Links of the day

I collect cool, interesting links spread all over the web and share them here every Thursday. Hope you enjoy! More of them in the archive.

How Rodrigo (it’s me!) brings a humanistic view to consumer technology. Buttondown, the service I use to manage Manual‘s newsletter and which sponsors Lerama, has a series of interviews with customers. They published mine.

LibreOffice 26.2. The usual package (performance improvements, compatibility, and bug fixes), plus support for importing and exporting Markdown.

Doppi 6.0. The new major update features a home screen with suggestions for most-played songs and new releases; widgets; and a new album view (Art Stream) reminiscent of Apple's late “Cover Flow.”

DASUNG Paperlike 103. An external E-Ink display with a 60Hz refresh rate sounds too good to be true. If you want to test it out for us, it costs USD 339.

PrivacyPack. Create your own package of free alternatives to big tech to share elsewhere. (Made by Ente.)

SFD Engine. “This tool generates and visualizes emergent behavior in complex adaptive systems.” The website's creator warns: there is no right way to interpret the results.

Comic strip. Character says to the computer: “Say ‘I am alive.’” Computer responds: “I AM ALIVE.” Character says: “Oh my God.”
Comic strip: @inpc@go.mxtthxw.art.

From Anthropic's “studies” claiming that Claude did this or that to Moltbook, a “social network for AIs” (which seems to be a lie), it's always the same story depicted in the comic strip above: people telling AI to behave in a certain way being shocked when AI behaves in that way.

Regarding Moltbook and its foundation, OpenClaw, I will limit myself* to giving one piece of advice: don't use it. The tool open the doors to your private digital life, with unpredictable consequences.

* I limit myself to this because, in my opinion, the press is doing a huge disservice by legitimizing this nonsense.

Links of the day

I collect cool, interesting links spread all over the web and share them here every Thursday. Hope you enjoy! More of them in the archive.

The TV industry finally concedes that the future may not be in 8K, Ars Technica. The realization came after LG and TCL ended production of 8K TVs. (I'm still on Full HD…)

NanoFlow i2 Air. Crowdfunding for the self-proclaimed “world’s smallest horizontal mouse.” (What would be the “world’s smallest vertical mouse”?)

Just the Browser. Configuration files to remove all the junk (AI, telemetry, advertising, integrations) from Chrome, Edge, and Firefox browsers. Requires basic command line knowledge.

Particle Flow. Using your device's camera, see a visual representation of your face and hands in the form of particles. (I only tested it on a laptop.)

The AI industry doesn’t take “no” for an answer

For days now, I've had a quote from David Bushell stuck in my head:

Has anyone else noticed that the AI industry can’t take “no” for an answer? AI is being force-fed into every corner of tech. It’s unfathomable to them that some of us aren’t interested.

David complained about receiving communications from Proton offering Lumo, its generative AI, even though he had expressly indicated that he did not want to receive such messages. The worst part is that Proton, instead of owning up to its mistake and apologizing, insisted on absurd justifications to say that there was no mistake. It only gave in when an executive got involved, and only after the post went viral.

(more…)

Links of the day

I collect cool, interesting links spread all over the web and share them here every Thursday. Hope you enjoy! More of them in the archive.

AI controls are coming to Firefox. Starting with Firefox 148, scheduled for February 24th, it will be possible to disable all or just some of the browser's AI features. Let's ignore Mozilla's insistence on this for a moment; at first glance, the implementation seems quite good.

Notepad++ has been compromised by state-sponsored hackers. For those in a hurry, the recommendation is to download version 8.9.1 and run the installer to update the app manually.

Calibre 9. The main new features are a new “bookshelf” view, which displays the spines of the books.

Loops is now the App Store. Loops is a FOSS alternative to TikTok, from the same creator of Pixelfed.

OpenTTD. A FOSS alternative to the old Transport Tycoon, maintained and modernized, but with the same vibe as in 1994. The new version, 15, was released last month.

AntiRender. Upload one of those renders of condos projects, city halls etc., and this site will search for an image from any Tuesday in November to contrast reality with what was promised.

delphitools. A collection of small online tools, or “simple handmade conveniences.” I love its aesthetics.

Why do RSS readers look like email clients?

“Why do RSS readers look like email clients?” The question was asked by Terry Godier, first on Mastodon, then in a more detailed post.

