MonkeMischief

joined 1 year ago
[–] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I think we need to do some really difficult investigations that essentially can show concrete proof of how this affects people:

"See you were looking up vacations and insurance right? Well you signed up to your car's connected service, you have an Alexa in your house, and a smart TV and a fridge all talking to each other....and they all worked together to put together a profile of how much you make and how old you are and everything else...

...so your neighbor looked up the same insurance and vacations and is paying about $200 less for the exact same of each, because they use AdBlock and don't allow spy devices in their house."

And then finish with the real kicker:

"I know you didn't ask to participate, but we just scraped all this information about you off the Internet and didn't even need to ask you. We had to ask your neighbor to participate though."

[–] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 8 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

"Oh to change that basic thing? Control panel...wait...no...the other control panel, the real one...no ..(searches it despite MS hiding it more than ever) ok now it's in one of these obscure hyperlinks half-assedly tossed to the side...which opens a dialogue...with 4 tabs...after you click "advanced"....THERE I turned off Fastboot for you."

I can't believe that's how I used to have to do things lmao.

[–] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 2 points 7 months ago

Great question!

EndeavourOS has a great little wiki of tutorials around BTRFS and setting up snapshots, that's a lot more friendly than just reading wiki manuals.

Here's a link to the one about getting snapshots and rollbacks set up.

https://discovery.endeavouros.com/encrypted-installation/btrfs-with-timeshift-snapshots-on-the-grub-menu/2022/02/

Alternatively, I run OpenSUSE Tumbleweed on my main production rig and it uses BTRFS and sets up snapshots from the GRUB menu for you by default!

I'm also using Nvidia, so while it's gotten better and I haven't had to roll back in a long time, Snapper has saved my butt once or twice in the past. ;)

[–] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 1 points 7 months ago

I'd love to just skip to "Linux being secure and running on my smartphone instead of Android" but we know how much an uphill battle that is hahaha.

[–] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 2 points 7 months ago (3 children)

The other reply here mentioned Arch and a "more user friendly" flavor called Manjaro, but Manjaro isn't quite Arch.

I would suggest if you want to try the challenge of Arch without the terminal-only install, give EndeavourOS a look! Their community is exceptionally friendly and helpful, and you get a lot of the benefits of "pure Arch" with an indtaller and usability features. :)

[–] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

the price of zero is a lot more attractive when the alternative option costs several thousand dollars

Dang, I WISH. Places that constantly beg for donations like public libraries and schools will have Windows-everything infrastructure "because market share". (This is what I was told when I was interviewing for a library IT position)

They might have gotten "lucky" with a grant at some point, but having a bank of 30+ computers for test-taking that do nothing but run MS Access is a frivilous budget waste, and basically building your house on sand when those resources could go to, I dunno... paying teachers, maybe?

[–] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I like the fact that I can exercise my difficulty with usage commitment by installing both and switching between them :D.

Wayland is so buttery smooth it feels like I just upgraded my computer for free...but I still get some window Z-fighting and screen recording problems and other weirdness.

I'm glad X11 is still there to fall back on, even if it really feels janky from an experience point of view now.

[–] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

This is a really great question and it was something that tripped me up back in the day!

The answers above cover it already, so upvoting hoping it's more visible. Thanks for asking it. :)

[–] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 1 points 7 months ago

Definitely. Ask anybody who finally evacuated the last thing they ate from Olive Garden!

[–] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

As a whole, we tend to be garbage and materialistic…

This might be one way to see it. I think a lot of people WANT to resist, but resistance costs a lot of mental and sometimes tangible energy. If you can smooth out a lifestyle that naturally excludes stupid brands like Roku, great.

But there's a point when you want to participate in the rest of society, and people will break down for that. I do my best to avoid walmart, amazon, and other abusive tech companies, and educate others to do the same.

But someone still gifted my mom-in-law one of those stupid "alexa" spheres that I immediately put on its own V-LAN, and the family wanted a TV so they brought home a TCL/Roku because it's what they could afford. (It was a good value at the time, years ago.) PiHole showed me exactly why it was so cheap.

Companies know after all the stresses you already encounter in your adult life, you're gonna run out of bandwidth and cave eventually, because you're human, and the path of least resistance becomes more tantalizing. That's why they bombard you relentlessly, and evil tech is the most immediately accessible and familiar.

[–] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 4 points 7 months ago (3 children)

I'm personally thinking of just plugging a decently capable little media PC into the display, using KDE's "big screen" interface with KDE Connect as a remote. I'm pretty sure I could train my family on that...

Roku is so scummy.

[–] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 11 points 7 months ago (7 children)

Also, I can't even imagine how many resources image-generating AIs take up, especially when it's all based around "refining prompts" over and over and over....

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