For anyone interested in this era. I have a couple of sets of RISC OS 2 ROMs chips from 1988 sitting on my desk. I don't know if they still work. If there's a good home in the UK I'd be happy to post them.
Yes this threw me off when I first opened it. When you select the letter field you see a flashing cursor but you can't erase the character and type a new one. Instead you have to type a new character which overwrites the old "editing" character. This is confusing because it's not the behavior that the user expects when they see a flashing cursor in a text input.
I would suggest allowing people to erase the letter and type a new one in the editing field.
Once I figured out this little UI hiccup I found it absolutely delightful to play with this. What a fascinating experiment in making a font immediately editable, like a mini font-REPL. I've often been interested in (but never dabbled in) creating or editing fonts. This made that itch immediately scratchable in a raw, primitive way that unlocked something interesting in my brain.
I visited Sweden this summer. One or two things accepted only Swish payment. Seems to be impossible for a visitor to use, you need to set it up with your bank.
I managed by asking a friend to use theirs. But don't assume that tech that "makes life easier" automatically means that it's inclusive. (See also parallel discussion today about EU Age Verification app [0]).
When the UK age verification legislation was being debated I recall people saying "don't worry about unintended consequences, it's not like you'll be have to show your ID to random websites! Someone will show up with a reasonable methodology. You'll be able to e.g. show your ID at a shop and get an anonymous token.".
And plenty of people, including myself, thought "this is so dystopian it couldn't possibly happen".
It did happen, and it's as bad as the doomsayers said it would be.
I would be curious what it's like in the UK. It would probably do well as an HN submission if you're up for writing a blog post about it. All I know is that they passed some legislation that requires people to authenticate for anything that could possibly show nudity or something, including Wikipedia, and that VPN apps were going wild. I don't know what it's actually like in daily life, how one does authenticate to Wikipedia (or if they bought themselves time for now by iirc suing the govt?), if there are privacy-friendly age verification options and if those options are commonly implemented by the websites that need it, etc.
Personally I haven't noticed anything with Wikipedia, or Reddit (only ever used when searching for opinions through Google with "Reddit" on the search query).
If you want to watch porn or view anything NSFW with websites that complied, I suppose you just start up NordVPN and select Chicago or something like that. Brits who watch porn are probably just watching more American themed porn now.
Otherwise, (some of) these websites are supposed to show you a digital verification screen with third party gateways. Usually using an ID card. I'd guess most people just installed VPNs.
You don't only need the account, you need a phone that is locked down with hardware components and cryptographic keys that attest it hasn't been modified "unauthorizedly". Where the authority is not the device "owner" but Google, Apple, and the manufacturer
The account would be easy enough with fake data and a 10€ prepaid one-time-use phone number. Finding an exploit in Android such that you can turn off Google's tracking but not trigger their "you modified your device" scans (that are to be tied to your government identity verification continuing to work) is a game I'm not looking forward to playing.
Yes. You can donate to the foundation but not only do they prevent earmarking, they actively don't use it for browser development.
I even mailed them back in June to confirm. They replied:
...
> When you donate to the Mozilla Foundation, your contribution goes directly toward advancing our mission to ensure the internet remains open and accessible for all. Our work focuses on issues like online privacy, open-source technologies, worthy AI and a digital world that puts people first. These funds directly support advocacy campaigns (i.e. asking irresponsible tech companies to protect your privacy), Mozilla’s fellowship program, MozFest gatherings, Common Voice, Responsible Computing Challenge, and so much more.
> However, it’s important to note that donations to Mozilla Foundation do not support the development of Firefox or any other Mozilla products.
> While we are a public-benefit 501(c)(3) organization under US law and the parent organization for the corporate entities that own Firefox, donations do not fund the Firefox browser and revenue is completely generated from within the product itself.
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