Reject Convenience Forum

Latest Videos :: Re: Side Quest: Plants (this is the corn video) :: Reply by Mæstro

no_email@example.com (Mæstro) — Fri, 18 Jul 2025 20:29:04 +0000

rejectconvenience wrote: Thu Jul 17, 2025 5:24 pm I am planning on giving breaks between the more intense privacy and technology conversations with side quests like this! I think I need those breaks just as much as everyone else, so it's nice to have an agreement there.

When a filmmaker is interested in two distinct subjects and plans to release episodes about both regularly, he often creates separate channels for each. For example, Cody Franklin maintains both AlternateHistoryHub, his main channel, and PointlessHub, for film reviews. This means that viewers interested in only privacy could pay attention just to the Reject Convenience channel, while the rest of us can watch your secondary channel also. I am considering developing two personal sites, one for nonfiction and one for creative writing, for the same reason.

Latest Videos :: Re: Side Quest: Plants (this is the corn video) :: Reply by alooinfinite

no_email@example.com (alooinfinite) — Sat, 19 Jul 2025 03:55:09 +0000

Mæstro wrote: Mon Jul 14, 2025 3:41 pm I dislike describing cultivated plants as man-made or ‘manipulated’. The variations involved would occur naturally, and the maize plant grows according to its own, unaltered nature; man’s only part in it was to maintain an environment where they could thrive, whereas they would have otherwise perished as freaks of nature.

What you are reffering to is called domestication, which is the act of giving organisms certain traits through selective breeding. It wasn't just that the plants were allowed to live that allowed them to change but we also intentionally culled the ones with unwanted traits. A good example of this would be sheep there are 2 kinds of sheep domesticated sheep and the oh so few wild sheep putting the 2 side by side reveals that they are different yet they both come from the same common ancestor; The reason for this is because we domesticated the fluffy sheep they are so fluffy that they are required to be trimmed lest their quality of life worsens due to their coats, whereas the wild ones where allowed to evolve and adapted to their environments.

If anything is unclear please inform me so that I may quell the confusion. Have a good life.

Latest Videos :: Re: Side Quest: Plants (this is the corn video) :: Reply by Mæstro

no_email@example.com (Mæstro) — Sat, 19 Jul 2025 12:03:45 +0000

I know how selective breeding works, and nothing in my original post rules out negative selection as part of the process of ‘maintain[ing] an environment where [desired traits] can thrive’: plants with undesired traits qualify as weeds. The point is that traditional breeding cannot introduce variations neither already present in the parent stock (in some proportion, however latent or diffuse) nor otherwise showing spontaneously from time to time (as through natural mutation).

Introductions :: Privacy minded guy from Germany here! :: Author tcblog

no_email@example.com (tcblog) — Fri, 25 Jul 2025 11:24:20 +0000

So, hey

I'm a guy from Germany who got really interested in the whole privacy thing.

I do also have my own blog https://techguy-blog.neocities.org/. I have to warn you though, this blog is

#1 not made for being viewed on a mobile device and
#2 also has no dark theme, so be warned your eyes could burn away if you open my site at night, just don't do it

And my website name "techguy-blog" is actually just the , or moreover my German translation of the word "Techniktyp", which when you type it into deepL will come out in English as " technology type", my personal interpretation is that Techniktyp literally means techguy, as in the guy who does things with tech;-), hope it wasn't too convoluted.

Anyway you might wonder why I'm even talking about a German word in an English only blog, well that's because I do also have a YouTube and PeerTube Channel both of which are entirely in German and thus have the German Channel name "Techniktyp" and cause I wanted to have an English blog I just roughly translated my channel name into English, just that you know.

But I mostly shorten the long name techguy-blog --> tcblog just cause its shorter and is easier to spell out.

Have a great day y'all.

Goodbye

Introductions :: Re: Privacy minded guy from Germany here! :: Reply by Crazyroostereye

no_email@example.com (Crazyroostereye) — Fri, 25 Jul 2025 17:13:16 +0000

Herzlich Wilkommen to the Forum!
It's nice having you here. I read a bit of your Blog Posts and found them quite Interesting. I remember when I had the Bundesjugendspiel when I went to school. They were always quite fun. And I was always quite Terrible.

Finally, as a Suggestion for your Blog so people can be notified when you post, you could add a RSS Feed, which allows people to easily Subscribe to your Blog.

Introductions :: Re: Privacy minded guy from Germany here! :: Reply by tcblog

no_email@example.com (tcblog) — Sat, 26 Jul 2025 11:16:10 +0000

Thanks that you read my Blog Post's, I always think that my writing is terrible and too messy/all over the place.
So yeah thanks for the positive feedback.

I have read about RSS before and also use it myself to "subscribe" to a few sites that I like, but don't know if you can tell, but my HTML is terrible and I always found it hard to implemented RSS into my blog as I don't have any ideas how to code, if it wasn't clear by now .

And yeah, if you speak German by chance than you could check out the mess that's called my YouTube / PeerTube Channel, but be warned it's again very messy and all over the place.

Anyway thanks for the positive reply/feedback.

PS. The "Navigation Bar" on my Blog used to have a grey Background colour, but I have no idea where it went, it was just gone someday, but hey that happens when someone like me tries to put together the html...

EDIT:
I just now noticed that we have indeed written with each other before, on a discussion on Bluesky.
Here's the link : https://bsky.app/profile/rejectconvenie ... tc2sxwjk2h.
I'm honesty quite surprised that we've "talked" to each other before, but since I actually forgot to read your name here on the forum that's possibly why I just noticed it now.

Introductions :: Re: Privacy minded guy from Germany here! :: Reply by Crazyroostereye

no_email@example.com (Crazyroostereye) — Sat, 26 Jul 2025 13:20:06 +0000

Writing is smth you get used to. So just keep at it and you will improve.
RSS is actually not that complicated, its similar in structure like HTML. Relying on XML in its case. So you can read through the spec there. But I took the Liberty to write an example for your first post you made on your Blog:

Code: Select all


  
    Techguy's Blog
    https://techguy-blog.neocities.org/
    
      Techguy's amazing Blog about Things and Stuff
    
    Sat 26 Jul 2025 15:00:00 CEST
    
      My First Article on my new Blog!
      https://techguy-blog.neocities.org/my%20first%20article!
      
        Hello and welcome to my new and first Blogpost ever!
        For Context: I`m a small content Creator from Germany, and I`ve discoverd Neocities just one week ago.

        A little Notice: My Youtube, Peertube and Instagram Accounts are in German, but this Blog will be duallingual in English and German.
        
        What will be published on this Blog?, I plan to post Articles to Videos on my Channel, and also other Information. And also a few other Articles about Privacy and Security will be published. I should also mention why I`m blogging in 2024?! I decided to set up this Blog because I think it is important to be "independent" on the Web.

        So, I hope this Blogpost wasn`t too boring.
        Thank you for reading!
      
      Thu 4 Feb 2024 17:00:00 CEST
      https://techguy-blog.neocities.org/my%20first%20article!

You save this as a .xml or .rss for example rss.xml and then link to it in the head of your HTML similar to a Stylesheet link.

Introductions :: Re: Introduce yourself! :: Reply by phryk

no_email@example.com (phryk) — Sat, 19 Jul 2025 03:30:43 +0000

Henlo!

I'm phryk, software engineer and sysadmin by day and anarchist agitprop auteur by night.

I do a lot of webdev and general UNIX-y stuff, but my overall interests are *painfully* diverse.
Dataviz, datajournalism, gamedev, infosec, graphics design, hardware design, usability, paleontology, biotech, keeping tabs on (para)military developments, … and so many more.

Obviously, I'm a little bit squirrel-brained with that many interests, but I have at least dabbled in most of these in some capacity.

My most completed big project was probably the (militantly) zero-JS webframework with integrated data analysis and visualization with a ton of CSS hacks and custom templated SVG, but I've deprecated that one a while ago… ^^;

My daily driver OS is FreeBSD and I am a proud union member.

I also survived some nasty mental health shit and like to go bouldering.
Maybe at some point, I'll pick up parkour again.

Ⓐ

Introductions :: Re: Introduce yourself! :: Reply by MaHaie

no_email@example.com (MaHaie) — Sat, 19 Jul 2025 14:42:22 +0000

Hello hello!
I'm MaHaie. I found this forum thanks to Reject Convenience's YouTube videos, especially the ones about privacy policies and dumbphones. His videos really got me thinking, and I thought the forum seemed like a great place to explore those topics more deeply.
I'm currently in french high school, and I'm pretty new to forums in general. I used some back in the days, but I guess I'm a bit too young to have seen those in the og form. I’ve mostly grown up with centralized platforms and social media, so I’m curious and excited to try out a space like this that feels more, I don't really know, a bit more... respectful? At least, you have to really write your things, and nobody would bother you because you write an 'essay' (thanks reddit ) and it's really refreshing.
I’ve been thinking more and more about digital minimalism, especially since I've seen lots of my friends and familly (and even people at school) spending more and more time on their phones . I'm really trying to do my best to stop doomscrolling, but when it isn't on Instagram, it's on Reddit or YouTube. I'm thinking about trying out a dumbphone soon. Reject Convenience’s content helped me realize just how much control and noise Big Tech has over our lives and how freeing it can be to take a step back.
Outside of that, I’m into photography, writing, and journaling. I also care a lot about understanding human relationships and emotional health, which kind of ties into why I’m here too.
Looking forward to being part of this community
(Also, if I do any mistake in writing, please be kind I'm still learning English )

Introductions :: Re: Introduce yourself! :: Reply by Limette

no_email@example.com (Limette) — Mon, 04 Aug 2025 15:43:45 +0000

Hi hi!
I'm Limette, and I found this forum randomly by reading the description on a Reject Convenience video and noticing the link. It's just in time too! I was thinking to myself, "man, I should get into classic forum sites" for days now. Well, it was always on my to-do list, but the recent stuff with Youtube's new policy, the online safety act, etc. really gave me another push.

I barely use social media to begin with, but I'm chronically online regardless. It's a problem. Giving me internet access was a mistake. But that's why I'm here now! Still... on the internet... but a healthier version of it, I suppose. Don't let me down, niche internet forum!

I'm an artist, a furry, and I sometimes play video games. Creative hobbies include but are not limited to:

digital + traditional art
writing
knitting
crochet
fursuit-making (crochet fursuit-making, if we're being specific)
embroidery
sewing
coding

...and more. It's a lot. I collect hobbies like Pokemon.

Since I'm German, my English can sound stiff or awkward sometimes. Feel free to correct mistakes or give feedback, I always look to improve my writing. Lastly, in terms of this whole "rejecting convenience" thing... I'm still working on that. However, a first step is still a step! Alongside exploring forums, I'm also working on a personal website on neocities.

Introductions :: Re: Introduce yourself! :: Reply by TeaInTheMorning

no_email@example.com (TeaInTheMorning) — Thu, 07 Aug 2025 11:59:20 +0000

Hi y'all,
I'm Saki (account name is TeaInTheMorning on this board). I've been lurking on this board for a long time, since I discovered the reject convenience channel back 8-12 months ago! My first videos i watched were the dumbphone duology, but i really enjoyed the plant one recently which brought me back here! :D

I found this community share a lot of my interests and beliefs so wanted to properly engage with it!

I personally enjoy linguistics, programming, linux, and raving about how amazing green tea is!

This is my first phpbb post so, I hope i did it right XD

Introductions :: Hi, Snehut here :: Author Snehut

no_email@example.com (Snehut) — Thu, 07 Aug 2025 09:09:00 +0000

I'm a user from Ukraine. I saw the forum author's channel a couple of days ago, and I really liked the 3D visuals of the videos, as well as the topics he discusses. I bow down to such research for each topic, it was interesting to watch.

Why am I here? Well, it seemed to me that the comfortable corners of the internet where I used to communicate had died out as a species and been replaced by social media. No one updates those apps and websites anymore, and it makes me sad to look at their online statistics.

But I think this forum is worth a try. Besides, I'm trying to live a more analog life and not look at my phone so often, and it seems like a lot of people here are doing the same.

Introductions :: Re: Hi, Snehut here :: Reply by Crazyroostereye

no_email@example.com (Crazyroostereye) — Thu, 07 Aug 2025 09:45:21 +0000

Welcome to the Forum,
happy to have you!
I get that, social media has been a scourge that has knocked out almost every Online Community space and took it over. Just the allure of everything being Free and in one place was just to much .

But welcome and I hope you enjoy your stay.

Introductions :: Re: Hi, Snehut here :: Reply by Limette

no_email@example.com (Limette) — Thu, 07 Aug 2025 19:50:42 +0000

Welcome!
I'm a bit too young to remember what the old internet might have been like, but I get the impression it's still kicking, just harder to find. People are still creating their own websites, and there's still active forums.

I'm trying to be on my phone less, too. I find myself engaging with things more deeply when I'm looking at them through the Big Computer Screen, sitting at my desk, rather than rotting away on my bed and holding my phone way too close to my face. Reducing screen time as a whole would likely be even better, but you can't make drastic lifestyle changes like that out from the jump.

Let's work towards our goals together!

Introductions :: Re: Hi, Snehut here :: Reply by CitricScion

no_email@example.com (CitricScion) — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 02:10:14 +0000

Welcome to the forum, @Snehut! We vibin. Happy to have someone who appreciates a different pace of online life.

Introductions :: Re: Hi, Snehut here :: Reply by rejectconvenience

no_email@example.com (rejectconvenience) — Sun, 10 Aug 2025 14:12:36 +0000

Howdy and welcome I hope you enjoy the community as much as I do.

Introductions :: Re: Hi, Snehut here :: Reply by Fireye

no_email@example.com (Fireye) — Sun, 10 Aug 2025 20:34:09 +0000

Welcome! The indie web is a great spot, would definitely recommend looking around it sometime!

Introductions :: Actually saying hi :: Author thursdayrain

no_email@example.com (thursdayrain) — Fri, 15 Aug 2025 21:07:23 +0000

hii :D im thursday, i typically go by some variation of thursdayrain online (whatever isnt taken lol) decided to start a topic for this cause its pretty longgg sorry >_<

tl;dr forget i made this account, i plan to be more active here in future

why am i here?
i actually made this account 8 months ago :0 - i started learning about and exploring the indie web back in Nov 2024, even teaching myself html/css again with the hopes of builiding a website of my own, but in Feb 2025 my college studies became a lot more intense and i was forced to devote most of my time to that >:/ i was going thru my saved passwords on the family laptop (my pc arrives tomorrow!) just now when i remembered this place :D

ive became increasingly paranoid over the summer about, well, the everything that is going on rn 0_0 the youtube algorithm situation specifically has brought me back to these online spaces. i wont go into it all rn but let me tell you. i have a lot of thoughts. hopefully rengaging with indie web spaces online again will keep me from bothering my gf whos just as prone to paranoia as i am lmao

i am by no means technogical knowledgable, i am making it all up as i go along, but i am more than willing to learn B)

now for the actually fun and interesting part
i am currently a social sciences student at college with plans to go to uni and study archaeology B) i love x-men comics, gaming, creating art (esp w/ watercolours), sci-fi/fantasy novels, horror media, zines, playing the drums/bass guitar, going to gigs, messing around with html, and exploring peoples cool websites :3 i am very socially inexperienced online so i apologise if i come on strong

i am autistic (the hyperverbalism is on full display here), experience frequent vestibular migrianes, and have a currently undiagnosed chronic illness yippee so while the internet is a big outlet for me, i may go offline for very long periods of time, and am incredibly prone to forgetting about things, so apologises if i abandon this place by accident

scrolling around i recognise a few users from starsubculture?! i got logged out a few months ago n whenever i try to get back in it just says "site inactive". did we ever resolve the temu bot problem? fun fact i was actually the one that started to forum topic about it.... luvstarkei never did get back to me :/

thank u so much for reading all of this lmao, hope to see ya around :D

Introductions :: Re: Actually saying hi :: Reply by Fireye

no_email@example.com (Fireye) — Fri, 15 Aug 2025 22:35:35 +0000

Ahh that XKCD comic I posted keeps giving and giving (viewtopic.php?p=1929#p1929)

Real sad to see starsubculture go down though, it was such a neat little community. I just wish luvstar open sourced the thing so the community could help maintain it instead of just flat out dropping it. Like I have ADHD, I get it. But you have to know yourself and if you can't maintain something, take steps to remedy that rather than just burning out repeatedly. That was actually one of the main inspirations for me to start my open source game dev webring (https://gdt.fireye.coffee), as if you're creating an online community it just makes so much sense to let users contribute and help build their community up themselves rather than having one person shoulder the whole burden of maintanence upkeep and growth.

This forum is pretty great though, very small town vibes which is super nice.

Introductions :: Re: Actually saying hi :: Reply by TeaInTheMorning

no_email@example.com (TeaInTheMorning) — Sat, 16 Aug 2025 00:29:30 +0000

thursdayrain wrote: Fri Aug 15, 2025 9:07 pm hii im thursday, i typically go by some variation of thursdayrain online (whatever isnt taken lol) decided to start a topic for this cause its pretty longgg sorry >_<

tl;dr forget i made this account, i plan to be more active here in future

why am i here?
i actually made this account 8 months ago :0 - i started learning about and exploring the indie web back in Nov 2024, even teaching myself html/css again with the hopes of builiding a website of my own, but in Feb 2025 my college studies became a lot more intense and i was forced to devote most of my time to that >:/ i was going thru my saved passwords on the family laptop (my pc arrives tomorrow!) just now when i remembered this place

ive became increasingly paranoid over the summer about, well, the everything that is going on rn 0_0 the youtube algorithm situation specifically has brought me back to these online spaces. i wont go into it all rn but let me tell you. i have a lot of thoughts. hopefully rengaging with indie web spaces online again will keep me from bothering my gf whos just as prone to paranoia as i am lmao

i am by no means technogical knowledgable, i am making it all up as i go along, but i am more than willing to learn B)

now for the actually fun and interesting part
i am currently a social sciences student at college with plans to go to uni and study archaeology B) i love x-men comics, gaming, creating art (esp w/ watercolours), sci-fi/fantasy novels, horror media, zines, playing the drums/bass guitar, going to gigs, messing around with html, and exploring peoples cool websites :3 i am very socially inexperienced online so i apologise if i come on strong

i am autistic (the hyperverbalism is on full display here), experience frequent vestibular migrianes, and have a currently undiagnosed chronic illness yippee so while the internet is a big outlet for me, i may go offline for very long periods of time, and am incredibly prone to forgetting about things, so apologises if i abandon this place by accident

scrolling around i recognise a few users from starsubculture?! i got logged out a few months ago n whenever i try to get back in it just says "site inactive". did we ever resolve the temu bot problem? fun fact i was actually the one that started to forum topic about it.... luvstarkei never did get back to me :/

thank u so much for reading all of this lmao, hope to see ya around

Fantastic to meet you!
I wish I had a lot to say in return!
Do know you are welcome

Self Promotion :: The autisanal wobsite of phryk evil mad sciences, LLC :: Author phryk

no_email@example.com (phryk) — Sat, 19 Jul 2025 04:19:03 +0000

I have a wobsite. There truly aren't many like it.

Self-hosted and self-written from the ground up, including all templates and CSS.

Not a single line of JavaScript (as it should be), but it still has commenting with captchas,
modal galleries, animated vector graphics and some other bells and whistles that I put
entirely too much effort and thought into.

Half the site is essentially one elaborate shitpost, including the code.

Yet it has two-factor authentication with TLS client certificates and a peppered,
salted and timing-randomized SHA3-512 password storage. For a single user.

Oh, and until recently, it gave you an unclosable overlay telling you how to install
an adblocker if you didn't have one; but I disabled that because it had too many
false negatives, so it'll have to be reworked to be a little less evil.

I wrote a bit about the site here.
I also wrote in more depth about my particular approach to web development here.

Apart from that you can find a whole smorgasbord of stuff on there…
posts about ongoing and old projects, a couple of essays, at least one tutorial,
my homegrown propaganda (all including source files for easy remixing)
to curated art recommendations (some of which are directly offered for download).

You might also want to push The Button.

Self Promotion :: Re: boykisser.nl - My weblog :: Reply by loebas

no_email@example.com (loebas) — Mon, 21 Jul 2025 13:53:12 +0000

Ahh thank you.

