This is a copy/pasted message I wrote up on another thread. As long as there are people in the comments shilling kagi, I will shill my prefered engines. At least my suggestions will bring awareness to free as in freedom projects. I hope to god people paying 10$/month just to not get datacucked by search engines will also learn something and save their money.

SearX/SearXNG is a free and open source, highly customizable, and self-hostable meta search engine. SearX instances act as a middle man, they query other search engines for you, stripping all their spyware ad crap and never having your connection touch their servers. Of course you have to trust the SearX instance host with your query information, but again if you are that paranoid just self host.

I personally trust some foss loving sysadmin that host social services for free out of alturism, who also accepts hosting donations, whos server is located on the other side of the planet, with my query info over Google/Alphabet any day.

Its nice to be able to email and have a human conversation with your search engine provider thats just a knowlegable every day joe who genuinely believes in the project and freely dedicates their resources to it. Consider sending some cash their way to help with upkeep if you like the services they provide, they will probably appreciate and make use of that 10$ better than kagi.

Heres a list of all public searx instances, I personally prefer to use paulgo.io All SearX instances are configured different to index different engines. If one doesn't seem to give good results try a few others.

Did I mention it has bangs like duckduckgo? If you really need google like for maps and buisness info just use !!g in the query

search.marginalia.nu is a completely novel search engine written and hosted by one dude that aims to prioritize indexing lighter websites little to no javascript as these tend to be personal websites and homepages that have poor SEO and the big search engines won't index well. If you remember the internet of the early 2000s and want a nostalgia trip this ones for you. Its also open source and self-hostable

Finally, YaCy is another completely novel search engine that uses peer-to-peer technology to power a big webcrawler which prioritizes indexes based off user queries and feedback. Everyone can download yacy and devote a bit of their computing power to both run their own local instance and help out a collective search engine. Companies can also download yacy and use it to index their private intranets.

They have a public instance available through a web portal. To be upfront, YaCy is not a great search engine for what most people usually want, which is quick and relevant information within the first few clicks. But, it is an interesting use of technology and what a true honest-to-god community-operated search engine looks like untainted by SEO scores or corporate money-making shenanigans.

I hope this has been informative to those who believe theres only a few options to pick from, I know these options are so unknown to most people.

The pocket of air that was where you teleported now get displaced at a very decent fraction of the speed of light while the pocket of space you once ocupied becomes a almost pure vaccum. the air moves so fast it creates a sonic boom that ruptures the ear drums. Then, a few atoms of air collide together with such incredible force the atoms split and causes a small grade nuclear explosion.

My elderly parents in their 60s use linux mint daily and have never had an issue with it (admittedly I did have to set it up for them still). I just set up the desktop shortcuts for them to their websites and turn on automatic updates. The hardest part isn't using an alternative OS like mint or pop, its getting an average person to figure out how to install it. Getting into your BIOS to boot into the installation drive, re-partitioning your harddrive to free up space for dual booting or nuking windows off all together, those are the hardest parts for any first timers IMO. After youve done it a dozen times its no problemo but the first time is nerve racking at least it was to me.

Sometimes I think I made the right decision to just get a huge harddrive and download all my favorite entertainment in drm free format. Movies, music, games, books. I saw this coming a mile away a decade ago. The only thing that will really hurt me is if/when Steam inevitably goes full corporate cucks and starts going hard on the DRM locking down my library.

Now please unremove the shroom community as next priority. Empowering open minded people with the option and knowledge to heal themselves through the use of psychadelics (and other kinds of mushrooms that can potentially help fight diseases such as cancer) that they can grow themselves without big pharma and giving them a community to share their advice+experiences is the right thing to do.

The day adblocks/yt-dlp finally loose to google forever is the day I kiss youtube bye-bye. No youtube premium, no 2 minute long unskippable commerical breaks. I am strong enough to break the addiction and go back to the before-fore times when we bashed rocks together and stacked CDs in towers.

Peertube, odysee, bittorrenting, IPTV. Ill throw my favorite content creators a buck or two on patreon to watch their stuff there if needed. We've got options, its a matter of how hot you need to boil the water before the lowest common denominator consumer finally has enough.

