8TB external hard drive ($160) + old laptop + “H265 sources” = way cheaper than a bunch of streaming services

I’ve begun my switch over to Mint from Windows. Its kinda wild to suggest normal users to switch to Arch of all things. Netflix (and streaming apps in general) straight to Jellyfin is also a stretch because there are… extra steps

Or they’ll just build a backdoor into it (it probably already exists) and never talk about it again.

I put Google cameras on my house years ago out of convenience and this is it, I’m spending the money on a PoE system where my footage stays on my own hardware.

The actual website is https://icelist.is/

The leak is supposedly at https://wiki.icelist.is/

The site has been hammered and either times out or gives a 403 response, which lately is accompanied by a disclaimer message which essentially says “Hosted content does not represent our company”.

It is possible the site owners shut it all down because of the massive increase in traffic. The disclaimer message that popped up is weird. I haven’t seen any dumps show up anywhere I’m aware of.

“Legal” doesn’t mean much anymore

Because at the same time they’re trying to implement age verification for app stores while also very vaguely defining what an app store is.

The Act defines an “App Store” as “a publicly available Internet website, software application, or other electronic service that distributes software applications from the owner or developer of a software application to the user of a mobile device.”

So… what constitutes a mobile device? Who is an owner/developer? Does github have to implement age verification for mobile devices?

I use DuckDuckGo and it is better in general, but still has a big pitfall with AI generated websites. I’ve used some others like SearXNG but those feel experimental at best. I’m willing to hear about viable alternatives.

No, I’m saying that I bought some stuff then changed my ways. I didn’t look elsewhere previously. I am looking elsewhere now, and I will not give Amazon money. I was highlighting the problem that tons of people run into - shit is still cheaper at Amazon even if it is much more expensive than it was 2 years ago.

In 2008 you could do a web search and have relevant real results right on the first page. Maybe an ad or two.

Now it is effectively:

• AI summary
• ad
• ad
• ad
• link that is effectively an ad
• link to AI generated website
• link to AI generated website
• link to an actual decent result
• link to a questionable result
• link to AI generated website

I forget the exact proposed bill, it might have been SOPA (or something else threatening net neutrality), and it might have been around 2010. That made me think “they want to make the internet into cable TV”. And we’re pretty close to that being reality in a way.

They have a near monopoly on certain goods. I built my home gym using Amazon 2 years ago. I couldn’t find most of the stuff anywhere else for anywhere near the same prices.

Things have changed. I don’t use Amazon anymore. Out of curiosity I checked some prices on my gym equipment and a lot of it is 50+% more now. The squat rack I have is almost double the price.

Prices elsewhere haven’t gone down. It is still probably cheaper to buy the double the price squat rack from Amazon. But I’m done, Amazon is full evil.

Yeah I had the same thing happen with a smartwatch. I want a new band made of fabric instead of the silicone rubber or whatever it is. It is extremely frustrating to find one anywhere but Amazon. I don’t use Amazon anymore, so I guess I’m getting my random Chinese products from ebay now. Not sure if that’s any better.

The font was chosen in an effort to make documents easier to read for the vision impaired.

This is like removing the requirement of having curb ramps on new sidewalks because it makes it possible for people in wheelchairs to navigate

I’m not sure what the exact reason is. I would guess the people within Google running the Pixel program still have the freedom to make the phones like that. I don’t think it will last forever, especially if people start adopting degoogled phone operating systems at scale.

The USA approach to this is to mandate a comical number of outlets everywhere (to prevent extension cord usage), mandate a large number of individual circuits (especially for things that draw a large amount of power), and more recently some combo of AFCI/GFCI/CAFCI breakers (to provide some level of sensing things going wrong and shutting off power).

The stats are not great for the USA in terms of number of fires. I haven’t done deep research. From personal experience, most homes built after modern US electrical code was fleshed out are generally fine. Modern homes (or ones upgraded to modern code) seem very safe - the “smart” breakers tend to actually work.

My anecdote here is that my relatively small hometown area (15,000 people, largely built up between 1860-1940) still has frequent fires relating to electrical and heating systems and the current city I live in (95,000 people mostly built up starting in ~1960) has very few fires ever. I spend 2 weeks a year around Christmas back in my hometown. 3 of the last 7 years had a structure loss fire while I was there. In the same period of time there have been 2 structure loss fires in my current city total.

I think the switches are nice but in the modern world you really don’t need to unplug a vast majority of things. Even my $30 120V USA space heater shuts itself off if it tips over or gets too hot. My cell phone charger pulls functionally 0W while idling.

The truth is somewhere in the middle. GDP per capita is not really a good measure of quality of life on its own.

Historically the USA has brought a lot of people (most?) out of poverty by the world standard. Recent policy seems to be heading in the opposite direction. Quality of life has been declining for a long time, IMO mostly with our sense of community, the completely broken healthcare system, media consolidation, absurd levels of car dependency, high cost of having children, and a whole bunch of other location-specific factors (like cost of living in metro areas)

It seems like the last breaths of the “do no evil” mantra. Your other options are like Fairphone or the yet to be released Hiroh phone with /e/os which is another flavor of degoogled android.

At the moment Pixel phones are the easiest for people in the US market to degoogle

Its often some combination of racism, corruption, and hating poor people yet relying on them for all sorts of things.