minimalist
Joined 16 years ago
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104
Member since
Dec 11
minimalist
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Comment · 1 year ago
I suppose this means that supporting future Pixel devices will be more difficult? If someone has the ear of anyone at Google, especially someone who works with Android, please share this cause with them!
Comment · 1 year ago
Last I heard, Google discontinued publishing device trees and driver binaries for Pixel devices with their recent changes to their stewardship of the AOSP [0]. Was it something definitive or are they merely delayed? If the practice is being discontinued, what would be the reason why? Doesn't publishing these artifacts create a business case for customer demand for the Pixel devices? Or is there some cost that outweighs the benefits? Is it maintainer overhead?
I didn't bring this up when it was a news story last month because there was a lot of cynicism in the thread, but I am genuinely curious. I am really grateful for both GrapheneOS and Google for creating a phone platform that Just Works for the essential stuff and that I can reasonably recommend to non-technical people!
Comment · 1 year ago
It does not appear to be working for me right now, I get "error loading exercises".
What are your thoughts about the wger project [0]? It is a FLOSS AGPL-licensed self-hosted fitness/workout/nutrition manager that has existed for almost a decade (I think?) It's a django app and has a companion flutter app that runs on android/ios/windows/linux/macos. It supports multiple users and could even be used to run a gym. Body.build [1] is a newer FLOSS project (also browser-based) that is focused around building a weight lifting program. The author of body.build also contributes to wger.
I'm using wger in my homelab and while there are a lot of moving pieces to the self-host process, it works well. I'd say the biggest limitation is the comprehensiveness of their exercise database, but that is something that many people have recognized and are steadily expanding. If anyone is willing to contribute exercises (and exercise media) to this AGPL licensed project, they would definitely appreciate it!
Comment · 1 year ago
Please, I don't want to come on to HN to see politics injected into everything. Stay on reddit for that.
I logged in to make a comment regarding something within my area of expertise: the technology present in the parent link and how this technology has been accessible to hobbyists for over 10 years.
Comment · 1 year ago
> Not to make everything political... [proceeds to make a political statement]
For what it's worth, this type of Lidar scanner was possible to make well over a decade ago with ROS1, a Phidgets IMU, a webcam, and a lidar pulled out of a Neato vacuum (the cheapest option at the time). This would be around the difficulty of a course project for an undergraduate robotics class and could be done with less than 200 USD of salvaged parts (not including the computer). Hugin was also around over a decade ago.
It's still a nice little project!
Comment · 2 years ago
Thank you for the excellent reply! I think I understand now... Once a business starts transacting in things other than a single type of money (say durable goods, consumables, services, or say other types of money) it becomes necessary to reconcile these non-money-denominated accounts. And for that, you need more than a single database, or single spreadsheet. You need a suite of persons or softwares that can __account__ for these stocks and flows, and the rules that come along with them.
And that is called ERP, of which "simple" money accounting is but one component of.
So root commenter's objection was more along the lines of: "those are some bold claims for mere money-accounting program. if you used a _real_ accounting program (as in an ERP) then you'd understand how complex peoples' needs can be". And the tone they phrased it elicited the downmods :)
I guess I understand. I still admire the OP and the frustration that fueled their desire to create a tool that works for them. And the tone of the readme is very endearing, it reminds me of the things my IRC friends would say to kick-off a lively discussion...
And so it has!
Comment · 2 years ago
Please elaborate more, my friend! Let's say that I was^W am a programmer who is seduced by the plain-text accounting / one-database-is-all-you-need notion and I think my needs will be simple, as I can keep the business of my bodega all in the RAM of my brain... Or at least I think I can.
How can this go wrong? What are some of the needs that compel the bodega owner to move on to more sophisticated tools? Is it because of calculating things like taxes and hourly rates and the like?
Comment · 2 years ago
Like the other commenters have mentioned, if the premise is to prevent the child from going online, I am not sure if I agree with this approach...
But to answer your question as stated: it looks like the Sony Walkman models NWZ-Z1040/Z1050/Z1060 runs (ran?) android and has a GPS receiver, but no cellular capability.
https://helpguide.sony.net/gbmig/44361551/v1/eng/contents/07...
I can't find any newer Walkmans that have GPS receivers, but you might want to look there. I know everyone is telling you to use a old phone, but I am sure that you can find a device to suit your needs. Good luck!
(If you are handy, you can also use an old phone, open it up, and physically destroy the antennas, although this might hurt the battery life if the firmware decides to crank up the transmission power to maximum, if it cannot "see" any networks or towers).
But for maximum street cred, I'd go with two devices: a 'vintage' mp3 player and a 'vintage' or rugged GPS receiver. The more obscure the better. Those things are cool now!
Edit: The Garmin iQue were also Palm PDAs that had a GPS receiver and a headphone jack. They also look pretty rad and turn-of-the-century :) But remember, at some point children establish their own tastes and identities partially defined /against/ their parents, so just because you might think that something is cool doesn't mean that they would.
