djdarren

Google don’t hinder shit with my yt-dlp script and Jellyfin server.

I genuinely can’t figure out why there are so many people who are happy to let adverts fill their day. Or at the very least, don’t really notice it.

I had a shit fit today because I worked out that the Lidl app won’t let me use its payment system if I turn off notifications, which I did because Herr Lidl dared to send me an advert for whatever shit he’s selling this week - as a fucking notification! That’s one advert. I got the hump over one advert.

But there are vast swathes of people who just don’t seem to care how clogged their browsing experience is.

I use Voyager to access Lemmy, which, because it’s based on the long-dead Apollo for Reddit, has a feature where it tells you if an account is new. For example, I can see that your account is 4 days old.

It’s a really handy shortcut to ascertaining whether someone just holds a different viewpoint to me, or whether they’re just a troll account arguing in bad faith on yet another new account, because the previous one got banned. It really is a handy tool that helps provide a little friction between seeing a shitty take and responding to it. It gives me a chance to assess whether it’s worth it. And almost always, it’s not.

Obviously I’m not suggesting you’re a troll.

I (try to) only interact with positivity.

If someone posts a thread along the lines of “Which album/movie/book/whatever do you hate, even though every one else loves it”, I’ll scroll on, despite my worst instincts wanting to dive in to see if people hate something I love. I know why people post like that; because engagement on negatvity is always higher. But I feel like every time I engage with content like that, it makes me a little more cynical. I’m done being cynical, the world around me has more than enough already.

If someone pops up in my replies being a dick, I’ll just mute, block or ignore them. Life’s too short to spend it trying to lower cortisol levels.

Basically, the internet is already negative enough, so I try not to add to it.

According to Wikipedia, Minnesota’s current senators are both Democrat, and Minneapolis’ mayor is Democrat-aligned. So yeah, not even the blue states.

Those things have held their value well, largely because of the RAM. Idly pondered grabbing one when the M1 came along, but the price was still strong. Dunno what they’re like now, mind. I’d be tempted as a replacement for my 2014, but honestly, it still works just fine considering it’s only got 8GB RAM.

I find myself at a point where I don’t actually want any new computing devices, partly because of this, and partly because, well, what I have works fine for me.

I have an M2 MacBook Air that is still as solid as the day I got it (Sequoia for life) for the majority of my personal needs, plus a 2014 Mac mini running Mint as my home server, an M1 Mac Mini my dad gave me that runs my Home Assistant, and an old(er) PC that has a GTX 1060 GPU that’s capable of playing most of the games I care to play. My phone is a Pixel 9 running Graphene which is a year old and nowhere needing a replacement, and I have an iPad mini that I barely use these days anyway.

I guess I’m lucky enough that my shit is new enough that it’s still usable, and my use-case is light enough on resources that the older gear still works perfectly well for what I need.

My wife, however, needs a new PC…

Not from your parents then?