Godier dubbed the feeling of coming across hundreds of unread items “phantom obligation”: “The guilt you feel for something no one asked you to do.” This applies to so many things…

In the Mastodon comments, Brent Simmons, creator of NetNewsWire in 2002, explained that his inspiration was Usenet, not email. Usenet, a kind of discussion forum, has been around since 1980 and, yeah, it really resembles an email application.

In the same response, Simmons asks:

The part I don't understand and can't explain is why RSS readers are still following this user interface.

It's not that they don't exist, but they are few and niche.

I remembered feeeed, a free iOS app. It allows you to subscribe to a variety of information sources (including RSS feeds) and displays them in a kind of timeline, with different visuals for each type, no counters, no pressure.

I also came across Stream, which does away with counters and one of the three traditional panels of RSS readers (the feeds panel) to instead deliver a stream of items to read, like a “unified timeline.” Also for iOS, also free.

There are also small initiatives, usually undertaken by a single person and available on the web, that promise a calmer experience when reading RSS feeds. I am familiar with Artemis, FeedCity, and vore.

More examples?

What’s on your phone, Caiubi?

Editor's note: Every week, I publish the phone's home screen from a blog reader. Want to participate? Fill out this form. Want more? Check out the archive. All app links go to the App Store, Play Store, or F-Droid.

What is your name and what do you do?

My name is Caiubi Nogueira, and I have a bachelor's degree and teaching certificate in psychology. I am currently pursuing a master's degree in psychology at UFRN. In my (non) spare time, I work as a designer and motion designer.

(more…)

Links of the day

I collect cool, interesting links spread all over the web and share them here every Thursday. Hope you enjoy! More of them in the archive.

Deezer confirms demonetization of up to 85% of AI-music streams due to fraud and moves to sell AI-detection Technology. More than 60,000 AI-generated songs are already sent to Deezer *every day*, or 39% of the total. Now the French streaming service will sell its detection technology to other companies. AI generating business! (Cleaning up the mess made by AI, in this case.)

The Realme P4 Power arrives with 10,001 mAh battery and a tough chassis, GSMArena. Very cool, yes (it has more battery than my tablet with its 7,306 mAh), but what collective delusion is this to think that a 219g cell phone is light?

Google begins rolling out Chrome's "Auto Browse" AI agent, Ars Technica. Nothing new on the front, just Gemini performing web tasks for you, like all other “AI browsers.” For now, only for those who pay for Google's AI plans.

Spotify rolls out group chats, TechCrunch. Great, another app with group conversations. I’m glad they’re filling this gigantic market gap. There are days when I can’t talk to anyone, due to lack of a messaging app with groups. Thank you, Spotify.

Threema has a new owner, blueWin. Every now and then, this messaging app pops up as a more private alternative. And it's paid. It was already a bit suspicious, but now… The new owners are a German private equity firm.

Zotero 8. Major new update to Zotero, with a new centralized citation area, list annotations, and a panel to customize text display.

European Alternatives. Directory of alternative internet services to those in the US, all located in Europe.

Fun with the web. I'm always impressed by how much you can do with just CSS. The important thing is to try to have fun with all these possibilities.

The security paradox  densediscovery.com

Living in 2026 consists of fighting with other people on multiple fronts, which has become normalized as “competition.” This applies to everything and always generates a paradoxical effect: the intensification of our private daily wars worsens everyone's lives.

In the latest edition of the Australian newsletter Dense Discovery, Kai drew attention to the book Trapped: Life under security capitalism and how to escape it, by Setha Low and Mark Maguire.

The authors argue that “security has morphed from an inalienable right into a commodity hoarded by those who can afford it,” stimulated by an industry that continues to invent increasingly invasive gadgets and software under a promise that is never fulfilled. This macabre market no longer generates security; it generates fear:

The more you securitise your life, the more those walls and gates and guards make your life all about fear rather than less about fear. And so, as the fear grows, then you want more security, you buy more gadgets, you support all kinds of policing initiatives.

The paradox appears when you take your head out of the ground. The apparatus, delusional in essence, ultimately makes the world worse for everyone:

“[This creates] a self-fulfilling prophecy of fearful people wanting more security, the state and private sector producing it, only to make the world more fearful for some and poorly protected for others.

I think about this every time I pass walls with electric fences and barbed wire, affluent residential condos, CCTV cameras, and ostensive policing. This means that I have been thinking a lot, and increasingly, about the subject.

The way Signal is built — with people's privacy as a priority — makes it difficult and slow to release features that other apps have had for a long time. They take a while, but they get there. The latest version, now available, introduces pinned messages in individual and group chats. It works on Android, computers, and iOS.

Random Posts