FuzzyRedPanda

It deeply saddens me when people pay money for locked down hardware that’s not only designed to spy on them, but their family, friends, and neighbors as well. Ring, Amazon Echo, Google Home, that creepy Facebook robot screen…all insecure spyware.

“I don’t care if his name is Tux – get him out of here!”

Wow that is awful. I hope that never happens to you!

Just curious: why do you use a vpn for gaming?

Sony’s Xperia phones are fantastic and the bootloader can be unlocked on most models (check the sony bootloader unlock webpage to check). Xperia phones have a micro sd slot, headphone jack, and physical camera shutter button. I have an Xperia 1 iii running LineageOS w/microG and it’s fantastic and stable. Bit of a learning curve to set it up though.

Depending on where you live, I would recommend the new Xperia 1 VI; Sony is promising support for three OS versions and four years of security updates. It’s not great but it is far better than what they previously promised with their phones.

OMG thank you I didn’t know that!

I kept pressing and holding and got annoyed that the change keyboard dialog would pop up. Pressing and moving is the secret!

Ooh in that case I may try using it for typing again. My typing accuracy on Heliboard is abysmal.

What don’t you like about HeliBoard? I have it and FUTO both installed, but I prefer HeliBoard due to its ‘hold space bar to move cursor’ option. Then I use FUTO for the occasional SpeechToText.

These companies are scraping the internet to train their models. Scraping the internet isn’t bad; we scrape the internet constantly for all kinds of data. The free and open exchange of knowledge is what the internet is for. IMO you can’t steal text, audio, or video that someone already put up on the internet to be looked at or listened to. It can be pirated or it can be scraped.

“When a new technology comes along that breaks copyright, it’s always been copyright that must change, not the technology.” - Cory Doctorow

I highly recommend Cory’s now 20-year-old speech on copyright and DRM. You can find it all over the web.

Is stealing the right word to use? Or would it be more accurate to say ‘scraping’ or ‘unauthorized use’?

Sorry you have to deal with this. I know it wasn’t in your list of options, but you could attend HOA meetings, bring up the internet issue and see if they’ll change the current setup, or you could get elected to an HOA board and start pulling the strings of change. That’s more of a long-term goal though.