Unfortunately, we always seem to think that switching the service or curating the feed differently works to alleviate that completely. I guess it feels that way for a while, but looking on from the outside, I can’t see much change. You’re still spending hours in the same space that frightened and stressed you for years and continues to. No matter what big platform you turn to, your brain still recognizes the feed, the numbers, the danger of comments, the fear of getting dragged. Your heart drops when you see too many notifications or a DM. You’re still always in position, anticipating the next asshole to come along. You’re frightened. You have no trust. Someone’s criticism about a thing is always, somehow, vaguely a dig at you and your worth to you.
I successfully replaced the battery of my old low-end daily driver phone. Unlike the previous aftermarket ones, this seems to have a functional BMS (battery management system), so all sensors work as expected. Even being low-end, it still runs fine on latest Android version as of writing. Here’s to another 3+ years of usage at least.
I am reading a lot of blog/personal sites these days. I like it so very much. One post I enjoyed is the one below. I can’t believe how these LLMs are rampant everywhere now, and the effects are becoming worse every time.
So there’s a lot of anecdotal evidence floating around that using ChatGPT essentially trains people out of thinking for themselves, and now there’s more and more scientific evidence coming in that says the same thing. If you turn to ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and so on every time you run into a problem that you can’t immediately solve by yourself, pretty soon you will have lost the ability to do so in the first place.
I have a habit of tinkering too much with my devices, whether changing operating systems frequently, or compiling one myself. I do enjoy doing it but, I am at a point where don’t learn anything new and I am just doing it mindlessly. I can easily change operating systems because I don’t rely heavily on applications on mobile and I use few software on my PC. I have a dedicated drive for my data for both desktop/laptop and mobile so nothing really will be lost easily. Nothing’s holding me back.
Those who are familiar with distro-hopping and flashing custom ROMs can relate to this. It’s fun. I just don’t know why I haven’t outgrew it still, and it’s been around a decade as well since I started.
So for one last time (famous last words?), I did setup all my devices from scratch and leave it as minimal as possible and will ride with it for a long time without modifying the operating systems. This will help myself dedicate a lot of time on other things I am putting off for a while. This seems like a cold turkey, but I will stand by it.
I actually like how minimalist stock GNOME looks. I don’t modify anything and leave everything as is. Tinkering with a tiling window manager is out the window.
In the case of smartphones, I currently have a lot of old units from 2017. I’ve been messing with them a lot with custom ROMs and other things. The community development scene is still active for these old devices and can still boot the latest Android version. But right now, I picked one to stick around to. I really don’t do much with phones aside from basic stuff and try to avoid using it to browse the web.
Goodluck to myself, now do those other things you’ve been meaning to do.
Over half of all humankind uses an Android smartphone. Google does not own your phone. You own your phone. You have the right to decide who to trust, and where you can get your software from.
I’m glad to see some initiatives being brought open with this, such as keepandroidopen.org. Although alternative mobile operating systems exists, but with the domination of iOS and Android—especially for the required banking and government apps—make it hard to daily drive such systems. Using two phones, one with stock ROM and one with custom ROM without Gapps, is a solution, but it can be a chore.
Won’t let a world gone mad ever bring me down
Gave everything I had to turn it back around
Cause our time’s worth something bigger than both you and me
I can’t live my life always backing down
I gotta do this right, then they can’t make a sound
Cause I’m not here for nothing, least I can say
I stand for something
You and me, we stand for something
— All Signs Point To Lauderdale by A Day To Remember
In July 1925, on the island of Helgoland, Werner Heisenberg made a breakthrough that gave rise to modern quantum theory. A century later, physicists are still exploring what it truly means.