A frog who wants the objective truth about anything and everything.

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XMPP: prodigalfrog@slrpnk.net

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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: July 4th, 2023

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  • i loathe the idea of giving google more money

    If you don’t mind used or open-box phones, you could pick up a used (and more critically, carrier unlocked) Pixel off ebay, if you want to deprive them of revenue.

    Unfortunately some carriers like verizon will not automatically unlock the bootloader even after unlocking the carrier restriction, so buying a used one that wasn’t factory unlocked from Google could be a slight gamble.




  • What alternative OS you adopt depends on your phone and needs.

    If you just want to mostly degoogle you phone, but aren’t that concerned about privacy or security, LineageOS is basically that. It’s as close to a stock android experience as you can get, minus the pre-installed google apps. It supports a wide range of android phones.

    If you want more security and privacy, GrapheneOS is currently king, but the downside is it only works on Google Pixel phones, and it’s possible certain apps won’t work (banking apps can be hit or miss, and the Uber app I believe blocked it). It otherwise functions just like a regular android phone and can install sandboxed google play to use any app you could need, making it just as easy to daily drive. It’s the best choice if you’re an activist, journalist, or fear state actors. But even if you’re not, I’d say it’s the best choice if you already have a pixel phone.

    CalyxOS has paused development, so not currently an option.

    eOS has a bigger focus on security and privacy than LineageOS, but isn’t as secure as Graphene. The advantage is that it supports more phones than just the google pixel.

    PostmarketOS is not based on Android, and instead is a real Linux Distro made for mobile. It’s still very much in an alpha stage, with varying levels of support for different phones, many of which cannot take calls or even use their camera properly. I would only recommend it to developers or people who want to tinker with a project phone.

















  • Older desktops can have a somewhat hefty idle power draw due to the overall system consumption contributing more than expected, such as the southbridge. According to this old review of the i7-2600k, the system idles at 74w, which at $0.12 per KWh, would cost you roughly $77 per year. Though you might want to confirm that with a Kill-a-watt meter if you can (libraries sometimes lend them out), since I’m pretty sure that total system power chart includes a discrete GPU, so the real number for a GPU-less system is probably around 40 or 50w at idle.

    If that is accurate, you could potentially replace your i7-2600 with a used Dell Wyse 5070 thin client from ebay for about $40 (in the US), and that idles at 5w, which would only cost you $5 a year at the same rate.

    Older thin clients and laptops tend to have much better idle power draws compared to desktops. For other people reading this, if you’re using a desktop for a low-power use case, it’s probably worth finding out what its idle power consumption is and doing the calculation to determine if it’d be worth replacing it with a more efficient used thin-client or office mini-pc.










  • The first part seems to be for people who are unfamiliar with the games. The political analysis begins at 19 minutes.

    The games go into:

    • Discussion of monopolies, how they are used to exploit, and how they use state force to maintain their position to prevent competition
    • The Carrot character is an anarchist in the first game, who infiltrates the weather factory of the second game to document the exploitation of its workers. He then gives the player a quiz about US economics so that you can infiltrate a board of directors, but when he becomes a member of the board himself, becomes a liberal reformist.
    • In the third game, the devs put an easter egg only accessible by editing a config file with an obscure code, which adds police branded riot gear to the marching fascist candy soldiers, in a reference to the 1999 Seattle WTO Protests.





  • Adding onto his recommendation to join or create unions:

    Unionizing your workplace brings almost immediate benefits to you and your co-workers (a living wage, benefits, more time off), it also lets us fight back against the regime with an effective general strike, just as it worked in 1886 (they wouldn’t have fought us so hard back then if it didn’t).

    Below are some resources to Unions from around the world who can help train you to become an organizer and form a grassroots union with your co-workers:

    • 🌍 Global: IWW (Français) - (Español)
    • 🇦🇷 Argentina: FORA
    • 🇦🇺 Australia: ASF-IWA
    • 🇧🇷 Brazil: FOB
    • 🇧🇬 Bulgaria: ARS
    • 🇩🇪 Germany: FAU
    • 🇬🇷 Greece: ESE
    • 🇮🇹 Italy: USI
    • 🇳🇱 🇧🇪 Netherlands & Belgium: Vriji Bond
    • 🇪🇸 Spain: CNT
    • 🇸🇪 Sweden: SAC
    • 🇬🇧 United Kingdom: UVW