I’ve been doing research into this because I want to degoogle. Looking for hosted and secure Mail, Calendar, Drive… maybe docs if possible. I don’t mind paying as long as I’m a customer and not a product to be sold.

My short list was: Mailbox.org, Zoho, and Notion.

Then there are the services I don’t understand as much because I don’t really want to self host or step into server maintenance… NextCloud, OwnCloud, LibreCloud, OnlyOffice. Maybe someone could straighten me out with those if I’m off base.

Didn’t we finally realize that the whole “shoplifting epidemic” was all bullshit to cover up inept corprate management?

Yes. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/29/briefing/shoplifting-data.html

My first thought: If this ever ships, I’ll eat an outboard motor.

Without wires you have no permanent power. Also, it sounds like you want it to be wireless transmission without a network. That’s a challenge.

Lets Ignore the “no cables” part then. If you want this to be cheap, highly reliable, and non-networked… use wires. You can’t go wrong.

You can get 4 camera systems with local storage from companies like Lorex for a reasonable price for good quality. I got mine at CostCo for $299. It might support cloud storage (maybe?) but I never enabled it. It just records locally. It’s been running for years with no downtime or issues and the cameras still look great.

Kirstie Alley looked a lot different on Cheers. She kinda looked like Shelly Long and/or Shooter McGavin.

So… back when I used Pidgin, I aggregated AIM, YahooIM, GoogleTalk, and Pre-MS Skype. What is the use case today?

I don’t even trust that. Google devices hard-code DNS and IPs and… I have no evidence or knowledge of it, but I assume that they have some Sidewalk-like ability to communicate directly to other Google devices to get outside the network you want them to be on.

Metal fans are low-brow angry degenerates. I like them a lot.

I recently switched from Google Maps to Apple Maps in an effort to de-google, but this seems like an even better alternative.

Does it work with CarPlay?

EDIT: It looks like it does.

I got mad at my iPhone yesterday because I asked Siri to navigate home using Apple Maps, and it said that I hadn’t shared my location with Siri so that wasn’t possible. No… I shared my location with Apple Maps, open the app and have it navigate home. If you’re not going to allow me to use native iPhone features with Apple Maps, I’ll just use something else.

I got way way too into fantasy football. I didn’t have a dangerous amount of money invested in it (this was before DraftKings and the rise of addictive gambling apps), but I had like 5 teams and spent endless amounts of time trying to predict who would score points every week, reading stats and articles, and would watch football all day Sunday, and Monday and Thursday nights, as well as highlight shows and analysis.

At some point I just said “What am I doing?” and reclaimed my time. It felt great. No regerts. I don’t even watch football anymore.

Where I live, I see tons of cars every day with fake, missing, invalid, and foreign license plates every day. Enforcement would require cops to get out of their cars and expend effort over an administrative violation, so nothing happens.

These plates are “illegal”? Meh.

I experience this way too much. I have a nostaligia for when all of the problems I had with computers (broadly) were because I did something wrong… not because the computer is trying to fix something or guess something or anticipate something. Just let me type.

Yesterday, I typed out the letters of a word I wanted, and after typing a second word, I saw my iPhone “correct” the first word I typed to something else entirely. NO. Stop assuming I made a mistake. You cause more problems than you solve.

Why would anyone load an app from McDonalds? You want to give them elevated access to your most personal data for a few dollars of coupons?

What are they taking from you that’s worth more than the discounts they are giving you? Because they are definitely making a profit, or they wouldn’t be doing it.

“You’ve given me a lot to think about. Thank you.”

I miss targeted advertisements. It’s important that my OS tracks what my interests are, so that I can be served more relevant advertising.

Advertising that doesn’t know my interests doesn’t hold my interest, and having no ads means that I have no idea what I’m supposed to purchase next. It’s crazy.

Top Tip: Do have a LinkedIn Profile so that employers can find you and verify that you are a person with experience and connections.

However, do not read LinkedIn. Do not post thoughts or engage with LinkedIn content. That is what desperate, soul-sucking, horrible people do.

Moved 2500 miles away.

No regrets.

Despite what everyone told me on message boards about lack of support for Adobe products and CAD software… somehow I’ve been really successful on linux-only for many many years now.

It’s really nice. Remember when your computer was actually yours? You choose what apps to install, what configuration you want, and who you share your data with? Those dreams are alive with Linux: Not just for nerds anymore.

Yeah, it’s not a football game. It’s “It could go either way” until it goes one way and stays there. That’s when it matters.