Comment · 2 years ago
Just for everyone's reference, there is a rich community of third-party packages [0] ("apps") and launchers for rM and rM2, so it's possible to add on any number of sync (syncthing), encryption (gocrpytfs), epub (koreader), web browsing (netsurf), vnc (vnsee), wacom driver and more. The user get's root shell access from the beginning, and you can automate all sorts of things using systemd and standard shell utilities.
The out-of-the-box software may be a bit barebones for some power users, but you can certainly add-on the functionality that you desire.
Comment · 2 years ago
I don't like being negative, but I feel like I am obligated to pipe up every time I see Onyx products hit the front page here[0], because I was one of the people who politely requested that Onyx abide by the terms of the licenses for the Free Software that they use in their products. To this day, they refuse to do so.
- Onyx still doesn't release kernel sources for their products.
- Onyx still uses outdated and vulnerable builds of Android, with questionable settings such as disabling SELinux
- Their devices are very chatty back to servers in the PRC. And their privacy policies are pretty bad (and by bad, I mean non-existant! [1])
- Their digitizer API is not very documented and difficult to build off of, so claims of being friendly to 3rd party developers are overblown.
- They shut down their support forums when the chorus of disgruntled customers began to get too loud
And even worse, they are using claims of "anti-China movement" as an excuse to not comply with the GPL [2].
Please, we've got to stop shilling this company's products with these affiliate-link blogs. They seem completely opposed to the hacker 'ethos' of this site. Otherwise, why not also shill the hundreds of Oppo or Honor or Huawei phones being released every year?
Edit: To give a positive remark, I recommend the reMarkable tablet. It's what I purchased after I sold my onyx tablet. It runs linux and they give you root access out of the box! There is a vibrant community of people developing programs for the rM and even running other linux distros on the device.
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21041543
[1]: https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/onyx-bo...
[2]: https://old.reddit.com/r/Onyx_Boox/comments/hsn7kx/onyx_usin...
Comment · 2 years ago
How cool! I have over a decade of notes taken in xournal and other digital tablets and was considering taking a short sabbatical to type them all out. Might not need to after all! I will definitely try this.
Comment · 2 years ago
It's just linux under the hood and they give you root access. So you can install anything that you can compile, and you have access to all the compiled packages in entware [0].
For sync, I have wireguard and syncthing. For backups, I use rsync. For epubs, I have koreader. I even installed netsurf for fun, but I don't use it often. I was even using gocryptfs at one point, but that workflow kept breaking with updates so I stopped using that.
All of the tablets that I have seen perform handwriting recognition via a cloud service, so that doesn't interest me and I haven't come across any local solutions for rM (although it's been over a year since I last checked).
It's an unusually nice experience for such an open platform.
Comment · 2 years ago
Every now and again, I see stories about Onyx and their tablets pop up and I have to dust off this old comment of mine [0]. I've since sold the tablet and picked up a remarkable that I am very happy with and have modified in many ways.
Long story short: - Onyx still doesn't release kernel sources
- Onyx still uses outdated and vulnerable builds of Android, with questionable settings such as disabling SELinux
- Their devices are very chatty back to servers in the PRC.
- Their digitizer API is still hostile to developers.
- They shut down their support forums when the chorus of disgruntled customers began to get too loud
And even worse, they are using "anti-China movement" as an excuse to not comply with the GPL. This company is shit and no one should give them any money. And yet, all of these "review sites" (full of every kind of affiliate link imaginable) can't help themselves from riding the gravy train of free product from this company.
Edit: And then there are large threads like this [2] where people recognize all the problems and try to "secure" their devices. （ ´_ゝ`）
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21041543
[1]: https://old.reddit.com/r/Onyx_Boox/comments/hsn7kx/onyx_usin...
[2]: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?s=64718a04c...
Comment · 2 years ago
Yes, second to the archiving mail by year advice.
Also switching over to maildirs (which is a one-time inconvenience) means that you can share the same maildir with mu et al. Sharing your maildir is definitely not supported though! :)
Comment · 2 years ago
Hold on there friend. I use Thunderbird on desktop and have used it for nearly two decades across Windows, Mac, and Linux. I love it! It's extensible, has excellent plugins that Outlook will never have, and I can synchronize my settings across computers and it Just Works. Also using Outlook on my work machine takes a second to delete emails and it does all sort of weird behaviors like deleting emails when I accept a calendar invitation.
I've used K-9 on Android and while I liked it, I choose to not receive email on my phone. I do recommend it to non-technical family and friends, and it "Just Works" for them.
The idea that K-9 is "transforming into Thunderbird" sounds utterly fine and dandy to me.
How about we count our blessings and celebrate that FOSS software continues to give us options. Remember how the future of the project was looking uncertain a few years ago? Free Software is a community effort, consider contributing to the effort [0]!