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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 9th, 2023

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  • The Light Phone looks pretty neat and I like the idea of a more minimalistic device (especially with e-paper), but it’s pretty unique hardware and a custom Android that needs jailbreaking to update if the company stops supporting it.

    It also looks like the third iteration won’t have an e-paper display, so I’m not sure the beneft of that version will be against a ultra power-saving mode / locked down Android or a mobile Linux on much cheaper hardware.


  • Fairphones due to having pretty long lasting hardware are common early targets for LineageOS and PostmaketOS devs, so yeah definitely a good choice for longevity.

    Google pixels are the best mainstream longevity alternative due to developer adoption in the non-Google Android communities and mobile linux communities. Pixel 1s are still getting updates to latest Lineage Android, though I’m sure it has to be super slow. Graphene only runs on Pixels.

    Librem 5 or the PinePhone would probably be your best bets if you want an out of the box mobile gnu/linux.







  • Game engines and servers are great candidates for developers to collaborate their ideas into FOSS projects, but the model is harder to sustain for complete works.

    While internet games can have subscription models where you pay them for doing game master type activities, moderation, and access to a hosted game server, static games are more like static art where you run into issues getting food and housing when you make your work output available for free. Crowdfunding / patreoning (in the larger sense of the word, not necessarily the app) creators / collectives can be a way for that to work, and we need to support more creators trying that model if we want to see more of it.



  • How would they know it’s emulated and not video captured from a real device? Are they only targeting when emulators are mentioned / shown in the window?

    More reasons to switch to owning your content and hosting on your own platform or a PeerTube instance instead of only hosting on YouTube / Twitch - you can actually fight the takedown notice in court instead of having to accept that YouTube doesn’t. Not a legal expert but this seems like a winnable fair use case if you can prove you own the game legally and are using your own rom dump.





  • Even if you disagree with my assessment of Russia’s annexation, isn’t an international body ( that Russia itself has membership) working with your people, with guarantees for self rule and an end to the war better than status quo?

    If you’ve supported Donbas independence, with wishes for greater ties to Russia instead of Europe, you still get that in this agreement. Donbas can still legitimately join Russia in a few decades, and still trade with them now.


  • I get that you’re making some weird comparison to Iraq and Afghanistan, but who besides the world itself would be the colonizer in my recommended arrangement? The world itself in my recommended United Nation governance followed by a local government chosen by their own legitimate referendums with international observers and gun free polls? Is that not better than Russia just claiming them with no say by the people (unless you believe the sham referendums under armed watch in a war zone as legitimate)?




  • Yep donate to a lot, but I make sure it’s out of my planned donation budget or out of my (set amount) “feel like it” budget categories. I consider patreoning creators / journalists / FOSS seperate from charity, but I try to pay a fair subscription amount I’d give to paywalled stuff. Political donations I do occasionally as well but that too is not charity.

    CharityNavigator is important to vet charities, and a good starting place to look for charities in causes you care about.

    I try to focus 50/50 on local vs international stuff, which amounts to 10/90% impacts due to wealth discrepancies. I donate typically to organizations doing the work, but also do a smaller amount to UnitedWay (which if you are too tired, stressed, or distracted to do charity research is worth the lost efficiency as they do a lot of charity vetting for you).

    I don’t donate monetarily to strangers on the street, but I do donate (time and money) to shelters and assistance programs who can bring a lot more aid per dollar than I can.

    If you work for a corp, be sure to check if they have a matching program, you can double your impact.

    I highly recommend using a email alias provider as you’ll get a lot of spam. I block most charity calls/text attempts to my phone number if they get it (I don’t understand how that is effective at all, but they all seem to do it).



  • If it survives a month you can buy another $500 clunker instead of losing the same to a new car loan, though they are far more rare these days (the example clunker typically now costs closer to $2-$4k now, or ~4 months of new car loan payments that you’d be stuck paying for 6 more years). The sweet spot is 10-15 year old cars under 200k miles and using small loans if you can’t pay cash. New cars are for idiots and the financially independent, but newer cars 5-10 years old can be worth the price/stress tradeoffs for some once you can afford one.

    You’ll also get far more savings primarily riding a bike (and ebikes make this far easier once you can afford one) since most of your trips are likely under 5 miles, and your old car will last a lot longer for when you really need it. You might even find you can get by without owning a car.