No and no. It’s not too late, and just watching sitcons won’t teach you enough to start speaking. But if you just start actual studying and practicing you can learn it just fine. Watching TV can be used to practice listening, but on it’s own it’s not enough unless you’re a wonderkid.

Maybe that’s your machine being oddly programmed. Every machine I’ve seen unlocks right after it finishes it’s cycle. It can also be stopped and unlocked anywhere halfway, but it takes some time to drain the water (usually a few seconds, not a full minute like you mentioned originally).

My issue is more with trackers than ads anyways, altrough ads that block so much that using the site normally becomes a pain in the ass are the other extend which is sadly also getting more and more common. But sadly most websites and services that let you pay to get rid of ads will still put everything full of trackers…

Also, there are quite some sites that just copy content or or have an AI write content, made to rank high in searches, then is putbfull of adds to make money. Those are automated money-farms, and deserve blockers.

I block everything, ads and trackers alike. Somewhat regularily I’m on the web without and it’s always a great reminder why I normally do use them.

But I also pay for multiple websites and services I use regularily despite them working fine without paying or having “free” alternatives. After all, nothing is free and I rather pay with money than with data. And I also want to be paid for my work, and I can only imagine so do others. So I do agree with you there, and I highly encourage people to pay for stuff.

But I won’t feel bad for blocking that shit, also not on the websites I don’t financially support. Because most of the time they are the ones that made it impossible to use their website privacy-friendly without blocking stuff anyways, even if I’m willing to pay.

I generally drink Zero. If the sugar is the different, could that be why?

Zero taste the same as regular to me but less sweet, but since I rarely drink regular I don’t have the exact taste of that in my mouth.

I can only say Coca Cola taste the same in The Netherlands, Germany, and Vietnam. While I can generally tell quite well when I get a different cola then a Coca Cola one. Based on that there should be some kind of international standard?

I can imagine US being different due to less strict rules around food than EU (much American junkfood is altered in the EU market due to this). But then I’m suprised Vietnam taste the same for that same reason 🤔.

Last time I was on vacation alone I googled the few things I knew I wanted to see/do, and the rest of the time I just went out and see where I end up. Looking where locals go and do that is also a great trick.

My experience is that most easily online findable things are very tourist-y. I preffer to see more of the non-tourist stuff. Knowing a local is then the best, but by lack there off, just go with the flow.

About 5 years ago I had some issues with a GPU driver not working out of the box, but nothing that couldn’t be fixed. That issue was more Nvidia than Manjaro tho, and by now it does work out of the box. Otherwise no, not really.

Manjaro KDE. Easier and more stable than Arch, but still able to use Pacman, the AUR, and Arch documentation (obviously, I don’t use their support channels, but Manjaro forums are helpful with issues). Been running it for years as main OS on all my PCs here.

I also heared that bit about the secret service owning nodes a few years ago. It was trough a teacher that’s also really in the stuff outside of teaching, and has a network of non-teaching proffesionals in the field.

It’s something to keep in mind, at the very least. Tor already has some weaknesses anyways. You shouldn’t trust it blindly just because it’s Tor. If anything, I think it more has a false rep for how strong it is over struggling with a stigma.

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.

Yeah same here. I grew up playing Ruby on an old non-backlit GBASP. Those good old days where i had to hang against thevwindow in the car, playing by only the flashes of the street lights. Having that back in modern technology and some modern tweaks (like XP-share no longer being an item that can be knocked-off and lost forever) and with 3D graphics is great.

Soul Silver is second for me simply for allowing me to have my pokémon walk behind me.

I think ActivityPup isn’t even integrated into Threads yet? On release they said soon, a week later they said it was long-time planning. Haven’t heard about it since.

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.

Fcitx5 for Android has decent Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese. I don’t think it has handwriting tho. Otherwise you have Trime, which is Rime for Android but I’ve never got it to work properly (unlike Rime on Linux which works fine).

I mainly use simplified, so don’t pin me on traditional options. I use Florisboard for English.

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).

Privacy is not a black & white thing. Every step you take matters. And being entirely private without digital footprint is impossible unless you isolate yourself from the internet entirely.

To answer your question. Yes, they spy on you. To what degree depends on the OS and your settings. But they always cost you some privacy.

