I worked on a large(ish) contract (tens of millions) with one of Microsoft’s engineering teams where they were implementing an Azure managed version of software we produced. I would regularly refuse to install teams at the meetings, using teams in-browser only.

It also ensured that the technical project manager had to be the one to transcribe anything in our notes into whatever tools Microsoft was using.

While it was never said, the Microsoft engineers seemed to completely understand and never pushed back against my refusal to a) install crapware and b) not take on work that wasn’t mine.

Not using teams: win win.

It is owned by Lenovo, make of that what you will.

Google is also basically American. Make of that what you will.

We got a relatively cheap adapter that works great. It’s from Ottocast. I don’t know what the current/new model is like but ours works pretty well with two phones of the primary drivers.

We’ve had our Niro EV for over 6 years now and it remains an excellent vehicle. The only failure so far was in the AC. Other than that, it had required almost no maintenance.

We did a proactive reduction gear oil change and had the brakes cleaned once due to lack of use (regen and driving style mean the brakes are not used frequently).

Love that it just looks normal.

First and foremost it was the slop filtering that sold me on it.

I had a friend suggesting I try it for a while and I resisted. Longtime duck duck go user for primary search.

I tried it using their free trial/free tier for a little while. I liked what I saw so I went month to month on what I think is their pro plan.

I do not use their ai assistant at all, I went in a disabled that some can’t be of help there.

I use their privacy pass now in all my desktop environments: https://blog.kagi.com/kagi-privacy-pass

I’ve found the results more than good enough - excellent even with all the slop removed.

I use search so much, everyday, I feel like the clean results pay for themselves in time saved in just one day but I was frustrated and annoyed with both slop and the increasing insidious practices of the big search ad-engines.

Hope that helps.

I didn’t want this to be true, but I’m a happy paying customer as of a few weeks ago.

Mullvad is stellar. I’ve been a user for years and it’s never let me down.

I strongly disagree on proton mail. If you use a custom domain with a catchall it’s absolute trash. Also possibly the worst email search ever. Don’t even get me started on the proton bridge.

I lasted a few months (about 8) and then switched to fastmail. Worlds apart.

I don’t know what it is on android, but five quick presses of the primary button on iOS will put the phone into a mode where you must enter your password to unlock it.

And what happens if I forget something? So many email addresses and phone numbers to avoid marketing spam… no way I could honestly recall them all.

This is more relevant than ever: https://youtu.be/eiyfwZVAzGw

Or for those who want to skip Google snorting up your data: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=eiyfwZVAzGw

The current automation guidelines and defaults renew certs 30 days from expiry. So even today certs aren’t around for more than 60 days, it’s just that they’re valid for 90.

Additionally you can fairly easily monitor certs to get an alert if you drop below the 30 day threshold and automatic cert renewal hasn’t taken place.

I use Grafana self hosted for this with their synthetic monitoring free tier but it would be relatively trivial to roll your own Prometheus-exporter to do the same.

Like others I also appreciate threaded comments here.

But for many niches - forums still abound. I regularly participate in four for specific interests.

On the flip side I loathe the attempt to replace forums not with Lemmy/reddit-like tools but with Discord.

Ugh.

Andreas (lead engineer) has told the story of how he got that money - they just happen to know each other and $100k is peanuts for the Shopify founders.

But you’re right to suspect anything of the sort!

It’s worse. My music is on Spotify - while I would no longer meet their minimum for payments, even before that change they refused to pay me or provide stats until I provided a twitter or Facebook page/IG page, none of which I have - despite publishing through an established publishing company who could absolutely handle payments and play stats.

Spotify is cancer.

That’s a a great idea. Would you like me to come up with a business plan?

Panasonic dumb plasma is going on 14 years. We’re hopeful we can get about 6-10 out of it.

James Hoffman called bullshit on this one and it’s fun to see Huberman squirm in the comments. https://youtu.be/yCJr49GU9yY

TLDR: it might nonsense.

Wait we’re pretending WhatsApp isn’t spyware now?

Fair points.

One thing I think we all miss: what happens when an overzealous government makes something a crime retroactively? Say, um, disparaging two Cheetos in an ill fitting suit masquerading as a world leader.

That’s part of why we should care about privacy and why we should care when data we expect to be private isn’t.

Most tech users are victims in a system they don’t understand. We might complain that they don’t want to understand but the truth is the providers don’t want them to understand - as it’s easier to sell them whatever crap they’re shilling.

They will never be happy.