That too

It’s a code red snowflake alert

If we were living in a rational world I’d agree, but with all the ludicrous stuff we’ve seen in the last few months I’m not convinced we are. We really shouldn’t dismiss anything as impossible with Trump at the helm of the US. It’s a hope for the best, prepare for the worst kind of time.

When Doug Ford was going to tax the electricity going into the US, Trump said on Truth Social:

I will shortly be declaring a National Emergency on Electricity within the threatened area. This will allow the U.S to quickly do what has to be done to alleviate this abusive threat from Canada.

I find that extremely worrying. With enough bluster and showing of force all it takes is one mistake to kick things off.

The new front page of the internet is upon us

Totally agree. If we can’t at least expect certainty out of the current arrangement, then we should stop with any sweetheart deals. It’s ironic that the gist of Trump’s views on international relations center on other countries pulling more of their weight, and it seems he will ultimately accomplish that, albeit by burning all the bridges established with said countries.

It seems to me like these proposed tariffs were just a way to get Canada and Mexico to come grovel and kiss Trump’s ring. Both countries naturally want to avoid such a destructive policy being put in place, so they’ll do what Trump asks for now. I expect these sorts of actions by Trump to continue throughout his term though. This begs the question, when will America’s historic allies finally have enough? I was thinking these tariffs would be the ripping off the band-aid moment that spurs Canada and potentially the rest of the west to start re-structuring its economy away from such an unreliable partner. I guess this tentative status quo will continue for now.

I was the exact same way. I could justify watching ads to support the people I watched, but then I learned how little compensation a creator actually gets from one view and decided my time was more valuable. Plus I just got too used to never seeing ads and could never go back.

This video sums up the sentiment you’re describing nicely.

I just got set up on Simple X Chat. From my cursory research it seems to have the best security going in a chat app right now. I find the UI really slick too. It has all the features I use in a chat app anyway. The only thing to be aware of is that all the messages are saved locally, so backup/recovery needs to be handled by you. There’s a couple videos an YouTube that go over the app.

All that being said, I still have WhatsApp on my phone. There’s still the same problem of getting everyone in your life to download another app.

Someone will be smuggling microfiche behind the iron curtain…wait wrong century.

Bleach the skeletons and sell them to medical institutions H.H. Holmes style

Windows is becoming more of a shit show everyday, comically so. Glad I finally installed Linux Mint today. I’ve used Windows exclusively up until now and just quit cold turkey, putting Mint on my daily driver. I was hesitant to upend my computer habits by swapping OS, but I should have done this ages ago. I’m sure I’ll run into some kind of issue sooner than later, but I’ll take a technical problem over one manufactured by a corporation’s greed any day.

PowerToys is so useful. It’s the main thing I will miss if I ever switch to Linux. I’m sure there is software to replace most of the functionality on Linux, but I’ve yet to get the motivation to look into it.

Yeah I had the same problem. I just had to commit to being a slow typer for a while, but I inproved quicker than I thought. Still learning tho. I keep a regular keyboard I can switch to with the button on the bottom right of the home buttons for the rare times I need to type something urgently.

Have you heard of thumb-key keyboard? It’s basically a 3x3 grid with swipe gestures for extra characters. I’ve been trying to switch to it for a bit cause I think eventually my typing will be faster and it will be a better one handed typing experience.

Anyway, I think this would work well on a small screen device too, if you can get used to a whole new keyboard paradigm.

It’s on the IzzyOnDroid repo for f-droid.

Hope this is helpful to someone!

On the point about why they didn’t use cows instead of humans as an energy source. I think I’ve read that in the original conception of the Matrix, the humans’ brains were meant to be used for computation for the machines, rather than the humans being energy sources. This was changed since computers were new to the general public in 1999 and it was believed the concept would be too confusing.

I’m fairly new to the fediverse, but I see it this way. If Threads integrates with the Fediverse then users will become accustomed to the content from Threads, which could cause more friction in the future if there’s a movement to defederate from Threads. I think it would just be easier to avoid all that in the first place. I also feel like if anyone really wants to see Threads content they could make an account there, and then everyone gets what they want. Then there’s all the downsides others are theorizing could happen, but they can’t be comfirmed until Threads actually joins the Fediverse.