-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Monday, 2016-04-11 at 17:36 +0200, gumb wrote:
On 11/04/16 16:15, Lew Wolfgang wrote:
So what? Use a fake name. I register with Microsoft as "F. Tuddberry Fizzlebottom" myself. I don't want MS to know anything about the real me. Do the same with Google.
I don't think that's quite the solution you think it is. Firstly, regardless of whatever name you supply, you're still being tracked under that identity linked with that device, so the manipulated content and services tailored to you still reach you and affect you.
Wait. You can have the google identity which is only used to administer the gadget, and a different identity used in email and for usage. You don't need to use Chrome, which is probably tracked, you can use FireFox. At least on a tablet, which is my proposal.
Sadly, we seem to have traded the concepts of quality manufacturing and longevity (be it with computers, cars, washing machines or anything electronic) for the throwaway culture of cheap tat. Three years old, knackered? Yeah no worries, chuck it in the bin. Next! This merry carousel is designed to keep company turnover constantly high enough to satisfy shareholders. My parents are like me, they expect something to last. My dad has been miffed these last twenty years that every time he forks out several hundred pounds on a Sony TV or video player, or several thousand on a car, it's knackered within a few years. Wind back a further twenty years and things lasted three times as long. They may also have cost three times the price (relatively). But they resulted in three times less waste.
Recently I saw a documentary, made by extracting pieces from other documentaries. In the docs, they mentioned in passing things that were good in the old Soviet Union (the complete documentary did not); but joining those pieces they became interesting, showing a different picture than the standard view here. Sorry, it is in Spanish, so a link would be pointless. Well, they built to last. There was no economic advantage to them by selling a washing machine every 5 years, on the contrary. As an example, an old man showed (in what previously was East Germany) a fridge that was 25 years old and still functioning. He said he only needed to replace the light bulb sometimes. At a business show there came a company manufacturing light bulbs lasting like 5000 hours or more, I don't remember. They wanted to conserve expensive tungsten. The western companies were dismayed. You are mad! You will destroy us! Of course, after the wall fell, that bulb company disappeared.
:-P
And I don't buy into the argument that computers are a special case and have to evolve fast to keep up with technological developments. There's no reason the modular nature of traditional PCs can't also be adapted to smaller devices. The shell of a modern Chromebook could easily house updated components and be renewed to increase its lifespan for up to a decade. Why does everything have to be changed wholesale?
Perhaps we would like those things from that "east", after all? >:-P - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. (from 13.1 x86_64 "Bottle" at Telcontar) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.22 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAlcM6HYACgkQtTMYHG2NR9XDJQCgkOutoQJqPkD52rCqhYqZoXeJ QNoAn2TJtJ5NyErj+HlSsCMgnG0Lku0t =sIyC -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org