The domain is indeed one of a kind.
The website is kind of my personal notepad, and the community. I didnt want to get it wasted for a bluesky username

Self Promotion :: Game Developer Webring :: Author Fireye

no_email@example.com (Fireye) — Sun, 10 Aug 2025 20:41:42 +0000

Heya! I recently put together an open source webring for game developers on the indie web. If you make games and run a website, check it out here! https://gdt.fireye.coffee

I saw a lot of attempts to create social spaces on the web failed as they mostly just hinged on the efforts of an individual rather than those of a community, so I figured open sourcing the development of the platform itself made a lot of sense.

Self Promotion :: Re: I blog about nerd stuff :: Reply by PoisonIvy

no_email@example.com (PoisonIvy) — Tue, 12 Aug 2025 21:43:53 +0000

Cool blog!

Just read your post about short form "content". Really reminded me of Patrick Willem's stance on the word "content".

Self Promotion :: Legislative Districts :: Author foxx-doxx

no_email@example.com (foxx-doxx) — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 15:40:03 +0000

I have had this collection of all of the legislative districts of the United States for years. Decided to make it public.

It's a one-stop-shop for all of your political-cartography needs!

Plan on adding more countries. Why not?

Phones :: Dumb phones without android :: Author kitsurei

no_email@example.com (kitsurei) — Mon, 21 Jul 2025 13:27:54 +0000

Hey all,

I’ve on and off searched for a dumb phone the last couple years, but whenever i looked, they all ran android. i Do Not trust google. my husband is now also considering moving to a dumb phone, so my search has been reignited. does anyone know of any that run just a basic OS like old ones used to, but still work with modern carriers? (would prefer to use tello but open to others). if they’ve gotta run a “modern” OS, how about one that runs lineageOS or something similar? or is at least able to run it, i doubt any would come with it installed

Phones :: Re: Dumb phones without android :: Reply by Crazyroostereye

no_email@example.com (Crazyroostereye) — Mon, 21 Jul 2025 15:02:57 +0000

This is difficult, I personally don't know any modern Dumb Phones that don't run any sort of Android on it, except Nokia's KaiOS which is a continuation of FirefoxOS. But I can say that a good portion of them run a highly Customized Android Build stripped out of many Components including Google Services. Meaning they are similar to LineageOS.

Phones :: Re: Dumb phones without android :: Reply by Mæstro

no_email@example.com (Mæstro) — Mon, 21 Jul 2025 15:13:54 +0000

If you are European, the Nokia 105 runs its own operating system, and would have been quite at home twenty years ago. It cannot install applications at all and has no camera. Despite being the cheapest mobile on offer today as far as I know, it is as durable as its name suggests; I have literally hurled it against a concrete wall without it sustaining any damages at all. If you are US American and do not use Verizon, the MP02 A, although quite dear, would appear fit for purpose, but I have not used it myself and cannot vouch for it. Satellite phones cost a lot, but work worldwide, and some exist which run their own, simplistic OS, again unable to install applications. Consider also whether you even need a mobile phone. Landlines still exist and are quite cheap.

Phones :: Re: In Search of a Dumbphone :: Reply by MaHaie

no_email@example.com (MaHaie) — Sat, 19 Jul 2025 14:56:17 +0000

I recently ordered a Nokia 2720 4G on Vinted for just 16€, which I think is a great deal!
It's been working really well so far. It runs on KaiOS, which makes the experience a bit more comfortable compared to a classic dumbphone, you still get access to some useful features like Maps, basic web browsing, and more, without falling back into full smartphone habits.
If you’re looking for something compact and functional on a budget, I’d definitely recommend it.

Phones :: Re: In Search of a Dumbphone :: Reply by Crazyroostereye

no_email@example.com (Crazyroostereye) — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 21:27:43 +0000

So here is my Update, So the Kyocera stopped working after I did a full reset on it via the Androids reset method. Which also has disabled the SIM Unlock. And as everything I read on unlocking them again, it will be Impossible as I am not in the US any more nor have access to an American Phone Number. Also, other Gripes I hade with the Phone, primarily its language Options being English and Spanish only and its Phone Number Input defaulting to the American - type of Phone Style putting me off too. Tho I do really like the feel of the Phone, which really Disappoints me.

So I decided to buy a new Phone instead which is the Nokia 3310, which I dont recommend for other reason later. Its actually the Phone I initially order from HMD which got cancelled. And it has been treating me well, tho there are Issues. In general in my Journey to go to Dumb Phone. My only major hang up has been E-Scooters. While I rarely use them, they do come in Handy on special occasions. But besides that the reason also cannot recommend this phone is that it relays on 2G/GSM Networking. Which is shut down in many Countries. And will be shut down in Germany by at least by one major Company in 2028. So long term this phone might be my Companion for the Next 3 Years. Or might not be. However, I feel.

Also side note, learn about the security about 2G as it is vastly insecure and you should only use it if you understand the risks.

Phones :: Making TOTP accessible for dumb phone - brain dump :: Author Targa

no_email@example.com (Targa) — Fri, 08 Aug 2025 23:57:13 +0000

The goal:
Make TOTP accessible for a dumb phone

The why:
I don't intend to make a 'safer' system, nor do I want things to be more convenient. I just don't like to be forced to always have a smart phone on me - because it distracts and tracks me. So it would be a solution to TOTP not working on dumb phones.

The method:
- Have a raspberry pi with a SIM card
- Pi has local TOTP service running
- When it receives an SMS with the title of a TOTP entry
- Checks phone number & optional pin
- Wait for the TOTP to reset and send a code which will be available for the next 30 seconds, it could maybe send the next code as well already, just in case the carrier network is slow
- On phone you receive TOTP code as a text back

Considerations:
- SMS is encoded and not encrypted, which means it's by definition not too safe
- It is likely there will be passive logging done by malicious actors
- This is very vulnerable to SS7 or SIM swap attacks
- To me it seems at least as safe as SMS verification, still used by many login providers

I'm probably not going to do this due to the security considerations, but I felt it was interesting to think about and wanted to hear your thoughts.

Phones :: Re: Making TOTP accessible for dumb phone - brain dump :: Reply by CitricScion

no_email@example.com (CitricScion) — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 02:06:58 +0000

It seems to me like this is at least as secure as SMS 2FA codes, but I would recommend moving to an authenticator if you can. I don't think that lines up with what you're trying to do. Maybe you can get a cheap Pixel or iPhone that's still supported and use that only for things like this?

Cool Websites :: The Life Engine :: Author alooinfinite

no_email@example.com (alooinfinite) — Sat, 19 Jul 2025 18:22:53 +0000

The life engine is a 2d grid simulation of evolution that updates every frame; It consists of 8 building cells and a few settings which includes but is not limited to:
Cells:
Food cells can be consumed by organisms to reproduce consuming an equal amount of food to their cell count to do so (Doesn't extend their lifespans)
Mouth cells eats adjacent food blocks
Producer cells have a chance every frame to produce food on adjacent empty cells
Mover cells allow for movement
Eye cells tell the organisms where to move based on what cells it sees (Only works with mover cells)
Killer cells harm any adjacent organisms (Except for the one it belongs to)
Armor cells are immune to the killer cells.

Settings:
Probability of a producer cell to produce food
The lifespan of an organism (Standard is 100 frames)
The maximum amount of organisms (Standard is -1 or infinity)
Whether mover cells can rotate an organism (Standard is true)
Mutation type probabilities (Standard is all equal)
The rate at which food is magically created (standard is 0)
The extra cost to reproduce with a mover cell (Standard is 0).

The game is available for free online through the link https://thelifeengine.net/ Please do check it out as it was a passion project by emergent programs that has captivated me and I hope it could do the same for you, plus it is due for a big update sometime in August for the 5 year anniversary. (I have lost more hours than I would like).

Thank you for reading this enjoy the rest of your life, and alway remember cats purs can reduce stress, anxiety, and blood pressure in humans.

Cool Websites :: Re: A website dedicated to naming and categorizing bread bag clips :: Reply by zinc

no_email@example.com (zinc) — Mon, 21 Jul 2025 07:28:25 +0000

That's fun, I always wondered what they were called. It is amazing how many unique niche interests can blossom on the internet.

Cool Websites :: Re: A website dedicated to naming and categorizing bread bag clips :: Reply by CitricScion

no_email@example.com (CitricScion) — Thu, 24 Jul 2025 01:47:27 +0000

We're reaching levels of basedness previously thought impossible

Cool Websites :: Classic Web Mastodon account :: Author CitricScion

no_email@example.com (CitricScion) — Thu, 24 Jul 2025 01:50:20 +0000

There is a Mastodon account called Classic Web which shares screenshots of old archived websites from the Dot Com era to the 2010s.

Actually, looking at the person behind it, they seem pretty neat too!
https://cybercultural.com

Cool Websites :: Thnickels :: Author Fireye

no_email@example.com (Fireye) — Thu, 24 Jul 2025 07:03:18 +0000

Thnickels

https://thick-coins.net/

Cool Websites :: Re: Thnickels :: Reply by fitsoab

no_email@example.com (fitsoab) — Thu, 24 Jul 2025 23:58:07 +0000

I'm scared

Cool Websites :: Re: Thnickels :: Reply by CitricScion

no_email@example.com (CitricScion) — Fri, 25 Jul 2025 01:25:39 +0000

thnickels

Cool Websites :: Re: Thnickels :: Reply by QueriesNTheories

no_email@example.com (QueriesNTheories) — Fri, 25 Jul 2025 11:21:17 +0000

legboot is one of my favourite silly creators <3
thnickles

Cool Websites :: Backloggd (Letterboxd but for games!) :: Author fitsoab

no_email@example.com (fitsoab) — Sat, 26 Jul 2025 19:58:56 +0000

I was drawing and watching videos on the side, as one does, a day ago and heard the person talking casually bring up this websiteand my interest was piqued. Sure enough, there it is! It's that straightforward! The privacy policy also seemed shockingly clear. It literally just says--I'm copy-pasting this--"Backloggd is committed to ensuring the privacy of your information. Unless you have expressly authorised us to do so, we will not sell, trade, or give away any personally-identifiable information to any third party." Crazy.
Anyway, I just wanted to share this, because it doesn't seem like it's quite as known. A lot of popular games on here only get a couple thousand reviews, which is shocking. If you like reviewing games and like being able to organize them into lists, you should look at this one! You can make public ranking lists and log your gameplay and all! https://backloggd.com/

Cool Websites :: Re: Backloggd (Letterboxd but for games!) :: Reply by PossiblyAxolotl

no_email@example.com (PossiblyAxolotl) — Sun, 27 Jul 2025 02:07:52 +0000

Oh hey, I'm on there! I should add more games to it, I think I might be a little behind on updating it but I'm over at https://backloggd.com/u/PossiblyAxolotl/ :>

Cool Websites :: Re: Backloggd (Letterboxd but for games!) :: Reply by Fireye

no_email@example.com (Fireye) — Sun, 27 Jul 2025 08:12:32 +0000

Neat! Back when I used letterboxd I wished they had games on there, so I'm glad to see that's a real thing haha.

Though these days, I honestly just prefer just putting stuff like that right on my blog where I have full control of it and own the content myself. I'm definitely biased towards personal websites over any social media though so take that with a grain of salt haha.

Cool Websites :: Re: Backloggd (Letterboxd but for games!) :: Reply by PossiblyAxolotl

no_email@example.com (PossiblyAxolotl) — Sun, 27 Jul 2025 19:47:09 +0000

Fireye wrote: Sun Jul 27, 2025 8:12 am Though these days, I honestly just prefer just putting stuff like that right on my blog where I have full control of it and own the content myself.

That's very fair, recently I stopped using last.fm because I don't want to have to use apps and devices that accommodate it and if I wanna recommend people music I'd just do the same and put it on my site or tell them (plus privacy concerns with it being owned by Paramount). I actually also used to have a page dedicated to sharing games I like, but I haven't brought it back yet. Planning to completely rebuild my site again soon lol

Cool Websites :: Re: Backloggd (Letterboxd but for games!) :: Reply by Fireye

no_email@example.com (Fireye) — Sun, 27 Jul 2025 21:58:01 +0000

Hah! Just one more refactor, I'm good for it!

I'm with you though haha I'm looking at putting up a page with all of my favourite art of all mediums. Might also include some of my favourite RSS feeds, YouTube channels, etc...

Cool Websites :: Bear Stearns Bravo :: Author CitricScion

no_email@example.com (CitricScion) — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 01:35:04 +0000

In 2013 there were two projects that unexpectedly converged.

One was an AI Twitter account posting random words together as it failed to make any kind of meaning (remember ChatGPT is very new). This account was called horse_ebooks.

The other was a YouTube channel that would plainly tell you how to pronounce words in English. Pronunciation Book.

One day, out of nowhere, Pronunciation Book starting counting down, until it arrived on the last day. It told you how to pronounce horse_ebooks.

The other shoe dropped on the Twitter account. There was a link to the video, a phone number, and the following words:

Bear Stearns Bravo

Enjoy.

Cool Websites :: Re: site for seeing the real size of countries relative to each other :: Reply by Limette

no_email@example.com (Limette) — Mon, 04 Aug 2025 17:13:31 +0000

This is actually neat for showcasing that Russia isn't quite as huge as world maps make it out to be. It's still an incredibly large country, but like. It's about the size of north Africa. Which... also showcases how comparebly small Africa is portrayed on world maps.

Cool Websites :: Re: site for seeing the real size of countries relative to each other :: Reply by rejectconvenience

no_email@example.com (rejectconvenience) — Tue, 05 Aug 2025 15:58:45 +0000

I flipping love this website, I could spend hours just moving things around over and over.... oh noooooo I'm getting sucked back into it goooodbyyyeeeeee

Cool Websites :: Favorite forums? :: Author CitricScion

no_email@example.com (CitricScion) — Tue, 05 Aug 2025 02:06:16 +0000

What are your favorite independent forums? Besides this one of course! Ever since I found some of these, I have not felt tempted at all to go back to Reddit. Since many of us are likely to want to avoid Reddit, I figured we could share what other places we like to hang out at.

There are my favorite:

Techlore Forum is a forum for the Techlore YouTube channel, focusing on digital privacy and security. He's fostered a great community that's been around since like 2022!
Privacy Guides Community is the forum for the Privacy Guides website. They're also focused on privacy and security, but the forum also collaborates on decisions to the website as well. They work together to develop the Privacy Guides as a resource.
Ars Technica's forum is one I'm new to, but it's based because this place is ancient. Like, if you're interested old school forums, this place is literally old school. They have users who have been around for over 20 years! If you know Ars Technica you know this is a tech news website, so the forum is tech focused but not privacy focused.

Ok, I thought I had more to share. I dig this forum because it can be more general, but I am a nerd at heart.

Cool Websites :: Re: Favorite forums? :: Reply by Crazyroostereye

no_email@example.com (Crazyroostereye) — Tue, 05 Aug 2025 07:21:20 +0000

I can add to this,
I enjoy hopping on Melonland Forum, it's very Focused on the Indie Web and Indie Web Development.

Cool Websites :: Re: Favorite forums? :: Reply by Limette

no_email@example.com (Limette) — Tue, 05 Aug 2025 10:01:47 +0000

For German speaking furries (which I know is likely a tiny to non-existant demographic here), I can highly recommend Furbase. It's an incredibly active community with a very solid website that even hosts in-person events throughout Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Cool Websites :: Re: Favorite forums? :: Reply by Limette

no_email@example.com (Limette) — Tue, 05 Aug 2025 15:53:58 +0000

@Crazyroostereye Melonland has sent me on a rabbit hole that lasted the whole day and is likely going to continue until at least the end of the week. Thank you! My eyes are burning from staring at a screen for hours and my seating position once again resembles a shrimp. However, I am VERY entertained.

Cool Websites :: Re: Favorite forums? :: Reply by CitricScion

no_email@example.com (CitricScion) — Thu, 07 Aug 2025 02:01:29 +0000

The Melonland Forum is a trip I'll tell you that right now lol. I love it.

Cool Websites :: Re: My friend’s art pages :: Reply by DedRoll

no_email@example.com (DedRoll) — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 06:02:52 +0000

Follow 'em on Newground!

I was actually wondering what's your profile photo is lol, 1 mystery solved

Cool Websites :: Re: My friend’s art pages :: Reply by TeaInTheMorning

no_email@example.com (TeaInTheMorning) — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 10:44:47 +0000

Mæstro wrote: Thu Jun 05, 2025 3:04 pm I mentioned a friend whom I call Kohai in my post about escaping Discord. After that, somebody on the Pale Moon forum asking about my profile picture and the recent post about someone’s wife’s art site, I would like to introduce his work here. Although it was before his time, my friend loves the early web and has designed his Tumblr page to work without JavaScript. He is also to thank for my profile picture. He also has a Neocities page which he would like to develop and is active on Newgrounds.

They seem pretty awesome
and they also just reminded me backloggery is a platform >>

Cool Websites :: How do you download youtube vids? :: Author DedRoll

no_email@example.com (DedRoll) — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 07:10:34 +0000

Good day,

I have a problem with youtube that just delete videos out of nowhere from my playlist

I usually use website like cobalt.tools however it doesn't work anymore, do you guys have any good alternative?

Cool Websites :: Re: How do you download youtube vids? :: Reply by Crazyroostereye

no_email@example.com (Crazyroostereye) — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 09:49:35 +0000

Download your Playlists as soon as Possible. With that you can Ensure that Videos won disappear in the Future. I sadly dont know how to retroactivly restore it tho, maybe you can remember the Video title or smth and find a reupload?

Here two tools to Download Videos and Playlists:
1. For the Terminal Nutcase : yt-dlp
It's a YouTube, and other Platforms Downloader that can also Download Playlists.
2. A Gui Varient, using ytdlp in the back: Parabolic
It runs on Windows and Linux.

I sadly can't tell you on restoring that video, unless you can remember the Video and find it again or a reupload of it.

Cool Websites :: Re: How do you download youtube vids? :: Reply by Fireye

no_email@example.com (Fireye) — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 17:09:16 +0000

+1 to yt-dlp and any derivative tools. Its good to go directly to the source and any of these YouTube downloader websites are likely just frontends for yt-dlp anyway

Cool Websites :: Re: How do you download youtube vids? :: Reply by TeaInTheMorning

no_email@example.com (TeaInTheMorning) — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 17:32:16 +0000

Fireye wrote: Thu Aug 14, 2025 5:09 pm +1 to yt-dlp and any derivative tools. Its good to go directly to the source and any of these YouTube downloader websites are likely just frontends for yt-dlp anyway

Also +1
and +1 to the website things

There are a lot of sketch websites around the services youtube-dl and youtube-dlp offer
Get it directly from the source, and use an interface like mpv over it if that's your speed

Cool Websites :: Re: How do you download youtube vids? :: Reply by DedRoll

no_email@example.com (DedRoll) — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 19:54:00 +0000

Crazyroostereye wrote: Thu Aug 14, 2025 9:49 am I sadly can't tell you on restoring that video, unless you can remember the Video and find it again or a reupload of it.

Fortunately i've found this: https://quiteaplaylist.com/

(I'm sorry if the image sent is too big idk how to resize it)

It's not restoring the video but it's restoring info such as the title, description, and maybe thumbnail.

About yt-dlp, i've tried it and it worked! I do have a question. So when i download normaly using cmd with just "yt-dlp [Youtube link]" is it gonna be always downloading video with the highest resolution? If so is there a way to limit for example only 1080p?

Cool Websites :: Re: How do you download youtube vids? :: Reply by Crazyroostereye

no_email@example.com (Crazyroostereye) — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 23:35:25 +0000

DedRoll wrote: Thu Aug 14, 2025 7:54 pm About yt-dlp, i've tried it and it worked! I do have a question. So when i download normaly using cmd with just "yt-dlp [Youtube link]" is it gonna be always downloading video with the highest resolution? If so is there a way to limit for example only 1080p?

Yes YT-DLP is incredibly versatile, you can do a lot. I highly recommend reading the docs as they include everything you would ever need. But for your requirement you can use

Code: Select all

yt-dlp --format "ba+bv[height<=1080]"

This would download the best audio and best video max height of 1080px, and then combine them together, if separate.

yt-dlp has so many options, you can download subtitles, other Language audio tracks. Multiple Qualitys and then merge them into one video file to have to open. Obviously that will use a lot of storage per video, but it is cool. You have Sponsorblock, for example to cut out Non Music parts in Music videos, etc...

