I wonder why Apache continues to support OpenOffice. Its barely moved since 2014 and hasn’t even had a security update since 2023. They could archive it as an active project (keep the code available for those who want it) and redirect most users who land on the OpenOffice site to LibreOffice.

I’m not sure this true - PDF is an open standard. The issue isn’t generally with layout and reproducibility - a good PDF maker and a good reader will give you an accurate representation of how it looks on all devices once the PDF is created.

Certainly there isn’t a dedicated FOSS tool for make PDFs; Libre Office and Inkscape do a decent job but not perfect which may be what you’re referring to. And they’re not dedicated PDF makers plus the real problem is building fillable forms and signature tools.

But there is a proprietary alternative called Master PDF that is a dedicated and supports all the PDF standard features I believe; one perpetual license is $80 compared to Adobe subscription based charging. I’m not aware of other options myself but they may exist. But it’s a viable alternative to the “adobe tax”.

Also of course if you have Office 365 from Microsoft, you can use Word to export docs to PDF reliably (in my experience). Obviously as far as you can get from FOSS, but it is an option on Linux via web browser if you have it from work for example; at least you don’t have to pay Adobe but it’s scraping the bottom of the barrel for this threat I know!

Firefox can do basic annotating, adding text and adding pictures but it can’t make a new PDF from scratch.

You may be confusing Adobe Acrobat Reader with Adobe Acrobat? Full Acrobat is the proprietary tool to make a PDF file from scratch including some of the more complex functions.

PDF is an open standard and has been for a while, so there are now plenty of alternatives for most of the functions. LibreOffice Draw and Inkscape can do a lot of PDF creation functions but not all. There are also “print to PDF” options to create basic PDF documents too.

However some of the more niche functions are not widely supported or well supported; and there isn’t really any opensource dedicated PDF maker that I’m aware of. Layout tools are abundant but I think it’s things like building forms and document signing that is less easily replicated. There is Master PDF - a fully functional PDF maker which is proprietary and available for Linux; it $80 for a perpetual license. I’m not aware of any other alternatives myself.

“Anyone” is a bit of a stretch. I think this is an example of how fragmented media and experience has become.

Selling millions of copies in impressive but there are billions of people in the world. And there is also new stuff being released all the time in the worlds of music, tv, film, books and gaming. All of this is jockeying for media attention and peoples attention.

These things were important to you as they were part of your formative years or had some emotional resonance., so it makes sense you are aware of them, but your lived experiences aren’t the same as others.

For example, I’m a gamer, I’ve heard to Trine but never played it.12,000 reviews on Steam is pretty impressive. But its a 16 year old game and when it comes to older games there are huge titles like Skyrim or GTAV that dominate attention still from that eraor earlier.

The Road to Perdition is a decent film but have a look at a list of Oscar winners - how many have you actually seen? The Oscars isn’t representative of films that were widely popular but rather films that were popular or important to people on Hollywood itself, or to the movie makers. It won one Oscar for cinematography.

And it grossed $180m - not bad but if you look a box office mojo the top 3 films in 2002 were Lord of the Rings 2 towers, Harry Potter and Spiderman. Road to Perdition was the 25th biggest film of the year, and bigger films includes Gangs of New York, Catch me if you can and Minority report. It was a decent film in a year of bigger films commerically.

As for Everclear, sorry to say I’ve never heard of them. Looking them up on wikipedia, they didn’t seem to troubled the charts outside the US and Canada, and for some reason New Zealand. And they did well in the Alt Music charts but they never broke the top 10 in the popular charts. So they are a bit niche even if they were popular in their own right and did well.

All of us have different things we love or were formative for us, and even the “mainstream” that gets the attention is still really only a fraction of what’s going on.

And I’d add the nature of taste and preference is so different that the stuff that gets big and crosses over into a mega hit is either generic/inoffensive commerical slop backed up with massive marketing or rarely so extraordinarily good that it spreads through word of mouth. There are so many gems out their like Trine or Everclear but most people will never come across them. Keep spreading the word about the things you love so others can enjoy them too.

The removal of the black gradient at the bottom is a plus.

Putting the controls in their own grey capsules so they still standout is a plus.

The moving of the volume button to the right is a negative.

I dont like change just for changes sake, but in fairness some of this is a good idea and a welcome design shift. I just hopebthey move the volume button back as having on the left with the main controls is pretty widespread and common design.

So I dont own one but was interested in what could be done.

As far as I can see the 3rd gen model is less versatile than the 1st and 2nd, because its so locked down and has very limited storage. Its more like an iPhone than a PC.

However apparently it can be jailbroken and Kodi installed onto it: https://github.com/NSSpiral/Blackb0x

Jail breaking means “unlocking” the restrictions apple put on the is on the device so you can do more with it.

But this project is last updated in 2021 and from the looks of it online, fundamentally there isn’t much more that can be done. Jail breaking it would be a first step to do anything with it if you want to experiment.

