Podcasts are a leftover from the non centralized and non-monetized internet of the past. Because is that most Podcasts are still available as rss feeds, so you should only ever get adds if they are spoken by the Podcasts hosts. Ate you taking about those? Only something like sponsorblock would help against those. I use antennapod (fdroid) on android to listen to Podcasts. Sine hosts always start their podcast with an add, but you can autoskip the first minute of a certain podcast with antennapod every time. It has a setting for that. Antenna pod itself is foss software without adds.

There were problems like these ten years ago in Europe, but nowadays it works very well. W

They use xmpp as their messaging system I think. Xmpp is open source, but I am not sure about the licence used.

I’ve been using natron (backing powder) for a couple of years now twice a week. I had no need for shampoo ever since. You just mix one tablespoon natron with water in a cup and are good to go. To even out the ph of the hair use a teespoon of cider vinegar mixed with water in a one of those spray cans used to water flowers. Works well for children as well, as none of this burns your eyes. As a side effect I stopped getting red eyes from using shampoo.

I’d say it’s best to only buy routing devices supporting openwrt. Some Ubiquity devices seem compatible, so maybe you are in luck. In my opinion it’s just best to stay away from preinstalled commercial software and just install Linux. You get away from the whole process of enshitification, gain long term support and an incredible set of features commercial software will never provide (at a reasonable price) imho.

The Lawrence Arms are an American punk rock band from Chicago, formed in 1999.

That’s from Wikipedia, I don’t know, I would have called it punk rock as well…

Gaslight Anthem

Satanic Surfers

Millencolin

Lawrence Arms

Luther

Fun fact: as my philosophy prof never failed to point out platonic friendship in the original Greek sense did not exclude sexual relations and related to a relationship between mentor and student, which meant they were homosexual in nature. Cmp.: https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/hide-and-seek/202303/the-true-meaning-of-platonic-love

You don’t really need the sever at all if you have another phone in your family that can send a text message. Now that I think of it it might not be a bad idea to set up a sever as backup. But the public sever from the developer should be fairly safe to use as well…

Another option would be to install an im server that is low on resources and not eating your sdcard. I think xmpp would work a lot better on a pi. Prosody, ejabberd or snikket should work nicely.

I always loved the Song of Ice and Fire books by George Martin, be aware that the series is not finished, though. I am a big fan of Stephen King as well, he writes great characters. It, Shawshank Redemption, The Dark Tower… Thuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom is very emotional, I could not even finish it. Deadhouse Gates by Stephen Erikson. The Liveship Traders by Robin Hobb just to name a few…

I am into emotional storytelling as well, I think what gets you involved most are well drawn characters.

I would recommend planescape torment for an epic adventure full of stories, characters and heartbreak.

Really good stories/characters are few and far between in computer games but “The longest journey” comes to mind and even the first Witcher game.

Unavowed comes to mind as well as a rather affecting story.

And a couple of dozen books, but that’s not what you asked for…

They look great! Is there a already an Autoeq profile that headset?

No, but openwrt seems to be available for some of their models if that is your question.

I think it’s best to only buy routers supporting openwrt in the first place and switch firmware to openwrt asap. Openwrt or Opnsense or anything open source and well maintained will guarantee security updates years and years beyond the original manufactures firmware.

Hitting a round birthday gets harder every time it happens in my opinion. On the other hand I didn’t mind hitting 42 too much. After all, it’s the answer to life, the universe and everything. That should be something to look forward to at 40!

I first heard about this in a Gaiman story called ‘A Parliament of Rooks’.

Sounds kind of cool. Does is support Rockbox, yet?

Ditto.

I’d heard the sandwich story before, but had no clew about some of the others!