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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 30th, 2023

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  • According to some people on the fediverse, the Kagi forum thread that is linked in the toots I posted above and seemingly nowhere else.

    From a non political standpoint: I tried Kagi last year and it was ok but I didn’t get the big deal. And because I’m not in the US but the UK if you try searching where’s my nearest garage or stay the nearest result came up as 150 miles away. So it’s one of those things I’ll maybe return to it once it’s developed a bit more









  • That’s a very black and white way of putting it. As long as you’re an adult who can tell the difference between fantasy and reality, and you’re not spending hours obsessed with it I don’t think it’s unhealthy. The way you phrase ‘avoid it completely’ makes it sound like you’re going out of your way to avoid it already.

    (I think the problems are coming through with the generation being ‘brought up on porn’, and thinking real sex is like it is in the videos online but that’s a different story really.)



  • I’ve only heard of Mary Seacole out of the black Britons from history we’re expected to know of.

    I actually googled the musician and he has a relatively interesting story but it’s also not at all surprising people don’t know who he is today - he had one piece which was very popular called the Feast of Hiawatha which according to Google was played regularly until 1939 and then doesn’t seem to have been revived. Seems he was much better regarded as a conductor.

    Anyhow, historically this country’s establishment has made it hard for black people to get famous until the 20th century, something that this academic surely knows. She’s either naive or deliberately skewing her results for headlines by asking for names from a time when her top rankings include a Roman Governor!






  • I just started using it for Android the last month or so when Chrome dropped the flag feature that let you toggle dark mode for websites with system dark mode.

    I have a VPN with an adblocker so that aspect of Chrome never bothered me so much. Chrome felt like it worked slightly smoother but at the end of the day a browser is a browser and Firefox does the job. (Samsung’s browser is actually surpringly good for those with a Samsung device looking for a Chrome alternative)

    Firefox does seem more trustworthy overall, although I’ve learned by now that trusting tech companies is not a sensible thing to do.


  • Still use Google search, but switched out Chrome for Firefox recently and it’s working out well. I do still use their calendar, docs apps but I’ve never been a big one for YouTube. I do have some Google speakers though and use Maps all the time - so I guess out of big tech Google is the one I’m suckered into the most…

    Stopped using Facebook around 2016 and deleted my Twitter account a few years before that, basically when the novelty had long gone and it all seemed to be more toxic.

    In the UK around that time it was just everyone going on about Brexit on Facebook but even before then people weren’t sharing stuff about themselves (with good reason) so it was just low effort memes). Use Facebook once in a blue moon to get in touch with really old friends

    Didn’t miss either, although I recently signed up to Mastodon more just to see how the fediverse worked over there.

    Then Reddit - probably the social media I was most invested in just because it was so granular in it’s There’s A Sub For That ability to cater for virtually all interests. But the utter disdain they held for their own volunteers and the contempt they seem to hold virtually everyone in was a bit of a wake up call. I do go back and check on it but I’m finding that I check on it less. Fedi has less content so I am reading all those eBooks I should have been reading instead!

    My son is 7, I’m interested in how things are looking in 5 year’s time when he’s an early teen. He’s already got bored of watching YouTube videos, tiktok isn’t really a thing with us or anyone we know yet… time will tell I suppose. The main thing will be constant reminders that porn isn’t real and cyber security lectures




  • What if they realised they’d made a very stupid decision and if there’d been some more checks and balances that decision could have been avoided?

    The Third Reich, I think we can all agree was totalitarian. Hitler wanted to plunge into a war on two fronts against the USSR drunk on victory against France and expecting to beat Britain. Most of his military advisors weren’t keen. But being a Dictator he could just do it and hey presto war against Stalin. As time went on he got more erratic, made more random millitary decisions overruling his generals and made a pigs ear of things but whatever decision he made on a whim happened straight away anyway.

    That’s just a famous and obvious example of a totalitarian leader rushing into things and getting where he wanted to go faster which didn’t end well for the leader.