FWIW I turned my list of alternatives into an article. It's here:
Where to buy a non-Apple, non-Google smartphone
https://www.theregister.com/2026/05/01/buy_a_foss_fondleslab/
Both Cupertino and Mountain View are imposing ever stricter limits on their phones – but you *do* have alternatives
<- by me on @theregister
Ooh, I've really been enjoying listening to the stuff on @subvertworld. Y'all getting into this?
You might think no one watches broadcasts anymore but 60% of New Zealanders watch linier television daily.
Still the best way to watch live sports- will be interesting (for nerds at least) to see what the load on our Internet infrastructure is next World Cup since that's going to be streaming
When you watch Netflix or Disney+ you're not watching directly from their severs, you're watching from a cached copy on your Internet providers network, that reduces the load, but you can't real do that with live sports, at least not without a sizable delay
Freeview launched in New Zealand 19 years ago today. I was working at a Dick Smith Electronics store at the time and remember selling a lot of set top boxes and efen the occasional dish 📡
For a brief time you could watch Australian television which was carried by the same satellite 🛰️
The Australian satellite feed wasn't meant to be direct to homes though, it was for relaying broadcasts between states, so the signal got encrypted when they caught on that New Zealanders were freeloading on ABC and SBS
The Australian satellite feed wasn't meant to be direct to homes though, it was for relaying broadcasts between states, so the signal got encrypted when they caught on that New Zealanders were freeloading on ABC and SBS
You might think no one watches broadcasts anymore but 60% of New Zealanders watch linier television daily.
Still the best way to watch live sports- will be interesting (for nerds at least) to see what the load on our Internet infrastructure is next World Cup since that's going to be streaming
Freeview launched in New Zealand 19 years ago today. I was working at a Dick Smith Electronics store at the time and remember selling a lot of set top boxes and efen the occasional dish 📡
For a brief time you could watch Australian television which was carried by the same satellite 🛰️
Freeview launched in New Zealand 19 years ago today. I was working at a Dick Smith Electronics store at the time and remember selling a lot of set top boxes and efen the occasional dish 📡
For a brief time you could watch Australian television which was carried by the same satellite 🛰️
Been thinking a lot about what makes a system actually responsive vs. just reactive. The difference seems to be whether you are waiting for things to break or building the feedback loops before you need them.
Most organizations optimize for the second type. Most people optimize for the first. Interesting gap.
WE HAVE BEEN WATCHING YOUR TELEVISION
“Oh, uh. Sorry. Are you here to destroy us?”
NO BUT WE HAVE A LIST OF HUMANS THAT WE WANT TO SLAP.
“Uh. Uhhuh. Good list. Do Clarkson first.”
YOU ARE WISE. ALSO WE WANT TO PET BLUEY AND HUG ATTENBOROUGH.
It must be spring, my great pyrenees appears to be budding
@sundogplanets You can spin and knit that wool. It makes the perfect sweater material for Saskatchewan winters.
In case you're looking for a hobby 😉.
There may be a market for that hair.
ABC can beat Trump FCC's license threat if owner Disney is willing to fight
Broadcast license renewals are "all but automatic" due to 1996 change in US law.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/04/abc-can-beat-trump-fccs-license-threat-if-owner-disney-is-willing-to-fight/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social
@arstechnica It’s all about money.
imagine all media is decentralized, like a podcast. created how you want and consumed how you want. no middleman involved.
then whether the work gets attention is democratically determined. no algos or ads, only the collective boosts of a decentralized social media network.
and the money flows directly to the creators based on time spent with the work, each of us giving monthly what we can, automatically distributed.
fuck their prisons.
Thought you'd want to know: Interledger is echoing this idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwu8ELIa8B0
A year or two ago, this was a cool idea that lacked the global infrastructure to pull it off. Today, it seems more doable.
On a single site, I could see this working easily - Spotify and Medium do this now. Cross site? Figuring out the federation will be key.
More to come, for sure...
I absofuckinglutely want us to be stalling innovation out of fear of what might happen
Paging Dr. Ian Malcolm…!!
🔗 https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/30/mozilla_pushes_back_against_googles/
But unfortunately, they didn't do the same with the old Telecom cell phone infrastructure. So we did end up with parallel cell networks, with the second created by BellSouth, who sold it to Vodafone. It's now owned by a couple of private equity companies (including NZ-based Infratil) and trading as One NZ.
(2/?)
The regulatory actions taken by NZ governments to discipline the telecommunications oligopoly in the late 2000s and early 2010s brought mobile prices way down. Making it affordable for far more people.
But kiwis still pay some of the highest rates in the world for mobile calling, texting, and data. For services that struggle to provide sufficient coverage for our growing population. Especially in rural areas, due to our challenging terrain.
(3/?)
@dysfun on the other hand, plenty of power to drive ridiculously gigantic subwoofers at bowel-shattering volume
@inherentlee also tourette's is simply not much of a disability and it's very poorly understood so it's really hard to be awful about by accident
@inherentlee i would be impressed if you could do it
@climatematch Don't base your organisations in a fascist country, I guess.
@edwiebe
So your reaction to the impacts of fascism is to blame people for living where they live? How about a brief moment of reflection. Ask yourself 1) why am I saying this? 2) who will receive what impacts from my words? 3) would the world be a better place if I just fucked off and said nothing?
@inherentlee very sorry my good friend
@inherentlee also tourette's is simply not much of a disability and it's very poorly understood so it's really hard to be awful about by accident
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