I think piecemeal is a good way to go. Switch from MS Office to LibreOffice, from iOS to android, from Photoshop to Krita, then go to dual booting Linux (probably Mint or similar) with Windows, learn more using both, find what things you reboot to Windows for, find solutions for those using Wine and alternative software, get used to solving problems in Linux land and learn the tools. Once you are comfortable with a mix of both get rid of what you can, use Windows less and less, try CalyxOS or Graphene for your phone if possible, keep making steps. Each step makes progress, and imperfect solutions are a better starting point for finding better solutions.

That said, for the earliest steps a virtual machine is an amazing tool, as is an old laptop. You can learn to solve problems on virtual or real hardware without making your life harder then inch closer to freedom. I’ve been using Linux since 2006 and honestly it has been a constant learning process. The first year was mostly VM learning, then an accidental install on my external HDD taught me about hubris and data protection. Since then I have kept moving towards more open hardware and software one step at a time. Getting started is the key, nothing teaches as well as trying.

What OS do you use? Windows, Mac, Linux? And same for your phone? Android? If so, you should be able to get it set up on your desktop and phone.

First, get it installed on your desktop. For windows and mac go to the Syncthing download page and grab the installer. On Linux you will find install instructing below, but basically use your package manager to install syncthing.

Once it is installed you can start it up and it will open a GUI, most likely through your web browser (probably 127.0.0.1:8384 or similar). From here you will have your Syncthing interface for your computer set up, so on to the phone.

On your phone install syncthing from whichever store you use, fdroid is my favourite. Once installed open it and you should have an option to add another device. You can use this to scan the QR code on your computer Syncthing interface.

Good idea is to use something like Syncthing to copy data between your phone and another device like a laptop or another phone. This depends on the app, for Drip you have to manually export the data yourself on a regular basis.

Another useful idea is if you have an old phone lying around get it connected via Syncthing and back up everything to it. If your current phone dies or is lost you can switch back immediately, a hot backup. If you have root on your device you can use NeoBackup to schedule backups of the data into a folder Syncthing can access and send to backup locations, say a home computer or spare device.

Steven Gould - Jumper

Barring the character names and teleportation it shares little with the movie, though I think the movie wasn’t all that bad tbh. The idea is a kid with an abusive single dad discovers he can teleport. He acts like a kid would, making lots of mistakes, and figures out his teleportation and how to live.

The novel is a little old so characters are a little shallow and stereotypical but honestly way less than expected. I have listened to the novels before but come back every so often for a repeat.

Yeah, the children are only for setting some of the scene, but they come back for a few short (like less than 5 minute) scenes. The easiest solution is double speed, it is extremely listenable with that small change and well worth the effort.

Every time I relisten I a gutted around that point. Very impactful character development, such a painful loss to move through and explored so well. Honestly one of the most emotionally impactful novels I have read possibly because of how much I enjoyed the differing Bobs bouncing of each other and finding equilibrium. I’ve listened to the first 4 around 5 times through and book 5 twice now, honestly on the edge of my seat for book 6.

This is a great review. It tells me if there is a deal breaker, say a wildly obvious plot hole, as well as giving some of the impact and experience of the movie. The conclusion is a simple number out of ten, along with a verbal recommendation. 9/10, good review, worth a quick read.

There are three genomes that go into an embryo. One from the chromosomes of the large gamete, the egg, one from the chromosomes of the small gamete, the sperm, and one from the mitochondria, in humans from the egg as well. If you had two XX donors you could make XX kids. If you had two XY donors you could make XX, XY, and YY variants. The only viable ones would be XY and XX, YY would not reach gestation.

That said, if you took the DNA from gametes from each, removed the nucleus and mitochondria of an egg, added the total gametic DNA from both to the cell, added a mitochondria from either donor, then it should, in theory, be a viable egg like in IVF. This is actually a strategy for dealing with a mitochondrial disease by donating mitochondrial DNA from another source rather than those impacted by the disease. The problem would be there are many ways for this to go wrong and be left with an unviable embryo, so it would likely take many many eggs and many many donated cells to get a single viable egg with the donated DNA. That said, it could technically work.

I don’t have photos of myself on the internet and do not participate in group photos. If I see a photo of myself online I know, for a fact, that the person who posted it does not respect my privacy, therefore they do not respect me. I will not trust them with any information about myself and others and in general will cut them out of my life if at all possible. Because of this I don’t have people who violate boundaries they don’t share, so if I said “Actually, I think I may be a woman” or “I have been thinking about leaving the country” they would not immediately judge or try to prevent my doing so, they would let me be and respect my needs. Also because of this I am much more comfortable working on things with these people to make life better and to invest in their wellbeing.

And the fashion, oh wow, such an aesthetic.

Trashing!

I work in disability support so I may use various creams while massaging, I get messy while helping people with washing and toileting, and I feed people which can get messy. I also help people with their yards, cleaning their house, washing their pets, whatever they need.

