It’s been the way of things lately … smartphone, smart home, smartwatch, wearable tech, machine learning … so much wasted potential. And even if you build your own solution without big tech, almost none of the people you know will do the same, often even if you literally give it to them for free.
Ever since it was pointed out to me that every new tech solution from the bigger companies can draw a direct line to “how will it benefit the military”, I’ve been far, far less interested in pretty much all of it.
Even with something like smart glasses you can see how users can be used as beta testers to get the product shrunk down to something a country’s military can use to wield power. Pretty much everything Elon Musk has a hand in falls into that category. The Cybertruck looks and is fucking stupid, but it’s useful to Tesla as a development platform for a replacement for the Hummer. They don’t give a shit what regular folks think about it as long as they can build on it to sell $bns worth to the US military. Starlink and SpaceX are the same.
About the only company that doesn’t seem to be actively walking that path is fucking Apple. They seem to be content stealing making a shitload of cash from RAM and storage upgrades to devices that people are only buying because their six year old, £2000 MacBook is now considered obsolete. And coercing everyone to lock into their platform across all of their devices.
The first version was, but you can bet your arse that Elon got chatting to some high ups in the Department of Defence when he was given access to the White House, and you can bet that the research they’ve done into making an all terrain vehicle (of sorts) is groundwork for a mk2 that could feasibly be put to use in a war zone.
I’m not saying it’s a guarantee, but you and I both know that it’s the logical end goal for pretty much all of the big tech companies right now. Get in on a lucrative military contract that’s going to rake in the cash for a decade to come. And that cash will be far more than just selling to broke civvies.
Yeah. I even installed GrapheneOS on my phone, but I have such a distaste for smartphones at this point that I barely do anything with it beyond basic necessities. TBH I don’t know what I’ll do for my next phone, I don’t want to keep buying into this ecosystem, but Fairphone or the various Linux phone attempts are expensive and I need a little more features than what a “dumb phone” provides.
I wouldn’t call laptops “smart”, though. It’s too easy to install Linux on them.
I love running Graphene, I really do. But I’ve been on it for 18 months now, and it’s getting real tiring trying to load up another app that’s updated and now won’t work without permission from the Play Store.
I have no interest in going back to iPhone, not now I’ve tasted the freedom of Android, and have absolutely no taste for using Google’s brand of Android. So I guess I’ll just keep using Graphene in the fervent hope that all of the websites I have to use will continue to be accessible if you can’t use the app.
Fairphone is good, yes, but it’s also like 500€, and that’s too much for a phone IMO - I’m not saying that they’re not worth it, but that’s a lot of money for something that’s so easily lost or broken. Even factoring in Fairphone’s superior repairability, it’s a hard sell for me.
Haven’t looked into Jolla for a while. But these are the first two sentences on their website:
Jolla is a Finnish company specializing in privacy-first OS and Edge AI solutions. Founded in 2011, we continue the legacy of Nokia and MeeGo, driving mobile innovation into the human-centric AI era.
Can’t say this inspires much confidence. Probably still better than Google Pixel, though, so I’m going to look into that some more.
It’s been the way of things lately … smartphone, smart home, smartwatch, wearable tech, machine learning … so much wasted potential. And even if you build your own solution without big tech, almost none of the people you know will do the same, often even if you literally give it to them for free.
Ever since it was pointed out to me that every new tech solution from the bigger companies can draw a direct line to “how will it benefit the military”, I’ve been far, far less interested in pretty much all of it.
Even with something like smart glasses you can see how users can be used as beta testers to get the product shrunk down to something a country’s military can use to wield power. Pretty much everything Elon Musk has a hand in falls into that category. The Cybertruck looks and is fucking stupid, but it’s useful to Tesla as a development platform for a replacement for the Hummer. They don’t give a shit what regular folks think about it as long as they can build on it to sell $bns worth to the US military. Starlink and SpaceX are the same.
About the only company that doesn’t seem to be actively walking that path is fucking Apple. They seem to be content
stealingmaking a shitload of cash from RAM and storage upgrades to devices that people are only buying because their six year old, £2000 MacBook is now considered obsolete. And coercing everyone to lock into their platform across all of their devices.Then why was it built like complete shit? Like there is not a single thing about the CT to be modified for miltary abuse.
The tesla semi has vastly more chance of being modifed for miltary use.
The first version was, but you can bet your arse that Elon got chatting to some high ups in the Department of Defence when he was given access to the White House, and you can bet that the research they’ve done into making an all terrain vehicle (of sorts) is groundwork for a mk2 that could feasibly be put to use in a war zone.
I’m not saying it’s a guarantee, but you and I both know that it’s the logical end goal for pretty much all of the big tech companies right now. Get in on a lucrative military contract that’s going to rake in the cash for a decade to come. And that cash will be far more than just selling to broke civvies.
I mean. The miltary has been known for funding crockpot ideas. Rather or not it actually ever gets into real production.
Also, you know Elon already has miltary contracts right? With SpaceX?
For that reason I try to not buy anything ‘smart’.
The only things ‘smart’ I keep are my laptop and my phone, and I keep a hammer nearby in case they make odd sounds.
Nice callback
Yeah. I even installed GrapheneOS on my phone, but I have such a distaste for smartphones at this point that I barely do anything with it beyond basic necessities. TBH I don’t know what I’ll do for my next phone, I don’t want to keep buying into this ecosystem, but Fairphone or the various Linux phone attempts are expensive and I need a little more features than what a “dumb phone” provides.
I wouldn’t call laptops “smart”, though. It’s too easy to install Linux on them.
I love running Graphene, I really do. But I’ve been on it for 18 months now, and it’s getting real tiring trying to load up another app that’s updated and now won’t work without permission from the Play Store.
I have no interest in going back to iPhone, not now I’ve tasted the freedom of Android, and have absolutely no taste for using Google’s brand of Android. So I guess I’ll just keep using Graphene in the fervent hope that all of the websites I have to use will continue to be accessible if you can’t use the app.
Fairphone is good tbh, the big issue imo is that compared to GOS its security is seriously lacking.
You could go for a Jolla community phone, perhaps? That one runs Linux through Sailfish OS.
Fairphone is good, yes, but it’s also like 500€, and that’s too much for a phone IMO - I’m not saying that they’re not worth it, but that’s a lot of money for something that’s so easily lost or broken. Even factoring in Fairphone’s superior repairability, it’s a hard sell for me.
Haven’t looked into Jolla for a while. But these are the first two sentences on their website:
Can’t say this inspires much confidence. Probably still better than Google Pixel, though, so I’m going to look into that some more.
almost forgot, but here’s also a whole ass list I made of things and services made, owned, and/or based in Europe!
for the phone OS stuff, check out this one
as far as i know the ai part from jolla is not integrated into their phones but they sell an ai-pc or something where you can selfhost a llm with.