This follow along while helping family is 100% why I keep a windows partition.

I’ve had 2 or more messenging apps for about a decade now because of this.

It feels like there’s reason to inflate those numbers both for Israel and Palestine. Do we know they’re credible? Genuinely asking, I’m not sure from my cursory searx.

That’s the responsible way to enjoy it! But you can’t have any expectations that it’s a good idea beyond having fun with it. And I find that sometimes these posts about how to do the lottery in the smartest way possible kind of detract from the fact that it’s wrong and possibly harmful to think that it’s anything aside from a potentially fun thing to do.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, don’t delude yourself into thinking you’re being smart about the lottery by thinking about which is the smarter course of action in case of a win. The only way to be smart about the lottery is to not play.

To be fair, it’s best to not participate in the lottery.

Some countries have a less evil version of Amazon. Mine has shoepping.at, for example.

But also, there’s very few things you actually NEED that you can’t get anywhere but Amazon. My main strategy in avoiding Amazon is to just reduce my conspicuous consumption. Everything I need, I buy from brick and mortar shops: tech shop, grocery shop, textile retailer, sports shop. When I was living out of town, I’d order from the specific shops/chains website, so at least it was only them who had my address. Also, no account needed.

All of this, of course, depends on what country you live in and what your town/area has to offer. Except reducing consumption.

I couldn’t possibly get behind every single stranger who photographs me in public. I wish there was a law against it.

Funnily enough, calculator is one of the few proprietary apps I’ve paid for and still happily lose. Wolfram alpha just does many things that other calculators don’t.

gedit gang

When I was a teen it wasn’t the government I was afraid of, but digital devices were just as likely to be read as paper. What I did was keep anything I needed to be private at school, work, a friend’s. Is any of that an option? Would a super old laptop with a fresh OS that you never connect to the internet be safe in your home?

That sucks, didnt know charging by the minute was still a thing at all in some places.

Anyone who uses Facebook messenger as their only messenging app will need to text or call me. Fuck that. I do, however, use WhatsApp and discord for work and uni group chats. If or when that’s no longer the case, people who only use those will need to text me, too.

You seem like a great parent! I’m personally leaning towards giving them dumb phones once they have to take public transport to school, for the convenience of them being able to inform me when they miss the bus or want to have lunch at a friend’s. But who knows if or when I’ll even have kids, lol. Maybe things will change in that time.

When I was kind of strapped on cash, the 2016 iphone SE was the most best choice by far. The android phones I’d had before that usually cost a similar amount and they all broke in less than three years. But that 290€ bad boy lasted until I lost it in 2023. Shame they’re no longer making those. But I guess the silver lining is that people don’t make fun of me for having an iPhone anymore.

My highschool PCs had XP for as long as at all possible. They switched them to some beginner friendly Linux after. Way to go.

You could literally just save a copy to your desktop before you’re going to do something sensitive.

Not a solution to all your problems of course, but the only way to buy something and preserve your privacy is to pay cash. Everything else will get your info to someone. Lots of good suggestions for lesser evils here for when you have no choice but to shop online.

If that is actually the case where you live, it’s a rare exception. Most countries test samples of products routinely to see if they comply.

Usually, the food regulations of the country you’re importing into is what counts. So in order to export to you, a product has to fulfil your country’s rules.

What’s to worry about is the labour and environment laws of the country your product comes from.