That’s why I’m driving a 1994 Geo Metro.

FWIW, Android offers a one-handed mode to shrink the available screen estate so you can reach the top of the screen with your thumb. It needs to be enabled in settings once and can then be toggled by double-tapping the home button or a swiping gesture at the bottom of the screen.
In my experience (6.1" Samsung Galaxy S2x user with slightly above-average hands) this is a good compromise between occasionally wanting to do things one-handed on the shrunken screen, and still being able to hit the right keys on the on-screen keyboard most of the time on the regular-size screen.

Bing DuckDuckGo says the iPhone has a similar feature, though I haven’t touched one in years so can’t say anything about it.

In principle it makes sense to give various electrical things in your house a way to talk to each other. For example we have a PV system with a small battery, a boiler connected to the central oil heating with a supplemental electrical heating coil and a wallbox. Before any excess sun is pushed back into the grid, our house will first charge the battery, heat our water (saving oil) and ask the car if it would like to be topped up. Additionally there are several smart power meters to keep an eye on the grid and various parts of the house. In theory we could also tell our washing machine to prefer homemade electricity, though when we want our laundry done we want it done now, so that’s not going to happen.

These are all systems from different manufacturers and need a LAN connection to talk to each other, and in some cases get other parts to do certain things in order for the system to work.
In our case that network segment is isolated from the internet, though that requires some above-average skills and dedication. Most PV owners just want a nice app with lots of shiny diagrams and can’t be arsed to set up their own IT infrastructure. Most manufacturers want the dumbest possible devices connected to a cloud solution because a) it moves most things that could break (buggy software) from the customer’s premises to them (never mind what happens if/when their cloud breaks), b) it makes it very easy for their app to access all data, c) it gives them a copy of the data, and d) it lets them sell you subscriptions.

So in a nutshell, it’s the same problem as everywhere a computer is involved - until after something really bad has happened, security is just that annoying thing that doesn’t add any value but makes things more expensive and more complicated for everyone involved.

FWIW, you can still press Shift-F10 to open a command prompt, then run oobe\bypassnro. The computer will reboot / restart the setup process and this time there’ll be a small link “I don’t have internet” that’ll allow you to set up a local account.
Just make very sure not to connect it to the internet (cable or Wi-Fi) before this point.

There have been rumours of newer versions of Windows 11 not allowing the bypass anymore, but I haven’t personally seen any evidence of this so far.

Still a shit show though - trickery like this shouldn’t be necessary.

What’s your favourite position then?

So far I’ve found most of what I’ve been looking for on www.exlibris.ch, though www.orellfuessli.ch seems quite nice as well. Normally it says in the details whether or not a particular book comes with DRM.

The DRM-free books are still digitally marked - Ex Libris will include your e-mail address in one of the first pages, and there are probably subtle differences in the text itself. I don’t mind that, though I blame the technology for the occasional annoying ‘typo’ in the book.

The chart below shows the ARS/USD exchange rate over the last five years.
The peso has been in steady decline for years, with the last big drop in December, about a week before the presidential election.

The exchange rate doesn’t tell the whole story of course, but neither does attacking Milei for dismantling Argentina’s social programs. The reason for Argentina’s ongoing problems is that the state has literally dozens (if not hundreds) of social programs that it simply cannot afford, along with regulations strangling otherwise healthy businesses. The Peronists have always ‘solved’ this problem by a) borrowing whatever they can (and then defaulting on the debt) and b) printing more money. This has unsurprisingly led to ever-increasing inflation and rampant poverty.\

The Peronist/Kirchnerist presidential candidate (Massa) planned to counter the threatening hyperinflation by printing more money for more subsidies to counter the effects of the inflation. Let that sink in for a moment.

The point is, Argentina’s current system of subsidies and handouts is not sustainable, and hasn’t been for decades. That’s not a political opinion but simple math: you cannot spend more than you earn forever.

How that problem can and should be solved is of course debatable. Milei is certainly far from an ideal president, but when you bash him, keep in mind what the alternative to him would have looked like… and maybe give him a chance to prove his critics wrong if he gets Argentina’s economy back on track, which would be something the faux-left Peronistas/Kirchnerites have failed to do for the better part of eight decades now.

(Source: xe.com)

I ue Epubor Ultimate because I never got Calibre’s de-DRM working on my machine. It’s drag&drop for Adobe Digital Editions and also works very well in the very rare cases that I want a book that’s only available on Amazon (though buying one of those still leaves a bit of a bad taste in my mouth).
A DRM-free copy of the original is still preferred though. There’s one online shop in Switzerland that has started selling more of these lately. Maybe that’s a good sign.

I should probably care about this way more than I do, but this is a fight I’ve largely given up. The ‘right’ thing to do would be to boycott all DRM-encumbered content, but that’s a fight that very few people outside of a comparatively small circle of tech idealists would even about, much less care… and boycotts have never worked for CDs, DVDs or even VHS tapes. The sad truth is that DRM does work as designed for the overwhelming majority of less tech-savvy consumers who either aren’t aware of or can’t be bothered to try alternatives.

The good news is that it’s relatively easy to remove the DRM from ebooks, especially compared to other types of media. As long as this remains possible with just a few additional mouse clicks, the status quo “works for me”. I’m all for paying the artist/author, I just don’t want the thing I’ve bought taken away from me as soon as the publisher decides to pull the plug on their DRM server.

And what I’ve noticed here in Switzerland, even though it’s non-representative and anecdotal evidence, is that more and more ebooks are sold DRM-free.

It’s as if iPhones were only able to make calls to other iPhones

Don’t give them ideas!

Yeah. I’m hardly a fan of everything he says or does, but it’s a bit like appointing a new captain an hour after the Titanic hit the iceberg, then blaming him for not stopping the ship from sinking. Argentina was well on its way to hyperinflation long before the presidential elections.

There’s actually an option to turn GMS off entirely if that’s a concern (Settings–>About–>Advanced). It comes at the cost of slightly increased battery usage. Sadly Google does have a bit of a monopoly on mainstream Android there.
Having said that, the messages themselves should never pass Google’s servers, just a packet saying “check your Threema server, there’s new stuff waiting for you.”

If that’s a concern you could also always use Threema, which has been built from the ground up to use anonymous random IDs and optionally lets you link a phone number or e-mail address to that ID. The company has also won important court cases against having to store metadata preemptively and responding to blanket requests by law enforcement.

I use VLC for the handful of streams I need regularly. In the More tab you can create launcher (home screen) shortcuts for recently viewed streams and then rearrange them into a group. It doesn’t get any more straightforward than that.

Especially with the fake “eye” it creates for you on the front of the device.

I can totally see a fringe use case for meetings etc. where you can look super attentive while daydreaming or sleeping.

I’m well aware of the difference (see my other posts). But it still means that even with the maximum fine, a revenue of 100 billion is still a revenue of 96 billion. Even with an unrealistically low profit margin of 10% it was still worth it to them.

You’re making good points and I think we’re on the same page. I agree that revenue does not equal profit, I just want the fines to be as high as possible.

I don’t know, a percentage of revenue hurts more than the same percentage of net profit. Maybe some companies need to be forced to operate at a net loss until they clean up their act.

The EU knows fines of ‘up to’ 4% of revenue for privacy violations, which means the company still gets to keep 96% of whatever it’s made by breaking the law. The fine should be a minimum of 50%, plus jail time for the managers responsible. Any punishment that does not make the shareholders cry with fury is too low and will do nothing to change the situation.

I also like RUD (rapid unscheduled disassembly).