I thought I'd share my own patterns as a writing prompt to hear yours.

• Tildes -- This keyboard-to-keyboard connection we have here is why I loved Reddit years ago. It's slow-brain (vs. fast-brain), considerate, insightful, enjoyable, and yet doesn't waste my time.
• Lemmy -- This has my hopes up that it could be a way to find niche communities (one of the strengths of Reddit) in the federated lemmyverse, but instances large and small seem overwhelmed by users who, like me, are still figuring it out. I joined https://lemmy.one/ but I have a feeling that https://lemmy.ml/ is slightly more my style. I might jump or not, but no big difference since the federated communities that I like are available in both places. This may just be me being nitpicky over instance quirks (such as an instance that does not have downvotes or currently allow community creation).
• Mastadon -- Too Twitter for me. I never got (understood) Twitter or its appeal, and I don't understand the appeal of Mastadon, either. I deleted one account that I created and may leave it altogether. If you like/liked Twitter, you'll likely like Mastadon.
• Reddit -- niche interests and citywide subreddits are still valuable to me, but even these were and are dropping in quality due to terse Reddit mobile users and meme-culture and my interest in them is dropping in correlation. I nearly exclusively only read /r/loseit (I'm maintaining -125 pounds lost for 8 years so far) and a multireddit of local subreddits in my local area. Since the Rexxit, I don't look at much else on Reddit.
• Facebook -- like the local and niche subreddits, I read Facebook on and off (mostly off) for these as well. The Facebook Marketplace is the way I find second-hand items locally.

I'm beginning to understand why I'm not practicing my music (Barbershop Harmony) as much as I should recently!

Summary because I rambled a bit below: I would like suggestions for a smartwatch primarily for notifications with a good battery life and a price of less than 400 USD.

I have been using a Xiaomi Mi Band 4 for two or three years now and I'm considering upgrading to a "real" smartwatch. My primary uses for it are silent alarms and notifications, but I really need at least a 4 day battery life. My main watch when I am not wearing the Mi Band is a 38mm Timex IronMan, and I am comfortable with that size. I would like any potential smartwatch to be no larger than a 42 mm face. I would like the smartwatch and potential connected app to at least pretend not to sell my data. This is why I use the paid version of Notify for Mi Band instead of the official app (that and all of the customization). My other uses for the smartwatch are less important to me, but include step counting, activity tracking (primarily walking and biking), and sleep tracking.

I have been looking at a Garmin Instinct 2S, since it has a long battery life and apparently Garmin is "better" with data security than most. In addition, I could even use the watch without ever downloading the app, although I have yet to find out if notifications would work in that case. The 300 USD price tag is a little jarring, coming from the 35 USD Mi Band, but comparable options are just as pricey.

Honestly, the Mi Band 7 calls to me because it has improved significantly over the 4 and is supported by Notify. It would not be the "upgrade" that I had originally intended, though, and I would continue to have issues with the specialty bands for it.

Does anyone have any alternative suggestions or experiences with the above?

From a non-MAGA’ers perspective;

He took a perfectly fine (albeit starting to decline) social media platform with millions of users and derailed it completely from what it was before to a farce.

Why even buy Twitter if you’re going to change the entire format, including the actual name of the brand? Why not build a competitor from the ground up and call it X?

Unless you’re the melonhead billionaire your guess is better than mine, but I wonder if this bumbling incompetence is pre-orchestrated somehow or if he’s making it up as he goes.

ChatGPT got all of its information from these websites, but these websites still use advertising to gain revenue. When a user asks ChatGPT a question, instead of going to the site, it's using the information stored on the site without giving the site any revenue.

That's why they're being sued. (Also why Reddit is doing what it's doing with the API)

What do we do? How can we keep these sites alive, and still make use of ChatGPT? I can write code and solve problems days faster than I used to now, but it seems kind of morally bankrupt of me to use this service which is so clearly putting the foundations it was built on out of business.

(US) My Fitbit Charge 2 is on her last legs. I'm torn between looking at a smart watch, a smarter fitness tracker, or something at relatively the same level. I have a Pixel and don't use the Apple ecosystem but really don't know what route to go.

Mostly I like the reminder to move, step tracking, and the simple notifications on the Charge 2. I don't need to answer my phone on my watch, I think, but seeing that it's my partner calling is a big deal. But I also could be that person desperately waiting to discover smart watches and fall in love with them, I suppose.

Longer battery life would be preferable as remembering to charge things is a less than fun side-quest. And I doubt I'd be using GPS on it. But again, maybe I would? Open to all suggestions.

I’m currently using ProtonMail, I’ve been with them since Indiegogo. I know calendar’s supposed to come out in beta this month, but I’m honestly fed up with the speed of their development and the quality of apps, and I think it’s too expensive.

I need custom domain support, and calendar. Nothing fancy.
Self-hosting email is out of the question in 2019.

What are you guys using for email these days?

Mods: I put this in Tech because Amazon is a tech company, if this is the wrong group I apologize.

For the last several purchases I have made through Amazon, not only has the advertised "expected delivery date" been wrong, Amazon hasn't even shipped the product by the delivery date. The day I expect an order to arrive, I get a notice from Amazon saying it's "running late" and the new expected delivery date is anywhere from 4 to 10 days away.

This is on top of the fact that I have Amazon Prime. Prime eligible meant "it would be delivered within two days" for the better part of a decade. They slowly transitioned away from that to "two days delivery after it ships," and now it seems like half of everything takes 5-8 days to deliver, even with Prime.

Anyway, the reason I reported them to the FTC because I believe they are advertising misleading or downright incorrect delivery times in hopes of winning your business over a competitor who is honest about their delivery times. If I want a monitor and Best Buy has it for $200 with 3-5 day shipping, and Amazon advertises it being delivered on day 3, I'm probably going to go with Amazon if I'm in urgent need of a monitor. But then the third day rolls around and Amazon indicates "oh, well, it's probably going to be 3-4 more days." If I had known that, I would have just gone with Best Buy, where I know it would have at least been delivered in 5 days; now I'm stuck waiting a week for Amazon.

I don't even know if this is something the FTC cares about. But it should. I encourage everyone to report this if they've encountered the same issue.

So, a friend of mine wants to become a Twitch streamer, commenting over movies. I never used Twitch. He showed me some channels over there that made me confused. There are dozens of channels entirely dedicated to people providing minimal commentary to entire movies, animes, and TV shows which are displayed in full, although not on full screen. And they seem to be monetized, otherwise why would anyone stream 5 to 10 hours a day? They have ads.

I have a few questions.

First, how is that legal? Why aren't copyright holders taking these channels down? Do people really care about a streamer that mumbles a single uninteresting word every few minutes, or it's all just an excuse to watch movies for free? Why the same content that will get your video taken down on YouTube is apparently okay on Twitch?