AnyList. I’ve tried many list apps and this one is easily the best. Not FOSS disclaimer. The free version has very minimal ads, it has a great, intuitive UI, you can create custom list types and item categories, it has built in quantity and unit of measure fields, and you can share/sync a list with others by email address. The amount of features included in the free version is uncommon in the market without getting more harassed by advertisements. I hope it doesn’t change in the future; it’s remained relatively unchanged for the 3 years I’ve been using it!

Screensaver?

Made me write SQL updates that had to be run by someone in a different state with pretty much no knowledge of SQL.

Nicely done, this is not easy to do!

What were your savings, if you don’t mind? I managed to get a house priced at 274k this year with only 20k saved, but a really good credit score, and about 100k income between me and my partner.

Living on the wrong street? What does that entail?

Unsubscribe me at once, you scoundrels!

Optimization feels a lot less optimal when it leads to enshittification. I have worked on the tech side of accounting systems in the US for the last 10 years and can say that American companies have largely embraced this category of innovation as well.

NextDNS and similar services basically host the pi-hole on your behalf. Pi-hole setup involves installing packages on a device that will handle your ad content filtering and related network configuration; NextDNS involves getting a URL to copy-paste into your phone, computer, or network’s DNS configuration settings. The latter is far less labor-intensive. The trade-off is that you have less control over how things get blocked. Pi-hole is more of a local solution than NextDNS, but if you don’t want to fuss with the tech and just want to start blocking more ads, go with NextDNS (or similar).

Here is an article that covers info about how to set this up on an Android phone and several private DNS provider options: https://www.theupdatebox.com/how-to-enable-private-dns-on-android/

I have been using Calyx for the past few months, which is a 1 year pre-paid connection through the T-Mobile network for $750 the first year. No data caps, have used it in the Southwest, South Central, and Midwest parts of the country with fairly good results. I measure up/down occasionally and get anywhere from 30Mbps - 250 Mbps up / 1 - 25 Mbps down. Lots of variety in the signal based on location and time of day, which is my main complaint, but it should be expected with a mobile data connection. Not fancy, but I go through a lot of data at my job and generally don’t have much problems streaming video.

To be honest, I will probably try to switch over to a fiber connection when my year is up because I’m not longer working from the road, but it really hasn’t been the worst solution by far.

Exactly. If you’re someone who engages in piracy, you should be quite used to putting in this type of effort.

Can find some great deals at thrift shops if you’re not too picky about resolution!

Disgusting.

One time, the apartment complex I was living at said I was violating my lease for keeping a storage container on my balcony. It was a small, zip up greenhouse with plants in it, which they allowed. When I confronted them about it, they admitted that they only observed it from the ground (I was on the 3rd floor) and that it was fine after all. That “violation” still appears on my rental history today, as the next apartment I rented asked me to explain why there was a violation on my file. Fuck this system.

Can’t say there’s any bugs if there’s no way to recreate them!

This was a nice analogy, thanks for the write-up.

I think you basically made a Wordle version of hangman by accident there, lol.

The way I see, if chatgpt can steal our art, then we can steal its science.

Even worse is when your luggage gets switched with someone else’s by mistake - Stranger’s Things.

Seems reasonable to exercise caution. Plus, unless you have the means, it’d be a tough spot to deal with resource scaling without knowing what the volume of new traffic will look like.