4grams

No shit, my boy wanted a Barbie when he was little, so he had a Barbie. He also had Legos, and played with blocks, board games and eventually video games. Let kids play with whatever the fuck they want to, they are exploring.

Bicameral mind due for a comeback I see.

I’m convinced this is all to normalize keeping your data in the cloud and other 3rd party hands. It’s hr decline of the PC market, the fact that games, movies and music no longer come on media you own, instead is now just a license to use the content…

This is all part of the strategy of ensuring we do not own our data. They want all storage of all the data to be something we have to pay to access. They want to control everything, and make access to it a subscription.

It came to me last night, how all this AI and the difficulties obtaining hardware. This is all them trying to end the idea of ownership, at least of your data. They want to control all the data, so everything you do, every picture you take, every game you play, every essay you write, will be only available in the cloud. We are getting close to the point where are must pay for every bit of our own data that we access.

This is the inevitable result. I’m very glad I’ve spent years building my own library of content. I just hope I can continue getting replacement hardware to keep it alive.

I understand the authors reasons, but for me personally, having paid for the app, I’ll use it until it no longer suits my needs. Right now it does early what I need and does not cause me any issues. As soon as the enshittification hits me though, I’ll abandon it for something else. I also would not recommend someone purchase it, given the new pricing, and the availability of free alternatives. Had they been there when I paid for Plex, I’d be using them instead.

It’s something new anyway. I’ve dealt with bureaucracy my whole career, but mostly about shuffling numbers from one spreadsheet to another. This one is about helping shuffle people from one place to another. So, I’m used to slow, deliberate pace and hitting political walls. I’m hoping this time at least it’s doing something tangible.

I had nearly this exact conversation with my son on the way home tonight. Different details, but the same lesson. The world has abandoned practicality in favor of aesthetics and grift. I have quit several jobs because of the awful short term thinking, some of them good jobs that were the envy of my peers.

I start in the public sector next week, where I get to do things that have a direct impact on thousands of people in the state. I was hired specifically because of my practicality. I sincerely hope this is what I’ve been looking for.

This would have been a baffling question to me just a few months ago. But lately as I’ve been expanding my self hosting journey, I have realized that most people don’t use computers anymore except for at work. I just assumed everyone needed and wanted a PC, but my kids only care about them as game consoles, any other task is handled by phones or tablets.

So, these days I’m putting more effort into stuff that can be used for both. Im trying to de-big-tech myself and the cloud stuff is where we are mostly locked in. Evaluating Nextcloud at the moment and it’s maybe what I need; works great everywhere I’ve tried it so far. I do worry about enshittification though.

Yes and no, I only buy refurbs these days, so long as they work out of the box, they have been far more reliable than retail drives from a box store.

Definitely higher incidents of DOA drives, but the ones that work, have been pretty solid.

Still don’t trust spinning rust, so in addition to dual parity raid, I also have a full backup copy. But I no longer have reservations about refurb drives…

I like the name, and I’ve got lots of projects in various states that I’d love to share. I’ll check it out.

Following in my dad’s footsteps.

Sorry for the tired gif, but this is my exact reaction.

This shit drives me up a wall. The local, formerly awesome pizza place switched to DoorDash for delivery and it has sucked ever since. Pizza arrives cold since door dash drivers don’t have insulated bags, half the time they chuck it on the front porch and it sits there on the cold concrete even longer.

Delivery driver was always a reliable stoner job, I had so many friends in my youth who delivered pizza. Despite the cloud of weed smoke that came with the pizza, it was always hot and fast. They were motivated to get those tips after all.

Already done. It was actually a freebie supermarket plant my son picked up. The local store has a section where the ugly and dying plants are free. So we picked up a chocolate mint, and are trying to bring it back to life.

I had it nearly there, so I gently moved it to a bigger pot, with fresh new soil, and it promptly died. There was one single stem that was left that had gotten buried when I replanted it. Everything behind it died, but it must be trying to put some roots down at a buried node or something. It was floppy and I thought dead, but then decided to come back to life and is growing new leaves. Fingers crossed, I’m too afraid to touch them t right now, so I’m just keeping it watered and sunny and hoping it comes back.

I can always go get some from the yard :).

I have a mint plant in my house, in a pot, that I simply cannot seem keep alive. It has a single stem left that’s trying its hardest to die every moment. I’ve taken it as a personal challenge to nurse it back to health (I need an easy win these days)

Last time I mowed, I noticed a new weed in the yard, popping up all over; this one smelled different, pleasant even. Fuck me, I’ve got a yard full of mint that showed up on its own, I’m guessing to mock my black thumb.

Never forget.

if only, it’s like america’s superpower.

I’m m an Infrastructure architect and engineer, this is the same problem in enterprise. Cloud, SaaS, proprietary vendors, they all want to lock you. Time and place for all of it, but you’ve gotta know what you are getting yourself into.

What chance does the average, non-30 year veteran of industry have? It’s bad out there.

Nah, wasn’t “we” , it was “them” who sold us on a promise, but was really a leash, or muzzle. The “them” is the oligarchs, the billionaires, the epstein class…

Oh, I know, ai was trying to point out the insanity in a few words as possible. All the solutions and conveniences we are being sold are bullshit. They are sold as helpful but just make you hate the world.

I had an Apple Watch, the simplicity of not having to take out my phone was the draw, I could see my notifications quickly and easily. All it did though was create more distraction, more digital cruft to wade through and dismiss. I get more value out of the rubber band that I have on my wrist right now than I did the Apple Watch.

Goddamn, I am so tired of modern convenience. My god we have made shit complicated in the name of simplicity.