Hey this is just what I need. And exactly when I needed it.
I have an old enterprise tower I’ve been trying to set up for my bedroom tv (I believe from 2009 or so) that only has 4gb ram but 12 (!!!) usb ports, and mint with xfce is still much too heavy for it, despite it being able to run win 10 fairly well.
All it needs to be able to do is run my vpn, torrent client, and web browser for media playback (Plex web, hosted elsewhere on my network).
It also helps if you are too lazy to bundle up to go outside to check when it’s cold as nuts, but are waiting for something specific. 😁
And if you just never check your mail (I get almost exclusively junk mail, so I check it every week or two. All my bills are autopay, and all communications are paperless when possible).
You assume they are only collecting usage data with their apps, which is typically not the case. Some of them request every permission on your phone just to collect as much as they can.
Ha! This is my new way of looking at my smart devices. I’ll sell you off if you don’t do what I want, and buy something that does. Very much a threat.
I recently factory reset all my Roku TVs, and didn’t connect them to the internet… and they work much better now.
Roku broke big time when I insisted on privacy. blocked the entire Roku domain, it broke the apps on a 1-month schedule like clockwork to get the network release for reinstall which allowed for phone home. lol no. I trashed it. They are dumb TVs now.
I look at my keys when I type and I’m not ashamed of that. I always have, since Oregon trails on 5.25 floppy in the early 90s.
I could probably train myself out of it, and I can type whole sentences without looking, but only with the 6 fingers I normally use, rather than the full 8 most people use, and it’s a fucking chore. Frankly, it seems like a massive waste of mental resources to learn to type without looking, and I actively resisted learning it in typing classes in middle/highschool. I’m not doing data entry, so whatever I’m writing is a creative process, and that benefits from sight. I get eyes on what I’m doing while I’m doing it, and again when I check it over. It worked out very well for me when I started typing in Cyrillic, I just added transparent stickers. Homework was a breeze; I was looking anyway! :)
Yes I fucking want backlit keys. Even if just for when I’m laying in bed at a weird angle and can’t see the key layout, or sitting in a dark room. I would want them in a drunken stupor, too, even tho I use my phone for that browsing, which is backlit by default.
In summary, backlit keys are the shit. I spent a gob of money on a backlit, rechargeable, wireless keyboard, and I regret nothing.
I’ve looked into plasma, apparently a lot of the world won’t use US plasma because we pay donors for it, it does incentivize bad behavior, and most countries won’t allow plasma donation any more frequently than blood donation. Which is every 8-ish weeks. We can do two donations a week (and it’s incentivized to encourage just that). Some desperate people game the system to do it at multiple places, even resorting to eating various things (like ketchup packets) to trick the blood tests.
But even then these companies sell it for enough (I think it’s used for cancer treatments?) to make enough on the domestic market that even paying for it is highly profitable.
Cuz I mean roughly half the population of the US has zero by default and they are included in this statistic. So for them you may also be part of why the number is greater than zero.
If you ever run into this in the future, you can often stand outside an open door with the lights on if it’s dark and make loud fast clicking noises (to give them a sense of outside through echolocation, plus a light outside the door to draw their attention since they have perfectly good eyesight) and they will just fly out on their own. They are smart, and don’t want to be inside buildings.
I get 0-5 bats a year in my house, not really sure how they get in, other than through some crack somewhere (cheap, poorly historically maintained, 140 yo house is bound to have some, and my neighbors house is basically made for bats to live in the siding so not surprising they try mine too) but I’ve figured out that’s typically a highly effective strategy to get them back out. Very easy, minimal stress for anyone involved. I don’t have anyone to help me, so it’s something one can do solo without wasting all the bat’s energy.
I actually find prior victim highly likely. Life’s already probably fucked up, what’s a B&E charge in exchange for justice? Plus doesn’t have to air any accusations and have their life also ruined.