Today I have deleted (or should I say “deactivated as twitter puts it) my twitter account. Next I will be deleting my facebook account, I have not used them since January. True I know they will retain that data for as they want to keep it to try to sell my info to advertisers. and shadow profiles, but it just makes it eaier to break from them. Plus with the anti-tracking lists I have added to my Pi-Hole it will be harder for them to spam me.
As much as big tech think that unpersoning er sorry deplatforming people will make them go away, it will not. conservatives we will just exist outside of big tech. I read yesterday in the Federalist is starting to ban prolifers. In fact I had not heard of the site LifeSiteNews before The Federalists artical, now they are in my RSS reader. The attempt to unperson people just drew more attention to them, and conservatives that are either (like me) leaving social media because of their actions or in the case of the likes of those that get banned, we will not just simply up and vanish we will still exist, we will not change, they will just try to forget we exist.
On Usenet I am finding many many conservatives, Social media is not the only place to talk about things. And when you leave the area of big tech the censorship seems to stop. The promise of the internet is still there, and more and more conservatives will start to benefit from it. That promise is the promise of a decentralized network, that is not controlled by one entity, and for big tech that will be a problem, all they can do is chase the conservatives (and as it is starting to look like the moderates, and even left of center, see Tim Pool here, where Facebook has attacked him too) I wonder if big tech can survive off the ultra-left wing, because that all they will have after they ban conservatives, and moderates, and then left of center leave. Because that all social media will have left is the ultra left.
Well I have in my Pi-Hole blocked many URLs from google. One of the URLs is the Android connection test. “to make sure your phone is on line” To circumvent my phone saying it is not on line I followed this guide Self-hosting the WiFi Connectivity Check for Android
So basicly I created a file called 204.php on my internal web server I use for testing stuff that contains
<?php
http_response_code(204);
exit(); ?>
I put it in my /var/www/htdoc directory and added the following to my httpd.conf file
NameVirtualHost *:80
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName connectivitycheck.gstatic.com
RedirectMatch 204 .*
</VirtualHost>
The thing is I would never have known about this URL to be blocked if they did not make so many requests. When I look at the stats for my Pi-Hole it is the top requested domain name, in the last 24 hours the phone has done 5512 lookups for the domain. I keep an eye on the stats on my pi-hole, and when there is a unrecognized URL hit that often I start to look into it, most of the time they get blocked. If google was not so greeded for the data and spamming it so often I might never have known the requests were being made, and it would have flown under the radar, but since it the #1 requested URL on my network it looked suspicious to me. So I looked into it, and blocked it, and setup a work around to it.
So far 2 power failures this week. I am sure 3rd world nations have better power reliability then we have in MD with BGE
Here on of the founding members talk about the problems with Wikipedia and bitcoin. Every one should take a listen to this
[Timcast IRL] #266 – James O’Keefe BANNED On Twitter, Will SUE w/Wikipedia Ex-Founder Larry Sanger #timcastIrl https://podcastaddict.com/episode/121845818
Florida fights back against big tech I hope they win, but I fear that the elites have to much power, we are truly living in 1984, and big tech is big brother now.
I am one trying to break free of big tech, that why I left facebook, twitter, I don’t go on social media anymore. I stopped using google products, aka I switched to the Brave Browser, moved my calendar from google calendar, back onto a palm pilot. I have started using DuckDuckGo as a search engine. I am using a Pi-Hole and have found a few black lists that block google, facebook, and twitter’s tracking sites.
In my attempt to get away from google more and more, I have decided to try The Brave Browser. First thing I have notices, after I copied all my settings over to The Brave Browser then opened up as many windows, and tabs (coping over the URL from the open tabs from Chrome) and shutdown chrome, my Linux boxes load average dropped from 6.5 to 2. I also like the dark theme it uses. Also it does more tracking blocking, even beyond what I have going with my Pi-Hole. Also with the load average, I have noticed the browser feels like it also more responsive too.
What is a load average see here for a full articular I will take some experts out of it below.
