So it's an "open standard" and you can use any chain that meets Coinbase's "acceptance criteria". So under this guise, their whole goal is to make themselves centralizing force.
we will happy accept PRs the add support for any chains that can perform the payment flows in a safe, non-custodial way for the client, resource server and faciliator. Currently x402 works with any EVM chain, and we're working with several chains on integrating.
Usually the middleman validates what the stuff does, before we do it ourselves, yes even though malicious apps get through the cracks, still makes a difference.
It really depends. Many apps currently cannot be distributed through the stores or the maintainers have to endure a lot of bullying to stay in the stores. (Think NewPipe et al)
In these cases, the middlemen like Google are the hostile party. Essentially the threat actor. It is natural: big tech is big tech, because they are very good at limiting user choice.
For these applications, Obtainium is brilliant.
It also shows that the store model that everyone is working to enshrine in digital policy is not the necessity that Big Tech would have everyone believe.
Mostly because certain apps refuse to adopt Android APIs, or insist NDK is a full blown GNU/Linux userspace, contrary to Android team official position on the matter.
The fact that the Android team's official position on API usage determines what software I get to install is exactly my problem with this gatekeeping.
The latest victim of this travesty is the removal of syncthing from the play store and the subsequent discontinuation of the app. This was ostensibly due to syncthing's failure to leverage the storage access framework to access files on Android devices. In reality, developers were benchmarking the storage access framework as somewhere around 50 times slower than direct system access, and that made it infeasible for usage in apps like Syncthing. That bug has been open for years, and the Android team has done nothing other than claim it's fixed when benchmarks show otherwise.
So I'm not sold at all on the value of these gatekeeping stores that have black box approval processes with changing rules. It is a system that is set up to be evil because it can reject and accept on a whim with no accountability. We should not so easily give up on installing the software of our choosing on the devices we purchase.
Honestly I started using obtainium because I can't figure out why F-Ddoid builds are a month behind. RedReader became completely broken and needed the newer version. Not sure what's up with that lag. It's extremely frustrating.
Anyhow, when the apps stop being updated, it's usually due to something that was added that doesn't make them compliant with F-Droid's policies anymore; or, they changed something in the release process without telling F-Droid.
Other times, the apps were set to be updated only at the developer's request, and for some reason they still haven't done that request (some developers deliberately update F-Droid less frequently, to be more confident of not giving bugged releases to the F-Droid usere).
The normal delay, due to their manual (and lazy) signing process, is from few days to about ten
This is the case if the app store is done right, that is, if it has the end user's interests in mind. But as with all things Google, the end product always boils down to how much profit it can extract from its services in ad revenues, so there isn't really that much incentive in Google to keep the Play Store tidy.
This or some variation of the idea. The result is the same, what should protect the user becomes a vector to help spread malicious apps.
The safety-argument functions as an apologetic narrative to justify the gatekeeping.
Strangely, almost everything the Play Store pushes at me (Temu, TikTok, millions of communication apps with dubious reputation) is crap.
I would never install an app without checking the permissions it asks for, researching the owner of the app as well as the the tracking it includes - yet the store never makes those things transparent, quite the opposite.
Google even takes money to show you bad apps through PlayStore app ads designed to look like an organic app listing. This is apparently a mechanism to profit directly from deceiving users. (Right now, for example, it shows a gambling app, some "beautifying" shovelware, and "Tango live streaming," which the author probably believes by heart is not made for porn.)
So either Google is trying to protect its users and just isn't very good at it, or it's a fake argument to hide corporate power.
Unfortunately F-Droid sometimes distributes outdated software with security vulnerabilities. This happened with Fennec (Firefox variant), not sure what the reason was. I switched back to Firefox + Google Play after that.
Yes F-Droid is too slow unfortunately. The reason I added obtanium to my mix was because F-Droid version of RedReader was so old it didn't work with Reddit anymore. And I couldn't figure out why or if there was an ETA or what and someone mentioned obtanium.
> Usually the middleman validates what the stuff does
That's what they say for their defense yeah but personally I don't buy it. I've published an app myself and I've also seen the countless app scams which are allowed to advertise on YouTube.
