bdonvr

@bdonvr@thelemmy.club

Administrator of thelemmy.club

Nerd, truck driver, and kinda creeped that you’re reading this.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

Pi-Hole or something else for network ad blocking?

I’ve been aware of pi-hole for a while now, but never bothered with it because I do most web browsing on a laptop where browser extensions like uBlock origin are good enough. However, with multiple streaming services starting to insert adds into my paid subscriptions, I’m looking to upgrade to a network blocker that will...

bdonvr,

Pi-hole is great, but unfortunately ads in YouTube or other streaming services is not one of the things it blocks.

Self-hosted or personal email solutions?

I have a unique name, think John Doe, and I’m hoping to create a unique and “professional” looking email account like johndoe@gmail.com or john@doe.com. Since my name is common, all reasonable permutations are taken. I was considering purchasing a domain with something unique, then making personal family email accounts for...

bdonvr, (edited )

Use Cloudflare or PorkBun.com for cheap, no bullshit domains. As for the email host, self hosting not recommended. It’s a long battle to be not blocked by every other provider.

I recommend purelymail.com - no cost to add (even multiple!) custom domains, unlimited users, only pay for mail usage and storage. Go for advanced pricing until it starts costing you more than $10/yr. (Which it shouldn’t if it’s just you. Seriously this thing is cheap!) I just passed my one year anniversary with PurelyMail, and have spent $6 so far. This is my most expensive month, 85¢. And that’s only because I host a public Lemmy instance (small) and we had a few hundred spam signups which sends an email each time.

https://thelemmy.club/pictrs/image/5b7bd21e-1301-4186-9a9f-8821108ea519.png

This will give you a total yearly price WAY under what Google or Microsoft will give you. Google is like, $7.20/user/month.

And if for some reason that service goes down one day, as long as you still have a mail client with your email stored in it you should be able to just switch providers and import your emails from your client. Make some backups.

bdonvr,

Ooh, I’m in one of those states. I’ll use this out of principle even though I don’t have too many issues with FreeTaxUSA

bdonvr,

Not true, I’ve always used Authy.

bdonvr, (edited )

I mean yes a ton of it has to do with motivation, but the “gamification” is hugely overstated. It is incredibly, unbearably, repetitive and bland. Most people start with a lot of desire and determination, see little result for the time they put in, get bored of the same three formats of questions, then quit or just do the absolute bare minimum to keep their streak for a while before eventually missing that. The way they present the questions makes it so easy to guess that you hardly have to think a lot of times. The larger courses are so dauntingly long that once you realize how much time you’re going to have to spend selecting words from a bank, clicking the corresponding icon, or typing what you hear, you become severely unmotivated.

I’ve tried many times. Many people I’ve known have been through the same cycle. I don’t think I’ve seen it work.

This time around I wanted to learn Spanish, and tried the Comprehensible Input method. Man, for me at least, it has worked so so much better that it’s not even comparable. In terms of progress, fun, and motivation it’s been great for me. It basically boils down to listening to a ton of the language, but at a level you can at least follow along even if you don’t know every word. You start with really simple stuff with lots of visual aids, hand gestures, repetition. After a while you move on to content with a little less aids, and shows for young children, etc. No translation or teaching of grammar.

I’ve been at it for about four months and have listened to over 300 hours of content in Spanish. The beginning is absolutely a slog still because at that level you can’t understand much that’s actually interesting, but the moment you get to the point that you can follow some simpler dubbed content and easier stuff like travel/lifestyle vlogs on YouTube it becomes ridiculously easy. You become more focused on the CONTENT than the language. Reading comes later when you’ve really got the sounds of the language ingrained in your brain, so you don’t practice/reinforce bad pronunciation as you read.

