Awhile ago, a user on r/casualuk posted a list of UK based stuff that was either free or cheap (food/entertainment/etc). They mirrored it in a few places and I bookmarked the github mirror. Doesn’t look like it’s been updated for a year or so though and I ain’t prepared to head to reddit to check the original.
Everything just seems so out of control. The US seems to be tearing itself apart. The world is on fire. We seem to be going backwards when it comes to freedom and human rights. We’ve turned our backs on each other. How do you cope with all this without just giving up?
Unlike most, I don’t believe its possible (or even a very good idea) to ignore the news. What I do is limit my news source to two places a day, BBC and The Guardian which I know are not perfect but I believe they can be largely trusted. Other than that, I read the odd link on here but I won’t doom scroll.
I also do things that have a tangible effect for people who have it worse than me. Hands on in my immediate locality, and via donation nationally and/or internationally. I have a list of charities that I support and donate to two for 6 months then switch to another two and repeat. Doing this means that most importantly, people are helped in some small way and less importantly it offsets the shitness of life a bit. If I can feel a bit happy that I’m doing something, that’s a good thing.
It’s an isolationist policy. The US military doesn’t have military bases/presences across Europe (and elsewhere) out of the goodness of its heart or to protect Europe. They also do it because their military realises that its much, much better to have bases somewhere where they can strike an international enemy quickly from. It’s a militarily mutually beneficial arrangement.
So, the US would lose that early strike capability. They’d also lose all the intelligence benefits having people on the ground brings with it. Also, should it happen and Europe was successfully invaded, US businesses would either temporarily or permanently lose access to one of their biggest trade export blocs and a large amount of access to imports too.
I’ve been using them for nearly 3 years now and never used (or even knew they offered) email support.
Not ideal they use GMail of course but they could be using private keys (as most business users do I believe) which means Google couldn’t see a thing anyway.
" three researchers have crafted a long-sought version of private information retrieval and extended it to build a more general privacy strategy. The work, which received a Best Paper Award in June 2023 at the annual Symposium on Theory of Computing, topples a major theoretical barrier on the way to a truly private search."
I’ve been grappling with a concern that I believe many of us share: the lack of privacy controls on Lemmy. As it stands, our profiles are public, and all our posts and comments are visible to anyone who cares to look. I don’t even care about privacy all that much, but this level of transparency feels to me akin to sharing my...
Lemmy is, like a lot of Fediverse platforms, about as private as it can be. There’s no trackers, you’re not forced to use real names or any other identifying information, no adverts follow you from site to site, no browser fingerprinting and no instance owners are trying to sell your data.
Beyond that, what you choose to say on Lemmy is your responsibility and yours alone.
GoT because I’d read the first two books and got bored of a medieval soap opera where the writer substitutes misery porn for a plot.
Breaking Bad because Bryan Cranston vaguely irritates me (I don’t know why, I’m sure he’s a lovely man).
Zombie related stuff because seriously, it was non-stop shit zombie movies for almost a decade and I’m bored of it. It’s just become another lazy trope. Exception: Zombieland.
(if you don’t want to go through all my strident words) Thus, after this rant, my question is: where do I start from to build my surviving kit and my right to be private and disclose personal information to who and when I want to. How I become the actual owner of my device?...
Depending on the make and model of your Android phone, you might be able to use GrapheneOS which will vastly improve your situation. Use it together with privacy respecting apps and you’ll be a long way towards reclaiming your mobile privacy. You can also buy Android phones that are pre-configured with Graphene on them on ebay but you are obviously a running a risk.
Desktop/laptop you will need to move to Linux. Mint is (in my opinion) a very good option if you’re new to Linux as it is privacy respecting and looks/acts in a very Windows type way. Like most Linux distributions, you can even try it without installing it by downloading and burning an ISO to a USB pen/stick drive. Here’s a YT tutorial on doing that (also covers going on to install Mint).
Switch browsers to Firefox and install uBlockOrigin, LibRedirect and Firefox Multi Containers add-ons. Switch to a privacy friendly search engine such as DuckDuckGo, Startpage or a SearX instance.
Migrate your email to an encrypted privacy respecting provider such as Tuta (recently changed their name from Tutanota) and stop using things like OneDrive or Dropbox, instead use a service like ProtonDrive or Filen.
Use a decent VPN like Mullvad on all your devices. This not only protects your ISP from seeing what you’re doing it also means you’re using their DNS, which you can configure to block trackers, adverts and a few other things (at DNS level, you’ll still need uBlockOrigin in your browser). It doesn’t offer as much control as PiHole or AdGuard but it’s a lot less complicated to set up.
Lots of people and countriesare claiming Russia is committing genocide and are investigating that possibility.
Several nations and legal institutions have also classed China’s actions against the Uyghur as genocidal.
However, as far as I’m aware neither Russia or China are signed up to the ICC so there’s not much point in using that body to penalise them.
Israel is though and your claim there’s no proof is literally true (in the sense you used the word ‘proof’) but there is plenty of evidence that Israel certainly has genocide very much in the forefront of their minds when members of the Israeli government suggest nuking Gaza, or creating ‘no go’ areas for Palestinians in recognised Palestinian areas that just so happen to be where Palestinian farmers grow and harvest food. Israeli historian of the Holocaust Omer Bartov warned that statements made by top Israeli officials “could easily be construed as indicating a genocidal intent.”
I’ll recommend (as I always do, being a satisfied customer) Filen - scroll down that page and you’ll see the 10gb free tier.