They're excellent at inconveniencing legitimate devs for "mistakes" like links to external payment options, but oddly bad at spotting actual scams. I think that tells you something about the actual goal of app review.
The way you phrase mistakes is interesting, it’s been abundantly clear that’s not allowed for a long time. It’s not a “mistake” if you link to an external payment method .
I’m an iOS user but one of the reasons I like iOS is because I know that I’ll be able to Sign in with Apple, and pay via the App Store. I recently signed up to a service which charged me for a free trial and I opened a support ticket. They refunded me, and charged me again immediately.
I trust apple and google (rightly or wrongly) to have my back in that situation, but this dev clearly didn’t.
It resolved itself fairly quickly when I got my bank involved, but it took a month from start to finish. I have never, not once, had that issue with App Store managed purchases.
Apple does allow links to external payment options in some cases (see App Store Review Guideline 3.1.1), and sometimes rejects apps for links that it itself says should be legal, and is even legally required to allow in some jurisdictions. Which is not surprising, app reviewers spend only a few minutes looking at each app, and don't always understand the current rules.
One of the reasons I don't like either iOS or the Play Store is that I don't want to make an account with them (which can link all the flood of data sent by your phone to your real name, and force you to agree to their terms)
> Ireland is not a person so the concept is entirely political.
Of course. Is that some kind of gotcha?
> provided you don't cause any negative externalities, you should have the default right to do whatever you want on your land.
Destroying our chances to understand history is the externality.
But here is the thing, if you are an Irish citizen you are free to advocate for a change in law. If you convince enough of your peers that it should be changed it will be changed. Isn’t that great?
If you own a second property and decide to rent it out and your tenant decides to stop paying rent you're fucked. Until they get an eviction notice from a court, which can take more than a year, you have to keep paying utilities for them. Nor can you change the locks. If the okupa has children you're even more fucked.
Considering how many desokupa services exist I'd say it's a real problem.
It's an investment. Every investment has a risk. It's your responsibility to find ways to mitigate this risk, like renting to someone you know or having a modest price to someone who can pay afford it vastly, no to anyone that looks the cheapest rent.
That's why people sing contracts of X years, and asks for employment contracts and a minimum quantity of money in the bank. In this situations you can still get it wrong, but that's investing, it's always risky.
>Considering how many desokupa services exist I'd say it's a real problem.
None of what you said sounds like a problem. What is the problem? It sounds like a policy to ensure dwellings, which are obviously a scarce resource in those areas have actual people living in them. That is kind of their point. Of course it would be beneficial to have a better legal framework to ensure housing security and building maintenance.
The underlying problem is that it violates the owner's property rights. Whether they rent or or leave unoccupied their property, even if it's scarce, is their business. And not letting the owner manage their property as they see fit causes all sorts of wider problems.
I'm assuming from reading your other comments you're not going to be sympathetic to this argument so let me give you two anecdotal incidents.
The first is about a woman who is 70 years old. She lives off a state pension which is supplemented by a small rental income from a three bedroom apartment she owns. The apartment is quite old, and needs refurbishment, so she can only generally rent it to students or non-professionals who pay a modest rent. After maintenance costs, property tax, and building management fees she doesn't get much but enough so she doesn't have to rely on her children.
One day, one of the tenants stopped paying rent. Rather than asking him to leave immediately she gave him some extra time to get the rent. Rather than do this, he decided he would do an occupation. So first he terrorized the other tenants so they left and then proceeded to occupy the entire apartment, including turning one bedroom into a gym. Police were called quite a few times but they said they couldn't do anything until they received a court order. So for a year and a half, this guy lived there rent free with water and electricity being paid for as well (you can cut off internet as it's not deemed essential).
When the court order finally came through the police didn't even bother showing up and it was the locksmith who chased the guy out. He hasn't faced any consequences and could continue to do this again and again. As for the owner, she had to take out loans (some with 20% interest) cover the costs this guy incurred. She, who is Spanish, will never rent out to Spanish people again.
The second is about a taxi driver in his late 40s. After a long period of saving he managed to save enough for a deposit to get a mortgage on a costal apartment that his family would use in the summers and rent the rest of the time. While he could have just listed it on Airbnb, he decided to rent it out to a woman with children on a long-term basis (non-summer months).
