being aware of social sensitivities is a big part of being successful for projects that aim for broad adoption.
And also, you know some of us are actually practicing Ritual or Ceremonial Magick, and this is actually a sacred symbol for us?
I'd understand if it was upside down, which is part of the laughable LaVeyan Satanic cult, but I assure you there are likely people you know who may be members of very serious Magical Orders.
I will not mention my specific associations with any of these Orders, but even Freemasonry, which I was involved in for years, if studied carefully, has its roots in Ceremonial Magick.
Their use of the pentagram was highly attractive to me - and, furthermore, funny, and clearly educated in Magick to an extent - the I/O symbol at the top is an adorable nod to that being the node of the Spirit.
but I also have lots of family and friends in rural, conservative, christian USA. I assure you, upside down or right side up... If I tried to show them this video, they would flip out. There would be no talk about privacy or cell phones. All discussion would be hyper focused on the presence of this symbol.
Yes, the would equally flip out if the symbol had been a Star and Cresent (Islam), or Swastica (Hinduism, Buddhism, et. all).
I know this debate isn't new (safe spaces, trigger warnings, etc.) but the only point I'm trying to make is that some people will always find the choice to include any religious symbolism in a technical talk divisive. (which sometimes is fine if we are aware and choose deliberately...)
-- Hopefully I'm allowed brief tangent back on topic - just in case anyone associated with the project/talk notices this post (and grandparent post): I'm super excited about this phone, and as soon as there's concrete data about comparability for US carriers, I would love to purchase one.
Yeah, it's a little tone-deaf.
I understand it's meant to be tongue-in-cheek and all that. But if, for example, they used a swastika, even if they were using it in the context one of the dozens of cultures for whom it's a normal symbol, it would still be tone deaf.
A lot of people here are saying it's just a symbol, etc... But if it was a Christian cross, I bet a lot of HN readers would flinch with "I'm not supporting some fundy company!"
I... sort of agree with you. It's generally desirable to make your products acceptable to everyone you can, and so the decision to include a pentagram is probably poorly calculated.
But on the other hand, the sort of people who would put a cross symbol in the corner of a video are probably for-real fundies, while it's obviously extremely unlikely that anyone involved in the making of this video is a for-real Satanist (in the religious sense of the term). So I think there might be some justification for differential treatment on the basis of this context.
I got a giggle, since it's inverse is the symbol of Baphomet, and all that.
If you want mass appeal you must appeal to the masses. Using loaded symbology is a good way to torch your hard work.
(I have no idea, but I've never seen bad association with an upright pentagram)
EDIT: Another user provided the solution: press-and-hold/long-tap the video in the new tab to get an option to download.
should do the trick
That said I currently don't plan on buying it, simply because right now I'm not heavily relying on the phone. It is however the first phone released in the last ~5 years that I'd call interesting and unique.
Then, life caught on. You can't manage kids' activities, work schedules and your social life without a smartphone these days.
May I ask where you live? Or did you mean 'without a computer'?
Works perfectly for me in Western Europe.
Over the past few years cash payments between people have been replaced by something that's also only available as an iPhone or Android app.
I'm sure there are other things. The next iteration of our government's single-sign-on solution will probably also been an app, at which point owning a smartphone will in essence become a legal requirement.
[1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/nokia-firmware-blunder-sent-so...
Yes.
- the modem is for data and not for voice
- they use matrix for calls
however:
"The Librem 5 will be the first ever Matrix-powered smartphone, natively using end-to-end encrypted decentralised communication in its dialer and messaging app."
- the modem is for data and not for voice
- they use matrix for calls
(I may be out-of-date)
https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/cje7vg/dont_use_pu...
Anyway, I'm not an expert about most of that stuff, but they wrote:
> They aren't shipping firmware updates.
Uh... the phone hasn't even been released yet!
I'll still be flabbergasted if they actually manage to ship phones within the next 34 days, but they haven't yet admitted that the shipping date will have to change.
EDIT: At the end, the speaker briefly tries to demo the devkit, only to find that it has inexplicably turned off, and she states "it's pretty hot -- power management is still an area we have to work on". I can't wait to receive my Librem 5, but there is no way this is shipping Q3 this year.
I have written and seen written several posts on twitter at purism that have consistently been replied to as recently as last week saying that pre-orders are still on track to ship before end of Q3.
It makes me feel like the hardware is ready and built and they are working through software management issues like power management before a launch date.
If they focused on one stack, they’d be much more likely to ship solid product, which would lead to revenue. That would give them runway to build support for a bigger ecosystem.
Edit: I see the dev kit uses a 3rd party modem, not sure if the final production Librem 5 phone will as well. It looks like the website for the modem they're using that they link from the Purism dev kit page is broken as well.
● has a very similar CPU (but at 1.152Ghz instead of 1.5Ghz),
● also runs free software,
● also has hardware kill switches,
● also has USB C with video out
● has less memory (2GB vs 3GB) and
● has a similar screen size and same resolution (720x1440)
● has a 2MP / 5MP front/back cameras (vs 8MP / 13MP w/ LED flash)
● will cost only 150€ (vs $699 - was $599)
It feels to me like these phones have very different audiences.
They've also made what I think is the sensible decision to focus on producing open hardware, and leave the problem of software to the community.
Why do you say they have different audiences?
thanks for the work you are doing Purism
The answer forgot to mention software. That was the main problem with the Ubuntu phone.