Cool Websites :: Re: How do you download youtube vids? :: Reply by DedRoll

no_email@example.com (DedRoll) — Fri, 15 Aug 2025 05:09:22 +0000

Crazyroostereye wrote: Thu Aug 14, 2025 11:35 pm Yes YT-DLP is incredibly versatile, you can do a lot. I highly recommend reading the docs as they include everything you would ever need. But for your requirement you can use
Code: Select all
yt-dlp --format "ba+bv[height<=1080]" 
This would download the best audio and best video max height of 1080px, and then combine them together, if separate.

yt-dlp has so many options, you can download subtitles, other Language audio tracks. Multiple Qualitys and then merge them into one video file to have to open. Obviously that will use a lot of storage per video, but it is cool. You have Sponsorblock, for example to cut out Non Music parts in Music videos, etc...

Thank you so much for your help it save me a ton

Computers :: Re: How do I limit my desktop time :: Reply by Crazyroostereye

no_email@example.com (Crazyroostereye) — Fri, 25 Jul 2025 17:21:50 +0000

I am so sorry, If I was the reason I deleted the Topic. I can't remember doing it. Must have miss clicked somewhere. I am truly Sorry for that again.

Well your filter methods seem as good start, maybe look into doing things you could do on and off the Computer. For example read a book or find some Projects that you could outside of the Computer.

Computers :: Re: How do I limit my desktop time :: Reply by Fireye

no_email@example.com (Fireye) — Fri, 25 Jul 2025 17:49:01 +0000

Timers are fine but what really helped me on this was to give myself better options & alternatives. yeah I could sit and play games, or I can go hiking with friends, go climb something, work on a personal project in a coffee shop, or play music.

Computers :: DEs and WMs Opinions and Experiances :: Author Crazyroostereye

no_email@example.com (Crazyroostereye) — Tue, 05 Aug 2025 09:57:09 +0000

I am Interested in hearing peoples opinion and experience with DEs and WMs.

I'll Start. I have been at this point a long time Hyprland and before that I3 User. Having used WMs the majority of the time I have been using Linux. It feels more Productive at least being able to open everything I regularly need with a simple Key Combination I have dictated myself. And really less on the Mouse. I really can't speak on I3 as it has been a long time since I have used it last, but as I remember it was a great WM to get used to the concepts of WMs. Hyprland is in my eyes a good Continuation of it in the Wayland space, while being and Auto-Tiler unlike I3 I have had a great experience with it.
Lately I have been also trying out niri which is a Scrolling tiler which opens its windows beyond your screen any you can sideways scroll to them. I think it's an Interesting Idea and has been treating me well in the past few Days I have been trying it.

So what's your Experience been with your Desktop or WM. And what strong opinion do you carry about a Desktop or WM

Computers :: Re: DEs and WMs Opinions and Experiances :: Reply by TeaInTheMorning

no_email@example.com (TeaInTheMorning) — Thu, 07 Aug 2025 13:55:46 +0000

This is something I can ship in a response for!

My journey as been rather chaotic on the desktop guide (constantly switching between KDE and XFCE for a year, I think I even used GNOME at one point)

But within this past year I have tried i3, which I greatly enjoyed. And then, I ended up moving over to sway which I've been having a blast with (Feels like home!)

Sway is a drop-in replacement for i3 (for use on wayland), and I've enjoyed working on getting my keybinds exactly how I enjoy them

(It's rather interesting to see how you're experience has gone!)

Computers :: Re: DEs and WMs Opinions and Experiances :: Reply by Crazyroostereye

no_email@example.com (Crazyroostereye) — Thu, 07 Aug 2025 14:52:53 +0000

I have used KDE and Gnome, not so much XFCE tho usually more in a Lightweight environment kind of circumstance. While KDE is nowadays my Preferred DE. Gnome before my Switch to WMs was my Default. In large part of the Gnomic style of Workspaces, which I also really enjoy in Niri atm. What I mean with that is that there aren't hard named Workspaces. They are always Dynamic. Meaning there is always the ones with content +1. And the Key binds order themselves accordingly.

I also know of Sway, used it a very short while when switching into Wayland Land, but I quickly switch over to Hyprland because of the Auto Tiler. And stayed for the Animations

Computers :: Re: DEs and WMs Opinions and Experiances :: Reply by TeaInTheMorning

no_email@example.com (TeaInTheMorning) — Thu, 07 Aug 2025 15:45:30 +0000

Completely valid to choice to jump to hyprland! I'm hyprland curious myself. Though I'll wait for my next install to try

Computers :: Re: DEs and WMs Opinions and Experiances :: Reply by Crazyroostereye

no_email@example.com (Crazyroostereye) — Thu, 07 Aug 2025 19:05:17 +0000

TeaInTheMorning wrote: Thu Aug 07, 2025 3:45 pm Completely valid to choice to jump to hyprland! I'm hyprland curious myself. Though I'll wait for my next install to try

I do get that, but you can Install it Parallel to Sway, you then get the option to switch between them in your Display Manager. Most of the Tooling your going to need most likely the same as in Sway anyways. But yeah I get that

Computers :: Re: DEs and WMs Opinions and Experiances :: Reply by Fireye

no_email@example.com (Fireye) — Thu, 07 Aug 2025 19:39:48 +0000

I'm actually actively contributing to niri right now! Absolutely love the thing! Its a bit immature but you can totally daily drive the thing with no problems whatsoever.

I used to use hyprland but left when I saw the whole freedesktop situation with the lead dev. Super icky stuff; just can't get behind that kind of behavior. Solid WM though!

Sway is my current low overhead option & general xwayland test bench when I'm trying to debug something on xwayland satellite.

Computers :: Re: DEs and WMs Opinions and Experiances :: Reply by Crazyroostereye

no_email@example.com (Crazyroostereye) — Thu, 07 Aug 2025 20:20:35 +0000

Fireye wrote: Thu Aug 07, 2025 7:39 pm I used to use hyprland but left when I saw the whole freedesktop situation with the lead dev. Super icky stuff; just can't get behind that kind of behavior. Solid WM though!

I heard about it. I hate Software Project Communities, there are many great out there but good god I just like the Software, please don't make me automatically subscribe to your Ideology just for using it.

But in general the Hyprland Incident seemed to me as a Edgy Humour making fun of Pronouns thing. Definitely Improper and deservedly Criticised, as I think the Dev doesn't know the Scale of his Project and the expected Professionalism that goes with it. But more of a Joke that went wrong, then actual I'll content.

Tho please Correct me if I am wrong, the last news I kept up with was, the Pronoun thing of renaming a Person in the Discord rudely resulting to the kick out in the Wayland Project. In very short.

Computers :: Re: DEs and WMs Opinions and Experiances :: Reply by TeaInTheMorning

no_email@example.com (TeaInTheMorning) — Thu, 07 Aug 2025 22:06:24 +0000

Crazyroostereye wrote: Thu Aug 07, 2025 7:05 pm
TeaInTheMorning wrote: Thu Aug 07, 2025 3:45 pm Completely valid to choice to jump to hyprland! I'm hyprland curious myself. Though I'll wait for my next install to try
I do get that, but you can Install it Parallel to Sway, you then get the option to switch between them in your Display Manager. Most of the Tooling your going to need most likely the same as in Sway anyways. But yeah I get that

I have my current linux install setup around a foundation of sticks XD
I'd need to change critical files to not boot hyprland
(That gentoo install looks more appealing by the day )

Computers :: Re: DEs and WMs Opinions and Experiances :: Reply by TeaInTheMorning

no_email@example.com (TeaInTheMorning) — Thu, 07 Aug 2025 22:08:45 +0000

Fireye wrote: Thu Aug 07, 2025 7:39 pm I'm actually actively contributing to niri right now! Absolutely love the thing! Its a bit immature but you can totally daily drive the thing with no problems whatsoever.

I used to use hyprland but left when I saw the whole freedesktop situation with the lead dev. Super icky stuff; just can't get behind that kind of behavior. Solid WM though!

Sway is my current low overhead option & general xwayland test bench when I'm trying to debug something on xwayland satellite.

That's sweet! Sway, Niri, Hyprland. Honestly all of them are cool >>
What have you contributed to Niri?

(I should learn how to quote less than the entire message >>. I'm new to phpbb usage)

Computers :: Re: DEs and WMs Opinions and Experiances :: Reply by Crazyroostereye

no_email@example.com (Crazyroostereye) — Thu, 07 Aug 2025 23:04:46 +0000

TeaInTheMorning wrote: Thu Aug 07, 2025 10:06 pm I have my current linux install setup around a foundation of sticks XD
I'd need to change critical files to not boot hyprland
(That gentoo install looks more appealing by the day )

Wait what have you setup to boot directly into hyprland or whatever, normaly you should have your Diplay Manager, the thing that handles your login (SDDM, GDM, greetd, etc...) which should show all the Properly Installed WMs and DEs in a selection box or similar.

Also gentoo install, do you have a week of free time to compile your Browser? /Joking

TeaInTheMorning wrote: Thu Aug 07, 2025 10:08 pm I should learn how to quote less than the entire message >>. I'm new to phpbb usage

No worries, just delete the part you don't want to quote out of the quote. It still will correctly quote it from the other Post.

Computers :: Re: DEs and WMs Opinions and Experiances :: Reply by TeaInTheMorning

no_email@example.com (TeaInTheMorning) — Thu, 07 Aug 2025 23:34:15 +0000

Crazyroostereye wrote: Thu Aug 07, 2025 11:04 pm Wait what have you setup to boot directly into hyprland or whatever, normaly you should have your Diplay Manager, the thing that handles your login (SDDM, GDM, greetd, etc...) which should show all the Properly Installed WMs and DEs in a selection box or similar.

Also gentoo install, do you have a week of free time to compile your Browser? /Joking

Yes to both
Though I'd get the binary for the browser if i can, I'm not that much a masochist >>

And yes, I do have a weird way of booting up sway
It's rather primitive admittedly, hence why I'm considering that gentoo install
This alpine install is held together by twigs (I do love alpine, I Just kinda wanna try compiling XD)

Computers :: Re: DEs and WMs Opinions and Experiances :: Reply by Fireye

no_email@example.com (Fireye) — Fri, 08 Aug 2025 20:57:09 +0000

TeaInTheMorning wrote: Thu Aug 07, 2025 10:08 pm What have you contributed to Niri?

Currently working on a whole bunch of hot corner updates! I currently have multiple hot corners as well as per-monitor hot corner settings working on a feature branch. I also have an experimental branch where I'm working on adding customizable shell commands to hot corners so you can make them do whatever you want. Here's my PR though if anyone is curious! https://github.com/YaLTeR/niri/pull/2108

Computers :: Re: DEs and WMs Opinions and Experiances :: Reply by Fireye

no_email@example.com (Fireye) — Fri, 08 Aug 2025 21:11:15 +0000

Crazyroostereye wrote: Thu Aug 07, 2025 8:20 pm
Fireye wrote: Thu Aug 07, 2025 7:39 pm I used to use hyprland but left when I saw the whole freedesktop situation with the lead dev. Super icky stuff; just can't get behind that kind of behavior. Solid WM though!
I heard about it. I hate Software Project Communities, there are many great out there but good god I just like the Software, please don't make me automatically subscribe to your Ideology just for using it.

But in general the Hyprland Incident seemed to me as a Edgy Humour making fun of Pronouns thing. Definitely Improper and deservedly Criticised, as I think the Dev doesn't know the Scale of his Project and the expected Professionalism that goes with it. But more of a Joke that went wrong, then actual I'll content.

Tho please Correct me if I am wrong, the last news I kept up with was, the Pronoun thing of renaming a Person in the Discord rudely resulting to the kick out in the Wayland Project. In very short.

Yeah no the incident itself was definitely bad, but what really nailed the coffin was varxy's reaction to the whole thing. The guy just plain power tripped/antagonized the freedesktop people for reminding him of that professionalism, and proceeded to trash them on his blog rather than take the criticism constructively, which is just a huge red flag in my books. Here's a good summary of the whole chain of events that links to all the relevant emails and blog posts. https://drewdevault.com/2024/04/09/2024 ... ement.html

Hyprland is solid software but if this is the guy in charge of it, i'm not exactly optimistic about its direction, and I'm certainly not comfortable dailying or contributing to it.

Computers :: Re: DEs and WMs Opinions and Experiances :: Reply by TeaInTheMorning

no_email@example.com (TeaInTheMorning) — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 00:00:01 +0000

Fireye wrote: Fri Aug 08, 2025 8:57 pm Currently working on a whole bunch of hot corner updates! I currently have multiple hot corners as well as per-monitor hot corner settings working on a feature branch.

Thats pretty awesome! Hope it goes well!

Computers :: Re: DEs and WMs Opinions and Experiances :: Reply by TeaInTheMorning

no_email@example.com (TeaInTheMorning) — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 00:02:44 +0000

Fireye wrote: Fri Aug 08, 2025 9:11 pm Hyprland is solid software but if this is the guy in charge of it, i'm not exactly optimistic about its direction, and I'm certainly not comfortable dailying or contributing to it.

I'm curious to try dynamic tiler, and if hyprland is run by a more immature person, It might behoove me to find another one!

Computers :: Re: DEs and WMs Opinions and Experiances :: Reply by CitricScion

no_email@example.com (CitricScion) — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 02:04:41 +0000

I've been using KDE Plasma for most of my time with Linux at this point. I do really like GNOME and think it's slick as heck. However, there are some features that I would like to have and I don't want to have to trust a GNOME extension. Plasma gives me everything I'm looking for, helps me solve my problems because so much more is represented graphically, and it's all supported first party. And they've been which to adopt new technologies like Wayland, HDR, and better color management. I dig it.

Computers :: Re: DEs and WMs Opinions and Experiances :: Reply by Fireye

no_email@example.com (Fireye) — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 03:05:00 +0000

CitricScion wrote: Sat Aug 09, 2025 2:04 am I've been using KDE Plasma for most of my time with Linux at this point. I do really like GNOME and think it's slick as heck. However, there are some features that I would like to have and I don't want to have to trust a GNOME extension. Plasma gives me everything I'm looking for, helps me solve my problems because so much more is represented graphically, and it's all supported first party. And they've been which to adopt new technologies like Wayland, HDR, and better color management. I dig it.

If you're on the traditional WM side of things (over tiling) its hard to go wrong with plasma lmao. What's your take on cosmic?

Computers :: Re: DEs and WMs Opinions and Experiances :: Reply by Fireye

no_email@example.com (Fireye) — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 03:48:53 +0000

TeaInTheMorning wrote: Sat Aug 09, 2025 12:02 am
Fireye wrote: Fri Aug 08, 2025 9:11 pm Hyprland is solid software but if this is the guy in charge of it, i'm not exactly optimistic about its direction, and I'm certainly not comfortable dailying or contributing to it.
I'm curious to try dynamic tiler, and if hyprland is run by a more immature person, It might behoove me to find another one!

Here are a few good options if you want to shop around:
- Niri (im a bit biased lol) https://github.com/YaLTeR/niri
- MangoWC https://github.com/DreamMaoMao/mangowc
- SwayFX (and also regular sway if you're more minimal) https://github.com/WillPower3309/swayfx
- Wayfire https://github.com/WayfireWM/wayfire

Computers :: Re: DEs and WMs Opinions and Experiances :: Reply by TeaInTheMorning

no_email@example.com (TeaInTheMorning) — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 10:32:31 +0000

CitricScion wrote: Sat Aug 09, 2025 2:04 am I've been using KDE Plasma for most of my time with Linux at this point.

KDE is also my prefered desktop!
(I don't use desktops but that is my go to)

Computers :: Re: DEs and WMs Opinions and Experiances :: Reply by Crazyroostereye

no_email@example.com (Crazyroostereye) — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 12:37:20 +0000

Fireye wrote: Fri Aug 08, 2025 9:11 pm Hyprland is solid software but if this is the guy in charge of it, i'm not exactly optimistic about its direction, and I'm certainly not comfortable dailying or contributing to it.

I paraphrased it a bit to hard in my Description sorry, Yeah it was quite Unprofessional of the Dev. Wouldn't contribute to it either, If I were a dev. I am in the process of moving away from it, but it is still the most Mature WM in the Wayland space as far as I have experienced. But the others are catching up and are at a level I am able to comfortably use.

Fireye wrote: Fri Aug 08, 2025 8:57 pm Currently working on a whole bunch of hot corner updates! I currently have multiple hot corners as well as per-monitor hot corner settings working on a feature branch. I also have an experimental branch where I'm working on adding customizable shell commands to hot corners so you can make them do whatever you want. Here's my PR though if anyone is curious! https://github.com/YaLTeR/niri/pull/2108

While I haven't used the Hot Corner in the slights except when accidentally hitting it, this looks awesome. I would love to be able to set a custom command to my Hot corner.

Computers :: Re: DEs and WMs Opinions and Experiances :: Reply by CitricScion

no_email@example.com (CitricScion) — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 18:29:29 +0000

Fireye wrote: Sat Aug 09, 2025 3:05 am If you're on the traditional WM side of things (over tiling) its hard to go wrong with plasma lmao. What's your take on cosmic?

I think COSMIC looks awesome, but I haven't tried it yet. I actually just dug my old laptops out from storage so I may take Fedora COSMIC for a spin to see how it feels! PopOS was my first distro and I liked it, so I suspect I will like COSMIC as well.

Computers :: Re: DEs and WMs Opinions and Experiances :: Reply by TeaInTheMorning

no_email@example.com (TeaInTheMorning) — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 20:32:20 +0000

CitricScion wrote: Sat Aug 09, 2025 6:29 pm I think COSMIC looks awesome, but I haven't tried it yet. I actually just dug my old laptops out from storage so I may take Fedora COSMIC for a spin to see how it feels! PopOS was my first distro and I liked it, so I suspect I will like COSMIC as well.

I'm also quite excited for cosmic! I'm going to try it when it's slightly less crash prone!
I've heard good things about Pop_! OS! Haven't tried it personally tho

Fedora always is making spins, aren't they
(I wonder if they have a sway spin >>, might be worth it to take a pitstop in fedora land to see how it's going!)

Computers :: Re: DEs and WMs Opinions and Experiances :: Reply by Fireye

no_email@example.com (Fireye) — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 23:22:00 +0000

Crazyroostereye wrote: Sat Aug 09, 2025 12:37 pm
Fireye wrote: Fri Aug 08, 2025 9:11 pm Hyprland is solid software but if this is the guy in charge of it, i'm not exactly optimistic about its direction, and I'm certainly not comfortable dailying or contributing to it.
I paraphrased it a bit to hard in my Description sorry, Yeah it was quite Unprofessional of the Dev. Wouldn't contribute to it either, If I were a dev. I am in the process of moving away from it, but it is still the most Mature WM in the Wayland space as far as I have experienced. But the others are catching up and are at a level I am able to comfortably use.

Yeah it really is, which is pretty sad to see, but totally understandable. FOSS projects live and die by sheer mass of users so you end up getting a snowball effect, for better or worse. Just by using something youre contributing to it even if just by statistics.

Crazyroostereye wrote: Sat Aug 09, 2025 12:37 pm
Fireye wrote: Fri Aug 08, 2025 8:57 pm Currently working on a whole bunch of hot corner updates! I currently have multiple hot corners as well as per-monitor hot corner settings working on a feature branch. I also have an experimental branch where I'm working on adding customizable shell commands to hot corners so you can make them do whatever you want. Here's my PR though if anyone is curious! https://github.com/YaLTeR/niri/pull/2108
While I haven't used the Hot Corner in the slights except when accidentally hitting it, this looks awesome. I would love to be able to set a custom command to my Hot corner.

The former was my main intention with the PR lmao. The hot corner was always neat but annoying to the point where I'd just turn it off & save myself the trouble. Custom commands are gonna be awesome though. I'm still halfway through the initial implementation, but I'll hopefully get that done sooner rather than later.