So she moves in and when he comes a few days later to collect the first month's rent he's informed that she won't be paying rent and because of the children it's going to be impossible to kick her out. He tries to negotiate with her over a few months, including talking to the town hall to get some some rent stipend, all to no avail. Eventually, he had to use desokupa services to get her out but not before this woman had caused significant property damage.
He also went into debt and his marriage almost failed because of the stress and financial strain. Once he finishes repairing all the damage (which he has to do himself as he can't afford to pay someone else) he will rent it out again but only through Airbnb to foreigners.
So this policy has ensured that honest people, renters and landlords, get punished by dishonest people who won't see any consequences either.
> Until they get an eviction notice from a court, which can take more than a year, you have to keep paying utilities for them
After the eviction takes place, how badly does an eviction on record hurt the renter's ability to rent in the future? Just trying to understand the asymmetry of costs for the landlord and renter in this situation where the renter "decides" to stop paying rent
Many non-professional landlords don't ask for references nor do background checks, they just give you a contract. So I imagine it's pretty easy to continue to do the same trick over and over unless they somehow manage to get their face in a local paper.
The effect of this is more reluctance to rent out for fear this will happen. Or only rent to rich foreigners who won't pull this scam. Lest the landlord find themselves in debt.
Also, the okupa is very much deciding to do this knowing they can get away with it.
> Considering how many desokupa services exist I'd say it's a real problem.
How many does exists? I've only heard of one (literally called "Desokupa"), but you're saying there are many companies offering this, not just local chapters of the major one?
Tried searching but could only find that one, and I couldn't find any sources on the number of companies existing offering this service either.
As they operate in a gray zone, they are generally not advertised. But even cops will give you numbers or info on how to join WhatsApp groups where you can hire someone.
Despite all the publicity, I've never heard of anyone using the company you referenced. At least not in Andalucía.
The "cannot escape IPv4" is apt because while you can setup an IPv6 only VPC so many things break; from various AWS services to package repositories [0]. So then you're stuck either enabling IPv4 or running a NAT64 gateway (or trusting someone to run one for you [1]).
I badly broke my wrist a few years ago and couldn't move my fingers so I used mirrorboard [1]. I was actually surprised how well and fast I could type after just a week.
The caps on presta valves aren't necessary as there's no way for dirt to get into the valve stem (unlike Schrader valves which can get clogged). The caps are useful for transporting the tube though to prevent the valve from puncturing anything.
Wheel reflectors are also pretty useless so you can remove those too. Plus you save some weight.
Never understood that. More visibility = potentially slightly less likely to get hit by a distracted driver so why remove the shiny reflectors spinning on your wheels?
And what’s a 20g saving per wheel when we carry so much more extra weight on our bodies.
Weight on the outside of a wheel matters more than weight on the rest of the bike for racing types - it increases the rotational inertia of the wheel, slowing acceleration & braking on top of any actual weight increase.
Personally I just buy tyres with reflective tape on the sidewalls. These are mandatory in some EU countries & are pretty effective in my experience.
Interesting. Though I'd argue that if the valve gets dirt on it, then eventually, when you unscrew it, some of that dirt will get deeper (particularly if you're completely flat and there's no pressure to push it out), and perhaps stop if from sealing perfectly. But I try to keep gear running for a very long time; this approach might be from cyclist who replace things a lot more often?
They are pretty robust, I have been riding the same presta valves on my mountain bike for maybe 5 years which I ride a few times a week, immense amounts of dry silica, muddy dirt, rain, cold, heat.
They are serviceable too. If you find it isn't sealing you can disassemble and clean the sealing surfaces, replace the locking oring or nut etc.
Somewhere I picked up the idea to place reflective tape on the inside of the rim between the spoke holes. Not really for side visibility, but for front/rear off-angle visibility I like it. You can alternate (say every 3) to produce a flashier pattern when you're moving.
On chain fees are usually not more than $0.50 but if you paid on-chain (regular bitcoin transaction) then you'd be paying that (and have to wait 10 minutes for the confirmation). But most transactional purchases are done on lightning, a layer 2 system, which are virtually instant and very low in fees (like a cent or two).
