I read this a while back and am already taking action to replace my Ring cams and doorbell with locally controlled Reolink cameras. I already have them set up and working on my desk, just need to finish the actual install. I am currently trying to figure out why I’m getting <12v on my doorbell circuit.

One of my objections is that it pushes proprietary operating systems without providing a neutral FOSS option. So in a sense, the tracking and profiling (per your Android or iOS phone) has to come along for the ride. It also opens the door to more and more invasive IDing both IRL and on the web as it will eventually be worked into a bunch of different things. Everything that’s optional now could become mandatory later. It’s like building a munitions factory but putting a “Mark’s Fruit Export & Wholesale” sign on the building. All you have to do is bust down a few walls and put a fresh coat of paint in things and the gig is up.

Doesn’t matter if it’s a D or an R because they all want this gross shit. Can I get at least one real American who believes in privacy and liberty please!

Yeah, easier is better. I’ll have to confirm what apps outside of Jellyfin and Chromecast are needed, but I’ll compare some basic Roku devices. I could probably score one a online neighborhood marketplace for a few bucks.

Thanks for weighing in.

A shame because even after years of environmental abuse, the Montana we have now is still beautiful and could still be preserved.

Swap our rivers for cracked mud and pools of battery acid. Burn the earth for a crack-addled chatbot… or turn off your phone and go for a beautiful hike outside of Bozeman, MT? I know which one I would pick.

So you offer Startup Starter™ franchises so I can help startup starters in my area find startup starting ideas?

My Minecraft pals used mumble at various points. It’s less polished than some options. I like the FOSS and the simplicity but the certificates confused me as a noob. Would still recommend.

Yes, the intensified focus on duckAI and the worsening of search results are concerning for DDG. With that in mind, I trust them over Google/MS/etc. It’s important to me that a search engine follows my instructions.

Kagi gave me weird hype vibes like Private Internet Access. Very cult-sounding/ hard to tell what’s a paid advert when everyone is so rabidly opinionated and it’s a bit of a niche to begin with.

I’ve tried it since then and it’s actually very good. I’ve used DuckDuckGo for years and 30% of my searches go to google for a second opinion. With Kagi, that number is more like 10-20%. It’s designed with users in mind and actually helps you find things not by actively subverting your will, but my giving you tools to build better queries and better results.

I’m still trying to reconcile my thoughts about FOSS and such but the results are the closest I’ve found to early Google. I don’t care much for AI, but I used it to accurately identify an unknown wire connector on a cable I found and the model of a keyboard someone was selling in classifieds and didn’t actually list in the description (this one took a few tries).

I’ve decided for now I’m going to put them in the same category as some of the stuff Louis Rossman is involved in which also isn’t the perfect FOSS licence though its in the direction of freedom.

I thought for a second they were AIing their potential customers into the ad image like “picture yourself at the game”, I’m sure that’s next… unconsentually.

Some of those good fan subs got captured by industry insiders in the meantime too and are as bad as the flyers and search results. Companies excel at making the online as shit as the IRL.

I wouldn’t be shocked if it was only 15% that isn’t corporate swill. Even the reasonable sounding comments can just be a bot karma farming by reposting previously popular stuff. At it’s peak, Reddit was a chaotic bazaar of experts and wannabees building actual good communities. You could find the kind of researched, in-depth info no Google search would ever unearth again. Now Reddit is clearly riding in the same boat as MySpace and others, just in it’s own stupid extra-Spezy way.

I do sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

Is there any reason to not combine the commands since the output always prompts prior to changes anyway?

Perhaps they’ll be talking via a giant mesh of your neighbors doorbells, fridges, and televisions. Wouldn’t that be fucked up? Maybe they’ll stream to the police drones patrolling your neighborhood.

I always wondered how an “ad-supported” Kindle would show new ads on the home screen if you only transfer books via USB and never connect via WiFi or wireless? Does it just reuse the old ads? How will the fridge do it?

It sounds like we were similarly inquisitive children, perhaps to the point of making adults uncomfortable.

