Notices by Michela Marie 🏳️‍🌈 (michelamarie@mastodon.social), page 24

@007 So neat!! 😀

"How Norway reinvented prison"

An enlightening look at how Norway's humane focus on rehabilitation fosters one of the world's lowest recidivism rates, and saves massive amounts of money.

https://youtu.be/Fb-gOS3p44U

@qwazix @jeffalyanak @freakazoid @aral haha. No worries. It was a good discussion. 🙂

@qwazix @jeffalyanak @freakazoid @aral Nevertheless, I hear your points and acknowledge that they are valid. 🙂

@qwazix @jeffalyanak @freakazoid @aral Yah. We disagree on this point. I believe that firms do influence society, though it's more that they are a part of society (products of it, if you will) & are influenced by it, just as individuals are

I don't think Jobs waged a war on freedom, at least not when it comes to batteries or disc drives. He did, however wage wars over intellectual property, which, is definitely a rights issue (a more serious one).

@qwazix @jeffalyanak @freakazoid @aral Ya. I totally agree that they restrict what their users can do with their own property -- it's absolutely true, and wrong.

I like the looks, quality, and security of Apple products but can never bring myself to buy one because of all those restrictions, and of course, because of the sky-high cost of everything Apple. 😳

@qwazix @jeffalyanak @freakazoid @aral In other words, Apple "met people where they are," instead of pushing them into the developer's own way of doing things. This, in addition to appealing to consumers aesthetic tastes.

Surely, Linux too can facilitate "low friction" user experiences, but without taking away the power and ability to customise and extend them for more advanced users, different needs, or varied use cases.

@qwazix @jeffalyanak @freakazoid @aral Honestly, I don't think we can give Jobs credit for creating a class of users, as you say. I'm quite convinced it's more that Apple developed products that gave everyday users what they needed or wanted, rather than the other way around.

@jeffalyanak @freakazoid @aral

Have you tried KDE Plasma on a polished system like Fedora or OpenSuSE in the last couple of years? They work out of the box, like Mac does. It's a very smooth and refined desktop experience.

@jonw Well, the Wikipedia article said that it was more than just BBM, but a lot of other stuff that's stored on the device.

In any case, I totally hear you. Blackberries could be the same, or possibly even more secure than Android devices from other companies. 🙂

@jeffalyanak @freakazoid @aral The desktop experience on Linux is really quite fantastic at this stage (at least it is on KDE, & probably Gnome too). I can't imagine that's a barrier for folks either.

I suspect the reasons for not switching are different for different types of user. For most people, technical & non-technical alike, however, I imagine people are very accustomed to what they have. They probably often think, "why change?"

@jeffalyanak @aral I totally agree with this, particularly in the nerd market. Lots of techies who could easily install Linux run Macs, which I will never understand (they're gorgeous but so very expensive).

I've always found RMS' reasoning on this weird. It's no time at all to install a desktop OS these days. Installing applications, copying your files over, and setting it according to your preferences takes way more time.

@ninja @codesections @aral @bob A tonne of students also run Chrome OS, as that's what the laptops they are supplied with or are instructed to buy have

I think it will continue to get at least a little easier to motivate change on the desktop partly because so much is now on the web or otherwise becoming platform agnostic (as with Electron desktop apps & such). Compatibility with the desktop OS is becoming less of a switching cost

@jonw As you pointed out, Android isn't the most secure platform anyway. Variants like Lineage OS probably provide a lot more security, though they are only available for a small number of devices.

So it may not matter a lot if one uses Blackberry or not, and they aren't likely to be as bad as Huawei or ZTE in this regard. 😮

@jonw haha. I actually had an Android Blackberry until I fell & cracked the screen while running :o

I couldn't tell which OS those reports refer to. Blackberry does modify their distribution of Android a lot (or at least they claim to)

So I think their devices might be less secure than others, at least when running the stock Android image they come with. I consider it similar to a Huawei or ZTE device in that way - we should assume they are being surveilled more than others