4grams

This and flannel was me in the 90’s; and everyone else. I loved the thermal under a t-shirt look, let me stay both casual and warm!

I’m convinced this has been the plan for some time. My kids don’t see the point of computers when they have their phones and school iPads. They dont understand the concept of data ownership and everything is temporary to them, whatever is fed by the algorithm.

They are better off that most, my hard core nerdiness has rubbed off so they at least know how to use a computer, have built one each themselves. I just hope it continues to be possible going forward, but I’ll be willing to bet, on the other side of the age verification crap, is even more restrictions. They plan a death by a thousand cuts, until it’s no longer feasible, then. No longer legal to run your own compute.

F’ing suck, used to be available to the masses. I hope it will again, but even a raspberry pi is a luxury good these days.

I have failing hard drives in my NAS but they are nearly 4x the price from when I bought them, so I’m struggling to save for replacements. I’m so pissed off that even used enterprise stuff that used to be cheap, is now also luxury goods priced. I will be paying 259.99 for a drive I used to pay 69.99 for.

I agree that the functionality is sometimes nice, but I would never keep data in just the cloud, at least anything sensitive or valuable. Beyond not trusting someone else with the integrity of my data, I also do not want to be subject to control of it or access to it. Lastly, my data is mine, and in most cloud providers, my data will also be used for AI training.

So, I enjoy using the cloud for some things, I still keep my primary data under my control, in my own known and backed up locations.

As for the forcefulness, there are a lot of us who care deeply about ownership and privacy, and there are a lot of those that dismiss our concerns as invalid or unimportant. Not that you are by any means, just that is what I see frequently.

Most of the time it does work, which is why it’s so goddamned hard to undo. I’ve been working on de-appleing, I’ve nearly completely de-Amazoned and am also working on de-googling. But these damn providers make it so difficult, they get in so deep. It’s not even me that makes it hard, I’m willing to make a little extra effort for a more privacy focused platform I control. No, it’s the family and friends that all are perfectly comfortable handing control of their data and frankly lives (everything is in these fucking things, schedule, contacts, financial stuff, all digital communication, photos, videos, etc…).

As long as you keep spending a lot of money, and upgrading to the newest devices, you will have a decent experience. As soon as you try to extend the life, find alternatives, look for ways to control your own data, then it gets real hard.

To be fair, it’s not just Apple. Google, Microsoft, Amazon, any of the big players are the same. They all manage to make it easy, so long as you are comfortable being captured.

I’m a big fat guy who sweats a lot. I’ve never cared about the sweat though only the smell. So my whole life I’ve used nothing but deodorant, NEVER antiperspirant.

I’ve never had problems with either pit stains, nor lingering odor. I’m pretty convinced that antiperspirant leads to more smell; I’m not saying I’m fresh as a daisy at all times, but even at my worst, my odor isn’t that bad, while drier people often stink to high heaven.

I’m convinced this is all to normalize keeping your data in the cloud and other 3rd party hands. It’s hr decline of the PC market, the fact that games, movies and music no longer come on media you own, instead is now just a license to use the content…

This is all part of the strategy of ensuring we do not own our data. They want all storage of all the data to be something we have to pay to access. They want to control everything, and make access to it a subscription.

This shit drives me up a wall. I try to only buy peanut butter made out of peanuts, so for years now I’ve been buying “natural” peanut butter. I recently noticed however that 100% “natural” doesn’t mean shit as all the natural brands are loaded with palm oil. I honestly might have to start making my own.

It sucks because my family treats me like an insane person when I look at the ingredients and nutrition of the food stuff we buy. Food culture in the US is awful, just awful.

I don’t think it’s as hard to draw a line as you are portraying it. The hypothetical nurse and bread factory is a non-issue, we’re talking fractions of the bottom line of any of the involved parties. This mulvad thing is the majority of the financial backing of a party by one high level person, who’s made his money from this organization.

I’m quite comfortable putting them under the same umbrella, and quite comfortable ignoring the hypothetical.

But think there might be a philosophical question here, but I kinda think this is begging for one a bit.

It came to me last night, how all this AI and the difficulties obtaining hardware. This is all them trying to end the idea of ownership, at least of your data. They want to control all the data, so everything you do, every picture you take, every game you play, every essay you write, will be only available in the cloud. We are getting close to the point where are must pay for every bit of our own data that we access.

This is the inevitable result. I’m very glad I’ve spent years building my own library of content. I just hope I can continue getting replacement hardware to keep it alive.

I had a flight safe multitool, one that specifically had no blade, nor anything sharp. It only had tools for my camera. I also had a fisher space pen which they said looked too much like a bullet.

Both were confiscated, but they couldn’t figure out how to open the front flipper knife I had with me, so they let it through.

The TSA bullshit isn’t about keeping us safe.

Just had this thought, and realized all my backups had been through a flood. I wound up with several damaged disks, but was able to get all the content off of them, damage was to the outside edges, and most of them didn’t have much data written.

I have a Blu-ray burner, but I’ve never burned one (only a couple DVD’s). Probably never will.

In this insane world, I’m not so sure.

I mean, same can be said about datacenters…

This is really about training AI, isn’t it. They’ve tapped nearly all the sources of human text output already, so now they want to create as much more of it as possible, as quickly as possible. They will tap into conversations and use it as a new data source, mark my words.

I mean, the boys was meant as biting social commentary so not sure where we are in the cart/horse equation here.

Jokes on them, I’ve been a windows guy so long they have always been directories; I started in the dos days.

I understand the authors reasons, but for me personally, having paid for the app, I’ll use it until it no longer suits my needs. Right now it does early what I need and does not cause me any issues. As soon as the enshittification hits me though, I’ll abandon it for something else. I also would not recommend someone purchase it, given the new pricing, and the availability of free alternatives. Had they been there when I paid for Plex, I’d be using them instead.

It’s something new anyway. I’ve dealt with bureaucracy my whole career, but mostly about shuffling numbers from one spreadsheet to another. This one is about helping shuffle people from one place to another. So, I’m used to slow, deliberate pace and hitting political walls. I’m hoping this time at least it’s doing something tangible.

I had nearly this exact conversation with my son on the way home tonight. Different details, but the same lesson. The world has abandoned practicality in favor of aesthetics and grift. I have quit several jobs because of the awful short term thinking, some of them good jobs that were the envy of my peers.

I start in the public sector next week, where I get to do things that have a direct impact on thousands of people in the state. I was hired specifically because of my practicality. I sincerely hope this is what I’ve been looking for.