A Lovely 10C Site!

So, then, why is it that we’re expected to deal with just 8GB of RAM as a base point in far too many laptops? 8GB just isn’t enough anymore and should be the bare minimum you would want to find in even a cheaper, mid-range laptop. Time for laptop makers to stop conning us and cheaping out.

As I sit here writing this I have two apps actually open in the foreground on my PC; Firefox and Telegram Desktop. And according to Task Manager, I’m using 55% of my available memory. That’s more than 8GB of the 16GB I have available.

What’s actually using all that? Background processes from first and third-party software and from Windows 10 itself. When you click the cross to close Discord, for example, it doesn’t actually close. It operates in the background and doing so requires using system resources.

Open up Task Manager next time you’re on your PC and just have a look at how much is running. I have 62 background processes and a whopping 112 Windows processes. With no foreground apps open at all I’m using 6-7GB of RAM just having the PC turned on.

8GB RAM isn't going to cut it anymore folks and I would at least get a RAM of 32GB or 64GB as the happy zone now, forget about 16GB.

This time, however, Apple is the one on defense. Epic alleges that the iPhone maker's App Store and in-app purchase policies both violate antitrust law. At the heart of the case are arguments over whether Apple can and should exert total control over iOS and the App Store, or whether developers should be allowed to distribute apps over alternative marketplaces or simply bypass Apple's longstanding 30% commission on digital goods.

The outcome of this case could change how billions of dollars flows between tech companies and could provide hints as to how tech antitrust cases and regulations are likely to work in the coming years. Or, as often happens in these cases, it could end up much more narrow than that. And no matter what happens, there will certainly be appeals.

One of the most anticipated antitrust case in decades. Pay attention to this because it could change everything.

Though Kaminsky rose to fame in 2008 for identifying a critical design weakness in the internet's infrastructure – and worked in secret with software developers to mitigate the issue before it could be easily exploited – he had worked behind the scenes in the infosec world for at least the past two decades.

When your Register hack asked Kaminsky why he hadn't gone to the dark side and used the flaw to become immensely wealthy – either by exploiting it to hijack millions of netizens' web traffic, or by selling details of it to the highest bidders – he said not only would that have been morally wrong, he didn't want his mom to have to visit him in prison.

He did some great things and saved the internet in a few occasions. A huge loss.

To me, this is not surprising, but a sad statement on closing off the openness of podcasting and the internet, and looking to lock it up in proprietary silos. Again, there should be ways to look to expand and extend RSS to do more of the things that Mignano talks about, including experiments with monetization and better analytics. Going straight proprietary maybe both the easier path, and the obvious one for a giant company… but that doesn't mean it's good for the internet or podcasting in general.

Of course, that's only one story related to this. The other one is Apple moving in a similar direction, adding the ability for podcasts to put up paywalls via Apple's podcast system (in which Apple will keep a whopping 30% of any subscription revenue). Whether by accident or not, Apple did help popularize podcasts -- and did keep it mostly open, even when there had been other opportunities to lock up the ecosystem. It had been a good thing that Apple did not go down that path in the past. However, now it looks like it's exploring that very thing.

I understand the business and economic logic of these companies doing this, but I worry about what it really means for the future of podcasting and the wonders and benefits of an open internet.

Sadly, the answer is yes at this point. Open podcasting is in huge trouble although I hope that I'm wrong.

There’s a lot to unpack there: fake free trials, fake reviews, subscription awareness. We could write an entire story about each. Today, I’d like to focus on how one guy could find what Apple’s $64-billion-a-year App Store apparently cannot, because the answer is remarkable. You simply look at the apps that are making the most money. Then, you find ones where the user reviews are suspicious and look for ridiculously high subscription prices.

I'm glad Jon Ossoff mentioned that Verge piece on scams on app stores.

RMS acknowledges that he has made mistakes. He has sincere regrets, especially at how anger toward him personally has negatively impacted the reputation and mission of FSF. While his personal style remains troubling for some, a majority of the board feel his behavior has moderated and believe that his thinking strengthens the work of the FSF in pursuit of its mission.

The FSF board will continue to pursue additional ideas and actions designed to improve transparency and accountability.

Welp, the FSF is officially a lost cause as they have decided to allow RMS to be his toy. Fuck them. We need replacements ASAP.

We want payments in Signal to be fast, private, and work well on mobile devices. The first payments protocol we’ve added support for is a privacy focused payments network called MobileCoin, which has its own currency, MOB.

Signal Payments makes it easy to link a MobileCoin wallet to Signal so you can start sending funds to friends and family, receive funds from them, keep track of your balance, and review your transaction history with a simple interface. As always, our goal is to keep your data in your hands rather than ours; MobileCoin’s design means Signal does not have access to your balance, full transaction history, or funds. You can also transfer your funds at any time if you want to switch to another app or service.

