lentildrop

I think there’s a difficult intersection of

a. This stuff is cool and trendy right now so a lot of that content is aspirational

b. TikTok is addictive and extremely hard to kick + lots of people now see it as their primary source for style and lifestyle inspiration leading back into a.

It’s more that Google is making it significantly more difficult for non-Google sanctioned projects to operate on Pixel phones and there may come a time when it’s no longer feasible to develop GrapheneOS for the Pixel

I mean does it really matter if they offer all the hardware security features and it’s running with GrapheneOS, which is FOSS

There’s nothing inherently less secure about a device just because it’s Chinese lol

Opposition research isn’t really illegal, there’s no confirmation that anything from Palantir was actually used, and it’s trivially easy for any layperson to view deleted reddit comments-- to be perfectly honest in this specific case I just don’t think there was anything really untoward

I hardly ever read the news and I update like once every one to two weeks, and I’m not sure I’ve ever had a system breaking bug introduced by an update. I’ve had small bugs that break UI stuff but nothing that really impairs my ability to use the computer.

I have run into all sorts of weird issues trying to run games or programs not packaged to run on Arch but those are usually solvable with tinkering and some outside advice.

Arch has just never really felt inherently unstable to me, IMO. If you have patience for tinkering and customizing Arch is a great distro that gives you a ton of control over your system + has a fantastic body of documentation.

I think in the day when desktop Linux was jankier and you had to tweak things a lot to get them to work well it was more beneficial to have a distro where you just compiled everything from source anyways. Now it is anachronistic, IMO.

Wayland has way more compatibility issues especially with other Linux stuff lol

I wouldn’t characterize Garmin as having a business model based on data mining, their privacy policy is actually the best out of the mainstream fitness watches and they’re probably one of the best privacy respecting choices especially if you don’t connect it to the internet. It doesn’t necessarily satisfy OPs requirement of not sending data to the US, though.

You’re majorly handicapping yourself in the US if you don’t use credit at all- you’ll get your credit score checked for apartments, home loans, utilities, even some job application background checks-- and the only way to build your credit score is to participate in the system. That’s not even mentioning the fact that the financial system makes it extremely worth your while via points/cashback/bonuses/etc as well as the extra security you have from being able to put stuff on your credit card in a major emergency. It sucks and it shouldn’t be this way but it is.

The gold standard for privacy is still Pixel with GrapheneOS tbh

I’m skeptical tbh, I feel like VNN has been saying HL3 is in development for as long as I’ve been alive

NewPipe is rly good on Android and FreeTube can be glitchy especially if you have a VPN but I’ve found its the best option for desktop

email is never private, if its that sensitive it just shouldn’t go on the internet

One of the greatest freedoms of adulthood is realizing you can have whatever you want for breakfast and nobody can stop you imo