For me, this usually happens when I’m looking for a particular book or doing research for one of my YouTube videos.

Case in point: Marginalia Search

I was making a video recently about Google alternatives and this one came up. It’s weird and has an oddly specific use case: it’s great at finding vintage websites, and this can be very useful if you have to repair something that is very old. (Or just need a whole different set of results for some reason, which is easy to achieve when your index is non-commercial.)

This is correct. I was a musical theater performer for decades and grew up in several dance studios, and they’re always equipped with either a one-way mirror in a room where the parents can watch without being disruptive, or cameras.

But after the events of the past two years, we know definitively that the Epstein class is untouchable and entrenched in every detail of society and that every device with a camera or microphone and a wireless connection is spying on us. It would not surprise me to learn that Flock is collating the data received from such places and selling it to pedophiles for their entertainment.

For those that can’t, it’s worth it to go 99% Linux and set up a dual-boot. Also I made a video recently that details some security measures you can take on Windows to help you stay private if anyone’s interested.

I don’t know enough about this topic to have a useful opinion on it, but I love the thought the the US Military has limits and may not be able to make war indefinitely in the way that Donald intends to do in Iran.

I don’t understand the appeal of this crap.

I still have a smart phone that’s 4-5 years old,

Mine is an older model too, thankfully. I never needed the bells and whistles other people are into, which probably helps me stay more secure.

But I also just love that I’m not reaching for my pocket every 30 seconds for another dopamine hit too.

I understand.

It’s a bummer what we have to consider to avoid people snooping, but it’s (at least in my humble opinion), necessary.

A good way to start breaking the habit and only using it when you need it is to just keep it in another area of your home. I keep mine in a bathroom drawer.

At the end of the day, all you can really do is to start treating your phone more like a phone and stop carrying it everywhere and using it for everything.

The convenience of it has made it way too easy for people to spy on you.

Same, Earth.

Same.

Hot blonde from Fox

I’m sure he looked really hard at her resume.

Oh yes. Been seeing fun things on NeoCities.

I dislike that I have to validate everything I use it for, and for most functions, it ends up being exceedingly inconvenient but I’m still expected to use it because MS demands the client use data to train it into being less stupid. It just makes shit up. It gets things wrong. It ignores instructions. It is manipulative. This happens with such regularity that LLM marketers made up a new term so they wouldn’t have to call it buggy. (“Hallucinations”.)

Also hate what an environmental abomination it is and that it’s driving people to suicide.

There are lots of reasons to hate AI. It’s bad product.

Ah, that makes sense. I knew that HD limits downloads based on library policies, just didn’t connect that that was due to higher cost, but that’s important context for what I’m talking about as one of the reasons I recommend some of these services is that using them means you’re using your library. (Very important in a time when libraries are being defunded.)

Thank you for the info. I’ll include that recommendation in my video.

Oh, that’s good to know. How does it compare to Kanopy?

Yup. The hold system is still there.

There is z-library.sk for those moments.

I’ve got it on the list of apps to research for my video. Looks like it’s more documentary/art house type content. Is that fair to say?

Shut up and take my (tax) money.

And still not the hangman’s noose.

Which is what the Sacklers deserve, not to ride off into the sunset on a pile of money.

That’s what regulation is.

Making things inconvenient over and over again so worse things don’t happen, or take significantly longer and require more concerted effort to happen. It’s a good thing. We should make it harder for bad actors to do shitty things.

Pretending something is pointless because it may not be 100% effective is absurd.