Plastics: What’s Recyclable - NPR. Nice guide.

Librem 5 August Update Looks like they are making huge progress! Couple of things from looking at the screen-shots: 1. it appears you can import contacts from online sources, 2. Calendar app switch is shown in settings.

humourless void

Watch the video: Piers Morgan is not wrong Liberals have become illiberal. This is a totalitarian thought process.

It’s a sort of mob rule, driven largely by social media pile-ons. It is akin to the mentality of the Reign of Terror only without the guillotines. What’s worse is the the liberals are not just feeding on conservatives and populists (who continue to be mean), they are feeding on themselves.

I’ve had a Librem 5 Linux phone on pre-order since 2017, and they hope to finally ship it in Q3 of 2019. That’s Real Soon Now.

I also have a iPhone XR which is only a couple of months old that I like alot. I feel the need to put my money where my mouth is and support the privacy based Librem 5 effort. The catch is, I know the Librem 5 is not going to be able to fully replace my iPhone when first delivered. (I think it might lack a calendar app at first and I need that and the calendar needs to sync across numerous devices.)

The Librem 5 should come with enough apps and functions to make it roughly comparable to the very first iPhone (2007): Phone, SMS, Web Browser, email, weather, camera, contacts and maybe a few more. For everything else I’m going to have to rely on the web browser and HTML5 web apps. Web apps are fine for a lot of things but they don’t quite handle notifications quite as well as a dedicated app.

Fortunately, the Librem 5 will launch with an app store so third party app developers can quickly make their new apps available to all users.

I’m already making mental notes of apps I use on my iPhone and web equivalents I can replace them with:

*Twitter - actually I like the web app interface on Twitter so no loss there.

*Apple News - web versions of MSN News, NewsNow.co.uk, BBC News.

*Notes - I don’t see any mention of a note app, but I have to believe somebody will come up with a note app fairly quickly. Simplenote’s web interface might work.

*Rain Gauge - (a doppler radar measurement of how much rain has fallen at your location.) I actually use this quite a lot. I don’t expect a replacement to ever be available. :-(

*Apple Maps - (or any map Nav app) Not at first. They show a Maps icon but I’m told it does not really do navigation. The work around might be DuckDuckGo search engine, which uses Apple Maps. I’m not sure if it does turn by turn navigation. I don’t use Navigation very much, but when you need it it is darn nice to have on demand.

*Wunderground Weather - there is an HTML5 version. It’s not quite as good as the iPhone app but it should do.

*PDF reader - I do get a lot of PDF’s as attachments. I’m hoping the Librem will be able to open them for reading. It will be Real Annoying if I can’t.

*Calendar - there is a web version of Google Calendar. Maybe it will do or maybe it will be Real Annoying. This is a must have for business users and me. My work flow is to enter appointments into my Phone and it syncs with Google Calendar to all my devices. Google may be a privacy liability on this but it just works, were all others have failed so I’m keeping it for now.

I’ll still miss things like Kobo Reader, Amazon, Aldi app, etc., but I can make do. Plus I doubt the Librem will ever sync with my cars. I still think it’s important to get Linux really working on Phones (tablets too) and break the Android and iOS monopoly. If Librem 5 fails and turns out to be nothing more than an expensive toy, I can always switch back to my iPhone.

All this, initial, reliance on HTML5 web apps puts great responsibility on the web browser. Librem 5 is using a modified version of Gnome browser (aka Epiphany) which is light weight and probably good enough for a phone, IF it can handle passwords properly. Hopefully, Firefox browser will get ported over someday.

If the Librem 5 is to be a success, they need to emulate the launch of the first iPhone. A phone is a critical piece of gear in peoples lives, downtime is unacceptable, it has to just work right out of the box.

Notes from the Center: re. Climate Change: While I don’t like factory cattle farming, I’m not ready for a future of eating tofu and vat grown meat.

For the record: I’m not a fan of stucco as an architectural material.

The World War II warbirds are back. Every year they fly out of the county airport and pass overhead at my house while selling rides. B-24 Liberator, B-17 Flying Fortress and a B-25 Mitchell. I never get tired of seeing them fly or hearing the distinct sound of those big radial engines.