Computers :: Re: DEs and WMs Opinions and Experiances :: Reply by Fireye

no_email@example.com (Fireye) — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 23:26:35 +0000

Ya I'm of a similar mind on cosmic; can't wait till it's out of beta, as it seems like it'll be a super polished option that would work great as a linux introduction for newbies as well as a great de for ppl who just wanna use their machine. Development is so slow tho lmao, it feels like I've been hearing about it for years now

Computers :: Re: DEs and WMs Opinions and Experiances :: Reply by TeaInTheMorning

no_email@example.com (TeaInTheMorning) — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 23:46:48 +0000

Fireye wrote: Sat Aug 09, 2025 11:26 pm Ya I'm of a similar mind on cosmic; can't wait till it's out of beta, as it seems like it'll be a super polished option that would work great as a linux introduction for newbies as well as a great de for ppl who just wanna use their machine. Development is so slow tho lmao, it feels like I've been hearing about it for years now

Which is kind of wild, because the first alpha turned one a few days ago!!!!! (though it was announced all the way back in 2021)
So development is moving fast

(source: I am trusting wikipedia for these dates)

Computers :: Re: DEs and WMs Opinions and Experiances :: Reply by CitricScion

no_email@example.com (CitricScion) — Sun, 10 Aug 2025 01:33:43 +0000

TeaInTheMorning wrote: Sat Aug 09, 2025 8:32 pm Fedora always is making spins, aren't they
(I wonder if they have a sway spin >>, might be worth it to take a pitstop in fedora land to see how it's going!)

Not only do they have a Fedora Sway spin, they also have a Fedora Sway Atomic spin if you want to use it with all the atomic goodness of Fedora Atomic Desktops.

Computers :: Re: DEs and WMs Opinions and Experiances :: Reply by TeaInTheMorning

no_email@example.com (TeaInTheMorning) — Sun, 10 Aug 2025 10:58:33 +0000

CitricScion wrote: Sun Aug 10, 2025 1:33 am Not only do they have a Fedora Sway spin, they also have a Fedora Sway Atomic spin if you want to use it with all the atomic goodness of Fedora Atomic Desktops.

Both seem quite intriguing!!!
I've always been distantly fascinated with atomic distros >>

Computers :: Re: DEs and WMs Opinions and Experiances :: Reply by bgmeulem

no_email@example.com (bgmeulem) — Sun, 10 Aug 2025 11:42:54 +0000

Fireye wrote: Fri Aug 08, 2025 9:11 pm
Yeah no the incident itself was definitely bad, but what really nailed the coffin was varxy's reaction to the whole thing. The guy just plain power tripped/antagonized the freedesktop people for reminding him of that professionalism, and proceeded to trash them on his blog rather than take the criticism constructively, which is just a huge red flag in my books. Here's a good summary of the whole chain of events that links to all the relevant emails and blog posts. https://drewdevault.com/2024/04/09/2024 ... ement.html

Hyprland is solid software but if this is the guy in charge of it, i'm not exactly optimistic about its direction, and I'm certainly not comfortable dailying or contributing to it.

Its worth noting that this blogpost is possibly overlt inflammatory (see e.g. https://build.opensuse.org/request/show ... _details_2). Not defending vaxry though, I do think what happened was tasteless, and vaxry's handling of it left a lot to be desired. This happened in the discord channel #general, allegedly not used for actual contributing. Yet here it is reflecting badly on hyprland anyways . Why there is a discord in the first place is beyond me. The software is great though.

To circle back to OP: I went gnome - KDE - i3 and now hyprland. While most examples of hyprland are very flashy (to show off what it technically can I guess) I prefer to keep mine clean and minimal. Learned a lot of lessons along the way, especially about just how much tools go into the average DE (I dont mean this derogatory, just honestly surprised how much work i3 and hyprland were). Currently thoroughly enjoying a clean and leightweight setup on hyprland, its *mwah*. Been eyeballing DWM too, but hyprland just works for me now and configuring it is remarkably easier than i3, so I may enjoy a nonbroken system for a while

Computers :: Re: DEs and WMs Opinions and Experiances :: Reply by TeaInTheMorning

no_email@example.com (TeaInTheMorning) — Sun, 10 Aug 2025 13:29:43 +0000

bgmeulem wrote: Sun Aug 10, 2025 11:42 am To circle back to OP: I went gnome - KDE - i3 and now hyprland. While most examples of hyprland are very flashy (to show off what it technically can I guess) I prefer to keep mine clean and minimal. Learned a lot of lessons along the way, especially about just how much tools go into the average DE (I dont mean this derogatory, just honestly surprised how much work i3 and hyprland were). Currently thoroughly enjoying a clean and leightweight setup on hyprland, its *mwah*. Been eyeballing DWM too, but hyprland just works for me now and configuring it is remarkably easier than i3, so I may enjoy a nonbroken system for a while

Interesting!!!
Glad your system works for you!

Computers :: Re: DEs and WMs Opinions and Experiances :: Reply by Fireye

no_email@example.com (Fireye) — Sun, 10 Aug 2025 17:33:34 +0000

bgmeulem wrote: Sun Aug 10, 2025 11:42 am orth noting that this blogpost is possibly overlt inflammatory (see e.g. https://build.opensuse.org/request/show ... _details_2). Not defending vaxry though, I do think what happened was tasteless, and vaxry's handling of it left a lot to be desired. This happened in the discord channel #general, allegedly not used for actual contributing. Yet here it is reflecting badly on hyprland anyways . Why there is a discord in the first place is beyond me. The software is great though.

Not exactly sure what the link was supposed to convey other than someone saying something about drew having inflammatory takes. I personally don't really agree with that and regardless of whether or not you do, the actual problem was in the primary sources linked at the top of that blog post and not the summary therein. At a baseline, vaxry has enabled and encouraged some toxic shit in his community, and when reminded of the freedesktop community guidelines he doubled down on this shit and lashed out at them, even doxxing the freedesktop rep in one of his blog posts, before eventually retroactively editing it out. It's good software, yes, but if a maintainer can't take constructive criticism to save their life then I don't see the direction going well at all. And I definitely don't want to be representing such a project in my day to day, especially with how much I contribute to FOSS. I'd much rather slide to a slightly less feature rich alternative where the developers are sane and the community is non-caustic, as FOSS lives and dies off its community.

I don't fault hyprland users, after all it is certainly the most mature WM out there at the moment, but if you want that to change, or can live with something a bit less feature rich, I definitely recommend looking for alternatives.

Computers :: Re: DEs and WMs Opinions and Experiances :: Reply by TeaInTheMorning

no_email@example.com (TeaInTheMorning) — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 22:17:42 +0000

I thought this might be worthwhile to mention, but I'm considering a Little vacation back to X11-land
I just wanna play around with cozy old WM's for a while

I'm playing around rejecting convenience for things i find fun!
This forum has sent me to good places

Computers :: Re: DEs and WMs Opinions and Experiances :: Reply by Fireye

no_email@example.com (Fireye) — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 23:06:47 +0000

Yeah we all get a bit crazy about Wayland sometimes, but x11 is nothing if not stable. Let us know if you find anything neat!

Computers :: Re: DEs and WMs Opinions and Experiances :: Reply by TeaInTheMorning

no_email@example.com (TeaInTheMorning) — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 23:09:53 +0000

Fireye wrote: Mon Aug 11, 2025 11:06 pm Yeah we all get a bit crazy about Wayland sometimes, but x11 is nothing if not stable. Let us know if you find anything neat!

Certainly!!!
Both ways of running a display are fun!

(I'll not get into the secret third framebuffer option )

I really wanna play around with xeyes >>

Computers :: Re: Thoughts on Windows LTSC? :: Reply by splashy

no_email@example.com (splashy) — Tue, 12 Aug 2025 07:59:30 +0000

I've been using Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2021 as my primary OS since about late 2021. The experience is largely the same as Windows 10 GAC (the standard editions), with some notable exceptions.
There are almost no UWP apps preinstalled out of the box, not even the Micro$haft Store (Though you can install it by running this command:

Code: Select all

wsreset -i

In their place are system utilities which have been largely untouched since Windows 7. You might have issues running newer versions of certain software (Such as some Adobe products) but I'm yet to see any other compatibility issues.

Unfortunately, there's not really a way to activate this version of Windows without activation scripts, as it was never meant for home users. You might be able to find grey market keys for the non-IoT edition, but that version will only receive support until 2027. At that point you're probably better off just getting Extended Security Updates if you care to stay up to date.

Windows 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2024 is pretty similar to IoT LTSC 2021. It's system requirements are the lowest of all Windows 11 editions, which will save you a lot of headache from trying to wrangle Windows into running on old hardware.

Bonus screenshot:

Computers :: Re: Thoughts on Windows LTSC? :: Reply by Fireye

no_email@example.com (Fireye) — Tue, 12 Aug 2025 08:23:20 +0000

Wine works pretty damn well out of the box these days too, & in my experience it just works unless something is spitefully designed to specifically not work through wine or requires some kernel module (like a few game anticheats).

Computers :: Re: Thoughts on Windows LTSC? :: Reply by Crazyroostereye

no_email@example.com (Crazyroostereye) — Tue, 12 Aug 2025 09:52:09 +0000

There are new things, if you want to keep Windows 10 alive for a bit longer besides LTSC.

Let me prefix this with, I heavily recommend you Switch to Linux or another OS you feel comfortable with. As all of these tricks are just delaying the Issue. They are not permanent. You will have to deal with this again, so either make Peace with Win 11 or prepear yourself to Switch to a new OS.

MS has expanded their Windows 10 ESU (Extended Support Update) Program, you can now get the ESU for 1 Year (untill Okt 2026) as private Person for only 30 USD (single payment), for Free when using the Windows Cloud Backup tool, or redeeming 1000 Windows Points (whatever they are).

If you need more, you would have to look into Commercial ESU Program, which offers support until 2028 but for a yearly fee of 61 USD. Besides these windows will do some Security updates to Windows Defender beyond the EOL date. How much and how reliable is unclear.

Computers :: Re: Thoughts on Windows LTSC? :: Reply by TeaInTheMorning

no_email@example.com (TeaInTheMorning) — Tue, 12 Aug 2025 12:09:43 +0000

Ray Karr wrote: Fri Mar 07, 2025 2:16 pm I've been stubbornly holding onto Windows 10 for a while now, and I plan on continuing to do that until the very day it stops being supported. I already find it a little annoying, though that was mitigated after getting used to it over the 10 or so years I've used it for, but the more I learn about Windows 11, the more irritated I am by its looming presence...

I've experimented with Linux Mint and I loved it, but I can't really use it for my day-to-day because I work with a remote desktop on the same PC I use for myself, and the company only wants us using the Windows App, which is only available for Windows and Mac... sad. I could dual-boot, but I'd be using Windows 90% of the time anyways. I could also try to run it through Wine or a VM but for that, I'd want to research how well it runs first, and researching "windows app" with any search engine is a pain lol

So, I recently learned about Windows 11 LTSC. AFAIK it has no Copilot, no telemetry, almost none of the default apps I've never needed, and most of the default apps it does have are the Windows 10 versions. I've tested it on my beat up 2019 laptop and it runs pretty alright. I'm not happy about how much memory it uses to just exist, but I can only dream of how much the bloated standard version uses in my most infuriating nightmares. But hey, it runs the apps I need, I can get used to the worse UI over time, and I can look for workarounds for drivers that STILL don't work right with Windows 11.

Have any of you guys tried Windows 11 LTSC or IoT LTSC? If so, what do you think about it?

I personally have not tried using windows LTSC, but that is mostly because I've been a linux user since win 8.1 reached eol XD
(I don't personally need wine, but it's quite robust nowadays i hear!)

A word of warning, if you do try that that version was not exactly intended for a normal computer (same going for IoT)

Please do whatever you have to do to make windows more workable tho, if you do have to use it!

(Editing in an addendum: I do recommend moving windows out of your life as much as you can (like that laptop solution!), as using obscure versions are only a bandaid to the problem you seem to have with windows being bloated.)

Computers :: Re: should i sell my gaming laptop? :: Reply by splashy

no_email@example.com (splashy) — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 15:16:24 +0000

There's nothing really stopping you from playing retro games on modern hardware. Most games made during the Windows Vista era and later will run fine on Windows 10 and 11. Many games from before that time will also work fine, but may need workarounds or mods. You can alternatively just run these games in a virtual machine, which i guess also makes the experience more retro or whatever. Having powerful hardware also helps for emulating with enhancements, like more detailed textures and a higher render resolution. Retro hardware is cool, but can be a pain to deal with, especially in the long run as it begins to fail and replacement parts get less common.

Computers :: Re: What computer do you use? :: Reply by TeaInTheMorning

no_email@example.com (TeaInTheMorning) — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 18:30:29 +0000

My computer is an oldie, but a goodie!
It has seen some upgrades in it's time, and I'm it's current owner!

It is gonna see a change to it's software config soon but here is the current config!
(with some parts cut)

Code: Select all

OS: Alpine Linux edge x86_64
Host: HP ENVY TS m6 Sleekbook
Kernel: Linux 6.12.41-0-lts
Display (AUO32ED): 1920x1080 @ 60 Hz in 15" [Built-in]
WM: Sway 1.11 (Wayland)
Terminal: foot 1.23.1
Terminal Font: monospace (12pt)
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4200U (4) @ 2.60 GHz
GPU: Intel Haswell-ULT Integrated Graphics Controller @ 1.00 GHz [Integrated]
Memory: 1.06 GiB / 7.69 GiB (14%)
Swap: 0 B / 4.00 GiB (0%)
Disk (/): 25.22 GiB / 911.39 GiB (3%) - ext4

I'll probably move to something newer eventually but this is serviceable for now! (perhaps a PC, or a chrultrabook?)
This laptop has taught me a lot about what I like and dislike in computers

Computers :: NixOS :: Author Fireye

no_email@example.com (Fireye) — Tue, 12 Aug 2025 17:18:10 +0000

I'm currently taking the effort to port my entire operating system from arch to nixos, as declarative system config is incredibly appealing to me, however the learning curve is completely bonkers lmao.

Right now I've gotten past bootloader config problems (which wasn't exactly nix's fault; I just wasn't totally familiar with nix scripting so my debugging efforts were moderately kneecapped), nix flakes (goddamn those took a while to wrap my brain around), and now I'm going to dive into home manager and try to transfer over all of my dotfiles from arch.

Any nix users here that can offer any advice, do's, don't's, etc...?

Computers :: Re: NixOS :: Reply by TeaInTheMorning

no_email@example.com (TeaInTheMorning) — Tue, 12 Aug 2025 19:44:31 +0000

Fireye wrote: Tue Aug 12, 2025 5:18 pm I'm currently taking the effort to port my entire operating system from arch to nixos, as declarative system config is incredibly appealing to me, however the learning curve is completely bonkers lmao.

Right now I've gotten past bootloader config problems (which wasn't exactly nix's fault; I just wasn't totally familiar with nix scripting so my debugging efforts were moderately kneecapped), nix flakes (goddamn those took a while to wrap my brain around), and now I'm going to dive into home manager and try to transfer over all of my dotfiles from arch.

Any nix users here that can offer any advice, do's, don't's, etc...?

Not a nix user but here to wish you luck!!!
Hope it goes well :3c

Computers :: Re: NixOS :: Reply by Crazyroostereye

no_email@example.com (Crazyroostereye) — Tue, 12 Aug 2025 22:14:37 +0000

I used NixOS for a while, last year. It is tho quite the Difficult thing to rap your head around. As you always need to do it the Nix way. Which is helpful, having your system easily configured. But also relearning everything. I failed at understanding it enough for my needs, and returned to Arch. But maybe someday I have the courage to retry it.

But I know you have more of a Developer background, maybe it is a bit easier for you. I am excited to hear about your Journey.

Computers :: Re: NixOS :: Reply by Fireye

no_email@example.com (Fireye) — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 08:19:22 +0000

Ok current status: finally got hone manager and the niri flake working.

A lot of the docs and resources expect a certain level of knowledge and familiarity with everything so they'll give code snippets but won't tell you where you're to put them, for example. I wouldn't recommend the average person do this at this point though. (Though that might change in the future).

I'm justifying the switch because I don't want to sysadmin two computers (shitty ahh 1135G7, iris graphics,16GB RAM laptop & 12700k, 3080, 64GB RAM tower). On nix I can make changes on machine A and have them replicate to B so I don't duplicate work or have completely different environments between the two. And it'll be really nice to never worry about breaking updates or a broken system ever again. The work has been moderately back breaking though XD.

Will update more later (and probably make a full blog post for fireye.coffee once I'm done lmao).

Computers :: Re: NixOS :: Reply by TeaInTheMorning

no_email@example.com (TeaInTheMorning) — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 16:48:37 +0000

Fireye wrote: Thu Aug 14, 2025 8:19 am Ok current status: finally got hone manager and the niri flake working.

A lot of the docs and resources expect a certain level of knowledge and familiarity with everything so they'll give code snippets but won't tell you where you're to put them, for example. I wouldn't recommend the average person do this at this point though. (Though that might change in the future).

I'm justifying the switch because I don't want to sysadmin two computers (shitty ahh 1135G7, iris graphics,16GB RAM laptop & 12700k, 3080, 64GB RAM tower). On nix I can make changes on machine A and have them replicate to B so I don't duplicate work or have completely different environments between the two. And it'll be really nice to never worry about breaking updates or a broken system ever again. The work has been moderately back breaking though XD.

Will update more later (and probably make a full blog post for fireye.coffee once I'm done lmao).

Great to hear it is going well Fireye!!!

Also jeezum you have good computers :O

That one time config is really appealing >>

Gaming :: Re: What games help you destress or warm up your brain? :: Reply by fitsoab

no_email@example.com (fitsoab) — Mon, 21 Jul 2025 22:12:52 +0000

I don't usually play games to destress but this post makes me happy because my partner does. She fluctuates a lot but one that always caught me interest was old school Runescape! She says it's kind of a "boring game," but in a way that distracts her with the busywork. I especially love just how cute and old the game is, full of weird nonsense and lacking a bunch of video game conventions we didn't have yet. Probably the silliest looking game I have ever seen.

Gaming :: Re: What games help you destress or warm up your brain? :: Reply by Pearlple

no_email@example.com (Pearlple) — Wed, 23 Jul 2025 05:38:15 +0000

I absolutely like that question. I haven't consciously thought about this for a while. For me various different kind of games can be de-stressing. On the one hand it can be small distractions and puzzle games like:

Patrick's Parabox (solving Puzzles feels great)
Baba is you (solving Puzzles feels great)
Dorfromantik
Terra Nil (very wholesome)
Balatro (immensely satisfying gameplay)
Mini Motorways

Then there is just open exploration sandboxes and worlds to marvel at or just idle around in, like:

No Man's Sky (endless everything, your imagination is the limit)
Just Cause series
Subnautica (I know, I just played it so much, that there is no anxiety left)
Avatar (beautiful world)
Wildmender (very wholesome)

And the final category for me are games that I just played so much, that they have become routine things I can play while letting my mind wander:

Borderlands series
Skyrim
Surviving Mars
Vampire Survivors (immensely satisfying gameplay)
Broforce
Cyberpunk 2077
Horizon series (beautiful world)
Humankind
Slay the Spire
Two Point Museum
Hades
Hollow Knight
Saint's Row 3/4
Far Cry series

...damn turns out there are quite a lot of games that can brighten my mood after a bad day at work and such. I guess it always depends on what I am looking for.

Gaming :: Re: What games help you destress or warm up your brain? :: Reply by CitricScion

no_email@example.com (CitricScion) — Thu, 24 Jul 2025 01:27:32 +0000

I don't always get around to playing my game to destress, but it's Minecraft. I will forget how good a job Minecraft does of taking away stress. Lately I've been trying Luanti and it fits in the same bucket.

Gaming :: Re: Luanti (open source Minecraft) :: Reply by CitricScion

no_email@example.com (CitricScion) — Thu, 24 Jul 2025 01:33:38 +0000

I personally am playing on a closed server right now (that's running an outdated version of MineClone 2 / VoxeLibre). However, the server selector that's in the client. I think 8o0 is neat, but it's an anarchy Minecraft type server, though culturally I don't know if they moderate chat or not. Many of the servers I've checked out are pretty quiet.

Gaming :: Voices of the Void :: Author Crazyroostereye

no_email@example.com (Crazyroostereye) — Thu, 07 Aug 2025 20:50:00 +0000

This is a very fun Game, its free on Itch its also in early Development so expect bugs and Weirdness. I really do recommend checking it out.