But it’s never useless to take other steps just because you don’t want to or can’t switch OS. Because you’ll still give them less data if you do. They might still have info on you. But the less, the better.

Taking easier steps like switching mail provider and other services you use to privacy-minded ones are a good and easy start anyone can do. Replacing apps/programs on your system with FOSS or privacy-minded ones is another good one.

Even the biggest noob can make a Proton account and use it instead of Gmail/Outlook. Use 1Password instead of your device/browser’s password manager. Use LibreOffice instead of MS Office. Check F-droid for apps before Google Play (and perhaps even use Aurora when you do need it). Use FireFox instead of Edge or Chrome. Install a FOSS keyboard on your phone. Get rid of Social Media. Use Signal instead of WhatsApp. Those are just some example of easy my-grandpa-can-do-this level of difficulty options that already greatly improve your privacy (in fact, after I installed it for him, my grandpa does many of these!). Is it as private as an extremely hardened custom device by a security expert? Nah, but it’s definitly much beter than a default device full of big-tech apps. Even if you just do 1 of them!

Since every step counts, I think we should apploud people for caring and starting to take steps instead of deminish them for not going in to the max. Changes like this are slow, especially with a big mass of people. The more people show they care, the more privacy-minded alternatives grow and show up and the more normal it becomes to care about privacy.

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.

Well, I also have both atm. Altrough I need to admit my DS Lite is only used as GBA console and for stuff that requires the GBA slot because of weird accesouries (like Guitar Hero On Tour).

I think it’s because of that. I play the old DS games on my new 3DS. And while the games did improve, the games on 3DS still wheren’t that advanced even for most of the time it was alive, since it laster quite long. So it easily feels more “backwards” than "last gen”. I also don’t see as much difference between them as the jump from PS1 to PS2 to PS3. Or the jump from GameBoy to DS serries, and 3DS to Switch for that matter. For the most part, the different DS’ feel more like different models than different consoles.

While the 3DS was released in 2010, the DS is only 6 years younger releasing in 2004. The hardware isn’t thát far apart. And while the last game for the 3DS was released in 2021, that still was made for at that moment 11 year old hardware (and by now 13 year old). And while the size of games may have quadruppeld between the first DS and the last, 4GB games where nothing in 2021. They bassically kept making games with restrictions of old hardware longer, rather than having a huge improvement.

Personally, for me PS2 era and older is retro for sure. There is a clear distinction where many PS3 games share similar feeling with modern games, while my PS2 ones feel from a past time. We also still had things like memory cards, altrough obviously not all consoles in that generation do. Still, I would put generations on one line, as most console games where ports of the same game across consoles of the same generation, so then that’s the last generation with these kinda old ways of storing. PS2’s gen is also the last generation console games where completely different from PC, and in my childhood gaming up to then wasn’t mainstream but a nerd hobby, causing it to have a very different community. With the generation of the PS3, all of that changed to modern standards.

PS3 and DS I’m a bit in dubio about. Whenever I feel bored with modern games, PS3 and my (3)DS are on the list of “old” consoles I grab back to (together with PS2, PS1, and recently GBC/GBA which I’d consider retro for sure). On the other hand, at least half the games released on it are games I still play on my PC as “modern games”. DS is extra hard, as I barely distinct between 3DS as DS in my mind, unless it’s using the GBA port for stuff. After all, I play them on the same console and the transition was quite smooth between the DS models making it not feel like a huge gab, unlike the PS2 to PS3. But at the same time, early DS is much older than late 3DS, which I would consider too new for sure.

Anything after that, modern for sure.

(One of) the biggest tech sites in my country uses “at least two generations old” as definition, making PS3 the last retro generation currently. I like it because it fits my usage, but as said I’m a bit in dubio about actually calling the PS3 retro. It doesn’t feel old fashioned enough. I mean, that would technically make Skyrim retro. But that’s definitly one of those games that are in my “modern gaming” list on PC and Switch…

I can at least personally attest that PS3 is currently the newest gen where people either think you’re awesome for buying it now because they get the fun of old stuff, or stupid because they think the old stuff is crap and only the new is cool. For that reason I would agree to allow it on retro places, as modern gaming places just wouldn’t appriciate it at all while people who are already into older stuff do on a somewhat regular basis. But that doesn’t make it truly retro per se, and it really should take over or be all you use.