Newsblur. it’s open source but there’s a hosted instance of it, and it’s paid (but very cheap) so it’s a fair exchange. it’s run by one guy and has been for a long time; I’ve used it for over 10 years now.

they make bad products that are media darlings because it’s fashion more than anything. they’re treated like consumer advocates but they are one of the absolute worst companies for vendor lock-in, and are absolutely anti-consumer, but will have innumerable articles written about how they’re “the best” for any given measure. it drives me nuts how the public perception of them is the complete opposite of what they actually are, and i don’t get it.

also their software is bad. all due credit their hardware impressed but it doesn’t matter if the software is crap.

and they aren’t private: they’ve got all your data but have somehow convinced everyone that it’s fine that they have it because they’re somehow better than every other large tech company.

yep. I use backblaze B2 with rclone, and just don’t worry since it’s encrypted (including the file names) before it leaves my server.

yeah my vr rig is just a dedicated beat saber machine these days.

the story reveals in Horizon: Zero Dawn. it’s hard to say much of anything without spoilers, but that game had me absolutely riveted.

also HL: Alyx had some stunning moments. I haven’t been much of a VR fan but that game is fantastic.

I need to figure out how spoilers work in Lemmy haha. hard to talk about.

Ah yeah, I feel like there’s better selection here, definitely. I think they sold the Volkswagen e-Golf in the US, no? Not great range but it’s just a Golf for the most part. Not still manufactured though, would have to look used.

Depends on where you are. In Europe some of the cars that have a shared platform—as in you can get an ICE or EV on the same model—are worth looking at. A bunch of the Stellantis-built stuff, like Peugeot or Vauxhall, are pretty “standard car, but EV”. Similarly Renault has some good options.

I can’t figure out how to make a spoiler section in Lemmy so I won’t say much, but the lore that describes some of the transformations in dead space was just so disturbing, still sort of sticks with me.

deleted by creator

Signalis is a great game with a story that stuck with me for weeks. I wouldn’t say it “terrifies me” but it’s definitely both disturbing and heart wrenching.

it’s a shame because Prey was one of the best games of the decade.

smoking: I decided it was disgusting. it was like a switch flipped and I had no desire to do it anymore.

and it helps that it actually is super nasty (I can only imagine how I used to smell), and ruins everything; I just had to realize it.

I’ve used rclone with backblaze B2 very successfully. rclone is easy to configure and can encrypt everything locally before uploading, and B2 is dirt cheap and has retention policies so I can easily manage (per storage pool) how long deleted/changed files should be retained. works well.

also once you get something set up. make sure to test run a restore! a backup solution is only good if you make sure it works :)

that’s fair.

content id is a wild one that I only discovered a year ago: I had always used my own Chromecast when traveling, and I plugged it into a Roku TV which kept saying “did you know you could watch [content that I was currently watching] on Roku” which really freaked me out, so I looked into it. honestly not sure why they tipped their hand like that: I found the setting and turned it off. otherwise I would’ve been none the wiser.

creepy af though. the amount of tracking you implicitly accept by using random devices out in the world is staggering. even if you read every privacy policy and opt out of everything (I do) you have no chance.

I’ve worked with marketers for years. many of them have a blind spot for what they create: they can realize something is irritating, or invasive, but not when it’s their marketing, which is obviously superior and what people want to see. it’s some sort of artist+marketer brainrot.

sorry to generalize, I’ve just seen it a lot over the years.

I imagine this is something like it: we’ll reach them with the perfect message, it’ll be exactly what they want! won’t that be delightful?

…completely ignoring how horrifying it is.

this was such a weird claim, and I never really understood how it could be true specifically for phones, where they aren’t in control of system software. there’s like a gradient of possibility here:

• Android phones from major manufacturers, and Apple phones: doubt it. those things are too heavily scrutinized, someone would’ve found it, and the companies that make them don’t have the impetus.
• official “smart” voice devices from Amazon, Google, et al: doubt it, same reasoning as above
• Android phones from small players, heavily subsidized models, etc.: sure, could be
• smart TVs from major manufacturers: probably not? medium “maybe”? I bought one of these with a hardware mic switch so I guess that shows my paranoia
• other smart TVs: I dunno, feels highly likely

so: I’m careful about what I use so my risk felt pretty low, but I also feel like if this were true security researchers would’ve discovered it. let alone the fact that what they describe is bandwidth and battery intensive (off-device or on-device respectively, I don’t remember what they claimed as I read the 404 media report some weeks back) but it still makes me wonder: what led them to make these claims then? fascinating, pretty scary.

I would like this feature as well. I’m finding it very difficult to navigate to other instances communities as there’s no way I can find to browse to them, nor search for them. the only way I can seem to locate them is by accidentally coming across a community in my feed.

agree with all these points. another thing I think about a lot is: I have the benefit of having grown up with the Internet but before social media, and so all of my embarrassing teen content is long gone. can’t imagine having that follow you around for the rest of forever, tied to your real name, looked at by potential employers and being asked to defend it for the rest of your life.

I got out of the “surplus hardware” a while ago; way too expensive and noisy to run, so super recommend ditching the poweredge. for home use, I ended up just going with a USB3 JBOD for storage, and a Intel NUC (which I think they don’t make anymore). it runs a ton of virtualized servers under kvm, a virtualized NAS, all without issue because it honestly spends most of its time nearly idle. point is: it’s definitely nice to have it all in one case and with high speed storage but maybe having to find something that can house a ton of drives isn’t a strict need if you aren’t actually going to put a ton of load on it.