Thoughts on technology and modern culture
Finally updated microG with support for Exposure Notifications API, and was able to install Finland's contact tracing app Koronavilkku. Amazing piece of public software development - FOSS, privacy conscious, easy UI, clear information and millions under budget.
Everyone install!
While open source is often regarded synonymous with free (as in freedom), this is not always the case. Some Mastodon clients have implemented censorship in the way of hard-coded domain blocking, by forwarding Gab users to a RickRoll video instead of allowing them to log in. While this is allowed in GPL, it is clearly against the spirit of free software, making applications employing such...
Invidious is an alternative front-end to YouTube that without ads or tracking. Their normal layout has large margins on both sides of the video. This simple userscript removes margins around the video player, making videos full-width, which is more usable on a multi-monitor setup. Userscripts are javascript files that run on your browser and customize websites on-the-fly, adding new features or...
I, along with my Work Informatics colleagues, created a simple tool for deciding which challenges to tackle first in business development. It’s a prescriptive business maturity model that focuses on uncovering the best practical developmental steps, instead of providing objective maturity grading. ICT Development is hard. How does one decide which technological solutions to pursue –...
The Windows 10 control panel is a mess. It is difficult enough to find a list of known Wifi networks, and when you do, there’s no graphical way to change their priorities. Whatever network you created first seems to stick to the top. But there is a way to change the preferred order of networks using Command Prompt, making your Windows 10 computer prioritize the networks you wish to use...
While it’s incredibly convenient to use Google’s 8.8.8.8 DNS server, they log your IP address for 48 hours and analyse usage data, storing some information permanently. As Google is basically an ad agency and collets a lot of information about people using their other services, it’s good to have some alternatives. Easy instructions on how to change your DNS servers can be found, for example, on...
I have a plethora of gadgets scattered around my home and office, and they all need periodic charging. I decided to try out some of the functions of Tasker, AutoRemote and Zooper to get (close to) real-time information on the battery status of my devices. Here’s how I went about it. …this will be a long one… Required apps Tasker ($2.99) is why I love Android. It allows me to automate everything...
While there are hundreds of descriptive models for mapping organizational development, they offer little on the way of practical decision-making tools. I presented a Work Informatics paper on business development at Well-being in the information society 2018. The paper detailed a new prescriptive tool for SMEs that aims to answer the question: “Given the limited resources, such as skills, money...
I presented a paper titled ‘Hate speech recognition AI – a new method for censorship?’ (Heimo, Naskali & Kimppa 2018) at Ethicomp 2018 this Monday. The paper looks at the problems of modern governmental censorship using AI. In it we argue that there is no major ethical theory in which the censorship itself is justified, and that the use of AI in censoring hate speech is an immoral act in...
Freedom of Speech is generally regarded as a basic and indivisible human right. It is that, of course, but it is also the basis of western liberal society, and there are important rational arguments for it. Perhaps the most coherent defense of Freedom of Speech is John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty, which is based on Utilitarianism, the idea that good is whatever makes the most people happy. His...
Where should I host my source code? Two of the most prominent project hosts are GitHub and BitBucket. GitHub has a larger community, with heavy emphasis on open-source, but Bitbucket also has its fans, especially for closed-source projects. Here’s a quick comparison of their feature sets. Revision control support GitHub only supports Git as a revision control tool. Butbucket allows you to use Git...