Its a Horror Game, tho in my play trough I haven't experienced it at all, tho the Paranoia is getting to me. It also a very Fun game. I highly recommend.

The Link:
https://mrdrnose.itch.io/votv

Gaming :: Re: Voices of the Void :: Reply by fitsoab

no_email@example.com (fitsoab) — Fri, 08 Aug 2025 21:15:31 +0000

Oooh, I LOVE Voices! I used to play it on video calls with my friends all the time. This game is just such a blast, I really love the way it recretes the Source engine and genuinely it's scared the heck out of me a good few times

Gaming :: Re: Voices of the Void :: Reply by TeaInTheMorning

no_email@example.com (TeaInTheMorning) — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 01:25:32 +0000

Crazyroostereye wrote: Thu Aug 07, 2025 8:50 pm https://mrdrnose.itch.io/votv

I've heard good things about it!, just haven't gone through the effort to play myself. As I am (mostly) content with my switch lite.

I'm curious to it tho!

Gaming :: Re: Voices of the Void :: Reply by Crazyroostereye

no_email@example.com (Crazyroostereye) — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 12:41:41 +0000

The game is really fun, but it is really hard to get to the Content of it, I still havent made firmly into the second phase of events. Purely by the game breaking under me. It's like my Game is Cursed. My First Play through the Save Corrupted, tho this partially my Fault as I was messing with my Filesystem at the time.
And now in my second one the Lighting is completely broken, like everything is Dark including the Lights themselves even tho they are on. And I can see on the Texture they are on. But so fun!

Gaming :: Re: Voices of the Void :: Reply by TeaInTheMorning

no_email@example.com (TeaInTheMorning) — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 12:51:26 +0000

Crazyroostereye wrote: Sat Aug 09, 2025 12:41 pm The game is really fun, but it is really hard to get to the Content of it, I still havent made firmly into the second phase of events. Purely by the game breaking under me. It's like my Game is Cursed. My First Play through the Save Corrupted, tho this partially my Fault as I was messing with my Filesystem at the time.
And now in my second one the Lighting is completely broken, like everything is Dark including the Lights themselves even tho they are on. And I can see on the Texture they are on. But so fun!

Sounds like alpha software to me
(which i believe it is, no?)

Gaming :: Re: Voices of the Void :: Reply by Crazyroostereye

no_email@example.com (Crazyroostereye) — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 13:04:39 +0000

TeaInTheMorning wrote: Sat Aug 09, 2025 12:51 pm Sounds like alpha software to me
(which i believe it is, no?)

Its not Alpha, it pre-alpha . Basically even more unstable. But cant wait to start my third Attempt. Tho I will miss Kerfur.

Gaming :: Re: Voices of the Void :: Reply by TeaInTheMorning

no_email@example.com (TeaInTheMorning) — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 13:24:34 +0000

Crazyroostereye wrote: Sat Aug 09, 2025 1:04 pm Its not Alpha, it pre-alpha

That'd explain it!
Hope attempt numero 3 goes well!

Gaming :: Re: Alternatives to D&D :: Reply by Fireye

no_email@example.com (Fireye) — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 08:48:41 +0000

Just saw this thread! We're necroing again baby because holy hell I love these little things and you can do a hell of a lot better than 5e! In no particular order here are some awesome options:

Blades in the dark
Cyberpunk Red
Spire
Heart
Lancer
Monsterhearts 2, thirsty sword lesbians, other assorted PBTA systems
SLUGBLASTER
Delta Green
Mothership
The Wildsea
Lichcraft
Vampire The Masquerade
Mythic Bastionland
Edge of the Empire (or any other genesys based system- that dice system is cooking with gas)

Find a system that is made to tell the kind of stories you and your group want to tell. There is so much beautiful stuff out there, its a damn shame that so many people don't venture past 5e. And share what you find; everyone's always learning!

Gaming :: Re: Alternatives to D&D :: Reply by Pearlple

no_email@example.com (Pearlple) — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 13:17:30 +0000

Let me just add some to consider to the list:

Swords & Wizardy (OSR offshoot of original D&D 1.0)
Daggerheart (modern spiritual successor to D&D)
Electric Bastionland (a more Steampunk-ish variant to Mythic Bastionland)
Between Clouds (Biopunk)
Goblin Errands (cutesy and low stakes fun)
Hack the Planet (Cyberpunk adaptation of Blades in the dark)
Dolmenwood (OSR)
Lady Blackbird

Music Players :: Re: Managing offline music library :: Reply by phryk

no_email@example.com (phryk) — Sat, 19 Jul 2025 03:06:37 +0000

I've been using the Music Player Daemon (mpd or musicpd for short) for about 2 decades now
and can absolutely recommend it.

The basic premise is that it only does the playback and management parts, but no UI. Instead it offers control
through its own network protocol – which is used by a whole bunch of different clients to let you control it.
I personally use a terminal-based client called `ncmpcpp` ("NCurses MPd Client in cPP", yeah that's a mouthful),
which offers all I want, but there's a whole bunch of GUI clients for *nix, Windows, Android, iOS and more niche platforms.

It's free software (as in beer *and* freedom), available on pretty much any *nix distro and it keeps a database
of your music collection you can update at the press of a button. And it supports editing metadata tags in your collection, too.

Format/codec-wise, it can play damn near anything, including C64 SID stuff and I think even some tracker music.
Definitely all the usual suspects like mp3, flac, ogg vorbis and opus.

By now, it doesn't do literally *everything* I'd like it to, but that's mostly because I want entirely unreasonable things like precomputed audio analysis data for super-smooth audio visualization.

I've also used it to stream music from home to mobile in the past. No expensive online server needed – just an account at a free dyndns service and a port forward on your router. Audio doesn't take a lot of bandwidth – even a subpar DSL hookup is usually enough to let you stream lossless FLAC and lossy codecs like vorbis and opus are way lighter.

Music Players :: Re: Managing offline music library :: Reply by Crazyroostereye

no_email@example.com (Crazyroostereye) — Sun, 20 Jul 2025 09:31:05 +0000

Oh, I have seen it around. It looks cool but never had a particular Use case for it, as my Network Share Music runs via Jellyfin, for ease of use for my Parents. But it does look really cool as a Music Server.

Music Players :: Re: iPod pics! :: Reply by malice

no_email@example.com (malice) — Mon, 21 Jul 2025 00:37:04 +0000

5th gen classic, no mods because I don't really need Rockbox or anything personally, but I'm a bit envious at the neat skins some of y'all have

Music Players :: Re: FiiO Echo Mini, a cool retro-modern porable MP3 player :: Reply by TeaInTheMorning

no_email@example.com (TeaInTheMorning) — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 11:31:28 +0000

This is a pretty cool player
This is the most reasonably priced player I've found so far
(ipods are expensive, and fancy audiophile stuff is )

My flac collection is growing exponentially tho so, I'd need to figure out a better solution >>

Online Privacy :: Re: redact.dev -- Deleting Your Digital Footprint :: Reply by Crazyroostereye

no_email@example.com (Crazyroostereye) — Fri, 18 Jul 2025 07:57:50 +0000

They look like they are decent, I am not sure how they Delete you old Posts. Like do they do just an API / Visual Delete which Deletes the Post for Everyone, but the Company. Or do they put legal Requests in to enforce the Company to scrub it.

But besides that they seem like an easy quick service to get rid of old Accounts and Scrub the Data on them. Even if it is only for Public Eye wiped.

Online Privacy :: Best practices for hide-my-email aliases and private contacts :: Author Targa

no_email@example.com (Targa) — Mon, 28 Jul 2025 09:38:53 +0000

I'm using protons hide-my-email feature for all my accounts now and I love the idea of my main email never being breached and thus not receiving spam. Now I actually don't want to share an alias with friends, family and professional contacts since the addresses aren't the most legible and I don't like the 'message' that it sends, as if I don't trust them. However, if any of them ever get hacked, of course my real email address gets compromised too...

Do any of you think about it the same way? Any thoughts or solutions that worked for you?

Cheers!

Online Privacy :: Re: Best practices for hide-my-email aliases and private contacts :: Reply by Crazyroostereye

no_email@example.com (Crazyroostereye) — Mon, 28 Jul 2025 10:48:09 +0000

Email Alias Systems are cool, since I own a handful of domains and my own Mail server, I have rerouted on of them to be a catch-all email, which means anything in front of the @ gets rerouted to my Personal Mail, unless I disable that particular Alias. This allows me to give a Human a legible Email like coolguy@mydomain.tld to allow them to reach me while still keeping my Main email secure. Which is really cool.

Online Privacy :: Re: Best practices for hide-my-email aliases and private contacts :: Reply by CitricScion

no_email@example.com (CitricScion) — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 01:04:26 +0000

I don't know if this exists for all Proton plans, but at least for unlimited you can make other aliases to be whatever you want [at] proton [dot] me or what have you. It's a different feature to SimpleLogin which will give you a random looking address because that service is meant for signing up for accounts.

Online Privacy :: Online Age Verification :: Author Crazyroostereye

no_email@example.com (Crazyroostereye) — Sat, 02 Aug 2025 16:05:07 +0000

This thread is intended on the Discussion about Age Verification across the Web. And to discuss the Issues with them regarding Privacy and Societally. About Places that are Implementing them and how they intend to do so.
This topic has become more Important than ever to Discuss after the Online Safety Act in the UK, The proposed Kids Online Safety Act in the US and the Age Verification Proposal in the EU, and more have hit the Scene. All these Acts are about or include Aspects of Online Age Verification.

We can already see in the UK with the Online Safety Act and the establishment of Age Verification Platforms like Persona. That throw Privacy completely out of the Window and the fact Platforms for example AA or the Suicide Prevention Chats are also affected, making it harder to get in contact with these Services and binding an Identity to the formally Anonymous Communications.

Ill start with the thing that Age Verification online isn't a bad thing. There is content online that should not be viewed by Minors, and having a way of Preventing Minors to view it that isn't a Button saying "are you old enough?".
But the Issues we are seeing for example in the UK, is firstly the Broad amount of Platforms that are required to have something like that. And the way they Verify with either Selfies or Pictures of their Government ID. All things that are collected by the Age Verification services. And can be bound to an Account. This is a risk of Data Leaks and more.

But on the other hand there is the EU which is starting a Pilot Program with an App, that has been Developed in the Open, that should Verify your Age on online Platforms using Cryptographically generated Certificates. On my First read of it, it looks like a great Privacy Preserving way of verifying your Age. As it doesn't contain any Info about you. It only tells the Service, you are old enough. But I do not know enough about it to know the Issues and Flaws it has.

What are your thought?

Online Privacy :: Re: Online Age Verification :: Reply by rejectconvenience

no_email@example.com (rejectconvenience) — Sat, 02 Aug 2025 20:59:50 +0000

I agree to an extent. Obviously kids should not be able to access inappropriate content, and ideally, they shouldn't really be on social media platforms like Instagram. There are studies that highlight the fact that these platforms are doing an enormous amount of harm to children, and finding solutions to helping stop that problem is something that has my full support. My issue with the way this is being handled is twofold:

1. Forcing risk to everyone, including minors. Data is data, and anywhere where someone has to provide more data is a risk. There are certainly ways around this, and on the surface, the EU Digital Identity Wallet seems like a compelling way to handle this. I need to obviously look deeper into it, but so far, I like the amount of thought they've put into it. One of my worries is.. this is just for the EU. I mean, it could be adopted by other regions, but the US hasn't shown an amazing track record of following the EU when it comes to wrangling up big tech.

2. I worked in a school district for a majority of my career in IT, and if I learned anything, it's that kids will always find a way around these systems. Always. Even in the cases of these recent events with apps asking for scans of faces, kids found a way around it one day one using video games. We really need to keep that in mind when approaching this, as maybe talking to kids will help a lot. If you put a big sticker on the cookie jar saying "no kids allowed" and put it on the top shelf, that's an invite for them to find a chair. We can certainly try to play the cat and mouse game, but I can see how it would hit the same privacy concerns of point 1 rather quickly. I don't have a clear solution here, I mean I don't have kids. I just know that making a tool to prevent them from accessing things they're not supposed to is not going to stop them. I don't care how advanced and secure we think it is. They're very good at getting around that.

I'm really curious what others think, for sure. I'm also going to be talking to my friends that have children and get their input. Optimistically, I'd love to say it's just as simple as "teach parents to use parental controls", but I know that's not very realistic. That's part of what I want to learn from parents. I was hoping to make a video on this in a couple months, but given how much has changed in recent times, I want to give this some more time to talk with people and try to be able to offer real actionable solutions. That, of course, requires a heck of a lot more time.

Online Privacy :: Re: Online Age Verification :: Reply by Crazyroostereye

no_email@example.com (Crazyroostereye) — Sat, 02 Aug 2025 21:25:19 +0000

I couldn't agree more, while I find certain measures should be implemented, the approach we should be taking is that of Education and Parental Control. Topics like Internet and Digital Safety and Well being should be educated better in School. Furthermore, I think Parents should be also better Educated at Monitoring their Children's Online Activity and how to approach that. Beyond that I think implementing and maybe Legislatively encouraging better Parental Control systems on Platforms and Services. Maybe Design a Unifying Protocol so that Parents don't have fine tune the Parental Control over a Dozen different Services would be great.

rejectconvenience wrote: Sat Aug 02, 2025 8:59 pm 2. I worked in a school district for a majority of my career in IT, and if I learned anything, it's that kids will always find a way around these systems. Always. Even in the cases of these recent events with apps asking for scans of faces, kids found a way around it one day one using video games. We really need to keep that in mind when approaching this, as maybe talking to kids will help a lot. If you put a big sticker on the cookie jar saying "no kids allowed" and put it on the top shelf, that's an invite for them to find a chair. We can certainly try to play the cat and mouse game, but I can see how it would hit the same privacy concerns of point 1 rather quickly. I don't have a clear solution here, I mean I don't have kids. I just know that making a tool to prevent them from accessing things they're not supposed to is not going to stop them. I don't care how advanced and secure we think it is. They're very good at getting around that.

Yes Children are the Best in finding flaws and Issues in anything. They will always find a way. Even with the Fancy EU app I can imagine they will find Master Cert that someone leaked, probably the German Government, and will be using that for a while. This is defiantly what will happen.

The one upside I can see of all this Age Verification Non sense is that we might increase Tech Literacy back up in the Junger generation while they try to work around these Systems.

Online Privacy :: Re: Online Age Verification :: Reply by zonk

no_email@example.com (zonk) — Sat, 02 Aug 2025 22:33:53 +0000

What sort of things are we trying to protect children from seeing anyway? I can't really think of anything that would irreparably scar a child that wouldn't also scar an adult.

I encountered hardcore pornography at the age of 10 because of a bad influence of a friend, and I think I turned out the best out of anyone I grew up with and am doing a lot better than the adults who raised me. Sure, I don't think it was appropriate for me to be looking at that; there are many issues with learning about sex through pornography, but there is this meme that it will scar or corrupt the minds of the children by their mere seeing of it, and I just don't think that is true. The idea that we need to do away with online anonymity in the name of protecting kids from encountering sexual imagery is therefore ridiculous to me.

I was playing violent and graphic video games like Diablo at an even earlier age than that, with supervision from my father. I think parents should have the discretion to show things to their children, and it should also be their responsibility to control their children's online activities. Social media is absolutely damaging to children (I would argue more than violent and sexual imagery), but the parents are the ones enabling their kids to get on them in the first place. It should not be the place of the state to decide that on behalf of everyone else and sacrifice everyone's rights for them.

As with most societal ills, this is a problem of education and discipline, not legislation.

Online Privacy :: Re: Online Age Verification :: Reply by CitricScion

no_email@example.com (CitricScion) — Sun, 03 Aug 2025 01:03:14 +0000

Opinion zone

My position when it comes to the problem that age verification is trying to fix is this: we should not adopt a solution that jeopardizes the basic digital freedom of the rest of the country, including those kids once they grow up. To prevent kids from seeing certain content on platforms that make up the mainstream of internet usage, you cannot mandate that effectively every user needs to confirm their real identity. I don't know what the best solution is, but you don't to give yourself a master key to spying on an entire populace in the name of "maybe this is keep kids safe."

To exaggerate a bit, the logic that says that we need to take freedom-destroying steps in order to protect kids could be allowed to dismantle all rights that keep law enforcement from doing anything. If you believe that fundamentally law enforcement is good and therefore needs full access to anything and everything in order to do there jobs, then logically you should have no freedoms if the state thinks they need to cross a boundary. The reason we don't go that far is because we understand that governments can't be trusted with absolute power. That is why we need to have our rights respected, and demand that to be so.

Personally, I am also of the opinion that the state is not everyone's dad. Parents should not be pushing the responsibility of keeping their kids safe onto the government. Again, there are limits here, but when the real answer to keeping your kid safe is to maybe not give them a phone until their older, then I don't have as much room for grace when the cost is basic human freedom in the fact of 21st century governments.

Potential solution zone

All that said, it does seem like there may be a way to privately confirm to a website that a user is an adult without sharing any information with the website. Google has open sourced an age verification system that implements "zero knowledge proof." I believe this is the system that the EU is looking to integrate into the digital wallet initiative.

The basic idea behind zero knowledge proof is that you could scan your ID with a special, audited app; that app would record the simple yes or no for whether you are over 18 years old; and when you are trying to access a site or part of a site that needs that information you could use this ZKP app to prove your age. As far as I can tell, this could be like when you set up TOTP authentication, where all you do is scan a QR code from the service, download the shared secret, and then you're good with an offline app that will always let you login.

It seems to me like there may be a path forward the respects the private of users while also adding friction to the process of accessing sensitive content (let's be real, there isn't much friction today). However, I still have concerns with this:

Will this be an open protocol? Today, you can set up any authenticator to keep your codes. You don't have to use Google Authenticator or Microsoft Authenticator. In the case of Microsoft I know for a fact that you can use a third party authenticator even for a Microsoft account.
Will we have access to open source apps that do this? Any app that comes out will be audited, but making sure we have an open source option makes it so that we can fully understand what data is or is not being stored in the app, and whay information is actually sent to a website that is asking for age verification.

If the answer to any of these questions is no, I would be concerned that these digital IDs or age verification tools will be used as the central point for identifying citizen activity across the internet. Forget needing to rely on an email address, IP address, phone number, or even browser fingerprinting. You might be required essentially log into every website with your idea and there will be no mystery as to what you do, who you are, and how the government could come after you.

While a potential solution to this situation may exist, the threat to freedom is colossal and unignorable.

PS - I am a parent and I still think all of these things lol

Online Privacy :: Persona (Age Verification Service) :: Author rejectconvenience

no_email@example.com (rejectconvenience) — Sat, 02 Aug 2025 13:01:23 +0000

I was going to wait to make a video about this, but after reading this privacy policy, I thought I should share this for maximum visibility. It takes a long time to make videos. Let me introduce you to a little company called Persona. This company offers age verification services. Here's what I learned about them this morning.

The following are companies that use Persona to use their verification systems:

OpenAI, Coursera, Square, Twilio, Lime, Reddit, Roblox, VRChat, LinkedIn, Helium, Dakota, 6lock, Heritage Bank NA, Citizen Health, K Health, Zumper, WeTravel, Neighbor, Discogs, BitGo, Coffee Meets Bagel, Zro Bank, Branch, Newton, Remote, AngelList, Preply, Umbrella, Sonder, Rently, MyRent. Empower, UrbanSitter, Outdoorsy, Brex.

They do not have any clarity as to how long they retain your personal information. Oh, the personal information they collect includes the following:

Most importantly, scans of your face. They retain this data on their servers, it's not stored locally. They also collect your name, username, email address, postal address, phone number, age, gender, marital status, financial transactions, credit card numbers, financial account details, photos, documents, emails sent to their service, IP address, device type, OS, browser, other software, geolocation data, usage data, including what pages you view, how long you spend on a page, your actions on those pages, recordings or transcripts of audio or video communications you have with them, inferred data, including your city, preferences and other characteristics. They also collect information from data brokers, third party partners, including social networks, partners of the company, service providers and public information.

Now, let's say that Persona has a data breach. Well, it turns out that you can't sue them at all. You can't be a part of a class action lawsuit or anything. That's because they put a "Class Action Waiver" in this policy. So if you data gets stolen BEYOND what the company already does, you can't take action against them.