Welp, It's really a shame that Signal is heading this way. Cryptocurrency and blockchain are overhyped and unproven and this will make it even more difficult to recommend Signal now.

I feel the matrix protocol is truly the way to go for encrypted, decentralized, and open source messaging.

As you'll probably know, this case began in 2010 when Oracle, which had just taken over Sun, sued Google for patent infringement. The patent parts were quickly tossed out and what remained was what referred to as a "sideshow" to the main event: a question about whether APIs could be covered by copyright. Pretty much all historical evidence, including an important Supreme Court ruling from the 1990s, said no, interfaces are not covered by copyright.

Oracle and friends then spent the next decade deliberately gaslighting basically everyone who doesn't understand what an API is, and insisting that it's the same as executable code. The district court, under Judge William Alsup, who somewhat famously taught himself Java to better understand the issues in the case (he already knew how to code and was a hobbyist programmer), correctly found that APIs are not subject to copyright as they represent a "system or method of operation" which is explicitly not covered by copyright, as per Section 102(b) of the Copyright Act.

Rather than go to the 9th Circuit (as it should have) the case went to the Federal Circuit, which hears all patent appeals. That was because the case began as a patent case, even though it no longer was. CAFC judges are somewhat infamous for never finding a patent issue they couldn't screw up, and decided to extend that to copyright. In the ruling overturning the lower court, they made it clear that because they were code illiterate they could not understand the difference between executing code and an API, even though it's like the difference between a novel and a dictionary.

The case went back to the district court, where the jury this time sided with Google, this time saying that the use of the code was covered under fair use. That whole trial was a little weird, because reading between the lines, you could see that nearly all the arguments for why copying an API was fair use were really about why an API shouldn't be covered by copyright at all (as per Alsup's original ruling) and then squeezing that square peg into the round hole of fair use to make it work. Once again, however, CAFC got flummoxed by an API looking like code and overturned -- which is quite crazy because CAFC had, in its first ruling, insisted that the jury should decide this issue (as a matter of fact) and then when the jury said "fair use" CAFC suddenly decided that it was a matter of law that it could overrule.

Finally, we get to the Supreme Court. From oral arguments, it wasn't clear where the court was leaning -- with some good questions and some crazy questions. But with today's ruling, it's clear that the smarter questioners won out. The majority opinion was written by Justice Breyer, who has always been the best Justice on copyright issues, and had the support of Justices Roberts, Kagan, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Sotomayor.

This is a HUGE WIN for software development, and this decade plus long fight is finally over. Mike Masnick with some good analysis on what went down today, including some tidbits from the decision.

This is not one of those tech acquisitions where the company is bought to be shut down. Unsplash will continue to operate as a standalone brand and division of Getty Images. The entire Unsplash team will be staying and building Unsplash in the direction we have been. The main difference now is we have access to the resources and experience of Getty Images to help accelerate our plans to create the world’s most useful visual asset library.

It's really a shame that they sold their soul to the devil known as Getty, I advice you to delete your account if you use it. Getty has a long history of not treating photographers with respect in terms of rights and the terms are usually bad. Plus Unsplash has been an amazing source of free images (quasi public domain stuff for example) that I use some of them for research work and reference reasons and the Getty takeover feels like a death sentence for them which is sad. Can clearly see them shut it down eventually. :(

TenFourFox FPR32 will be the last official feature parity release of TenFourFox. (A beta will come out this week, stay tuned.) However, there are still many users of TenFourFox — the update server reports about 2,000 daily checkins on average — and while nothing has ever been owed or promised I also appreciate that many people depend on it, so there will be a formal transition period. After FPR32 is released TenFourFox will drop to security parity and the TenFourFox site will become a placeholder. Security parity means that the browser will only receive security updates plus certain critical fixes (as I define them, such as crash wallpaper, basic adblock and the font blacklist). I will guarantee security and stability patches through and including Firefox 93 (scheduled for September 7) to the best of my ability, which is also the point at which Firefox 78ESR will stop support, and I will continue to produce, generate and announce builds of TenFourFox with those security updates on the regular release schedule with chemspills as required. There will be no planned beta releases after FPR32 but Tenderapp will remain available to triage bugfixes for new changes only.

I'm proud of what we've accomplished. While TenFourFox was first and foremost a browser for me personally, it obviously benefited others. It kept computers largely useable that today are over fifteen years old and many of them even older. In periods of a down economy and a global pandemic this helped people make ends meet and keep using what they had an investment in. One of my favourite reports was from a missionary in Myanmar using a beat-up G4 mini over a dialup modem; I hope he is safe during the present unrest.

Write "thank you" and mean it. Acknowledge the costs in time and money to bring it to you. Tell me what's good about it and what you use it for. That's how you create a relationship where I can see you as a person and not a demand request, and where you can see me as a maintainer and not a vending machine. Value my work so that I can value your insights into it.

This is Cameron's work for many years and sad to see this go. Been one hell of a good run.