All you need is a working email - get an anonymous forwarder here or here. All the apps are open source, everything is E2EE, the website doesn’t track or fingerprint you and if you decide to upgrade to a paid acct, they accept Monero.
I’ve never had a Facebook account or any other social media. I know they keep shadow profiles, but I’ve never given permission. I never had any interest and frankly still don’t....
You can easily switch back to stock Android if necessary :)
I switched a couple of years ago and the process then was pretty straightforward to the point I can’t really recall much about it, I can’t imagine its got trickier since then. I’m due a new Pixel sometime this year and I plan on putting Graphene straight on to it.
Process is simple;
Backup everything you want to keep and move the backup off your device.
Identify FOSS equivalents for all the apps you currently have (but maybe you already use them)
Read the installation instructions. Re-read until you understand exactly what every step entails and means. Any step you’re at all unsure of, ask. Much better to ask questions before you start than be stuck needing an answer halfway through.
If it goes bad (which it won’t) or you don’t like Graphene you can, as I said, revert back to stock Android.
That’s kind of my point. There is no god (or at least not one I believe in), my religion is an atheist based one. The morals that we have are our own, we don’t see them as anything other than that. I don’t want anyone to feel that I’m trying to evangelise or recruit here so I’m not going to go into details, but if you want to, follow the link to community I moderate thats in my profile and there are outgoing links on that community.
Religion is not interchangeable with theism. Many people, including me, are religious whilst also being atheists. Depending on the source, religion can be defined as a supernatural based idea (god/gods) or (the way I see it) more like Emile Durkheim saw it “a unified system of beliefs and practices […] which unite into one single moral community called a church, all those who adhere to them.”
So, for me, religion gives me a sense of community, support and a structure to guide me. It doesn’t rule me and I don’t have to worship or pray to a supernatural being that doesn’t exist. So in my (biased) view, I get the good bits of religion without the shitty awful bits such as telling everyone only my religion is right, telling everyone what to do based on what I think and generally being an arsehole.
Most people like some type of community because we are, at bottom, social creatures. My own religion allows me to be both individualistic and also part of a community and I think a lot of people feel that their religion gives them that sense of community. A more worrying aspect of religion is theistic religion - worship of a supernatural being/beings - because that is irrational, which is not in itself a concern, but when whole societies are controlled via theism then people suffer.
What free things online should everyone take advantage of?
What free resources do you know on the internet that everyone should use?...
Why do you think they don't show Brave here? (lemmy.ml)
Firefox updated today and I’m wondering why they don’t put Brave in this table, what’s your opinion on this? 🤔
How do you cope with the state of the world today?
Everything just seems so out of control. The US seems to be tearing itself apart. The world is on fire. We seem to be going backwards when it comes to freedom and human rights. We’ve turned our backs on each other. How do you cope with all this without just giving up?
If Trump wins the election
Let’s say Trump wins and Europe loses its security guarantee from the US....
Do any of you have that one service that just breaks constantly? I'd love to love Nextcloud, but it sure makes that difficult at times (lemmy.world)
Mullvad uses Gmail (simplifiedprivacy.com)
Piers Morgan gets owned (lemmy.world)
Cryptographers Just Got Closer to Enabling Fully Private Internet Searches (www.wired.com)
" three researchers have crafted a long-sought version of private information retrieval and extended it to build a more general privacy strategy. The work, which received a Best Paper Award in June 2023 at the annual Symposium on Theory of Computing, topples a major theoretical barrier on the way to a truly private search."
Privacy Concerns on Lemmy: A Call for More User Control (github.com)
I’ve been grappling with a concern that I believe many of us share: the lack of privacy controls on Lemmy. As it stands, our profiles are public, and all our posts and comments are visible to anyone who cares to look. I don’t even care about privacy all that much, but this level of transparency feels to me akin to sharing my...
Community note pointing out fake news once again 🫡 (sh.itjust.works)
Bitwarden Privacy Software Stack Survey (forms.bitwarden.com)
From their Masto acct:...
Tailchat - The next-generation noIM Application in your own workspace (tailchat.msgbyte.com)
Haven’t seen much of this around, but I’ve spun my own instance up and suffice to say it fits my needs.
What really popular movie or TV show have you never seen?
When I tell people I’ve never seen the Lion King they are really baffled by that.
The desire to build a self-defense kit from Google and the Internet as it is today
(if you don’t want to go through all my strident words) Thus, after this rant, my question is: where do I start from to build my surviving kit and my right to be private and disclose personal information to who and when I want to. How I become the actual owner of my device?...
Just an idea to make the Fediverse better, what do you think about it?
I have this proposal for ActivityPub...
Why is there a ICC case of genocide against Israel but not China or Russia?
I don’t understand, there is no proof of genocide in Israel but YEARS of evidence against China and Russia. Can anyone explain this to me?
Do you know any file hosting sites with a good privacy policy?
I found a site that doesn’t collect much user data, but it seems to have been down for a while. Attempts to upload the file were unsuccessful....
After a lifetime against, I'm considering joining social media. Any advice?
I’ve never had a Facebook account or any other social media. I know they keep shadow profiles, but I’ve never given permission. I never had any interest and frankly still don’t....
What's the consensus on swearing here
Noticed not many people use curse words....
What's the best strategy for changing to GrapheneOS?
I have a google pixel, and I know I could install grapheneOS on it. But I’m very, very hesitant, since I depend so much on my phone....
Why in the year 2024 and with all the knowledge humans have now do people still believe in religion?