Oh yeah, that's right, did I fail to mention that they also share and sell all this user data? This company is just straight up awful.

I greatly encourage you to seek alternatives to the companies listed above. In cases where you can't, just try to mitigate risks by using randomized email aliases, randomized passwords, clearing cookies regularly, uninstalling apps on your phone, deleting accounts you don't need or want anymore, etc. Please try to avoid compliance with this kind of company.

Sources:
https://withpersona.com/customers
https://withpersona.com/legal/privacy-policy
https://ask.vrchat.com/t/age-verification-faq/28458
https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us ... for-my-age

Online Privacy :: Re: Persona (Age Verification Service) :: Reply by December_W_Wolf

no_email@example.com (December_W_Wolf) — Sat, 02 Aug 2025 16:31:53 +0000

This is pretty scary to think about; if I'm ever forced to use that company for a service, regardless of whether I'm already using it or not, I'll definitely ditch it (although to be honest I'm not exactly very comfortable about giving some random company a scan of my passport anyway).

I will quickly mention that I'm quite sure Roblox hasn't always used Persona for their age verification, I remember back when they first implemented the feature to allow VC access they used a company called Veratad (I only know this because I did decide to verify my age with a government-issued ID, which I would not do nowadays but unfortunately the damage has been done). I've looked a little into their privacy policy which I've linked, and while I am by no means well-versed in TOS-ese, it seems they follow a similar ethos based on the fact that some of their wording of how they deal with biometric data is very similar, if not a nigh-perfect match, so do be wary of them as well.

I think I have a long and winding sentence problem lol

Online Privacy :: Re: Persona (Age Verification Service) :: Reply by CitricScion

no_email@example.com (CitricScion) — Sun, 03 Aug 2025 01:10:35 +0000

Here is some ancient internet advice: don't give your personal information to sketchy websites.

If a service I use asks me for my personal information beyond what is typical, then depending on the service I will simple not do that. If that means I only have access to certain parts of the site, or no access at all, so be it. I will not give my personal information to these websites to invade my privacy further. These websites have no right asking for that information.

That being said, the problem is not with the people who will or won't comply, but with a legal system that is forcing them to make a choice. We need to continue to advocate for proper digital privacy legislation that protects users from having to risk their digital wellbeing.

That fact that this is happening at the same time as the Tea data breach is ironic, but maybe a gift in disguise. It shows exactly the risk that the UK is forcing unto their citizens.

Online Privacy :: Re: How to grow and professionalize as an artist while moving away from Instagram :: Reply by CitricScion

no_email@example.com (CitricScion) — Tue, 05 Aug 2025 02:11:21 +0000

Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if I learn that Instagram has had terrible link support on purpose to keep folks dependent on their platform rather than being able to link to something else easily.

Online Privacy :: Re: How to grow and professionalize as an artist while moving away from Instagram :: Reply by Targa

no_email@example.com (Targa) — Tue, 05 Aug 2025 07:07:41 +0000

Would make total sens if so to be honest. Maybe I can add a non-invasive watermark with my website in my posts, or a pretty short url or something.

Online Privacy :: Chat Control in the EU?! This is crazy :: Author [lý]

no_email@example.com ([lý]) — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 23:43:22 +0000

Hey, this is [lý], and this is my first forum post

To cut to the chase, I have just earlier today been informed about an EU initiative called Chat Control which aims to have an AI scan all private messages In apps like messenger, WhatsApp and telegram. This seems like a hugeeeee privacy concern, and is once again sort of like the age verification stuff put behind a "to protect the kids" mantra, that just does not hold up...

It seems like the news outlets at least here in Denmark pretty much just haven't talked about it!? And also somehow Denmark of all countries seems to FOR this initiative, and have actually been the ones to get it going again!? I am so against this...
I could find this article, which seems pretty good, but is only in danish, feel free to try and translate it :p
https://prosabladet.dk/nyheder/nyhed/ch ... er-i-prosa

I find it very concerning that i almost haven't even had a chance to hear about it before now, and it's due october 14th!?

And like if this gets passed, what would the next thing be that they try and put in there, privacy would be effectly dead. I do not want that!

And hey get this, the politicians will be exempt from this entire thing... that sounds very suspicious to me.

I am currently a little stumped on what exactly one can do about this, so I'd love to hear suggestions!

Here are some links for different information about it:
https://chatcontrol.dk/en/
https://fightchatcontrol.eu/
https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/posts/chat-control/ (<---this one has a good explainer video)

Online Privacy :: Re: Chat Control in the EU?! This is crazy :: Reply by Crazyroostereye

no_email@example.com (Crazyroostereye) — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 09:40:11 +0000

OMFG I hate that is being reconsidered, and from Denmark of all places. I would highly recommend anyone from the EU, to check out the Links @[lý] mentions, calling and emailing your Reps is something that has a surprising amount of Influence.

What is sort of funny the addition of exclusion for Politicians, like this overtly elitist. And what happens you leave Politics or don't make the next Election? What a wired addition.

But yeah Privacy would be dead on the Internet with this Law. I am not sure this Law will ever pass is it goes against the Constitutions of several Member States and against the EU Charter. But that doesn't mean any less that we have to protest and contact our Representatives to go against.

Online Privacy :: Re: Chat Control in the EU?! This is crazy :: Reply by Fireye

no_email@example.com (Fireye) — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 17:05:40 +0000

Wow that's horrifying. Are they mandating crackable e2ee implementations?? That's just plain stupid. The world really is going to shit.

Moreover I think imma go buy a boat and sail around so I don't have to worry about this shit anymore lmao

Online Privacy :: Re: Chat Control in the EU?! This is crazy :: Reply by TeaInTheMorning

no_email@example.com (TeaInTheMorning) — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 17:34:02 +0000

I don't know what to say besides that it's utterly gross this is being proposed at all!
As a non-european I cannot do much besides state my displeasure

Other Tech :: YouTube "Badges" :: Author RoninRicker

no_email@example.com (RoninRicker) — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 00:58:31 +0000

Just saw this new "feature" on YouTube (mobile) that is clearly designed to spark dopamine when you interact in the comments to keep you on the platform. I find this disgusting because humanity doesn't need another intentionally addicting algorithm. I forgot to take a screenshot of the "badges" I received before I disabled it, but the phrasing was kinda evil. "You received love from [YouTuber name] (your comment got a heart)"

Other Tech :: Re: YouTube "Badges" :: Reply by rejectconvenience

no_email@example.com (rejectconvenience) — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 01:00:54 +0000

sigh super cool, thanks youtube

Other Tech :: Re: YouTube "Badges" :: Reply by December_W_Wolf

no_email@example.com (December_W_Wolf) — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 08:19:45 +0000

I'll admit this is the main reason why I deleted my Reddit account. It did take a while, as I did find it fun to try out new things on Reddit, and I ended up earning a few of these by accident, but yeah you can definitely tell these were made to keep engagement up. The main ones that deterred me were the "potassium" ones that would require you to scroll the length of a banana for it to count - those things went up to over 100k banana-lengths. I tried to just scroll really really quickly on my phone with one hand while doing something else, but the constant flashes in the corner of my peripheral vision gave me eyestrain so I just gave up.

Just had a look at YouTube's, and theirs look a lot more like poorly disguised " give us money " attempts (be one of the first people to join a YouTuber's membership program, hype long-form videos by either using your 3 free daily hypes or pay-to-hype, spend loads of time to be in the top listeners for selected music artists - does this just apply to ones you already listen to or is this to give the already huge ones more money?), and they kind of remind me of the "make a post that receives 100k upvotes/comment that receives 10k upvotes" achievements. All in all, they're to farm engagement and make us empty our pockets for them, so I'm not going to bother. It does seem they actually allow you to opt out of achievements though, which is at least one silver lining that Reddit users cannot do without some external browser plugin that hopefully won't get blocked.

Other Tech :: How does RSS work? :: Author bgmeulem

no_email@example.com (bgmeulem) — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 09:21:21 +0000

Hi all

I've been seeing some posts around here on RSS reader recommendations and setup and all. This is a bit of a different question: how does it work?

I recently downloaded the fluent reader app, but they want me to enter credentials and API keys from different RSS services. Fair enough, I move over to Inoreader and add this forum to my feed. I go over to developer settings and... The API key is behind a paywall.

At this point I'm confused about the business model around RSS services. I think its fair to ask for a subscription if there are server costs included - those cost money. But I'd assume the website associated with publishing RSS does the hosting, and an RSS reader requests the XML or whatever as soon as you boot up the app, similar to how a browser requests some HTML only when you need it and the website server returns the request. Given that I see people talking about self-hosting an RSS service, that doesn't seem to be the case... I think?

So my question is more: how does RSS work in terms of client-server model? Does the end user need a server (additional to the one publishing RSS) to read RSS? If so: why? If not, is the price for RSS readers solely cost for developing the app? How difficult would it be to make your own?

Other Tech :: Re: How does RSS work? :: Reply by TeaInTheMorning

no_email@example.com (TeaInTheMorning) — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 10:49:27 +0000

bgmeulem wrote: Sat Aug 09, 2025 9:21 am So my question is more: how does RSS work in terms of client-server model? Does the end user need a server (additional to the one publishing RSS) to read RSS? If so: why? If not, is the price for RSS readers solely cost for developing the app? How difficult would it be to make your own?

I don't know the exacts but I've never heard of an paid rss reader

RSS/Atom (traditionally) are a file hosted on a website, that provides a easy to format data structure. RSS reader can format this data into something nice for humans to read

All this API key hubbub sounds like greedy companies to me

Other Tech :: Re: How does RSS work? :: Reply by zonk

no_email@example.com (zonk) — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 11:43:04 +0000

Yeah, RSS is just an XML file that describes a feed. You should be able to just put the feed URL into an RSS reader and that's it. Don't use some RSS service; just install an RSS reader onto your computer or phone.

Other Tech :: Re: How does RSS work? :: Reply by TeaInTheMorning

no_email@example.com (TeaInTheMorning) — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 12:11:02 +0000

zonk wrote: Sat Aug 09, 2025 11:43 am Yeah, RSS is just an XML file that describes a feed. You should be able to just put the feed URL into an RSS reader and that's it. Don't use some RSS service; just install an RSS reader onto your computer or phone.

Said it better than me!
But yeah, thats what rss is :3

Other Tech :: Re: How does RSS work? :: Reply by Crazyroostereye

no_email@example.com (Crazyroostereye) — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 13:00:28 +0000

How @TeaInTheMorning and @zonk wrote, its a simple XML file that the Feeder grabs periodically, what you might be referring to is a Feed aggregator, its basically a Feed reader on the Web, which has some other Functionality too like Read Management and Categorization from which you can then sync to a client if you choose to do so. It makes it easier to have the Same feed across all your Devices and also to know what you have already read. As I see it, Inoreader is that with some extra Features on top. This is why they require an Account

The other thing I can I think of is some Feeds are payed and require HTTP Auth or API keys to access. For example 404 Media does have a full text RSS Feed where you get the entire Article in your Reader for which you have to pay for.

What I would recommend to check out Capy reader it is a standard RSS reader, that also can hook in to such Aggregators if you choose to use them in the Future.

Other Tech :: Re: How does RSS work? :: Reply by bgmeulem

no_email@example.com (bgmeulem) — Sun, 10 Aug 2025 10:08:17 +0000

Just managed to read these replies in an RSS reader. Thanks for the explanations all! The inoreader app indeed seems to be a feed aggregator in addition to a reader, but aggregation is a subscription only perk, which was what confused me. Feedly seems to have reasonable free features. I'll snoop around a bit more, thanks y'all!

Other Tech :: Re: How does RSS work? :: Reply by TeaInTheMorning

no_email@example.com (TeaInTheMorning) — Sun, 10 Aug 2025 11:03:09 +0000

bgmeulem wrote: Sun Aug 10, 2025 10:08 am Just managed to read these replies in an RSS reader. Thanks for the explanations all! The inoreader app indeed seems to be a feed aggregator in addition to a reader, but aggregation is a subscription only perk, which was what confused me. Feedly seems to have reasonable free features. I'll snoop around a bit more, thanks y'all!

Sounds good!
Though if you are willing to go through the effort, manually finding rss links will be a lot cheaper
(There are tons of free, and even open source readers out there)

Other Tech :: Re: How does RSS work? :: Reply by Fireye

no_email@example.com (Fireye) — Sun, 10 Aug 2025 20:59:43 +0000

On android "feeder" is great and i like "fluent reader" for desktop, though I've heard good things about "rssguard"

Also here's my favorite RSS explanation https://ncase.me/rss/

Other Tech :: YouTube alternatives :: Author PossiblyAxolotl

no_email@example.com (PossiblyAxolotl) — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 00:01:51 +0000

I recently found this website https://vanillo.tv/ that I thought looked kinda neat as an alternative to YouTube, as well as this blog post about some: https://sgtcharlynne.neocities.org/writing/videosharing

Now I'm not super actively looking to jump ship, as much as people are unhappy with YouTube right now, but I'm wondering what you all think of platforms like that, and other options listed on the post? I think were I to start using other platforms I would probably cross-post, and point to some sort of ko-fi or other platform for income, but most other platforms are still extremely small and have problems like peertube being self-hosted and federated causing some confusion or Odysee which has weird crypto features and scares me. Idk, just curious of people's thoughts on some of these

Other Tech :: Re: YouTube alternatives :: Reply by CitricScion

no_email@example.com (CitricScion) — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 02:33:33 +0000

I saw this guys video about this today! Yes, I think it's good to be thinking about alternatives and I'm fine using them, though convenience has kept me mostly on YouTube.

For self-preservation reasons I think creators should diversity if they're able to. I think most know that, which is way things like Twitch streaming and Nebula exist. However, because many creators have communities who will just click a link to view a video, it doesn't matter where you send them as long as they video is there, meaning that it could work when you can promote from other socials.

Of course there are huge drawbacks and you have to manage your strategy. I figure that when a video goes live, creators want everyone watching that video on YouTube for the algorithm, so there is a conflict right there. That said, if you're willing to make the tradeoff and put in the extra work then you protect yourself and your content by being somewhere else.

One nice thing about something like PeerTube (though it has rough edges) is that it's built on the social web by default with ActivityPub. That means that if you're sharing videos there, anyone will be able to get to the video and you will have grown your audience on an open protocol, meaning that your next potential move should have MUCH less friction than the first because you will be able to retain your audience more easily.

Today this is all theoretical, but in a day and age where Mastodon and Bluesky have shown an interest and competitive feature set to attract people who are increasingly repulsed by the mistreatment by big tech, I think there's potential for everyone to move to an open version of YouTube where a platform can't hold the creators hostage again. But it's gonna take work and maybe an investment from the big youtubers or something.

TL;DR - I am for creators uploading to alternative platforms, and I think PeerTube is a great option that I hope will improve with time.

Other Tech :: Re: YouTube alternatives :: Reply by Fireye

no_email@example.com (Fireye) — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 06:36:17 +0000

Yeah the main technological hurdles are the overhead for storing and streaming video, and algorithms. The former is tough but you can figure out options to get videos to people, but on the algorithms end we're generally cooked. The userbase is located on these platforms and the only way to reach them is to engage on the platform. POSSE (post on own site, syndicate elsewhere) is a good approach for handling this but it gets a lot harder, especially when video is involved.

Other Tech :: Re: YouTube alternatives :: Reply by Crazyroostereye

no_email@example.com (Crazyroostereye) — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 07:41:06 +0000

Yeah Video hosting and streaming is just such an expensive thing to do.
I do like the Idea of People Diversifying into different Platforms, but one of the largest Drawbacks besides the Algorithm is Money. For Creators who are Monetized on the Platform and relay on that Money, it is borderline Impossible to switch. As all the other Platforms don't have a Concrete Monetization plan. And those that do, they are usually quite dubious and Unstable.

Other Tech :: Re: YouTube alternatives :: Reply by Fireye

no_email@example.com (Fireye) — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 07:54:22 +0000

I don't think monetization is actually the worst hurdle here, problems with payment processors aside. If you have an audience and a way to reach them, it's just a matter of conversion. You don't need AdSense or any other similar rev share options; even with those, we still see many creators lean on other revenue sources like sponsorships, Kofi or patreon-like services, and commissions, among others.

The problem is that the audience is only on these platforms and only reachable via opaque algorithms. Reaching people is probably the hardest part, especially if you don't live on their platform of choice, most of which are proprietary.

Other Tech :: Re: YouTube alternatives :: Reply by TeaInTheMorning

no_email@example.com (TeaInTheMorning) — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 13:47:38 +0000

It'll be very hard for a youtube competitor to succeed, but i hope it does happen at some point! Hopefully it's less addictive too!

This sort of buisness model is very hard to make work, sadly (Video hosting is EXPENSIVE)

I'm slowly paring down my youtube consumption to favorite creators and topic relevent content >>

Other Tech :: Re: YouTube alternatives :: Reply by Mæstro

no_email@example.com (Mæstro) — Tue, 12 Aug 2025 00:15:53 +0000

The Internet Archive serves, in some capacity, as a YouTube substitute: anybody can upload film there. My own biggest problem is that there is no way to lower the resolution below how it was originally uploaded, which can be awkward if someone has chosen HD, which wastes my bandwidth. Others might be bothered by the inability to subscribe to uploading users or the fact one must seek out for oneself what one wishes to watch, but I see these as benefits.

Other Tech :: Re: YouTube alternatives :: Reply by CitricScion

no_email@example.com (CitricScion) — Tue, 12 Aug 2025 00:54:34 +0000

There definitely is an expectation that will need to change among viewers and creators to see a successful alternative I think. I happily subscribe to Nebula and could even use it as a YouTube replacement if I needed to. Paying $60 a year for like 60-80% of the type of content I watch on YouTube so that I can directly support some of my favorite creators is a price I'm willing to stomach. And from the outside it seems like they're profitable. It was risky for them to get off the ground, but I think they and Dropout show that the model works. I guess Floatplane by LTT is also in this bucket.

My guess is that it would have to take a big creator or group of creators coming together to start something and then they could grow it over time. You'd have to plant the seed and take care of diligently, and even then it probably won't get to the scale of YouTube (not that it needs to.)

Other Tech :: Re: YouTube alternatives :: Reply by CitricScion

no_email@example.com (CitricScion) — Tue, 12 Aug 2025 01:08:51 +0000

If anyone is looking into PeerTube instances for a place to make an account, here are a few I came across that seem to have decent amount of content. Remember that on the fediverse you can see content from all of these instances from one place, so you don't need to check each one. It's like following channels across different websites from a single client if that makes sense.

Other Tech :: Re: YouTube alternatives :: Reply by TeaInTheMorning

no_email@example.com (TeaInTheMorning) — Tue, 12 Aug 2025 12:00:53 +0000

CitricScion wrote: Tue Aug 12, 2025 1:08 am If anyone is looking into PeerTube instances for a place to make an account, here are a few I came across that seem to have decent amount of content. Remember that on the fediverse you can see content from all of these instances from one place, so you don't need to check each one. It's like following channels across different websites from a single client if that makes sense.

PeerTube.TV

Spectra Video

TILvids

So you should just choose based on the interface you prefer? (Much like matrix, and most emails)

Other Tech :: Re: YouTube alternatives :: Reply by TeaInTheMorning

no_email@example.com (TeaInTheMorning) — Tue, 12 Aug 2025 12:02:04 +0000

Mæstro wrote: Tue Aug 12, 2025 12:15 am The Internet Archive serves, in some capacity, as a YouTube substitute: anybody can upload film there. My own biggest problem is that there is no way to lower the resolution below how it was originally uploaded, which can be awkward if someone has chosen HD, which wastes my bandwidth. Others might be bothered by the inability to subscribe to uploading users or the fact one must seek out for oneself what one wishes to watch, but I see these as benefits.

I had never considered this!!!
It might work as a replacement for me
New thing to give a shot at!

Other Tech :: Re: YouTube alternatives :: Reply by TeaInTheMorning

no_email@example.com (TeaInTheMorning) — Tue, 12 Aug 2025 12:04:10 +0000

CitricScion wrote: Tue Aug 12, 2025 12:54 am There definitely is an expectation that will need to change among viewers and creators to see a successful alternative I think. I happily subscribe to Nebula and could even use it as a YouTube replacement if I needed to. Paying $60 a year for like 60-80% of the type of content I watch on YouTube so that I can directly support some of my favorite creators is a price I'm willing to stomach. And from the outside it seems like they're profitable. It was risky for them to get off the ground, but I think they and Dropout show that the model works. I guess Floatplane by LTT is also in this bucket.