Take note: In case you missed it, the Tea Party is dead. Trump undoing Tea Party era spending agreements. Also record deficit spending by Trump and Congress and not one peep out of the Tea Party supporters.

Cool: I just spotted a biplane flying overhead. That’s not something you see everyday.

St. Paul Places Poetry at Residents’ Feet I like this idea, of stamping poetry into sidewalks. Short quotes from literature would also work. Why not add a bit of whimsy and serendipity to a sidewalk?

Comcast internet is down today for about a third of my neighborhood. Without internet, I forgot to be outraged about everything and anything.

Ethiopia bids to break tree-planting record to tackle climate change I’ve started reading up on Reforestation and Afforestation and I think they have a lot of merit in tackling climate change if done right. It will certainly help developing countries like Ethiopia and developed countries restore historic forest cover plus provide timber resources for future genrations. Again, if done right, I see few downsides.

I always wanted to plant a forest.

Journalists investigating Russia targeted by cyberattacks: ProtonMail

Reading through the Archaeology News at NewsNow.co.uk is so peaceful. No Trump, political, Brexit nonsense, just scientists digging up remains of people slaughtered thousands of years ago and their kit.

Reading: The Dark Iceland Series by Ragnar Jonasson. Mystery/Crime/Thriller

Normally I avoid Nordic Noir crime novels. Sorry but I just find the subgenre to bleak, to dark and to damn depressing. But I’ve been rewarded by giving these books a try. The difference here is that the author, Ragnar Jonasson, has translated 14 Agatha Christie novels into Icelandic and he has incorporated lessons learned from Christie about setting, and characters into his contemporary crime thrillers. So what we have is a sort of fussion of Nordic Noir with Agatha Christie set in contemporary Iceland. To me this keeps the Nordic penchant for darkness and loss at bay enough that I’m enjoying these novels.

I give them a solid 4 out of 5 stars. If you like Nordic Noir, you’ll like these. If you like Agatha Christie you might want to try “Snowblind” the first novel in the series, just don’t expect it to be cozy.

I just got the MMR vaccination. I’m too old to have gotten it as part of standard childhood vaccinations and I certainly don’t want to get measles as an adult so I figure it’s cheap insurance.

Democratic Front Runners Update By John C. Dvorak, July 12, 2019

I don’t generally agree with Dvorak, but he makes some good points here especially about the 2016 election but also about Hillary.

Putting pigs in the shade: the radical farming system banking on trees | John Vidal | The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/13/pigs-radical-farming-system-trees-climate-crisis?utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=twt_gu&utm_medium=&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1563007238

New England Is Crisscrossed With Thousands of Miles of Stone Walls By the middle of the 19th Century, New England was 70 percent cleared, primarily for farming. Slowly fields were abandoned and the forest grew back leaving thouseands of miles of abnadoned stone walls running through them.

Does anyone have any pointers to good, useful online resources (forums, blogs, groups newsletters) about How to self-publish? I’m trying to seperate wheat from chaff here.

Old news but worth repeating Former Mozilla exec: Google has sabotaged Firefox for years ZDnet.com

Dear Democratic Presidential Candidates: Social networks are not the real world.

What the Declaration of Independence Said and Meant by Randy Barnett (Reason.com)

The assumption of natural rights expressed in the Declaration of Independence can be summed up by the following proposition: “First comes rights, then comes government.”

Source: Khurt Williams: Island in the Net with thanks.

I know it is no longer fashionable to have statues of great people in our public spaces in America. But I would like to see more statues of Frederick Douglass in our parks and squares. A lot more.

• Diet Orange Crush does not have the bite I remember from regular Orange Crush. That was decades ago so my memory might be off or my taste buds have changed.

• Diet Sprite is no longer called “Diet”. Tastes funny. It’s called Zero Sugar or some such. Tastes funny.

• I always preferred old time 7-Up before they ruined it, decades ago, by making it taste more like Sprite.

• I miss Canfield’s pop. Particularly 50/50 and their Root Beer. People outside of Chicagoland won’t understand.

• Canada Dry Ginger Ale (both regular and diet) is still being made. Yay!

• Most of the good root beer brands have disappeared from the shelves. What’s with that?