Reminder that these rewards are paid by the interchange fees that credit card processors charge to the companies accepting them as payment. Australia and the EU have legislatively capped interchange fees, which helps keep prices down, but ends up limiting these reward perks. I would love to see Canada try to bring down those fees too, but I worry consumers would object to losing their rewards.
My knee-jerk response is to be indignant about a cop being let off lightly, but the article does describe him as remorseful of his behaviour and taking steps to deal with his own issues. So he sounds like someone who is unlikely to reoffend, and therefore should not be punished harshly. In our justice system, I believe a non-cop would have been sentenced similarly.
But I don't like the idea of him continuing to work as a cop, at least beyond in-office work, as the police should be held to a high standard. He's going to work on his own issues, but such work isn't always quick or smooth. Being in the field dealing with challenging people raises the risk that he runs into another situation where he loses control. I don't know what the policies are of the Guelph police, but I hope they keep a high standard here.
Nice review of the historical trajectory of desktop Linux. I was surprised that the article mentioned Homebrew rather than Distrobox. This is the first time I've seen Homebrew given as a solution for command-line tools on an image-based desktop.
You might be interested in Parabola, an Arch-based FOSS-only distribution. If you don't want to switch to a whole new distribution, maybe you can use its repos from Arch (not that I've heard of anyone trying that).
This is exactly how I use Syncthing, and as the author says, it sure would be nice if more things were just files. Really, most things are stored locally as files, but not always in a way that plays nice with syncing. Like, I can sync my Firefox profile between machines (it's all in one folder), but I found it prone to conflicts, with little to resolve those conflicts.
In a similar vein, local-first apps built with Conflict-free replicated data types (CRDTs) can be another way to avoid server dependency. I haven't seen any significant apps built this way yet (just occasional blog posts about it). I imagine the CRDT approach would work better for individual apps, since conflict resolution can be written in a way that works best for a given app, but I also imagine that such apps would not play nicely with a generic sync solution like Syncthing.
Actually, it's more the opposite. Sorry, I don't think I explained too well. The watch works just fine on its own without a smartphone. For functions that require phone and watch working together, Gadgetbridge lets them communicate (e.g. when you receive a text message on your phone, Gadgetbridge will let you read the text on your watch).
The apps on the watch will work with or without a smartphone. However, installing apps from the Bangle app loader requires the watch have a Bluetooth connection to a phone or computer. After apps are installed, they will run even without the Bluetooth connection.
Finally, note that the Bangle does not have an internet connection on its own; it has no cellular or wi-fi radios on board. So any apps that require a network connection (e.g. weather) will only work when paired to a phone with Gadgetbridge. I think there are other watches with wi-fi, but I'm not familiar with them.
I have been using a BangleJS 2 for the last year, and have quite liked it. There is a companion app, Gadgetbridge, to install on your phone, which is available through F-Droid (there is a Bangle-specific version of it, or a generic version that supports a bunch of other smart watches). There is also an app store (all free software) for apps that run on the Bangle itself. It includes a heart monitor, but no music streaming.
I've also been watching rePebble as they start making new Pebble smartwatches. I've never owned one, but a lot of people swear by them. They are now fully open source and have an app store. No idea if they can stream music.
I believe that's pretty much what happened after the dot-com crash. A lot of fiber was laid during the bubble, it went dormant after the crash, but it was useful afterward as the internet continued growing.
Are you talking about the calendar that appears when you click the time on the (by default) right side of the task bar? Because mine shows a full month. This is how it's been since I upgraded from Windows 10. So I don't know what setting you have to change, but at least it's possible.
Just finished Stray. Yes, I got it because you play as a cat (who was created with great detail), but it also has solid storytelling, world building, and level design.
All of that is true, and the article brings it up. But the article is mostly about increasing accusations of Wikipedia having a liberal bias (e.g. recently from US Republican senator Ted Cruz), which the article suggests are not well-founded. I'm concerned about these increasing attacks, because if right-wing political types can reshape Wikipedia in the way they want, I expect all the biases you list will get worse, not better.
Started Into the Breach after getting it a few weeks ago in a Steam sale for less than $4. Excellent tactical gameplay with randomized encounters challenging enough that I haven't successfully completed a run yet.
Reminder that these rewards are paid by the interchange fees that credit card processors charge to the companies accepting them as payment. Australia and the EU have legislatively capped interchange fees, which helps keep prices down, but ends up limiting these reward perks. I would love to see Canada try to bring down those fees too, but I worry consumers would object to losing their rewards.