On a very very technical level kinda yes, a weird quirk of gravity is that it has infinite range even though it follows the inverse square law. This means that the moons gravity imparts some amount of force on you. Not just the moon either, all objects in the observable universe impart some force on you, as do you impart some force on them. The problem Is that this force is so absolutely infinitesimally small It may as well be zero. So in the world of theoretical physics yes kind of but your friend probably isn't a physicist. Sounds like they're more woo woo astrological magic type people that believe the moon imparts some metaphysical healing magic on their insides.

The princess bride is actually a pretty good kids movie for boys that might be up their alley

Just wanted to give some input as someone who dealt with lifelong obesity. As a fat person, some people just don't like to face the music or give themselves an honest look in the mirror. They don't want to call a spade a spade. Changing around words to describe things in more complex and softer language doesn't change the situation any, it just helps you psychologically cope.

The same with playing the blame game on outside factors like genetics and disability. Blaming everything you can but yourself and your own choices and failures and unaddressed mental insecurities. Thats not a fat person thing though, thats a general human being thing I tend to see in most groups of people one way or another. Its easier to convince yourself that you never had a choice, than it is to acknowledge the bad personal choices that lead to the consequences of your failures.

When you have fat rolls, and stretch marks litter your stomach, and you look more like a slug than a human being, and you need help wiping your own ass or a bigger toilet to support the weight, when you have to go shopping at specialty close stores (before amazon) just to find a size that fits, and you have no self control or desire to change your habits to stop the self destructive spiral as your stomach swells like a balloon, thats obesity. Regardless of arguments on BMI or CICO or genetics or whatever else, you've got a serious problem that needs addressing or it will destroy you slowly but surely.

"At least I'll die happy!" my type 2 diabetic father would always gleefully tell me as he shoved another tasty cake in his mouth before jabbing himself with an insulin pen. I don't think the junk food ever did make him happy though. He had mental health issues he never worked through in life. Instead, he relied on the temporary relief of junk food for pleasure, eventually having his addiction dominate and guide his existence.

As for me? I've gone through cycles of gaining and loosing 100 pounds. Right now im on a downward trend, lost 40 pounds this year. Hope to loose another 40 by this time next year. I gain the pounds during cycles of extreme depression, and loose them during cycles of great determination and self-agency. Our physical well-being is tied to our emotional and spiritual well-being. Self destructive cycles are much easier to enter when you feel nihilistic and out of control of your own life.

How do I loose weight? I don't eat. CICO, Simple as. I eat one meal a day, if that. Maybe snack on some dried preserved nuts and fruits once or twice.I drink water and lemon juice. I am a 6'1 man the calorie calculators tell me I should have around 2000 calories daily and cut down by 500 to loose a pound every once in awhile. Fuck that, I have maybe 500-1000 calories daily.

Im a little hungry a lot of the time, but I see the results of my conviction when I step on the scale expecting it to raise 5 lbs and seeing it drop 10 lbs. I look at myself in the mirror, examining my fading stretch marks and receding folds, I examine my skin tightening around the muscles and notice my face not quite as round as it once was. Thats the reward physical evidence of improvement. That my efforts aren't for nothing. It helps to remind myself of what im doing it for, and the price ive already had to pay for my insecurities and failures to control myself.

The physical act of loosing weight is hard and requires self-control over a very long time often multiple years. The mental act of introspection and reflecting on what lead to your obesity often requires analyzing the roots of your negative aspects while confronting those past traumas. That requires a mental strength and intelligence many people lack. At the end of the day, its easier and feels nicer to twist words and point fingers than fix your own problems.

Scalability. Most federated Lemmy instances are hobbiest run projects started by every day joes and privacy advocating sysadmins. These instances can handle a modest amount of activity. Lemmy.world is slowing to a crawl and barely working due to being overloaded. At the scale of tens of thousands of active users you NEED proper infrastructure and a dedicated team. These are not things that come easy when the instance generates no revenue besides meager donations. Lemmy.world is looking for on call system operators willing to contribute 5-10 hours per week. Good help is rarely cheap let alone free.

Once they realize they have a potential cash cow on their hands they do whatever they can to ensure that they can milk it as long as possible. S1 has no gaurentee of being a hit when its made so show producers put their all into crafting an enjoyable show. Once it becomes purely about extending its life as much as possible. Usually turning the story to crap in the process. I call this 'the Dexter effect"

In googles settings you can turn off watch history and nuke whats there, which should affect recommendations to a degree. I recommend you export her youtube subscriptions to people she likes (that arent qanon), set up an account on an invidious instance, and import those subs. This has the benefit of no ads and no tracking/algorithm making. The recommendations can be turned off too I think. Freetube for desktop and newpipe for andrioid are great 3rd party youtube scrapers. The youtube subs can also be imported to a RSS feed client.