On Unix-like systems, including Linux, the system load is a measurement of the computational work the system is performing. This measurement is displayed as a number. A completely idle computer has a load average of 0. Each running process either using or waiting for CPU resources adds 1 to the load average. So, if your system has a load of 5, five processes are either using or waiting for the CPU.
You probably have a system with multiple CPUs or a multi-core CPU. The load average numbers work a bit differently on such a system. For example, if you have a load average of 2 on a single-CPU system, this means your system was overloaded by 100 percent — the entire period of time, one process was using the CPU while one other process was waiting. On a system with two CPUs, this would be complete usage — two different processes were using two different CPUs the entire time. On a system with four CPUs, this would be half usage — two processes were using two CPUs, while two CPUs were sitting idle.
Also note I have a 6 core CPU, so 6 is fully using it.
I found this the other day, and he is right games as a service is fraud.
Over the last little over a month 2 news stories have propelled those of us that are proponents of physical copies arguments as being stronger. first there was the news story of Sony shutting down the PS3/PSP/Vite stores (true they back tracked on that but only for the PS3/Vita, it still happening to the PSP store) and the currently new law suit against Apple with the closing of a customers account with over $25k worth of “bought” items. Combine that with the old shutting down of the Wii and DSi store by Nintendo, and it does not paint a pretty picture of the “digital only” future. It shows the flaws with digital only “purchases” and that is they are fleeting, and a company can deny you access to what you paid for. While physical, they can not remove those, they would have to break into your home, to take them away from you. The worst part is they can do a unreasonable search and seizure of “your” stuff, with out a warren, with physical they can not just deem you an undesirable and take your stuff away, with physical you have laws that protect you in your person and possessions, with digital only you have no protection of the law. And latly the democrats have been in the side of corporations saying “ya but private company can do what ever they want” (well they only say that when they denie conservatives, but deny a liberal they will take you all the way to the SCotUS, and even if you win there they will try again and again, see the multiple cases against “Masterpiece Cakeshop” which touches on Religious liberties.)
Here is a reason you don’t want to place your data in the hands of another do you even own your own data anymore. If a company decides they don’t want you on their services anymore you loss “your” data, you loss “your” digital content, you loss “your” apps.
Another issue I covered is the cost, sure it only $5 to $15 a month, but that is a permanent cost, a monthly cost for ever. Sure it sounds cheaper but over the years it adds up, that $5 to $15 becomes, $60 to $180 a year. $600 to $1800 a decade.
This also feeds back to the physical vs digital debate, so easily, when you “buy” (lets call it what it is rent) a digital item you don’t own it and it can be taken away from you with out warning, yet they want to charge you the same amount as they do for physical. It use to be when you went down to block buster and rented a movie for a few nights, they did at lest charge you a fraction of what it would cost to buy it. Yet companies want you to rent content for the same price it costs to buy it.
Why is it suddenly ok to ask people about there private medical history We are losing our freedoms by the day, even the freedom of privacy. Well with the FBI and CIA wanting backdoor into encryption and the like I should not be surprised.
So Youtube thinks they are a bastion of frees speech. On of the largest violators of free speach (facebag and twatter being the other two) is giving themselves an award for free speech. Just look at all the people they banned for “wrong think” over the years. They are so free speech, they free people from being able to put their option out there. That like a bank robber giving themselves an award for being the most honest person alive.
I saw this posted today while for those that fell into the digital only game trap, this is good news, it does not give any comfort I would say, as it still can go down in the future. It does not make me take back my thoughts on digital vs physical game. I am still going to go physical as that would be a lasting media. Also note that the PSP digital store is still going away, so the issue is still there for those that still use, play, and enjoy their PSP. Proving more that physical games are a better investment then renting a license that can be revoked at any time. But it is good to see that Sony did 2/3 listen to their fans. (they only listened to their PS3 and Vita fans, but not their PSP fans)
I will admit that even with all my ranting against the streaming future even I fell into it with Anima. But now I am working on fixing that, especially with the closing of the Sony PS3/PSP/Vita stores. I am starting to buy the ones I like on DVD/Blueray. It going to take some time. I have recently picked up “Oh Edo Rocket” and “Soul Eater” and on Monday I will be getting the first box set of “Fairy Tail” this one will take a while to get the full set. Also a copy of “Trigun” will come on Monday.
