Signal is about privacy, it’s never been about anonymity. The purpose is to encrypt your communication, not hide who you are.

Maybe not favorite, but it’s up there. Best thing about the movie and really tells you all you need to know.

Have you tried 7? I’m really struggling to get into it. Been trying off and on for the last few months and finally hit the end of the first age but haven’t continued past it. I revisited 5 a while back (love it) but haven’t done 4 since it was the latest game. How’s it holding up?

As long as the battery only drops to around 50% on an average day I’m fine with it. I have gotten used to wireless charging but that’s not a deal breaker. I’ve been moving away from all-in-one tech lately to devices with a single use (like a music player) and moving away from wireless things as well (headphones) so I’ve brought wires back into my life anyway lol

Yeah I’ll be running my Pixel 9 with Graphene until 2031 unless something happens to it, so lots of time for this (and others like it) to be out in the wild. Keeping a close eye on this as well as linux phones. Also I think the last phone I had with customisable LED was a Galaxy S3 lol, that would be very cool to use LEDs again.

Didn’t know kid rock doesn’t have ears

I hadn’t heard of the MP2 until this post. Looking into it, aside from the SD card, the MP2 looks to win in every other aspect for me. I’ll be keeping an eye on it.

I’ll be running my Pixel 9 with Graphene until I can’t, which should be awhile but the MP2 looks like an interesting project. Swapping to a Google-free OS is make or break for me so this seems to tick all the boxes. I can see the physical switch being assignable as something I’d end up not being able to do without lol.

Gonna look into the Minimal OS some more and keep a close eye on this. Thanks for the detailed post.

Yep. It’s the new grift. LLMs aren’t nearly as useful as they claim, so they manufactured need where there isn’t any, and crammed it into everything. Next step is to release the monster on the townspeople, then claim they’re the only ones who can control it. Scare the people into giving them the money and power they “need” to keep them safe.

I have an old laptop I just use in the mornings for web browsing. Was running Mint for the last year (first computer I switched form Windows) and it worked well, but was quite slow (same as when it was running Windows). Browsing was fine if the browser was left open, but opening any app took quite awhile.

Anyway, I run Cachy on all my other computers and after having a Mint issue figured I’d just swap it. It’s like a whole new laptop now, snappy and pretty instant for apps. Was quite surprised. Also the touch screen works, wasn’t expecting that.

A lot of these types use ‘perfect being the enemy of good’ as their attack vector. If it’s not private and anonymous why bother? If you can’t cut out all big tech companies, if you can’t stop buying any American goods, if you can’t feed all the poor or house all the homeless, etc. It’s an effective way to attack progression by making people believe they should just stop fighting, they’ll never win. You nailed it, Signal is private, it doesn’t claim to be anything else.

Same here! I’ve been moving away from all-in-one tech to devices that only do one thing and do it well, usually with wires lol. Wired headphones in a DAP (Hi-Fi Walker) that I also plug into the car, old Sony e-reader that still holds a battery charge for a month, analogue watches, disconnected TVs, pen and paper notebooks, etc. I plug in when I can and avoid bluetooth.

It’s interesting, I’ve since changed my behaviour from buying the flashiest, coolest-looking items to focus on how well they work over how they look. Function over form. Sure, my things are less flashy and uglier, but I see a real charm to them now. It’s also driven me to retro-tech and loving using things that get worn looking and used.

Privacy and anonymity are two different things. Proton doesn’t market themselves as anonymous, they market as a privacy service, as you said. And as for the info given to gov’ts, they were legally required to do so. No company, including Mullvad, will break the law for you. Mullvad/IVPN/AirVPN, etc, will all abide by law and give up info if required.

I’d imagine that will be the first thing to be torn down if the US ever gets their govt back. There’s no way of knowing how many listening devices/spyware has been built into that thing.

Awesome that’s what I thought, thanks. I’m gonna start with something basic to learn the ropes but your mention of celestial coordinate systems has already piqued my interest so I expect that’ll be something in my near future lol.

There’s not much in my area for used but I did find a once-used Celestron NexStar 90SLT which retails around $830 CAD. Not sure I want to drop $600-700 on my first telescope tho lol. Might just check to see what he wants for it first just in case tho.

Yeah I’m already looking for similarly priced telescopes without smart connection features. I didn’t even think of second hand, I’ll check out my area!

Will most new telescopes will be able to connect to a laptop though? Looks like Stellarium has an option to display directly from a scope and I see most scopes make mention of software so I’m guessing they all pretty much have a connection option?

Will do! I’ll be taking my time on this to research and save up, there’s so much info and technical specs with telescopes!

I’m very much a tactile person so I’m thinking of going this route.

Yeah that’s where I’m leaning. It’s a situation where I can’t see how smart features would be a benefit, and could just be something extra to break. That said, I don’t know much about telescopes yet so I wanted to get some real-world opinions.

Generally I would avoid any smart features if possible, just not sure if they’re actually a benefit for telescopes. I’m definitely leaning dumb

First I’m hearing of it, I’ll give it a look. Thanks!