Well it depends too on how long things take to settle out. Salt is easily suspended in water, but silt is not, so the water would be salty but not muddy. The water would also probably have lots of photosynthetic bacteria/algae in it, so you would probably have blooms of green, blue, red, and brown all over. Those blooms would uptake light and carbon through that process then as they died drop the content down the long water column. All sorts of feeding below that would create a full eecological web. If there were deep sea vents, volcanic activity breaking through the sea floor, you would have a second source of energy and chemistry at the bottom. That said, the over level of life at the surface would be limited by things like iron, phosphorus, copper, and so on. Any heavier ions would be less available at the surface because there is no surface erosion bringing them in at the top so as they are bound up in dead algae they will drop to the floor.

The rate limiting at the sea floor will be based on energy but not too bad, you would likely see a lot of diverse life around vents and it would have a fairly large complexity over time. That said, the depth would make for less complex life due to the lack of light and associated vision. Some things would make light but it would be dangerous to make and would not be super common.

Another interesting consideration is the geography of the sea floor. Would there be fault lines? If there are continental plates but way under the ocean they would still have movement, so subduction and so on would play out, so you would probably have chains of vents along the diverging or merging plate boundaries. Life would spread along these lines, so life would be closely related at nearby vents but distant over the surface of the planet. I would anticipate a fairly heterogeneous population over the surface of the planet in the deep, but far less so at the surface.

It depends on the composition of the planet. If it is just a massive ball of water floating in space then it will be whatever purity that is, plus whatever space dust and impactors bring in.

If it is basically a terrestrial planet with water on top, say earth plus a lot of water, then it would be salty. The thing with salt water is contact between the water and rock. If there is sufficient heat it will circulate, so salty water from the bottom of the ocean may be heated by magma or similar and then it will be less dense, floating upwards to the surface. Along the way it will mix and cool, leading to dispersal of the dissolved salts.

The only way I can imagine a planet with a solid subsurface completely coated in freshwater would be if the planet snowballed hard, no radioactive materials left in the core making heat, no significant tidal pull on the core, and then after reaching a very cold temperature having slow addition of clean water from comets. That said, comets are dirty, they have lots of stuff, so you would need somehow clean comets. Still, at that point once sufficient water has hit the surface it could form a thick enough layer over the salty ocean below and start to melt, maybe from greenhouse effects. As soon as it runs away and keeps heating enough it will start to melt the core ice though, so you could have a short lived window in that freak occurrence but it will be very temporary and not at all likely.

I tried a lot of things to get it under control, but most recently it was Head and Shoulders anti dandruff shampoo and another conditioner for anti dandruff, I can’t remember the name of that one. I tried a bunch of strategies including daily washing, every second or third day, weekly, and so on. I also tried coal tar, Selsun, various other dandruff shampoos, and some typical shampoo options too.

I hate washing my hair, it is anywhere between shoulder and mid back length and used to take ages to dry. At the moment I find just rinsing it out with water lets it dry very quickly, like it didn’t really get properly wet. I also find it is stronger and doesn’t snap off when brushing.

Ditch shampooing and conditioning, instead transition to using a less intense washing method. I haven’t used shampoo in about 3 months and my dandruff has reduced, my hair is cleaner smelling, and the dries super quickly.

Instead of washing with soap I use brushing and water only washing. Using a boar bristle brush as well as wood brush makes brushing my hair easy and pulls the oil down over the length of my hair rather than staying at the scalp. This reduces and hopefully eliminates dandruff while also leaving the hair protected by oil. If I wash it, no soap just water, it loses a little oil and all the dirt and yuck comes out it it dries in maybe 20 mins.

Also, it is now consistent. My hair today feels the same as my hair yesterday, so it isn’t constantly something to adjust to.

1 quark (no pairs please)

Yeah, the whole “China is doing propaganda using TikTok” line is kind of like saying Russia is using bots on YouTube. Like, yeah, maybe, sure, but focussing all your efforts on one single platform and ignoring the rest is silly. As the red team you would use as many different platforms as possible, make sure your disinformation output was broad and came from multiple, even opposing, ideological positions, and absolutely swamp the information space with junk. If nothing is reliable people don’t approach things carefully, they just check out. Once people check out it is a win.

Yep, and the while thing is moot anyway because use of the systems does not require ownership, so while the owners can exert more pressure on the algorithm and change what shows up other actors can do the same a little less easily on each platform. Propaganda is alive and well, so maybe try to limit yourself somewhat to a smaller group of people you actually know in person and be critical of information coming in.

Both. China is where most consumer tech comes from, and the rest often includes parts from China as well. Taiwan has TSMC which makes all the big CPUs, but honestly all the small stuff like consumer electronics comes mostly out of China. If they did want to integrate some sort of spying they would have the opportunity, and in the past individual threats to the state of many countries have had supply chain attacks carried out, so it is not an unfounded fear.

That all said, China is run by the CCP, an ostensibly Communist party, so red scare, not to mention Chinese, so racism, and Party, because Americans are against fun, or at least in government they seem to be. China also has an abysmal record on human rights, though coming from anyone in the west criticism is somewhat hypocritical given prison labour, proping up dictatorships, coups, exploiting slave labour, and so on. Nobody is doing a perfect job, nobody is saintly, but there are fair and unfair criticisms against China as a nation state and those do inform some of the fear of their potential for spying.

Now TikTok, Reddit, Meta, etc… There are the really scary tools with far too little attention.