"lol at least it will help get some losers out of the gene pool, lonely unfuckable loosers deserve what they get if they resort to a chatbot for affection lol" fucking hell what nastiness some people have in them.

Im not 100% comfortable with AI gfs and the direction society could potentially be heading. I don't like that some people have given up on human interaction and the struggle for companionship, and feel the need to resort to a poor artificial substitute for genuine connection. Its very sad.

However, I also understand what it truly means to be alone, for decades. You can point the finger and mock people for their social failings. It doesn't make them feel any less empty. Some people are genuinely so psychologically or physically damaged, their confidence so ultimately shattered, that dating or even just fucking seem like pipe dreams. A psychologically normal, average looking human being who can't stand a month or two of being single could never empathize with what that feels like.

If an AI girlfriend could help relieve that feeling for one irreparably broken human being on this planet, lessen that unbearable lonelyness even a smidge through faux interaction, then good. I'll never want one, but im happy its an option for those who really need something like it. They'll get no mockery or meanness or judgement from me.

Adding "Lemmy users complaining about Lemmy content" would have been a good one to the pile

Big difference between some dudes testimony and hard irrifutable evidence. A few officials can say whatever they like. Until you get hard XCOM level evidence in front of a public hearing the government won't confirmed shit.

The real reason ayylmaos will never be confirmed until the hand is forced is that a huge majority of the global population ascribe to a religion absolutely incompatable with the existence of extraterrestrial life. Sentient non-human highly technological extraterrestrial life at that.

The moment it is confirmed there will 100% be mass panics by religious fundamentalist that space is inhabited by demons or whatever rationalization they pick to ensure their beliefs are still unquestioningly correct and the god given truth of 2000 year old scripture is maintained. In some areas like the USA bible belt or the middle east this will be devistating and cause actual long lasting damage to global society at large. Its a bottle of lightning all the space age nations of the world have deemed not worth opening for societal and economic stability. If these people really have the goods to back up their talk, they will be epstiened unless they take the upmost caution.

Amazon can't make TVs or ereades without filling them to the brim with ads and spyware like the greedy shits they are, I dont want to think about how screwed up their OS would be. As much as I sneer at Microsoft and windows BS as a snobby Linux user I get the impression amazon would be way worse and make Ol Gatey boy say 'have a little class, would you?'

I don't want to spam but just wrote up a huge ass comment detailing several novel and open source search engines that don't get talked about much. If anyone here would like to learn more about SearX, Marginalia Search, and YaCy feel free to check it out

Cost of domain name tends to be cheaper with more obscure Top Level Domains (TLDs). .com .org .net TLDs are expensive because they are popular and high in demand. You have to rent them out most of the time. Many are already claimed so you either have to buy the owner out or wait till they stop paying and it expires if you really want it, .xyz is very cheap and uncommon on the other hand thus pennies on the dime per year to rent. Also depending on where you live and your occupation you can actually get a domain name for free through registering with specific services that actually for real own the Top Level Domains. If you are a citizen of a certain country you can get a .us or .cad or .eu .ml domain ect either for free or very very cheap.

Check out this list for all TLDs and if you qualify for one for free. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top-level_domains

Heres a free domain name registar thats quite promising from the looks of it, most likely the one that lemmy.ml uses https://www.freenom.com/en/index.html?lang=en

Thats gross. Just no. Use thunderbird or some other FOSS email client, at least outlook is somewhat limited with its spyware BS when you get mail through IMAP

Im tired of telling windows people something they already know. Its your choice to use a completely corporate cucked operating system for your personal computing, you don't get to clutch pearls and act suprised over it being complete spyware, or whenever microsoft decides it wants to erode your user experience just a little bit more because they can.

Boycotting isn't about changing the world, we all know that a couple thousand people choosing to not participate is a drop in the bucket that wont really change much in the short term.

Its not about that.

Its about putting your foot on the ground and making a personal commited choice to say 'No.' To not tolerate being censored and treated like stupid animals by soulless megacorps who just want to squeeze you dry.

Its about setting boundaries for yourself and what you are willing to take from who/what. Its about truly commuting to not being a mindless consumer bitch boy driven by popular trends.