My guess is that it would have to take a big creator or group of creators coming together to start something and then they could grow it over time. You'd have to plant the seed and take care of diligently, and even then it probably won't get to the scale of YouTube (not that it needs to.)

My main problem with nebula is that it's a streaming service through and through
The least scummy one sure, but it isn't really a video hosting platform

When I have more money I may consider a membership, as there is a lot of great educational content on it

Tech News :: Re: Ed Zitron's (AI critic) newsletter :: Reply by DedRoll

no_email@example.com (DedRoll) — Tue, 12 Aug 2025 04:49:32 +0000

I hate Generative AI with every fiber of my being.

Thank you for sharing this!

Tech News :: Cory Doctorow's blog (author, activist, journalist, AI critic) :: Author Pearlple

no_email@example.com (Pearlple) — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 08:25:22 +0000

Very much inspired by @CitricScion 's post about Ed Zitron's newsletter, I wanted to share this with you: Pluralistic

Cory Doctorow is the author who coined the term "Enshittification"; his book about it is releasing this October. I have mentioned him or linked his writing as a source in posts before, but it hadn't occured to me to just share the blog itself.
He is a very active public speaker and member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. In his blog he writes about various matters related to how technology is used in society. Recently this is mostly matters of AI (mostly in the workplace and in government and it's impact on individuals), privacy in the age of omnipresent surveillance, antitrust, worker's rights and enshittification (and "twiddling") in general.
It's not all bleak, almost always he points out ways how people (together) can solve such issues and from time to time there is a linkdump with good news or just some cool open source hardware and FOSS projects.

Art :: Re: Artfight, anybody? :: Reply by Crazyroostereye

no_email@example.com (Crazyroostereye) — Fri, 18 Jul 2025 08:16:27 +0000

Oh that looks cool. I'll try to keep up with it.

Art :: Re: doodles :: Reply by rejectconvenience

no_email@example.com (rejectconvenience) — Sun, 20 Jul 2025 16:31:29 +0000

Warmup doodle while I try to get back into drawing

balance.jpg

Attachments

balance.jpg (457.95 KiB)

Art :: Re: doodles :: Reply by Limette

no_email@example.com (Limette) — Mon, 04 Aug 2025 16:05:40 +0000

One thing I appreciate about these doodles is the line confidence! Plus it's simply fun to look at doodles from other artists. Most people seem to keep those to themself, which is a shame because that's where art becomes the most fun, in my opinion. I love how much personality your art has.

Art :: Re: Some silly creature designs :: Reply by fitsoab

no_email@example.com (fitsoab) — Thu, 07 Aug 2025 19:15:58 +0000

Felt like updating this, I've got some more down! I like these ones a bit too, I like to make ones that I find a little silly-looking.
Meet Tortillery, Vamplafire, and Ferrocious!

Tortillery.png

IMG_8497.png

IMG_8503.png

Tyrantula is still my favorite, though.

Attachments

Tortillery.png (50.46 KiB)

IMG_8503.png (108.55 KiB)

IMG_8497.png (105.33 KiB)

Art :: Re: Art Share Thread :: Reply by Limette

no_email@example.com (Limette) — Mon, 04 Aug 2025 16:33:57 +0000

@Ray Karr your drawing radiates so much joy! I really like your profile pic, too. I tried to upload my own, but they all exceed the 6.00 KiB file size limit. How do people get their files that small? Yours is even animated

I'll share a drawing of my own while I'm at it:

Art :: Re: Art Share Thread :: Reply by CitricScion

no_email@example.com (CitricScion) — Tue, 05 Aug 2025 01:47:32 +0000

this whole thread is so talented what the h

Art :: Re: Art Share Thread :: Reply by Ray Karr

no_email@example.com (Ray Karr) — Sun, 10 Aug 2025 21:31:31 +0000

Limette wrote: Mon Aug 04, 2025 4:33 pm I'll share a drawing of my own while I'm at it:

what the helllll that's so cool!!!! love the colours :0

Limette wrote: Mon Aug 04, 2025 4:33 pm @Ray Karr your drawing radiates so much joy! I really like your profile pic, too. I tried to upload my own, but they all exceed the 6.00 KiB file size limit. How do people get their files that small? Yours is even animated

I didn't really need to compress it. I guess it was so tiny that it just didn't exceed the file size limit?

Art :: Re: I drawed a lil guy :: Reply by DedRoll

no_email@example.com (DedRoll) — Tue, 12 Aug 2025 04:40:07 +0000

Is this lil guy perhaps have relation with VLC? lol

Movies and TV :: Re: A Minecraft Movie (spoilers!!) :: Reply by MaHaie

no_email@example.com (MaHaie) — Sun, 20 Jul 2025 19:01:05 +0000

I agree with Chrishusk this movie really needs to be watched without any expectations. It’s just goofy fun, and that’s exactly what I was looking for. I couldn’t help but imagine some parents or grandparents going to see it with their kid or grandkid, walking out completely confused and wondering what kind of game their child has been playing and honestly, that thought cracks me up.

Movies and TV :: Taskmaster :: Author PossiblyAxolotl

no_email@example.com (PossiblyAxolotl) — Tue, 22 Jul 2025 00:01:32 +0000

Anyone here been watching Taskmaster? I got into it last year and it's really good. Basically, you have 5 comedians competing to do various absurd tasks in the best/funniest/something-est way throughout each series, and it's really fun to watch or have on for noise, occasionally glancing over and being confused by what they're doing. They also put all full episodes up officially on YouTube which is super cool of them to do!

Music :: I made my first bootleg CD! :: Author Ray Karr

no_email@example.com (Ray Karr) — Sun, 10 Aug 2025 22:17:19 +0000

So, I want to be able to have the music of some artists I follow and like on CD. My usual way of going about this is buying directly from them, or looking through stores and street markets to see if they have anything I'm interested in. It gets tricky when CDs are no longer in production, when the artists are from another continent and finding their stuff here is super tricky, or when they have the nerve to have never released anything on CD...

So, I bought ten blank CD-Rs and jewel cases, and I decided the UNDERTALE Soundtrack would be a good test run to see how easily I could do it.
The physical edition of the UNDERTALE Soundtrack comes in two CDs in a DVD sized box, so I had to adapt or recreate the official art by hand to fit in a jewel case, and have my disc be an MP3 CD, since the 90+ minute soundtrack with 101 tracks would not fit in one CD.

I fumbled my first attempt by labelling my tracks "01, 02, 03, etc" instead of "001, 002, 003, etc", so my CD player was playing the 100th and 101st tracks where the 11th and 12th tracks should be. No problem, lesson learned. I burn another disc, this one works perfectly.

The next hardest part was cutting the CD label I had had printed on A4 sticker paper, since the middle part was pretty tough to get right. Everything else was pretty easy. I made the slip cover, the back thing, and boom! Pretty good if I do say so myself.

I definitely want to do this for all four DELTARUNE chapters... Not sure what else to make, but the sky is the limit >:3 (i guess my wallet is also the limit lol)

Music :: Re: I made my first bootleg CD! :: Reply by TeaInTheMorning

no_email@example.com (TeaInTheMorning) — Sun, 10 Aug 2025 22:22:48 +0000

This is awesome!!!
I think I want to try doing this at some point too
Only problem is I don't have any jewel cases, let alone reliable cd's >>

Music :: Re: I made my first bootleg CD! :: Reply by Ray Karr

no_email@example.com (Ray Karr) — Sun, 10 Aug 2025 22:28:59 +0000

TeaInTheMorning wrote: Sun Aug 10, 2025 10:22 pm Only problem is I don't have any jewel cases, let alone reliable cd's >>

I suppose it depends on where you're from, but CD-Rs and jewel cases are pretty cheap! So much so that I only ever see them sold in bundles of 50 or 100.
I bought a bundle of ten CD-Rs and ten jewel cases and all of that plus separate shipping for each cost me approximately $26k ARS (So, bit more than $20 USD).
I also got lucky since my PC is a ship-of-theseus'd machine from 2014, so it already has a DVD-RW drive, but I think external drives for those aren't very pricey either...

Music :: Re: I made my first bootleg CD! :: Reply by TeaInTheMorning

no_email@example.com (TeaInTheMorning) — Sun, 10 Aug 2025 22:36:11 +0000

I have access to cd's of dubious quality, and a cd r/w capable laptop!
So I'll have to look into buying!

Ty for such a swift response!

Music :: Re: I made my first bootleg CD! :: Reply by CitricScion

no_email@example.com (CitricScion) — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 02:36:36 +0000

Based. I've done a similar move in my life where I am trying to get all the music that is special to me on CD so I can never lose it. Super fun project you've started!

Music :: Re: I made my first bootleg CD! :: Reply by Crazyroostereye

no_email@example.com (Crazyroostereye) — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 07:32:43 +0000

Oh I remember Doing that, as a kid I used to only have a CD/Kaset Radio on my Bed side table, so the only way I listend to stuff was via CD or Kasets. So the thing I used to do was download my Music from the Internet and then Burn it on a Disc. creating my Mixtapes.

Music :: Re: I made my first bootleg CD! :: Reply by Fireye

no_email@example.com (Fireye) — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 07:37:09 +0000

Sounds like a super fun little project! Super depressing how streaming and labels have killed music over the years, both from a consumer and an artist's perspective. Return to physical media! Huzzah!

Music :: Re: I made my first bootleg CD! :: Reply by Ray Karr

no_email@example.com (Ray Karr) — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 13:15:08 +0000

CitricScion wrote: Mon Aug 11, 2025 2:36 am Based. I've done a similar move in my life where I am trying to get all the music that is special to me on CD so I can never lose it. Super fun project you've started!

WELL, as I understand, CD-Rs are not as long-lasting as regular CDs. The best way to *never* lose it is to download all of it and back it up. For me, it's more about looking through all the CDs I have and saying "sure, I'll listen to this today!", which comes more naturally to me than picking from a huge list on Spotify lol. And thank you ^^ always happy to see people passionate about physical media.

Fireye wrote: Mon Aug 11, 2025 7:37 am Sounds like a super fun little project! Super depressing how streaming and labels have killed music over the years, both from a consumer and an artist's perspective. Return to physical media! Huzzah!

It's why I try to buy music on Bandcamp or buy CDs directly from the artists (I say as someone who's only bought one album like that lmao). I love looking for music by thrifting, but from a "supporting the artist" perspective, I know they're not getting anything from that...

Crazyroostereye wrote: Mon Aug 11, 2025 7:32 am Oh I remember Doing that, as a kid I used to only have a CD/Kaset Radio on my Bed side table, so the only way I listend to stuff was via CD or Kasets. So the thing I used to do was download my Music from the Internet and then Burn it on a Disc. creating my Mixtapes.

YES!! I really wanna make mixtapes... the two I have in mind is just a bunch of ska songs that exemplify what I love about the genre, and a collection of all the Undertale and Deltarune tracks my partners and I cannot get our of our heads

Music :: Re: What album is on repeat for you? :: Reply by fitsoab

no_email@example.com (fitsoab) — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 09:39:49 +0000

This is a really obscure one, but Breb Galaxy by DokuBox. Found out about it because I was visiting creators I worked with on a collab album once, and was really stuck on this in particular. I can't understand the words all too well, but I can absolutely feel them. Very big fan of it, and I'm especially hooked on the second and fourth songs.
https://soundcloud.com/dokubox2/sets/breb-galaxy

Music :: Re: What album is on repeat for you? :: Reply by QueriesNTheories

no_email@example.com (QueriesNTheories) — Sat, 16 Aug 2025 23:25:56 +0000

HiLo by Jack Stauber is nice easy listening for me, that's a fun one to go back to
Look Now by Oscar Lang is also great, I like it a little more than his debut album (but I owe it a relisten, it's been a long while)
Build a Problem by dodie isn't one I do full listens of very often cause it's got a loooot of history for me, but I still like it a lot

Music :: What music have you bought (or downloaded) recently? :: Author xan

no_email@example.com (xan) — Tue, 12 Aug 2025 08:53:18 +0000

I went on a spending spree on the last Bandcamp Friday on August 1st, buying a ton of discographies and albums from small artists. So here are some musicians I got music from recently (and their releases)!

ff00ff - no droids on the beach (I actually pre-ordered it the day before it released in July because I really liked their other tracks)
ari melody - free2play (I had listened to it on YouTube Music when it released last year and I saw her posting about it on the fediverse or bluesky. Very happy to have finally gotten the full thing to download myself!)
disphing - href (there's a cool site with different pages matching each track! pretty nifty)
vimae - watercolor (also saw mae posting about this on social media a while back so now I got it. It's fun recognizing the avatars of others who supported the album)

u can follow me on bandcamp and possibly find artists u would like or already know
(I did the same when I found PossiblyAxolotl's following page (nelward! bo en! vivivivivi! Oliver Buckland?!), along with Anthony's (Faye Webster! Tom Cardy!). Reminds me of when I became really happy when I recognized an outro song in one/2 of the latter's videos).

also as I was writing this I looked at the cover image from Bandcamp's Essential Releases, August 8, 2025 and recognized the album cover for Dev Lemons' In The Party; I did not know she was also on the site! Maybe I should spend even more time searching for artists I like to purchase their songs.

remember the next bandcamp friday is September 5, so maybe figure out if u want to buy music by then!
and share music you've liked, either purchased or downloaded

Music :: Re: What music have you bought (or downloaded) recently? :: Reply by TeaInTheMorning

no_email@example.com (TeaInTheMorning) — Tue, 12 Aug 2025 11:56:50 +0000

I had a big download session recently, but the standout album (and the one I think I'll keep in rotation) is herdbound - bit depth!

Tho not long before that I downloaded polygondwanaland - King gizzard and the wizard lizard, and have also enjoyed that

(Both of these are free on bandcamp! support the artists if you can!)

Music :: Re: What music have you bought (or downloaded) recently? :: Reply by Ray Karr

no_email@example.com (Ray Karr) — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 13:47:00 +0000

I gave those albums a listen and they're pretty neat! They're definitely not my style, but I love what they're doing, particularly free2play :3

I recently bought Modo Primate by Los Casettes... twice. Went to see them live and bought a CD of this album from them, but it didn't play correctly, so I decided to buy it on Bandcamp and burn it onto a CD-R later lol
I'm also waiting for JER to release Death of the Heart... only TWO DAYS AWAY AAAAAAAA

Music :: Re: What music have you bought (or downloaded) recently? :: Reply by PossiblyAxolotl

no_email@example.com (PossiblyAxolotl) — Fri, 15 Aug 2025 18:45:46 +0000

I've been buying music off and on a bit as of late but some of my most recent ones from this Bandcamp Friday are CHASER by Femtanyl, TV Dinner by tv room, and the Circa Infinity OST. I've also gotten a few singles by tv room and Sodikken

Music :: Re: What music have you bought (or downloaded) recently? :: Reply by QueriesNTheories

no_email@example.com (QueriesNTheories) — Sat, 16 Aug 2025 17:26:09 +0000

Bandcamp Friday is so fun

I love the rhythm game 140, so I finally bought the OST so I can have a one-person rave any time I want lmao
I bought a friend's second album cause he's cool
I also bought Level Select by Pizza Hotline on cassette (it's got an all-over print for the shell, it looks awesome)
andddd I got all of MallBat's music, because she's one of my favourite animators at the moment <3

Music :: Re: What music have you bought (or downloaded) recently? :: Reply by TeaInTheMorning

no_email@example.com (TeaInTheMorning) — Sat, 16 Aug 2025 18:15:01 +0000

Is it too late to ask what bandcamp Friday is?
(I could look it up, but I find humans provide significantly better responses)

Music :: Re: What music have you bought (or downloaded) recently? :: Reply by Ray Karr

no_email@example.com (Ray Karr) — Sun, 17 Aug 2025 00:07:08 +0000

TeaInTheMorning wrote: Sat Aug 16, 2025 6:15 pm Is it too late to ask what bandcamp Friday is?
(I could look it up, but I find humans provide significantly better responses)

iirc it's days when 100% of the money from bandcamp purchases goes directly to the artists, without bandcamp keeping any of it

Music :: Re: What music have you bought (or downloaded) recently? :: Reply by TeaInTheMorning

no_email@example.com (TeaInTheMorning) — Sun, 17 Aug 2025 00:26:38 +0000

Ray Karr wrote: Sun Aug 17, 2025 12:07 am
TeaInTheMorning wrote: Sat Aug 16, 2025 6:15 pm Is it too late to ask what bandcamp Friday is?
(I could look it up, but I find humans provide significantly better responses)
iirc it's days when 100% of the money from bandcamp purchases goes directly to the artists, without bandcamp keeping any of it

Awesome!!!!

Animals :: Fraug :: Author Felicia

no_email@example.com (Felicia) — Sat, 02 Aug 2025 14:08:33 +0000

birb.png

Attachments

birb.png (74.02 KiB)

Animals :: Re: Fraug :: Reply by December_W_Wolf

no_email@example.com (December_W_Wolf) — Sat, 02 Aug 2025 15:51:24 +0000

FORG!!

Animals :: Re: Fraug :: Reply by CitricScion

no_email@example.com (CitricScion) — Sun, 03 Aug 2025 00:26:47 +0000

good bird

Animals :: Re: Fraug :: Reply by fitsoab

no_email@example.com (fitsoab) — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 09:33:53 +0000

Utter brilliance

Animals :: Re: Fraug :: Reply by DedRoll

no_email@example.com (DedRoll) — Tue, 12 Aug 2025 04:23:41 +0000

What a funny looking cat

Gardening :: Garden :: Author alooinfinite

no_email@example.com (alooinfinite) — Sat, 19 Jul 2025 19:12:43 +0000

Mother's Garden.
I took 5 pictures but I can only seem to upload 3, I am currently on a smart phone using adblock browser.

Attachments

Plant
20250719_144505.jpg (2134.39 KiB)

Plant
20250719_144536.jpg (1679.37 KiB)

Plant
20250719_144537.jpg (1159.46 KiB)

Gardening :: Re: look at this watermelon it's so cute omg :: Reply by alooinfinite

no_email@example.com (alooinfinite) — Sat, 19 Jul 2025 20:06:48 +0000

What a tiny watermelon.

Gardening :: Self watering plants :: Author CitricScion

no_email@example.com (CitricScion) — Tue, 05 Aug 2025 02:16:12 +0000

I recently got a couple of self-watering plants and it has been so cool! I don't know how self-watering is seen in the plant community, but I like that I can have plants where I can clearly tell when to add more water and I can see how they drink up over the course of the week. These two plants aren't the only ones I have, so I do have a few I have to actually take care of.

Gardening :: Re: Self watering plants :: Reply by rejectconvenience

no_email@example.com (rejectconvenience) — Tue, 05 Aug 2025 12:17:51 +0000

Wait, no way! How does that work??

Gardening :: Re: Self watering plants :: Reply by CitricScion

no_email@example.com (CitricScion) — Thu, 07 Aug 2025 02:06:32 +0000

This one is the one I have, but I have seen others in Home Depot and similar type places. This design has the plant essentially drink water that soaks up a string into the bottom of the grower pot. Then you just watch the water level through a little window in the container and refill when its close to empty.

Gardening :: Re: Self watering plants :: Reply by rejectconvenience

no_email@example.com (rejectconvenience) — Thu, 07 Aug 2025 14:43:33 +0000

Ohh interesting! That seems similar to stacking two terracotta pots in the ground with a hole in the top poking out of the soil, and then you fill that up with water and it slowly seeps through the terracotta. I wish there was a version of that for houseplants, to be honest. Some of my plants prefer to stay in moist soil and it's hard when it so warm!

Journaling :: Re: Favorite Pens :: Reply by Snehut

no_email@example.com (Snehut) — Thu, 07 Aug 2025 18:12:50 +0000

I don't have much experience because this is my first fountain pen, but I'm in love with it already!

It's a Lamy Safari with an M nib. The shop where I bought it had a discount on the pink colour, so I got it for 22$.

