Darren

READY THE SMOKE MONSTER

Them treads are fresh.

When I was assessed for (and diagnosed with) ADHD when I was 39, 5 years ago, I asked the psych whether my obesity was perhaps linked to it. He replied that, “no, probably not. Most of the people I see are thin”.

This had the double whammy of making me doubt my diagnosis and consider that I’m just an irredeemable fat cunt.

Which was nice.

Born in 80, so a similar vintage to you; and yeah, we have connections and information now, but I feel like we should have stopped some time around 05, before smartphones really took hold.

I’m absolutely willing to accept that I’m wearing the highest grade rose tinted goggles, but not having to do everything online certainly felt better than whatever all this is. gestures broadly

I remember what it was like before I could stave off boredom at any time, but even then I don’t think the convenience outweighs the problems. Though in fairness it’s not really the phones, but the companies who make billions from us using them. But those companies had nowhere near the same amount of power, and I can’t help thinking that was a good thing.

“This is 99% Invisible, I’m Roman Mars”

If you use Android, then this app uses spotdl. It’s really handy.

Macs are the only reason I still use Apple stuff. My M2 Air is a legitimate beast of a laptop which, 18 months on still has an all day battery.

When they lock down macOS as much as they have ios, that’s when I’m putting Linux on it.

I got my first iPhone in 2009. A 3GS. Since then I’ve had a 4S, 5, 6, XR, and 13 mini.

Two weeks ago I took delivery of a Google Pixel 9, onto which I immediately put de-Googled GrapheneOS.

16 years of iPhones, 18 years of Macs. My primary Mac is a 15" M2 Air, which, as soon as Apple drop macOS support for, will be getting Asahi and that’ll be that. Apple are probably the least surprising, but certainly the most disappointing to me.

I just can’t deal with big corps any more. They’re all shithouse. All of them. Bit by bit I’m learning how to self host a bunch of tools that until now I’ve been paying for.

I dunno whether it counts: but that science has effectively cured AIDS.

In 2004, 2.1m people died from it. Twenty years later that figure was a little over a quarter at 630k. The goal for 2025 is 250k. I think that’s absolutely remarkable.

As a child in the 80s I was terrified of AIDS. It made me low-key scared of gay men because the news made it sound like I could I could get it from any one of them. And here we now are, able to provide a medication that can almost completely ensure that you will never be infected by HIV.

Astonishing, really.

And a bunch of ads where its balls would be.

I have a similar rant with Docker.

On macOS there’s a Docker app. You can use it to install stuff, see what it’s up to, restart it and whatnot. On Linux you have to remember what commands you have to use in Terminal.

Why?!

There are loads of us out here who would appreciate a more user friendly way to use FOSS, but we’re made to feel like fuckin noobs because we don’t want to spend ages typing in commands when we could just press a couple of fucking buttons.

Anyway, apart from that I’ve been enjoying my adventures in Linux.

I went to a Sikh wedding once, and spent the day hanging about with a bunch of the guests, all of whom were British or Indian. I spent the whole time amazed that they’d seamlessly switch between English and Hindi, apparently without noticing.

I have an iPod that I use for music and I love it. I could put Rockbox on it so I don’t need iTunes, but I do really love the stock firmware.

Anyway, point is, my 2nd gen iPod mini has 128gb of microSD storage and is the best portable DAP I’ve ever owned.

I’d hope Apple could engineer the hinge better than that.

Yes.