On my list is the rest of the “Fairy Tail” collections, “Attack on Titan”, “Full Metal Alcamest: Brotherhood”, “The Devil is a Part-timer”, “Baka vs Test”, and “Outlaw Star”
Getting all of the ones I want will take a while, as I am going to space them out, and not spend a fortune all at once.
Over the last 3 months, I have worked to pull my data off of the web, and take more control over my data. Things are going along. My email, I now use Claw for the email client instead of a web client, for my calendar I use JPilot calendar instead of google calander. I have been pulling back from the web more and more, for chatting, I am back on IRC. For message boards, I am using UseNet again, and an BBS that is still alive, and mind you they are still alive and kicking with many users.
I have found here people are a lot less toxic then people on social media. Sad thing is you can be toxic there, but god forbid you be a conservative on social media, toxic ok, conservative not ok. Another nice thing, is I now only have 16 web tabs open, down from over 50 I use to have open at a time, true I now have other programs open in place of a few of them, and some of them are just have no replacement.
Replaced tabs
message boards — Pan Usenet reader (2 or more tabs) or BBS
redit — Pan Usenet reader (4 or more tabs) or BBS
google calendar — jpilot
google contacts — jpilot
rackspace web mail — claw
google notes — jpilot
google todo — jpilot
google news — Akregator (an RSS feed agragator)
tabs not replaced
facebook
twitter
Those are not complete lists, but gives you an idea.
The sad thing is the internet is not living up to the promise it was touted as back in the 90’s where any one can communicate with any one else around the world. People just flock to the big tech sites, do what they are told belive what big tech tells them.
Today I weighed myself and came in at 130 pounds. When I started I set a goal of 125 pounds. So only 5 more pounds to go. I am a long way from where I started, I started at 300 pounds on March 31, 2022, it been about 15 months since I started this diet.[…]
With summer coming buy, and me still on my diet, I came up with a snack, I have always enjoyed popsicals, so what I am doing now, is I am taking those water enhancers that say they have 0 calories and use that as the flavor for my popsicals, and I have some popsical makers.[…]
For my friends I did a video to show my friends how I have my apartment setup, because I did some changes to the living room and the bedroom. Here is the video
Posting a new updated before and after picture. First one was taken in 2021, the second picture Just this last weekend.
March 31, 2022 was the day I hit 300 pounds and decided to loss weight, today I weigh in at 135 pounds. To date I have lost 165 pounds. My goal still remains 125 pounds, so I only have 10 more pounds to go. I feel so much better, later on I will post a[…]
Today I did some meal preping for this week. Cooking both in slow cookers. First dish, is a ham and veggie soup contianing Ham Potatos Celery Spinish Carrots Onions Veggie Stock With the amount of stuff and what I put in it, the whole slow cooker has about 1200 cals in it, this should make[…]
Today I did my daily steping on the scale this morning, it read 140 now. So since I started my diet last March, I have lost a total of 160 pounds, and only 15 more pounds to go, till I can start working on keeping the weight off. But I been feeling a lot better[…]
Today, when I did my morning weight in my scale read 143 pounds, so to date I have lost 157 pounds. And now I have only 18 more pounds to go.
In the past I have used a 4G T-Mobile hotspot, that was costing me about 50 a month for 10GB of data. But for that same 50 I could get T-Mobiles home internet. So I cancled the hotspot line and added the Home Internet for my backup internet. First they say there is no data[…]
So in my journy of cutting the cable. I just setup a Plex server for my local network. I have a lot of mp3 still that I ripped from my CD years ago. Now I wonder if I can rip my DVD to the Plex server, not to replace them but to have them accessable[…]