It fits ergonomically in the hand, the plastic is high quality and easy to wash off ink if necessary. I carried it upright in my bag for half a day, and even after that it started writing right away, although I thought it would take time for the ink to flow back to the tip.

The ink also dries fairly quickly and is suitable even for ordinary notebooks. Although next time I plan to buy Parker ink, because Lamy is a little more expensive than them.

I don't regret a single penny I spent on this pen, and I also want to gift my friend a Lamy Vista for her birthday

Attached a photo of the pen and the writing:
https://imgur.com/a/g4Hxofc
https://imgur.com/a/GOVRANJ

Journaling :: Re: Favorite Pens :: Reply by caracalled

no_email@example.com (caracalled) — Thu, 07 Aug 2025 20:37:45 +0000

I'm gonna stop lurking here for this thread and post my three faves. I was really into stationary when I was younger, but now I've settled into my faves and don't like buying anything but these three really.

If I'm writing in the Latin Alphabet I use the Pentel EnerGel RTX in 0.7, it's a good thickness and the ink is very smooth but still doesn't smudge, even if I use highlighter on it right away. The print on the casing is all scratched on mine but it's very nice in my hand. I saw that @2Square also uses this one (good taste!!!!)

If I'm writing in Japanese I usually go for the Uniball Signo in 0.28. It's unbelievably thin, and since my handwriting is pretty small it's perfect for the more dense Kanji and I love the way it looks really delicate with the alphabet. It's a bit harder to find here but it's absolutely worth it. Since I don't use highlighter for the stuff I write with this one I don't know how it holds up though.

As a fallback I use the Muji Gel Pens in 0.3 and 0.5 since they're much easier to get a hold of here, but I don't love them like the other two.

As for notebooks, I'm extremely picky about both paper and format, so I actually bind my own! However I got a lil too into it writing this post so I wrote wayy too much about bookbinding and I'm gonna spare you all that! hehe

Journaling :: Re: Favorite Pens :: Reply by CitricScion

no_email@example.com (CitricScion) — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 18:27:06 +0000

I was really into pens in high school when I needed them more, but eventually I settled into a favorite. For the longest time I liked the Pilot Precise V5 that was mentioned already. Then I felt that the Pilot G2 was the best balance of good dark ink without the smudginess. Then I saw that the Pen Addict had listed a classic Bic ballpoint pen as one of his favorites, so I tried it and I saw the light. I really like ballpoint pens now to the point that I can't see myself going back!

I do own a Space Pen, but I was disappointed by it. It was my most expensive pen purchase, so maybe that put me off wanting to buy fancier stuff.

Journaling :: Re: Favorite Pens :: Reply by TeaInTheMorning

no_email@example.com (TeaInTheMorning) — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 20:20:52 +0000

I've never really been into pens, but it's awesome to see others enjoying them.

I personally am a fan of normal ballpoint pens, with a decent thickness!

Maybe this is something i should look into more

Other :: Piracy. :: Author alooinfinite

no_email@example.com (alooinfinite) — Sat, 19 Jul 2025 05:11:26 +0000

I was going over the rules and I noticed that discussions surrounding piracy are not allowed and this perplexed me since piracy is always a great way to undermine big companies and promote competition. I generally see piracy as a good thing unless it is used to not pay deserving people (indie, not evil companies, etc) unless you can't afford it.

This leads into my question why are we against piracy? Also is this the right place for this post?

If there is any confusion please ask me to clarify. Have a good life to those reading this, and always remember cars are death machines.

Other :: Re: Piracy. :: Reply by zonk

no_email@example.com (zonk) — Sat, 19 Jul 2025 11:36:03 +0000

I'm going to hazard a guess that it's because it's illegal and risks getting the forum shut down by authorities.

Also, I think this post belongs in the "Feedback" subforum with the other meta posts.

Other :: Re: Piracy. :: Reply by rejectconvenience

no_email@example.com (rejectconvenience) — Sat, 19 Jul 2025 17:09:48 +0000

It's a very fair question!

While I personally am an advocate of piracy, because of the nature of this forum being public facing (and because of the rules of my hosting provider), I do have to draw a line on sharing that kind of stuff. If you want to share information about how to use torrent software to download your favorite linux distro, that's obviously fine. My ask is that you keep the discussions legal in regards to piracy. Just like @zonk's point said, I don't want to risk this really cool community getting taken down. There has been a clear ramp in crackdowns on small communities like this, so let's just play it safe.

Interestingly, this is a discussion for a future video, but I don't want to reveal too much on that front while it's still in the early phases of "idea". But yeah, thanks for asking, I think it's important to challenge these ideas and get clarification where needed!

Other :: Re: Piracy. :: Reply by alooinfinite

no_email@example.com (alooinfinite) — Sat, 19 Jul 2025 17:16:03 +0000

zonk wrote: Sat Jul 19, 2025 11:36 am I'm going to hazard a guess that it's because it's illegal and risks getting the forum shut down by authorities.

Also, I think this post belongs in the "Feedback" subforum with the other meta posts.

rejectconvenience wrote: Sat Jul 19, 2025 5:09 pm It's a very fair question!

While I personally am an advocate of piracy, because of the nature of this forum being public facing (and because of the rules of my hosting provider), I do have to draw a line on sharing that kind of stuff.

Interestingly, this is a discussion for a future video, but I don't want to reveal too much on that front while it's still in the early phases of "idea". But yeah, thanks for asking, I think it's important to challenge these ideas and get clarification where needed!

Thank you for clarifying zonk and Reject Convenience. Furthermore I am interested to see how you tackle piracy in your videos if you decide to do so. Have a good life both of you, and always remember, electric cars are not a solution but rather a band-aid the true solution is to move away from car centric societies.

Other :: Groups! Colors! Excitement! :: Author rejectconvenience

no_email@example.com (rejectconvenience) — Sat, 02 Aug 2025 14:34:51 +0000

Hey everyone! I did something silly. I've created a series of groups, and you can add yourself (or remove yourself) from them! They are mostly just aesthetic, but I've tried to allow yourself to join them for a little extra flair! How fun!

Here are the groups I set up:
Phone Group - For folks who are passionate about phones!
Website Creator - For people who make websites!
YouTube Folks - For people who like YouTube things!
Artist - For people who make stuff!
Pink Group - For people who like this color!
Privacy Crew - For people who read privacy policies!
Gardening Gang - For people who touch grass!

You can join any of these groups by going to the User Control Panel > Usergroups. Select which group you want to join and click submit in the bottom right. You'll be asked to confirm. Then it will take you back. This will not change your color! You need to go back and select the group you want to be a part of on the left, and then click the button on the bottom left "Change default group". Don't worry, this won't impact your permissions at all.

You are welcome to join as many groups as you like, though, you can only set one as your default. You can also resign from a group by selecting it on the right side, and then changing the drop down menu on the bottom right to say "resign selected".

Have fun, and if you have suggestions for other groups, let me know!

Other :: We are so back :: Author rejectconvenience

no_email@example.com (rejectconvenience) — Fri, 01 Aug 2025 21:53:35 +0000

Thanks for your patience everyone, I know this was pretty annoying. Check out the new rules and it's good to have y'all back

Other :: Re: We are so back :: Reply by zonk

no_email@example.com (zonk) — Fri, 01 Aug 2025 22:17:22 +0000

Yay! I'm curious why you reacted so quickly and broadly. This forum isn't based in the UK, right? Why did you fear legal consequences of leaving it up?

Other :: Re: We are so back :: Reply by rejectconvenience

no_email@example.com (rejectconvenience) — Fri, 01 Aug 2025 22:38:54 +0000

zonk wrote: Fri Aug 01, 2025 10:17 pm Yay! I'm curious why you reacted so quickly and broadly. This forum isn't based in the UK, right? Why did you fear legal consequences of leaving it up?

Mostly because I don't know what I'm doing

Other :: Re: We are so back :: Reply by Fireye

no_email@example.com (Fireye) — Fri, 01 Aug 2025 23:09:50 +0000

Oh my goodness seeing the forum down got me unfathomably depressed a couple days back, super glad it's back up!

Other :: Re: We are so back :: Reply by rejectconvenience

no_email@example.com (rejectconvenience) — Fri, 01 Aug 2025 23:57:28 +0000

I'm so sorry! I did clearly overreact, and I learned a lot on how to handle these things moving forward.

Other :: Re: We are so back :: Reply by SapphireFire

no_email@example.com (SapphireFire) — Sat, 02 Aug 2025 01:31:32 +0000

We're so back.

Other :: Re: We are so back :: Reply by DedRoll

no_email@example.com (DedRoll) — Sat, 02 Aug 2025 07:26:49 +0000

First time in a while i'm back to check this forum, didn't know the rules also affecting this as well

Other :: Re: We are so back :: Reply by CitricScion

no_email@example.com (CitricScion) — Sun, 03 Aug 2025 00:22:03 +0000

We're back baby lets goooooo!

Honestly, I was surprised to see that this forum could have been affected by the UK law, but knowing that this came from a place of caution was I needed. So many companies, governments, and platforms are careless or exploitative with the people they impact, so I'm grateful to be part of one that is careful.

This has also served as a good example of the impact of this law and what it means for the future of the internet. Privacy advocates have been talking about this decline for a while. 2025 so far seems to be a year of nightmares coming true. The only upside is that maybe people will see this become more real.

Other :: Re: test :: Reply by alooinfinite

no_email@example.com (alooinfinite) — Sun, 20 Jul 2025 00:29:16 +0000

test

Other :: Re: test :: Reply by Crazyroostereye

no_email@example.com (Crazyroostereye) — Sat, 26 Jul 2025 13:18:08 +0000

test

Other :: Re: test :: Reply by CitricScion

no_email@example.com (CitricScion) — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 01:22:58 +0000

t
e
s
t

Other :: Re: test :: Reply by CORN

no_email@example.com (CORN) — Sat, 02 Aug 2025 14:02:04 +0000

test

Other :: Re: test :: Reply by TeaInTheMorning

no_email@example.com (TeaInTheMorning) — Fri, 08 Aug 2025 15:07:25 +0000

test

Other :: Re: test :: Reply by zonk

no_email@example.com (zonk) — Fri, 08 Aug 2025 16:15:52 +0000

toast

Other :: Re: What do you think about the loneliness epidemic? :: Reply by CitricScion

no_email@example.com (CitricScion) — Thu, 24 Jul 2025 01:43:44 +0000

@Vose I feel that. Economically I've been in an ok position I guess, but I have always been aware of the fact that it costs money to hang out. Even if you invite someone over there's a good chance you want to at least treat them to snacks and drinks or something. You want to be a good host! With third spaces being so rare I can also see how you're stuck just wandering and not having a place to lounge and chat. And even if you do go out there is a natural end point to the time because the movie is done, or you finished eating, or something that transitions you to being done. That's a good observation.

It's interesting you mention Millennials and older who emphasize doing things in-person. I'm Millennial but I'm introverted and wasn't even part of online communities in a big way until college. Even now I feel like it's tough for folks in my generation to make plans and meet up, and I've been trying specifically to do more of that this year. It sounds like it's rougher for Gen Z where you guys have had digital connections for longer.

I'm no one to be giving encouragement, but good on you for trying to connect with people more. I've been trying to do that and it feels discouraging to still not see success or not see people reciprocate. Even so, it takes someone being the catalyst to help others realize we can hang out more and be intentional with it. You sharing that makes me feel like I'm not alone in trying. Thanks!

Other :: Re: What do you think about the loneliness epidemic? :: Reply by Snehut

no_email@example.com (Snehut) — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 14:06:23 +0000

Among my generation in eastern Ukraine, the epidemic of loneliness is very, very real. Many people in this thread have already talked about COVID-19, and here you can multiply the effects of COVID by five or even more. I am currently finishing school, and I have been studying at home since fifth grade (i.e., since I was 11 years old). My school was bombed, so my classmates and I had no opportunity to socialize at school, and it was very rare for us to hang out outside of school. In the early years of the war, it was completely forbidden, because bombs reach our city faster than the sirens go off.

Now things are better, because I am lucky to be surrounded by cool people with whom I often spend time outside, so I feel less lonely. But a year ago, I was deeply depressed because I would sit in front of a computer monitor for seven hours during Zoom classes, and then do homework until evening. I could go weeks without leaving my house, and it really affected my well-being.

Around the same time, Character AI began to gain popularity, and my loneliness worsened even more. I was lonely and anxious enough that chatting with a bot that resembled a beloved character replaced any desire I had to make friends and communicate with anyone other than my parents and AI. When I had free time from school, I would simply disappear into these chat rooms.

To be honest, I don't know how popular the issue of replacing real communication with AI is among my peers, because not everyone here knows English well enough to use this type of bots, but the fact that this war has isolated us is a very, very global problem. This is especially significant in the case of children who started school during the war — critical stages of their development as individuals within society are taking place within the four walls of their homes and with unlimited access to the internet, brain rot, and short videos, which certainly do not contribute to the normal development of the nervous system.

Other :: Re: What do you think about the loneliness epidemic? :: Reply by Limette

no_email@example.com (Limette) — Sun, 10 Aug 2025 08:24:37 +0000

I think there's something to it. When I was entering my teenage years, I became very isolated due to bullying. This isn't a new modern experience, bullying has always been a thing, but what hadn't always been a thing is the internet. Places like Discord kept me sane during those years, but they also kept me from tackling my loneliness problem. I could keep chatting with people online and feel satisfied about those interactions, while I spent my time at school dissociating and becoming more and more socially anxious. I didn't know how to interact with people irl anymore.

If I didn't have the internet to distract me from my problems, maybe I'd instead have reached out for help sooner, or maybe I'd have joined an after school hobby like a sports team to pass time. I could have made new friends in real life. But I didn't, because that was scary and risky while joining a Discord server was quick, easy, and if I didn't like the people, I could just leave and never see them again.

In my case, Covid actually helped me. School made me dissociate, but getting to stay at home instead made me finally snap back into awareness. I wasn't chatting online anymore to escape real life, online and real life were the same thing all of sudden. It made it possible for me to stop seperating reality like I'm not an active participant of it, and I got so bored during the lockdown that I actually picked up new hobbies and started going outside the moment doing so was safe again.

Other :: Relevant XKCD :: Author Fireye

no_email@example.com (Fireye) — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 08:55:53 +0000

https://xkcd.com/3128

Other :: Re: Relevant XKCD :: Reply by TeaInTheMorning

no_email@example.com (TeaInTheMorning) — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 16:41:20 +0000

Fireye wrote: Thu Aug 14, 2025 8:55 am https://xkcd.com/3128

This is so real! :O
Hasn't happened often

But every once and again

Feedback :: Re: More formatting options :: Reply by alooinfinite

no_email@example.com (alooinfinite) — Sun, 20 Jul 2025 00:25:57 +0000

I wanna use Times New Roman, and Comic Sans,

Feedback :: How hard is it to maintain this forum? :: Author CitricScion

no_email@example.com (CitricScion) — Tue, 05 Aug 2025 01:56:22 +0000

@rejectconvenience how did you set up this forum? I know you have IT experience, but I was wondering if setting up a phpBB forum was tough or not too hard? How would you rate it for someone who's never, like, set up a website or something?

Feedback :: Re: How hard is it to maintain this forum? :: Reply by zonk

no_email@example.com (zonk) — Tue, 05 Aug 2025 02:06:25 +0000

I ran a myBB like a decade ago and it's pretty simple. Most annoying part is going to be keeping things up to date for security purposes, but it's a good first self hosting thing to get into. It's one of the first things I ever hosted.

Feedback :: Re: How hard is it to maintain this forum? :: Reply by Crazyroostereye

no_email@example.com (Crazyroostereye) — Tue, 05 Aug 2025 07:15:50 +0000

I ran a BB for testing purposes for a while, it might be a bit difficult setting up the web server with PHP for a complete Beginner. But It's something you can get the hang of in less than a week.

But if you want to go fancy/easier the trick is learning Containerization and Docker. It looks daunting in the beginning but when you get the hang of it, setting up any type of Software becomes a comparative ease. Also, Security Maintenance and Updating which @zonk Mentioned is easier with it too.

Feedback :: Re: How hard is it to maintain this forum? :: Reply by rejectconvenience

no_email@example.com (rejectconvenience) — Tue, 05 Aug 2025 12:25:53 +0000

CitricScion wrote: Tue Aug 05, 2025 1:56 am @rejectconvenience how did you set up this forum? I know you have IT experience, but I was wondering if setting up a phpBB forum was tough or not too hard? How would you rate it for someone who's never, like, set up a website or something?

So I went into it totally blind and it took me about a week. I still feel like I don't have the most amazing grasp on it, but I know how to do most things. I think my IT experience certainly helped a lot. If you've never set up a website, I'd say it's gonna be a little confusing. I didn't see many great tutorials out there, as.. well, it's not super common to want to make one of these lol. I'd encourage you to try if you want to do it, though!

As for actually maintaining, it's actually been really difficult to balance this, the Patreon, researching, writing, animating and handling community management for the YouTube thing, working a full time job that requires a lot of mental energy, and then handling things like the website, blog, and the forum. I mean, I'm sure it's obvious, the blog hasn't been updated in months, and the only reason I've been able to focus on the forum in the past week is because I got spooked that it would get me in trouble. I want to be able to pop in here every couple of days, but now that I've picked back up the YouTube process again, I can already tell it's getting harder to come back. It's why I added a few moderators, because I know I'm absent more than not, which I hope that I can change that if I can switch to YouTube full time. Replacing the full time job with YouTube would be amazing, because then the time I was spending doing YouTube in my free time I can replace with things like hanging out here or writing blog posts or whatever.

tl;dr: I had much more time when I made it, so it wasn't too bad to set up, but I have far less free time now, and now it's hard to maintain.

Feedback :: Re: How hard is it to maintain this forum? :: Reply by CitricScion

no_email@example.com (CitricScion) — Thu, 07 Aug 2025 01:58:43 +0000

Thanks for the insight! It feels a little unattainable, but this might be the thing that spurs an interest in sys admin more than a website for me. A website is nice, but having an independent platform where you can connect with others is so compelling to me. I want to be able to set that up for myself or a community or something.

Besides being new to something like this, my own going worry is not knowing enough to not realize the forum I set up isn't secure or something. That's the biggest part that scares me. I don't want to run something poorly and then it gets hacked and now I'm part of something that hurts my users in specific area I care a lot about it.

Feedback :: Re: How hard is it to maintain this forum? :: Reply by zonk

no_email@example.com (zonk) — Thu, 07 Aug 2025 10:27:25 +0000

I think the big thing to remember there is that you're not the author of the underlying software. So long as you do your part to make sure you don't install software with known vulnerabilities and then keep that up to date, you shouldn't hold yourself responsible if there's a compromise.

Search for vulnerabilities in software you intend to use, and recommend best practices to your users like using a unique password for your forum.

Feedback :: Re: How hard is it to maintain this forum? :: Reply by CitricScion

no_email@example.com (CitricScion) — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 02:08:23 +0000

Thanks, that does make me feel better!

Reject Convenience Forum

Latest Videos :: Re: Side Quest: Plants (this is the corn video) :: Reply by Mæstro

Latest Videos :: Re: Side Quest: Plants (this is the corn video) :: Reply by alooinfinite

Latest Videos :: Re: Side Quest: Plants (this is the corn video) :: Reply by Mæstro

Other Videos :: The Secret War To Censor The Internet :: Author rejectconvenience

Other Videos :: Re: The Secret War To Censor The Internet :: Reply by CitricScion

Other Videos :: Re: The Secret War To Censor The Internet :: Reply by Fireye

Other Videos :: Re: The Secret War To Censor The Internet :: Reply by PossiblyAxolotl

Other Videos :: Re: The Secret War To Censor The Internet :: Reply by Fireye

Other Videos :: Re: The Secret War To Censor The Internet :: Reply by Crazyroostereye

Other Videos :: Re: The Secret War To Censor The Internet :: Reply by PossiblyAxolotl

Other Videos :: Re: James Lee switch to Linux :: Reply by TeaInTheMorning

Other Videos :: Pepsiman :: Author Fireye

Other Videos :: Re: Pepsiman :: Reply by rejectconvenience

Other Videos :: Re: Pepsiman :: Reply by QueriesNTheories

Other Videos :: Re: Halo 2 & The Long Goodbye :: Reply by QueriesNTheories

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