I’ve had this setup for quite a while, it is very good, I’ve used the vertical monitor for my browser.

Dual ultra wide. Not even kidding. PPI might not be as swanky as it can be, but you can’t beat that amount of screen real estate.

Mullvad is trusted. They are pretty open with their policies, exist for a long time already, not involved in any privacy scandals (to my best knowledge), charge flat and fair fee without 60% sales and other dubious marketing practices. It is one of the better VPN providers, not in 5/9 eyes (they are in 14 eyes though), you can buy a subscription with crypto, which (assuming crypto was acquired anonymously too) is a good start for some privacy guarantees.

Pretty much every cyber security professional I know uses Mullvad in one way or another, usually as part of a more complex solution.

But all in all, please bear in mind that VPN is not some magic silver bullet to preserve your privacy and anonymity. With VPNs you basically shift your trust from your ISP to the VPN provider. That trust you put into the provider, it is still a requirement. Not to mention that a good chunk of tracking is happening on a lower level nowadays, so if you use Mullvad on Windows / any Apple device etc. do not expect to become untraceable :)

Use Firefox or Safari, the more people use Chromium-based browsers the faster we get to the situation where Google completely owns the Internet (and they almost do now).

Texts are securely stored

Right, must be military grade encryption

Fiercely agree. I have Samsung “smart” TV that I use as a dumb screen for my Apple TV and PS5.

Samsung’s software manages to bug out even without using it. The TV remote would randomly disconnect, screen would respring, randomly adjust contrast etc. It’s like “the printer of TVs”.

I take digital notes in Apple Notes for knowledge and facts that should be quickly searchable and there is no need for me to remember it.

I maintain multiple digital knowledge graphs (vaults) in Obsidian.md for more complicated and interconnected information, like my work, software development, hobbies etc.

The rest is kept on paper.

Quick notes that I need to take during phone calls or conversations go into one of my Traveller’s Notebook inserts.

I’ve also started using a “concepts” notebook (another TN insert) where I note down new concepts (one per line, without explanation or elaboration, e.g. “acropalypse”, “goodhart’s law”). This helps me with remembering them better, as long as I go through my previous notes regularly and look up things that I no longer can recall.

“Buttfuckers & Sons” 😅

I’ve never heard of that project, looks pretty cool! To be clear, I do not say that “one guy” cannot possibly make great software. Passion projects are a thing. What differentiates them from the Abode situation, in my opinion, is that passion projects rarely have strict deadlines and paying backers who expect software that is Adobe-level in terms of quality and polish in a roughly 1 year.

Same, actually! And that happened even after I had my morning coffee too.

I especially like how “legal issues” is not even in “Risks and challenges” section on Kickstarter.

What can possibly go wrong?

I’m highly sceptical of this shipping in a state that can compete with Adobe at the end of it all. The branding itself is asking for trouble, which is just plain stupid if you are serious about long-term and sustainable development of the whole suite, and 180k is not enough to even put together a competent alternative to Illustrator, not to mention Photoshop and InDesign.

And before people start claiming that you can fund this by outsourcing to Eastern Europe / India etc, please bear in mind that you usually get what you pay for. A competent developer with enough experience to actually make this happen won’t come cheap, and opportunistic juniors with big ambitions won’t deliver.

I wish this project all the luck it can get, but I’m personally banking on Graphite and Inkscape from the FOSS world and Affinity suite from (as of yet) less corpo commercial offerings.

Done

The last paragraph doesn’t have to be a problem though

It is not yet, but the trajectory implies it may become a problem down the road. We’re, sadly, living this decade, where you can no longer ignore where a certain service is heading and how it monetises itself.

Mandatory “don’t put Signal and Telegram in the same sentence” notice. Not to be a snob, but Telegram is not “secure and private”, all chats are not end-to-end encrypted by default, everything is stored on Telegram’s servers with “forever-ever” retention. The end-to-end encryption is opt in, uses a dodgy encryption algorithm and has some limitations in terms of who you can contact and from what device etc.

Telegram is owned by Pavel Durov who also created the largest Russian social media platform VK, which later was overtaken by Russian state as a tool for crowd control and propaganda. Even if we assume that Pavel no longer has any ties with Russia and its “government”, his biography should still raise at least some questions around whether one should trust Telegram.

And finally, Telegram seems to be going the “everything app” route lately, which makes it a one stop shop of personal communication, public channels, news, bots, stories etc. (you name it). While it is not a bad thing in objective terms, these features are not built with privacy in mind, as that would pose quite a technical challenge. This means that Telegram’s privacy and security will only be sacrificed more and more to get more of the social features out of the door.

/rant over/

All good, the downvotes are not my doing :)

Imagine trying to converse about politics and society without immediately pushing for a far left/right revolution of sorts? 🤣

I tolerate it, though barely. But that’s not the reference I was trying to make :)

*Holodomor

Yeah, I’d stay away from lemmygrad, they are clearly on a wrong side of history.

I wish there were more moderate leftist communities out there, the ones that are focused on highlighting downfalls of capitalism without trying to convince everybody that USSR 2.0 is the only good alternative.

Literally uninterjectable

Feeling old yet? 😗