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.

I haven't seen that myself but I have a number of instances blocked, so from a filtering perspective I assume nothing and accept I don't know.

That said, regardless of platform the Nazis are out in force and will be for as long as it takes for it to be shameful again.

Make Nazis the Bad Guys Again. Ffs, it isn't a hard question, Nazi = bad, we already knew this, we should not have to relearn this.

Come on over to the open source free software world. Things are exciting and shiny and new while also working better every day. My most recent install of EndeavourOS took about 20 minutes with all drivers and boot stuff working correctly first try, as opposed to the multiple hour installs of 15 years ago. CalyxOS is awesome and has some really cool isolation between apps, not to mention ad blocking. And free hardware is becoming a real option with the newer RISCV stuff coming to market, allowing many more SOC designs to flourish.

I have been in to tech for about 25 years and it has never been cooler than right now with Valve bringing immutable Arch as a base for their OS and making proton work so well that I don't even check before trying things.

Also, man, some of the stuff coming out of the 3D printing works is just amazing. There is a guy who I follow who is working on solid state propulsion, another is working on 3D printed rocket engines, and another working on prosthetics. Cool things are still happening, just not on Windows or Mac.

I'm reminded of an article talking about an outage at Yahoo! back when they were huge. It turned out the whole outage came down to one person messing up. The manager was asked how they let the person go and they said "Whatever the cost of that outage we just spent it on training, that person will never make that mistake again, nor will they allow someone else to make it".

If you have mods trying to manage things and they make a mistake you don't axe them, you discuss the situation and work in good policy for going forward. This one case is costly to the community, but nowhere near as costly as losing someone with this experience.

As for the vegan diet for cats issue, in general people who do vegan diets for kids and animals run a high risk of causing harm. Is it possible to do correctly? Maybe. Is it likely that an individual who is not trained in that field will manage it? No. But should it be investigated? Sure, but o my with experiments that actually do teach us something, no wasted studies of 3 weeks on a diet and checking blood tests, or comparing vegan kibble to omnivore kibble. Still, the same issues plague human dietetics and we don't have the answers there either, so yeah, maybe we should all chill a little and work together rather than identifying with one side of the argument and vilifying the other.

To be clear, it is not a hush money trial. It is an election interference trial. Hush money is not actually criminal in and if itself, the fact that it was used in relation to influencing an election is what makes it a crime. It is election interference.

UBI will cycle in the bottom of the economy.

When you give a rich person more money they buy assets and increase their wealth, it does not impact their spending activity and has no measurable impact on economic activity.

When you give a middle income person more money they buy something new or pay down debts. Buying something new stimulates economic activity, but paying down debts is really just another wealth transfer to the banks which are owned by rich people.

When you give money to low income people they spend it. They have unmet needs and always have something they can spend that money on. That money then generates economic activity.

Increasing economic activity is what all of the interest rate and inflation talk is about. If you get people spending money that generates activity which increases wages, increases income, and decreases wealth inequality.

A good example is during the GFC the Australian government gave low income people $750AUD, about $350USD. The prime minister asked people to spend this money rather than save it. People bought a bunch of things, in the people I knew it was mostly TVs and new clothes, things you can put off for ages but benefit from whenever you buy them. All of this purchasing stimulated the economy, leading to Australia being less impacted than almost any other G7 nation. We recovered very quickly and boomed from there.

If you want a more long term example look at any welfare. If you have extremely poor people they just die. They are underfed, have weak immune systems, and they face imminent death. They can't access housing so they end up on the street. They have tonnes of inteactions with police and end up in the criminal justice system. They end up having their lives ruined and being purely a drain economically. They suffer.

If you give them enough money to have housing and food they are not going to be as costly to manage. They won't require policing, they won't get sick as often, and they will suffer less. Will this increase the competition for the lowest cost housing? Yes, but the answer to that is to build more housing. Even with the impact to housing cost this will not result in 100% of that payment going to landlords. People don't pay their whole income for rent, they will buy food and other needs first, so if they are faced with too high a rent cost they will remain unhoused but at least tbey will eat.

I'm not an American so I'm not invested in the same way, but if you don't want Biden because of his actions with respect to the Gaza genocide can I ask about your thought process regarding what happens if he does not get in? If he loses the only possible winner is Trump because he is the Republican nominie, so is a vote not for Biden basically a vote for Trump? Or do you see it some other way?

Actual direct conspiracy is usually not necessary to achieve the outcomes of most nefarious things people worry about. Two rich people which both want to protect their own wealth can look at each other and their respective actions and then take next steps working to protect their wealth without ever talking to each other and get basically the same outcomes as if they had coordinated. Shared interests and a reasonable understanding of the likely outcomes of choices can be almost as good as direct conspiracy.

If you flip the mouse over you should see a circular piece of plastic. Rotate this and it should be able to pop out, at which point the ball will also fall out. Inside you will see a pair of rollers and a wheel, all of which may have gunk on them. Clean off the gunk and make sure they spin properly. Replace the ball, the circular plastic, and then rotate the plastic to lock the mechanism.

They have a device which progressively shines a light on a piece of paper while moving across the page and converts the brightness of the reflected light into an audio signal. Once it reaches the edge the paper is incremented and the process repeats. Each of these segments of sound are sent via a standard telephone connection to a similar device on the other end which uses the sounds to reproduce the image on the original paper on a new sheet of paper. This can be used to send forms, letters, black and white pictures, and even chain letters. It also forms the basic underpinning of a significant fraction of formal communications with landlords, employers, medical systems, government offices, and so on.