Monthly Shaarli
May, 2021
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Via Cornucopia, Cornucopia igen.
Two wheels
Cargo bikes
- Xtracycle, extra sturdy electric bikes with longer-than-normal rear wheelbase to carry two children or lots of cargo.
- Convercycle, a bike that transforms to cargo bike, via Core77
- En informativ presentation av nätverket "Cykla med lastcykel"
Lastcykelguiden, en märkesoberoende guide till lastcyklar och lastkärror.
Peppe Hämeenniemis presentation om lastcyklar (PDF) från Cykelfrämjandets cykelträff aug 2022.
Three wheels or more
- Electric tricycle that leans into corners, a concept from BMW (not produced yet). Cargo area between the two rear wheels, and the front is able to tilt in curves. Chain-based drive mechanism that looks complicated.
This project was acquired by Alphabet in 2013 and shut down by the same in Feb 2020.
The project leaves after it this almost 2h long documentary.
https://x.company/projects/makani/
Via /u/Chris_in_Lijiang.
"People You May Know", an FT Film (18 min) written by James Graham on the challenges presented by big data and algorithms, is released today in collaboration with Sonia Friedman Productions and supported by Luminate.
This short film appears to be the continuation of a paper titled "The Data Delusion: Protecting Individual Data is Not Enough When the Harm is Collective" edited by Stanford's Cyber Policy Center (the report's author is the managing director of Luminate), which has an adjoining Q&A session.
I think the film is worth watching, but one should keep in mind who the producer is.
Luminate was funded in 2018 by the Omidyar Group, which is owned by Pierre Morad Omidyar, who founded eBay which in turn bought PayPal. So not exactly a video by the people for the people...
Despite the notion in the film and the paper, I think the call for collective action does not negate the validity of individual action. Feeling like you should do something about this whole data privacy nightmare?
Well, you can! Switch from Chrome to Firefox. Switch from WhatsApp to Signal (or even better, Matrix). Don't let the Facebook newsfeed be your window unto the world; use your own RSS feedreader instead. Be the change you want to see!
Via kottke.org
Shelter is a Free and Open-Source (FOSS) app that leverages the "Work Profile" feature of Android to provide an isolated space that you can install or clone apps into.
Another nice initiative by Aral Balkan of Small Technology Foundation.
When considering automation apps for Android, Tasker immediately comes to mind. And although it has name recognition, it's source code is proprietary and the app requires the Google Play store on the device (beyond a 7-day trial version).
So, what FOSS automation apps are there out there?
- Easer by Rui Zhao. Source on Github (449 stars, 1295 commits), F-Droid. Note that there is also a beta version of this app.
- Automation by Jens Schröder. Source on developer's Gitea instance (88 commits), F-Droid.
Other non-free automation apps for Android (not recommended)
- Tasker
- Automate by LlamaLab
- AutomateIt
- MacroDroid
- RuleBot by KF Software House (Hong Kong)
Per Alström är professor i ekologi och genetik och har i sin forskning kartlagt hela sju nya fågelarter.
There's an app that can identify bird species from their song or even by photo:
Merlin. Developed by Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and covers birds across most of the world. Thanks to Helen Fields for the tip.
Big downside - the app won't start until you provide an email address. It appears it won't continue working past five days unless the email address is confirmed. Why are you being snoopy, Cornell? Not nice.
Directories of alternatives
- https://switching.software - a list of easy-to-use alternatives to well-known software.
Ethical, easy-to-use and privacy-conscious alternatives to well-known software.
The source code for its website is published on Codeberg (meaning you can suggest changes, etc.). - https://www.privacyguides.org - lots of categories. The website itself is built from a public Github repo. Via https://mastodon.neat.computer/users/privacyguides/statuses/113002199475214098
- https://guide.yuuire.com/recommendations/software/foss-alternatives - list of open source and privacy-friendly apps. Website's source code on github
- https://divestos.org/pages/recommended_apps - F-Droid recommended apps by divestos.org.
- https://european-alternatives.eu - European alternatives for digital products.
- https://selfh.st/apps - A directory of self-hosted software.