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    1. Am I alone in thinking that we're bouncing back from a highly technological future?

      I have this notion that we're entering a new fuzzy era of rejecting the hyper technological stream that we've been on since the 90's. I notice people now wanting to use their phones for longer...

      I have this notion that we're entering a new fuzzy era of rejecting the hyper technological stream that we've been on since the 90's. I notice people now wanting to use their phones for longer (e.g. not replacing them every 2 years because it's the trend) and I feel there's a push back towards certain things like touchscreens in cars being reverted back to clicky buttons.

      Sure, there are these crazy developments happening in science. A.I. is changing so fast it's hard to keep up with, and we're going back to the moon! (I say we because it's a human endeavor goddamn it).

      But there also seems to be this realization that we might have strained Earth a little too much and that we need to tend to Earth, and ourselves a little bit more.

      For reference, I'm a millennial born in '89.

      50 votes
    2. Which books or authors have had the greatest impact on your worldview despite never having read them?

      Some (hopefully obvious) caveats before we begin. By definition, everyone sharing examples here has not deeply engaged with the source material, so they're likely to have misconceptions from...

      Some (hopefully obvious) caveats before we begin.

      1. By definition, everyone sharing examples here has not deeply engaged with the source material, so they're likely to have misconceptions from cultural osmosis.
      2. If you have read the source, feel free to share whether the common knowledge is accurate, a common misconception, or the first time you've seen it interpreted that way.
      3. If it was a video game, classical music, or other non-book that influenced you, those are also welcome.

      Some answers from asking a similar question elsewhere

      • Marx
      • The Bible
      • F.A. Hayek
      • Aristotle
      • Milton Friedman
      • Socrates
      • Plato

      I'll post my answer as a comment to give it equal weight to the others.

      8 votes
    3. What have you been listening to this week?

      What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as...

      What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

      Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

      You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

      http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

      Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

      6 votes
    4. What’s your method for archiving bookmarked/liked social media posts?

      Following the recent upsets with both Twitter and Reddit, how have people here been exporting/archiving their bookmarked/favorited/liked/etc threads, posts, and the content within (images, links,...

      Following the recent upsets with both Twitter and Reddit, how have people here been exporting/archiving their bookmarked/favorited/liked/etc threads, posts, and the content within (images, links, etc) for later reference?

      It hit me not too long ago that there’s a lot of good stuff I’ve bookmarked over the years on both and it’d be unfortunate for viewing it to be locked behind keeping accounts active. Additionally, more and more of it’s disappearing over time not just due to link rot (which seems to have been accelerating dramatically in the past decade), but also as a result of users deleting their posts on the way out.

      I’m particularly interested in solutions that saves content locally, because exporting these things to e.g. a cloud read it later service or bookmark manager really just shifts the problem around instead of solving it, but beggars can’t be choosers and all that.

      17 votes
    5. Privacy woes and autonomy, where do I go now?

      I'm very sorry, but this is going to be rant. One that may seem to come up almost daily, but I still feel the need to vent. Every day I feel like I'm jumping through hoops to keep a little bit of...

      I'm very sorry, but this is going to be rant. One that may seem to come up almost daily, but I still feel the need to vent.

      Every day I feel like I'm jumping through hoops to keep a little bit of privacy and autonomy, without ever winning. DuckDuckGo is my search engine, use a paid mail provider, I try to stay away from anything Google and Meta, use only Signal, ad blocking everywhere, hosting most services locally, etc. It seems, however, to make no difference in the long run. The user-profile-building just seems to enter the home faster than I can mitigate it. Kids install some new app or new hardware ends up listening in, privacy infringement is there.

      The reason I'm starting this post now is because I switched ISP and TV provider recently, but it has been on my mind for a long time. Finding one that isn't owned by one of huge 3 parent companies, is almost impossible here. After a year of deciding, I finally figured it was time to throw in the towel and just pick the least bad option. Yesterday was the day of switching and it has been such a frustrating process.

      The provided router doesn't allow me to turn off its WLAN. I live in a city, so the airwaves are already crowded enough as it is. No need to keep that antenna on, but screw me, that's not possible. Opened up the device to just remove the card, but everything is soldered on the board and disconnecting the antennas didn't do shit.
      It's possible to buy a modem/router myself, but it'll need to follow their requirements and will set me back $200. It would be okay if the rest of the service was great, but here comes the TV part!

      The device they use for TV is apparently Android TV. I assumed it would be IPTV with this subscription, but Android TV isn't that. Booting the device makes it immediately clear they are here to harvest data. It makes me so unhappy that a service I'm paying for, is also making money on the side by collecting data. To get a quick idea of what's being done, I routed the box through wireshark to sniff DNS traffic. It's riddled with domains used for data collection and ads. That combined with the features this box wants me to agree to (location, using the mic, access local network, sign into PlayStore, make a profile including real life information) does not make me trust this device. So I've decided to not play and will be sending it back.

      People around me are pretty conscious about what they do online, but compared to them I'm highly paranoid. Wherever I look, there are privacy issues. It seems impossible to escape from. How are other people dealing with this?

      UPDATE: I don't know if anybody is really interested, but I thought I would update anyway. I decided to listen to my gut and I cancelled the subscription. It feels like the best decision I've made in a long time. It's nice to feel like I'm still a little bit in charge, even though I know that's also just a false sense of autonomy. Suck it, Google! You're not the boss of me :-)

      33 votes
    6. Milestone: Eldest child hits 18!

      I'm just spouting here. Today I feel old, yet I'm mid 40s. My eldest daughter today is 18. We had a family party for her yesterday and it was lovely. It's so crazy where the years go. As I sit...

      I'm just spouting here. Today I feel old, yet I'm mid 40s. My eldest daughter today is 18. We had a family party for her yesterday and it was lovely.

      It's so crazy where the years go. As I sit here, the 3.5 year old plays Duplo by the sofa on a lazy Sunday, the two other late teenagers upstairs and still not out of bed, I wonder what happens when they all leave and the house becomes peaceful.

      I have a long time to go with the youngest having arrived while I'm in the later years for having a child, he will practically grow up a single sibling. Holidays are certainly going to get cheaper in the long term.

      45 votes