My choice to delete my reddit accounts and not come crawling back to daddy spez isn't much on its own, but its not nothing either. If enough people put their foot down and make a true effort to say no, it might just mean something in the end. Even if it doesn't change anything in the long term, it has a personal affect on me, I know that I am strong enough to say 'no' and mean it indefinitely That is the true spirit of a protest.

Ad blockers do still work on YouTube if you switch to Firefox. Aternatiely you ca n try out some 3rd party YouTube front end websites like invidious and piped. Just try out a few different instances each are a little different and some may work better than others.

I personally like vid.puffyan.us for invidious and piped.video for piped.

Wow reading through these comments makes me a little sad. Most people still don't know jack about search engines or how they differ under the hood, or eve just how to add them into your browser search bar. Looks like all the effort I put into that that simple search engine guide was in vain.

Copyrighted stuff was originally meant to expire after 30 years when the system first started after which it becomes public domain like all the books over at project Gutenberg. Just enough time for inventors and makers to capitalize on their creations but not enough time for them to sit on that creation forever which pressures further invention within a lifetime.

However Disney did not like this one bit. Mickey mouse was simply too iconic branding for them to loose to the public. So instead they spent many many many millions of dollars lobbying politicians to get the expiration date extended practically indefinitely. Now its the lifetime of the original author + 80 years after IIRC (edit: its actually lifetime +70 years)

Copyright has stalled so severely that the latest works to come into public domain are from the 19th century. Edit: its actually early 20th century

Emplemon did an excellent video about just how screwed up copyright has become, I highly recommend you give it a watch

The more time goes on the more he looks like meatcanyon's depiction of him

Water purifier - clean water is essential

Fire Axe - for fire wood collection as well as wood based structures for shelter and defense. Also it is a decent weapon that takes relatively little skill to effectively wield.

German Shepard - loyal and lethal companionship, living thinking alarm bell, will instinctively assist in protection/attacking, could be trained to track game. Will gladly accept food scraps, the bones and flesh of my enemies, and pets as payment for services rendered.

Body armor - reduces risk of infection through scratches to body as well as mild protection against various weapons. Also an added insulative thermal layer for the cold. Body plate can be replaced with old thinkpads as needed

Oh I just remembered! Mr.robot focuses on therapy a lot just like sopranos. The first season is its weakest and starts as a homage to hacking thrillers but after that delves Into deep psychological issues and mysteries. Very good thriller just have to get past initial hacking homage episodes

Those kind of darker 'realistic' shows have a very cynical view of human nature where people are inherently bad and the social contract is what keeps us at bay from becoming monsters. I dont agree with that assessment (though I did as an edgy teenager)

The rich and powerful act the was they do not because they can but because they have nothing to strive for. IMO people require a certain amount of conflict and struggle in order to truly attain happiness and a fulfilling life. You also need to learn new skills to have fresh experiences. See this excellent documentary on the mouse utopia experiments.

You cant really appreciate success until you've failed miserably and earned it through blood sweat and tears. If you live your whole life being too rich to fail, and get everything you've ever wanted without having to work and struggle for it, then you eventually run out of things to want and life becomes hollow. Food looses its taste, drugs no longer get you high, regular and even kinky sex looses its appeal, luxury and convinence becomes meaningless as does social status. The only thing left is the thrill of depravity.

Time powers wouldn't make a normal person with proper life goals and average moral values instantly go off the deep end. Only people who think money and power buys happiness.

Maybe to people who don't know anything about smoking. Some substances are less addictive than others to smoke thus theres less compulsion to put smoke into your lungs constantly. Dry herb vaporization smoke is also absolutely measurably safer than traditional combustion smoke as its far less hot and no ash, carbon tar, burned fuel byproducts from lighter or wick, none of that is getting in the smoke only the low vapor point plant oils and terpenes you actually want in there. Thus making it much cleaner and less full of carcinogens. You can really feel the difference on the lungs. Also the smell isn't nearly as bad either almost unnoticable which is a win for non-smokers in the area.

The idea that a chain smoker who goes through 2 packs a day will suffer the exact same degree of health issues as someone who vaporizes half a gram of weed once or twice a day is silly.