Admittedly though, in most languages you will find it incredibly hard to find content for the very beginner level like this. Spanish has Dreaming Spanish which is a godsend, English has plenty of resources. Perhaps for most languages you’ll have to use more traditional methods to work your way up to the point that you can understand. Or have a patient one on one teacher (friend) that can do what’s called “crosstalk” in which you speak your language to them, and they respond to you in the language you’re learning. (With as much visual aid as necessary for your level). There’s been effort to create more beginner content for languages other than Spanish, but I don’t think anything has touched the library of content Dreaming Spanish has yet.

At this point, I can follow most day to day conversations if they don’t stray into odd topics. I can watch dubbed shows for kids/young adults (just finished Avatar: The Last Airbender) and follow enough to be more than enjoyable. News and simpler unscripted content is no issue as well. Native media, especially scripted media, is still too hard. I notice I struggle far less with abstract things other learners seem to have problems with like “ser vs estar”, “por vs para”, etc. One just feels more right in whatever situation but I couldn’t tell you why. For only four months self-directed learning for a few hours a day I think that’s pretty incredible. I can tell week by week that I’m improving.

For a more thorough explanation check out this playlist (turn on subtitles it’s in Spanish.) youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlpPf-YgbU7GrtxQ9yde-J…

bdonvr,

That looks like it at least might have one or two spices on it

bdonvr,

Link for alt text

bdonvr,

America absolutely wrecked the situation in Korea and for little other reason than rabid anticommunist sentiment.

bdonvr,

Perhaps the DPRK wouldn’t be as poor and reclusive if they hadn’t had almost all the cities in the north bombed until there was nothing left by Americans. And South Korea’s situation was really not that great either for a long time. It was led by brutal US installed leaders like Singman Rhee. The north was much better off by most metrics until later on.

bdonvr,

I started self hosting a SearxNG instance. It’s pretty cool, it combines several engines while not spying on you.

bdonvr,

Link for the alt text

xkcd.com/1105/

bdonvr,

Fun fact you also don’t need to go to prison for your crypto to depreciate!

bdonvr,

Correct. Most of it took a year and a half before I got a job that keeps me home every night. Hit all 48 contiguous states except Vermont (I tried to avoid the northeast whenever possible)

bdonvr,

The best part is their autocorrect changed it to “should have”, so they said something like “should have is just as correct as should have”

bdonvr,

I don’t think you normally ever come out of the coma though

bdonvr,

It’s not a stack. Two players are playing, the +4 also skips the turn of the player it affects. The person who played the +4 is then allowed to play any valid card such as a +4 wild.

bdonvr,

I just check every few hours instead of doomscrolling. It’d be nice to have more content and more active niche communities, but somehow I think this is better for me lmao. Anyways it feels cozier but not on the decline imo

bdonvr,

Why would you want to use some Google-coded, bigoted-ceo, crypto-pushing, link hijacking POS like Brave?

bdonvr,

Well really what caused that is the socialist/communist revolutions of the early 20th century.

Massive reforms (e.g. the new deal, introduction of Social Security, recognition of union rights, etc) were made in capitalist countries (along with massive anti-communist propaganda) in order to stop the spread of revolution. These were TEMPORARY concessions that we have seen wither away slowly since then. A little cut here, a program cut there, union rights weakened a bit with this law or that.

Now we’re here.

bdonvr,

Resistance is futile ☭☭☭

bdonvr,

Just pop it out and wipe it off once in a while

bdonvr,

I appreciate that mental image but I must respectfully inform you that you need to wipe down the socket, not the ball.

Which is why us real trackball users get our tongues all up in there to clean it out.

bdonvr,

Doge, it would make crytobros slightly less cringe (VERY slightly)

bdonvr,

It seems your issue isn’t that civilians are dead, but that you are actually paying attention and seeing it now that it’s happening to the colonizers. When it happens in Gaza you don’t pay attention to the images, you don’t empathize with the families destroyed.

But now there’s a relatively (to all that the IDF has done) small attack from Palestine and suddenly it’s front page news everywhere.

deleted_by_author

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    bdonvr,

    I only worry how bad the colonizers will retaliate.

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