My European mother is the reason religion didn’t fuck me up worse than it did. I was also forced to go to church as a kid, but even within our own family there were differences in thought and opinion that still managed to exist in civil dinner table discourse. My mother seems to have gone through her own questioning process, it just didn’t take her to extreme atheism but rather she arrived at more of a mystical Abrahammic monotheism. When I was older, I fell into the trap of religion on my own (Evangelical Christianity) and it’s changed the course of my life significantly in both good and bad ways.

A decade to a decade and a half later I’m mostly over it. I’m comfortable with my current belief system and I live life openly and honestly with 95% of people I meet. If I had to describe myself I’d call myself a self-rolled Buddhist-Atheist.

I’m not envious of those Christians with enough of a conscience to realize what’s going, but who are reliant on “American Christians™” for their community, support, spirituality/philosophy/introspection. They have difficult and painful decisions ahead of them. You can only ignore your conscience for so long, but the first to defect will be shunned and hated and will likely lose their entire social circles. That happened to me. They will also be susceptible, as we all are, to similar tactics and abuses as those doled out by their former religion. You don’t leave and suddenly become a mastermind at spotting abuse of power and become immediately immune. If anyone reading this falls into that category, I would recommend finding a nice, non-religious hobby where you see people from different walks of life on a regular basis. Bicycling groups, social dances, gardening collectives, etc. People are pretty nice outside of the bubble. You’ll be okay.

I’m a Buddatheist who grew up with both cultural Catholicism and later Christian Evangelicism.

I like how this hints at the nature of the self. If I leave someone behind am I not also leaving myself behind?

For me, ethical acts are those that increase the freedom of the self and others. We all suffer. That’s a fact of life. If we dissolve our concept of the self and acknowledge our link to others and the world itself we can see ourselves more as threads going through human experience. If we are kind to ourselves and “others”, we have a better chance at reducing that suffering.

Imagine the time a stranger forgot their wallet and you paid for their coffee. A version of that experience could still exist in that person’s mind long after you die. It could get blended with other experiences and reinterpreted. It could be told as a story to a friend who was inspired by the act. The cascading effects of that person being properly caffeinated on that day could have world changing effects. In a similar way, I carry the shared experiences of my own ancestors and even strangers who have shared their stories with me. They are still alive as a small part of me because my true self is humanity or even some animating life force of the universe or something like that and the name that people call me just refers to the limited perspective and incomplete view I have of existence. Essentially I see existence as blinders limiting my perspective like a race horse, but the true self is a satellite view of the track. When I act, I do so based not only on my experience, but the collective experience of every perspective and experience that has been conveyed to me in every way, but I am still one human body, in physical space, subject to time. I hope that when I die, those blinders will be lifted and I’ll exist as pure conscious perception of everything that ever was is and will be. Able to see through anyone’s eyes, in any time. To feel any and every feeling felt my an animal or human. To view the entirety of existence as a completed masterpiece from outside time itself.

You can probably see why I like the Buddhists.

I find that when you acknowledge the interconnection of things compassion becomes easier.

I hope that people rediscover that within themselves and others.

Valve could easily enter the OS space. They have hardware and a dedicated user-base. They’ve built some good will with the Linux community. They’re already doing the work to make other stuff work well with Linux. I’m not always a fan of walking too close to the corporate edge with paid software and DRM and proprietary blobs and whatever, but at this point we have to figure out how to get everyone out of Windows, even 100 year old Grandma Geraldine who plays bejeweled on Facebook all day. I probably won’t run SteamOS as a primary OS, but if I could dual boot it instead of Win10 on my gaming PC that would lesson the pain of MS’s betrayal and the loss of some Windows-only games a little bit.

Me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0QTKrWjUI8&start_radio=1

Last night’s Southpark kind of hinted at this topic a little bit. I’m curious to see where they take it, but I won’t post any spoilers here because I don’t know who has seen it.

I started my Linux journey as a poor high school college student and while I got hand-me-down windows machines at home, I worried about breaking them fiddling with things beyond my knowledge level. A budget basement eeePC became my workbench and I started tinkering. I had to drive to the next city to find one in stock. Today the gas would cost more than the computer. :-D

I’d still be running the eee but it got put in the closet when many distros dropped 32 bit support.