I worked at a rehab center as a housekeeper. Im not an addict was just looking for a job and mom was working there st the time so easy in. For three months I was the only housekeeper for a 3 story mansion with 30 rooms. I did the best I could and dramatically improved the condition of the whole facility. Full time 2nd shift including weekends. I was payed less than McDonalds but I was effectively my own boss and as long as I got done what I needed to was free to spend my time how I saw fit so I accepted the low pay and shit work knowing it was a temporary thing. Over the months they kept 'one more thing'ing me with the worst being moving the dumpster 500ft to the back o he parkinglot and expecting me to haul a broken wagon full of trash multiple times a day. Kept promising they would hie me help but never got any. I took all the extra responsibility I could and was essentially a one man army. Yet my boss treated me worse and worse to the point of trying to chew me out for taking a break. I am an etremely timid person who hates conflict and argument but something finally snapped in me. that was the first time in my life I ever stood up for myself and told his ass how it was. I can tolerate low pay, I can tolerate just one more things, I can tolerate mentally ill clients, but one thing I dont tolerate is being talked down to and disrespected by my peers. I told him all that, that he was a boss to me in name only and that we were equals in this shit show, that I am not his bitch boy and to never speak to me like that again unless he wants to find a new housekeeper on the spot. He apologized and admitted to not treating me right as he has been super stressed out which I can understand.

I later quit when they denied me a few days of PTO when my foot got sprained. Fuck that! Funnily enough they magically found another housekeeper weeks after, and played them even less than what they paid me lol

I have finally proudly reached a point of mental maturity where I can tell people how it is if they push me far enough without fear, and to understand that no amount of money is worth my dignity and mental health.

Can't wait for them do do it anyways and all the fans cave in because 'muh social escapism' gamers have some of the weakest spines, the most important point of boycotting g isn't being loud and whiney its to NOT BUY THE PRODUCT FOR FUCKS SAKE.

Lemmy is not a single site owned by a single group. Each Lemmy instance is in effect its own website and they can communicate with each other which Is the federation part. Some instances cater to certain kinds of people and communities will skew towards a political direction.

If you are a hardcore right winger there are instances full of right wing extremist waiting for you to join their echo chamber. Same with the left wing nuts, there exist Lemmy instances specifically for them to congregate together. You can do some hunting and find them easily.

The only thing is that most other Lemmy instances will defederate from these kinds of instances since political extremist on either side tend to be hateful and zealous individuals who vocally express their violent fantasies of lynching anyone who doesn't 100% agree with them. Most lemmyverse instances deem this kind of hateful speech unacceptable and will block them from cross - communicating.

Here is an example of a right wing Lemmy community:

https://communities.win/c/TheDonald/

Based and Cronuspilled

Depending on how much the photo means to you,I would try to commission a restoration artist who specializes in touching up digitally.

I've had a few moments in my life where I dream of myself doing a mundane thing and then years later I end up doing that thing, remember the dream from years ago, and ponder if I have the worlds lamest precognition where I only realize I caught a glimpse of the future after already living out he moment I caughta glimpse of.

Oh and also when I was a toddler I vividly remember the experience of freezing to death in the back yard while playing in the snow. I mostly chalk it up to a dream but I remember the nightmares I had as a kid and all of them were surreal chase dreams with a monster version of the easter bunny or the geiko lizard getting me.

This was different. I still remembee the back yard, the 'fort' I had made and trapped myself in, I remember clawing at the snow to get out until my hands went from burning to feeling nothing, screaming for mommy to save me to no avail, and eventually succumbing to the cold. I dont know how toddler me would b able to imagine up the exact sensations of freezing or that level of grim detail.

"In the meantime please watch this 15 second candy crush ad while your program starts up. Join windows 12 Premium+ starting 10.99/month today to reduce ads to one per hour"

This is your hourly reminder that mineclone2 exist.

It honestly depends on who you are. If you hate guns you don't want to live in a pro gun state or vice versa. If you love pot then you will hate anti pot states and vice versa. If you hate corruption don't go to new York. If you hate reduculous cost of living don't live in new England area or the west coast popular states like Cali. If you want to boondocks and live a nomadic lifestyle the Midwest is much more forgiving to the lifestyle, east coast is much harder. So take an inventory of your personal political identity and what your dream state would look like condusive to your beliefs and lifestyle.

Quantum computers have no place in typical consumer technology, its practical applications are super high level STEM research and cryptography. Beyond being cool to conceptualize why would there be hype around quantum computers from the perspective of most average people who can barely figure out how to post on social media or send an email?

Amazon being greedy and bake ads into their devices? Who could see that coming?!