Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was Oh no, not again.

Oz gov yet again doing something unfathomably stupid with tech privacy, shocked I tell ya. Might have to point my SearxNG instance VPN endpoint somewhere else, maybe, see how it pans out…

Sounds like a them problem then.

podman exists and doesn’t force root…

It’s yours, no issues trusting a public instance with your searches. Pages full of settings to tweak as you like. Less problems with an algorithm ‘helping’ you. It averages searches over multiple search engines that you choose, you can set up your own (or a curated) block list of crappy AI slop sites, don’t like fandom.com or something, gone. Manage your own bangs, e.g. !aa for annas-archive. Pipe it through a VPN with gluetun for better isolation. If you have your head around docker already it’s more like half an hour to set up, so why not?

Can hook it up to perplexica and a local LLM for a fully local AI search that you define, use it as a MCP server, do deep research with it…

I do it with a gluetun container (more versatile) zero issues, but you can just mainline wireguard as an interface if you prefer, also works fine, on bazzite.

Cheers, up and running.

Had trouble installing that, but https://github.com/ryosoftware/GPhotosShim via obtainium worked perfectly. Hooks it up to gOS Gallery.

Cool (you’'re sure no Play Services not just no Play Store? what about GMSCompatConfig?, it’s reasonably innocuous, I’m just curious), in that case kill its network and profit. I couldn’t do that a couple of years back, might have to re-evaluate…

As far as I know it needs Play store, Play services and GMSCompatConfig so you’ll be right back where you started. You can deny those things network permissions as well, but things tend to go awry when they can’t phone home, you end up having to enable and disable network on things to get other things to work. Personally I don’t trust it, good as the GrapheneOS devs are, it’s always a moving target.

It’s pretty quick to switch users, swipe down, swipe down, tap users, tap user, enter passcode (make it short) and you’re there.

Just set up a user for google crap, when you absolutely positively need it, go use camera ( or maps or whatever), when you’re done, shut it down. Over time it happens less and less…

Yarr !, my experience has been stellar ;) (Gaben: It’s a service problem…)

know truth from fiction.

You jest, but…

You are aware that Netflix et.al. put compression on their streams (usually quite a bit in regards to bitrate) ? It is often the case that BluRay rips etc. are available better on the high seas…

While I generally agree and consider this insightful, it behooves us to remember the (actual, 1930s) Nazis did it with newspapers, radio and rallies (… in a cave, with a box of scraps).

Thinkpads have long had first tier linux support, in fact many models have shipped with linux for at least a decade (?), checking that is a really good way to be sure, but you’re going to be fine with W, P, T, X lines, many enthusiasts make light work. They were deployed (might still be) to Red Hat kernel devs for a long time, which helps things along. Fingerprint drivers tend to be proprietary and hit or miss, but passwords work.

Honestly learning to install linux yourself, and configure it to your liking, is actually, imo, a really important path to learning and you’re likely doing yourself a disservice avoiding it. It’s part of the avoidance of vendor lock in you want. Installation is surprisingly easy now, start with something simple, Mint is often recommended these days, find a decent, recent, youtube and you’ll probably be up and running in an hour. Find the apps you need for your workflow (which will take considerably longer). Get familiar with the terminal. Best thing you can do after that is burn it down and install a new distro, leaving any mistakes behind, keeping your list of apps. Arch if you want to get really deep into it, or Fedora / Bazzite are good choices and very stable. Best of luck.

I replied to @muntedcrocodile@lemm.ee and understood the question like “Is distrobox as secure as QubesOS?”, which I replied with “No”.

Ahh, fair cop. Good point on Secureblue, but my threat model doesn’t take me there.

Eh, it’s fedora under the hood with SELinux enabled, and immutable, better than most security wise, I didn’t say much more.

Bazzite is the better distro because you install things in a distrobox. Muck around, break things in there, but your main distro stays safe, secure and stable.

Hear hear, and manufacture drones (aerial, not just naval), lots of drones, just look how effective they are in Ukraine. As long as you keep AI out of it. Wow, that vid is 8 years old now, still effective. You could literally encircle the country in overlapping drone ranges for less than one sub I’ll bet. Sure would be nice to lead instead of follow for once.

Perhaps not saved, but I’d venture the most significant nail in the coffin of the scientific publishing mafia so far, pursued with integrity and honor. The rise of open publishing that followed is very telling, and in my mind directly attributable to Alexandra’s work and it’s popularity, they know they need to adapt or (probably and) die.

Still need to work on the publish or perish mentality, getting negative results published, and getting corporate propaganda out of the mix, to name a few.