Kodi would certainly give it a new lease of life but that still keeps it as a media consumption device. Kodi is an open source media tool that has a good TV friendly interface, and a huge range of plugins for streaming video and audio (legally but also illegally; kodi itself is perfectly legit and legal but there are plenty of plugins that essentially allow media piracy). You could then sell it on eBay if its working? Someone might want it even if only for cheap?

Other than that, recycle it? If your local refuse centre doesnt recycle it some companies might?

Those devices are subsidised and you end up paying through all the subscriptions to Amazon (for example), lockin to Amazons ecosystem (they push their content and rentals) and the data scraping, and being sold to advertisers. Youre paying much more than that to Amazon in the long term.

Meanwhile you can get a raspberry pi 5 started kit for £82 - including the pi, a case, SD card to put your OS on and a HDMI cable. Then its just a bit of time to set up a system how you want it - lots of guides online. Its even a fun project and you learn a bit about setting up a system how you want it.

Personally I would put a bit more money in and get an 8gb pi plus a case for an nvme card, and a 512gb card. Then you can run the OS off the nvme and have loads of media storage, and a snappy machine with the ram. In that case you’d get the 8gb pi for £76, case for £38 and a 500gb card for £36. £144.

Yes it is more expensive than a fire stick for £60 (often on sale for £45 in fairness). Yes it costs more at the front end and there are compromises with 4k streaming and HDR. But you then have a device that is 100% yours, 100% private and secure and is also very versatile. You have a full linux OS to do with as you wish - including install steam and stream games from your PC or play lower powered games locally or use a huge range of linux tools and apps.

For example my PI runs a Jellyfin Server so I can access content from any of my devices, and it also runs Home Assistant so I can control my home, and Synching so I can transfer files between devices, and more. A media stick can’t do any of that.

My point is that like for like is not a fair comparison. Tge media sticks are subsidised and huge compromises to your privacy, plus aimed at locking you in to a corporate ecosystem. It coats a bit more upfront for your own device but you get much more bang for your buck. And you save yourself in terms of privacy - Amazon can’t scrape your data to sell you stuff or sell you to advertisers, and you dont have the privacy nightmare of the microphones listening for their Alexa service.

You can use your own home theatre PC with Linux, and use a Bluetooth media remote with a web browser to access streaming services. You can also host your own content and use Jellyfin. Kodi can also be used for a good tv interface. And you can even use it to game, pushing it beyond the media sticks.

I have a beelink miniPC in my living room, and I use it for streaming, web browsing and gaming.

Another cheaper alternative is to use a raspberry PI as a home theatre device. It can be a capable media PC.

The biggest issue with both is 4k content and HDR. Many streaming services dont allow content to be streamed at 4k in linux devices. Also HDR support in linux is lacking - no browsers support it, and its experimental in DEs like KDE and Gnome only so far. If you supply your own content then 4k is no issue, and for HDR if you get an AMD GPU you can play with the experimental features in KDE and Gnome.

If 4k/HDR is a deal breaker then Windows can be used but obviously thats american and brings in a whole host of privacy and security issues of its own.

And the company remains massively overvalued despite the recent falls in value. It has a long way to fall yet.

I wonder how low it will go. I was tentively planning a holiday trip to New York and another to a conference in Chicago. Both of which are totally off the cards having seen the horror stories of people having their phones searched, refused entry and even being detained for extended periods without justification.

Instead, I think I’m going to finally make a long wished trip to Canada.

I do feel sorry for those working in the US tourism and hospitality industry. It’s hardly well paid work and often filled by new migrants and the young / students. It won’t start recovering until the craziness of ICE abates but it’s the sort of damage that is fast to take place and takes a long time to heal once it’s reversed - and a reversal isn’t even on the cards for the foreseeable future.

This is a nonsense. The drinks industry don’t want bourbon tariffs in the hope that will mean there won’t be tarrifs on EU booze. But there are blanket tarriffs on all EU products, so relenting on Bourbon specifically will do nothing but benefit the US drinks industry.

Robert Habeck is right - the EU is in a position of strength standing together and should target any response to most hurt the US President.

The US will have blanket tarrifs which are essentially a tax on Americans. The EU can’t directly affect those but it also should not have blanket tarrifs on US goods as that will just damage the EU economy further. Instead it should have targeted tarrifs and other measures designed to hit the US (particularly republican states - thats why bourbon was picked in the first place), and meanwhile work with other tariff hit countries to lower the cost of business in their directions.

One way to look at it, is if its now 20% more expensive to sell resources and goods to the US, its actually 20% relatively cheaper to do business with the rest of the world. So thats where growth is going to come from. Tarrif US stuff that strategically benefits Europe (cars for example), don’t tariff other US stuff so the EU benefits and look to the rest of the world for growth and opportunities.

In some ways the US is handing the EU a golden opportunity to take over much of the US economic influence and power around the world.

You need a whatsapp account still to use a bridge like thjs. The bridges are for Matrix which is an open source messaging network.

Beeper is built using matrix, and is owned by an American for profit company that also owns WordPress. They’re hosting the bridges, and they encrypt your chat but the bridges are vulnerable to service operators like WhatsApp not locking them out.

Personally I am going for Signal (which ia run by an American non profit) and SMS, and completely leaving WhatsApp.