires. Then you get to do it all again.
Meanwhile, hCaptcha’s text-based challenge — the only mode that might actually work with a screen reader — isn’t tied to the cookie at all. It only shows up if the website owner specifically enables it. Most don’t. So even if you’re blind, even if you’re using assistive tech, you get the same unusable image grid as everyone else.
This isn’t accessibility. It’s exclusion wrapped in PR.
The blog post breaks it all down: how the cookie flow works (or doesn’t), why the system is broken by design, how developers got misled, and what real alternatives look like. If you care about accessible design or just want to understand how bad this gets, read it.
Link: https://fireborn.mataroa.blog/blog/hellcaptcha-accessibility-theater-at-its-worst/
Sorry everyone... I accidentally possessed Adam Conover
Big thanks to Ada for translating Post 1 of my blog series “I Want to Love Linux. It Doesn’t Love Me Back” — titled “Built for Control, but Not for People” — into French.
They’ll be reading it live on the radio today with Irina!
Tune in: https://p-node.org
Time: 12:12–13:30 CEST
I’m deeply honored this piece resonated enough to be shared like this.
Post 2 and the first interlude are already out — more posts to follow.
Boosts appreciated!
Tutanota — это такой сервис, который вроде как про приватность, но по факту больше про то, чтобы ты ни с кем не мог нормально взаимодействовать. Забудьте про SMTP и IMAP, это слишком небезопасно по их версии реальности. Поэтому подключить почту к своему клиенту? Нет. Сделать рассылку с CRM? Нет. Перенести архив писем на другую платформу? Ну-у-у… теоретически когда-нибудь. Зато внутри своего уютного гетто всё шифруется насмерть, а если вы хотите написать внешнему миру, то собеседник должен пройти квест с паролями и временными ссылками. Очень удобно, да. И да, сервера строго в Германии, потому что если уж быть заложником системы, то хотя бы с немецким паспортом. Tutanota — это не «почта нового поколения», это скорее почта без почты. Без протоколов, без совместимости, без вариантов. Полностью безопасно, потому что полностью изолировано. Лучше сразу голубями, там хотя бы SMTP не нужен.
#Tutanota #Email #Privacy #SecureButUseless #NoSMTP #NoIMAP #LockIn #TechRant #Encryption #DigitalPrivacy #Germany #EmailClients #WalledGarden #PrivacyMyth #UserExperience #EmailGatekeeping #BetterUsePigeons #ModernTech #PrivacyForWho #GDRPApprovedPigeons https://mastodon.social/@Tutanota/111114851022098476
Hey I'm on TV!
[TECH RANT] Don't act like you're not creative #techRant
https://podcastaddict.com/tech-rant/episode/193103819 via @PodcastAddict
Thanks @activenode for having me.
Spent better part of last night, running around the office building and borrowing HDMI capable displays. And no fucking dice (8 displays, 3 cables, and 2 DP converters tried, thus at least 48 combinations). This industrial Intel based board is just not compatible anymore with modern displays and resolutions. So how the fuck am I going to get into it's highly guarded BIOS?
Who thought that HDMI was a good idea?
Robot vacuum cleaners without LiDAR navigation are a useless piece of plastic. It’s a fact!”
Rant on IPv6 Adoption
-ESP: Necesitamos reconocer cuando las compañías de "Tecnología" promueven cualquier cosa que denominan "INTELIGENTE" es en realidad un eufemismo para VIGILANCIA y como clientes debemos RESISTIR A TODA COSTA, hacerlos admitirlo y pedirnos permiso.
-ENG: There needs to be a reckoning and admit that when "tech" companies promote anything "SMART" it's a euphemism that means SURVEILLANCE and as Customers we SHOULD RESIST AT ALL COST, make them admit it and ask our permission.
*edit
Tech companies really do take their existing users/customers for granted. Always chasing bigger numbers.
Same reason the "Sign up" button on a website is more prominent than "Log in".
This morning, a VPS hosting a small e-commerce site (powered by WooCommerce on Ubuntu 22.04) experienced another out-of-memory issue. A colleague (one of the developers) urgently called me, asking to upgrade the VPS due to excessive load.
I pointed out (again, as has often happened in recent weeks) that a VPS with 32GB of RAM (!!!) and 16 dedicated cores (!!!) should not run out of memory with just five simultaneous visits to a small e-commerce site. We host much larger and busier websites on much smaller VPSs. There's likely a WordPress module with a leak, or some interaction between modules causing this issue.
The response: Okay, but just add more RAM and power to solve it.
The illusion of "infinite resources" in the Cloud has led to poor development habits. Sometimes I wonder how much energy and resources we waste (and pollution we generate) due to a lack of basic optimization.
Just updated my Android device, and received 25 weeks worth of notifications about which bin I should be putting out.
This isn't the future I was promised.
Website van het Vlaamse Energie- en Klimaatagentschap waar men het onlogische MM/DD/YYYY formaat gebruikt.
Waarom toch?
https://apps.energiesparen.be/thuisbatterij-premie-aanvragen
Oh boy: een #SQL script met een WHILE lus die loopt over alle id's uit een tabel ipv een simpele JOIN te gebruiken...
Was ist eigentlich mit dieser Unsitte, dass inzwischen (wieder) immer mehr USB-C Docks mit diesem proprietären DisplayLink-Protokoll arbeiten statt den USB DisplayPort Alternative Mode zu benutzen?
Das eine ist (semi-offener) Standard, das andere davon abhängig, dass eine Firma nicht irgendwann den Stecker zieht.
Der absolute Endgegner sind dann Docks, die zwei Ausgänge nur über DisplayLink und einen nur über DP-Alt ansprechen. WARUM?
#techrant
Ich sags' mal wie es ist: das ganze #LineageOS #FDroid #CyanogenMOD #anyothergooglefreeos etc... Geraffel ist doch einfach funktional kaputt. Oder einfach noch nicht da wo es sein koennte. Selbst mir als technikinteressierten Halbnerd ist noch nicht gelungen, solche Alternativen recht einfach zum laufen zu bringen. Wahrscheinlich bin ich dafuer zu dumm und/oder habe die falsche Hardware dafuer 
Bleibt wohl erstmal nur ne nette Spielerei fuer Wenige.
One thing I dislike about the "new" Google Calendar is that when I click to create an event and start typing - it'll miss first three characters, because it has to play it's animations first. That didn't happen in the "old" interface. And this is a great example of aesthetics trumping utility. Argh!
#BadDesign #GoogleCalendar #TechRant
