Random nerd who has an interest in computers, privacy, AI, videogames, and CDs. I also like dogs and horses.

Mastodon: https://mastodon.nl/@Cambion

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  • 34 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 8th, 2023

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  • TPM on my motherboard is forever disabled

    If that’s just to stop W11 that’s stupid. TPM chips are security related. Disabling them has some serious drawbacks.

    Now there are discussion on if you’d even want a TPM chip or not, and if you choose not to use it for such reasons it may be a well thought out decision. Then you won’t hear me complain. But to trow out security components just to prevent an update, without looking at the possible consequences, is stupid. There are better ways to prevent that anyways.


  • Funny. My grandpa has been using Thunderbird and Libre Office for years, and he never realised it until recently (and he uses it a lot). He recently had an issue for the first time and asked me as he was trying to fix it with Microsoft but didn’t get anywhere, and I had to break the news to him it wasn’t their product.

    I’m not the one who set it up for him btw. But whoever did so made it look as much as to make it easier for him to switch. Which worked as he had no clue and thought he got some free version or so.

    I do also use it, but my setup isn’t Microsoft-like per se. I’m rather happy with it tho.



  • You can try getting your hands on an AsteroidOS compatible watch and flash it with that. It’s basically Linux on your wrist. There is a health app here and the required sensor logging is here, which are in early development but work well in what it does, like step counting and heartbeat graph. Past days aren’t shown further than a week but they are logged, so you could probably get it by hand in terminal after accessing the watch with SSH if you need to until it’s implemented (I think it’s on the to do list).

    It’s my daily watch for months now, sold my Galaxy Watch4 in favor for it. It works well, is completely FOSS, and works without internet, bluetooth, or phone. Altrough both can be enabled and phones can be connected with GadgetBridge or their own app. Both are in F-Droid. You won’t find a more privacy friendly smartwatch solution really.

    There is an issues with the current nightlies tho, so downloads are taken offline for now. So you need to wait for that or see if anyone has old files from before the issue.

    Devs are quite active on Matrix. If you have no patience you can ask there if anyone has the files. Any kind of support is also allowed there, no matter if it’s very noob or advanced level.



  • Nowadays I just wear boring old tees and jeans, with most tees being merchandise of games, computer stuff, or music. But nothing too out of the ordenary, just your average nerd. And I’m happy that way.

    When I was younger I was deep into heavy metal, especially underground black, and dressed the part. Those days, while I hold them dear, are long gone. Now I listen to nearly anything depending on my mood. Beside hardcore and related stuff, as that’ll give me a migraine. Club EDM is cool tho. My taste is now going from that old underground black metal all the way to K/J/C/V-pop with nearly anything in between. Springsteen gotta be my all time favourite artist.


  • Tfw you’re an Dutchy and simple home-prepaired sandwitches (read two slices of bread with some butter and cheese between them, nothing fancy), are the countries national breackfast and lunch. Warm food is for dinner traditionally 🤣.

    Either way, sandwitches (no need to limit to peanut butter, a lot can be put on bread!), salads (pasta or normal), fruit, veggie, cheese, and certain type of meat (like smoked or dried sausage, or beef). They all make great parts for cold meals you can keep in your bag till lunch (speaking from experience). Some cheese & meat are even packed per small packages for easy take along as snack usage.

    I would suggest you do go to restaurants a few times, just to try the local cuisine (or their variation of other cuisines). But it probably will be expensive for you indeed. Whenever I’m in Asia, I feel rich (and I’m really not). Even Japan, who is often said to be expensive, is cheaper than my country. Especially when it comes to food.


  • Article says:

    We’re also beginning the beta for our upcoming macOS desktop app for Proton Drive. […] Once the macOS app is released, we’ll also work on our planned Linux version.

    Based on Proton’s trackrecord in development times I’ld say a far future, but I must admit they’ve been making meters lately when it comes to releasing stuff. It may be sooner than expected (or it might take years, we’d have to wait and see).


  • Not sure which game was first, but I have early memories of Tomb Raider, COD2 and Larry on a Win95 PC. My first used console was an PS2 while the first I owned was an original Xbox. My first used handheld an original GameBoy, with the Advance SP being the first I owned myself.

    The oldest ones I used are different tho. I’m not that old but I went back to try a few older devices over the years.




  • I use Astiga, which is like a private Spotify you need to fill with music yourself. I buy CDs which I rip to get music to fill it with. Leaves me with higher quality audio and no trash to filter trough while never having to worry about licencing issues removing my favourite music, and leaves artists with much more financial support than services like Spotify will ever offer.



  • but I think Google will do more. They’ve been trying to break it for ages. It’s one of those never ending fights. Doubt it’ll end soon.

    Even if it does, then we’re at a point that “just use a good browser and uBlock Origin” also won’t cut it. Honestly, those will break much sooner than dedicated projects that are much more sophisticated in getting around YT-stuff. As soon as they put a login requirement on the site, which is needed to break apps like NewPipe, the browser + uBlock idea already won’t cut it anymore, no matter if you got a VPN ot not.

    As for Aurora, as long as Average Joe still uses Google Play without a care I’m not too worried about it. People use AdBlock for the ease, but using Aurora doesnt’t give ease. It’s only the tiny group of privacy people interested in it, which is a much smaller demographic that’ll be hard to convert to Google services. If they break Aurora, the amount of non-playstore requests to developers is going to to pump up and as long as stuff like APKMirror and apk downloads from vendors still exist people will download by hand over using the Play Store. It’s a lot of trouble that likely just leads people further away from Google.



  • NewPipe (on Piped technology) is working fine here? As long as YT isn’t behind a login they will keep working. If they do put it behind login, tbf they’ll likely find way around it again sooner or later.

    I agree that front-ends are always in an endless fight against these Big Tech solutions. But for content not available on other platforms it’s an necesity and a better solution than simply an adblocker. And sadly it’ll take a long time before content moves away, Average Joe isn’t really worried about Google as much as they are about the cons of moving away from YT.




  • I’m interested in linguistics in a linguistic way. Languages tell something about a culture. For examply by what subjects have many words and which don’t. Or how seperated ranks in society are by the amount of (used) formality forms. The level of directness might corolate to the level of pragmatism. What foreign influence there is can be partly seen by loanwords and writing symbols. Etc. Etc.

    But computer languages are hardly linguistic, most of them are just English in a specific syntax. I love computers, but they interest me in a technical way. Even the best AI relies on switches turning off and on, yes and no’s, 1’s and 0’s. It’s black and white logical mathmatics. In the end, programming languages are little more than “the creator thought this was a good way to handle which switches should go on and off”, and you just use what’s most practical for your use-case. That is, quantum computers aside, but even those are similar in that really. Just more complex.