So, going from Mealie’s instructions, having to learn how to work with Docker, whatever underlying server you’re working with, and a database system is easy 2-5 minutes?

Such as?

A large part of it is the obnoxious monetization and general enshittification and privacy violations, but that’s not all. There are a number of usability annoyances. If I’ve been away from Discord for a little while and try to continue where I left off in a thread on a server, it never properly preserves where I last stopped reading. There are often times when I get notifications but it won’t actually take me to the relevant message, and that can even result in situations where the ping just gets lost entirely.

Then there’s things inherent in Discord’s design and how people use it. It’s become a tool that people have decided is a convenient replacement for chats, wikis, and forums - but it’s a shittier version of all of those things. Pinned messages are such a tucked away and half-baked feature. The fact that people are using Discord both to organize and discuss projects - as well as using that same space to host documentation or other critical knowledge-bases has made information significantly less accessible. I don’t want to join someone’s niche club just to “learn more.” If I want to read something I would rather just go to a wiki on the actual open web.

Discord is hot garbage ultimately for the same reasons as Facebook. It’s trying to be everything to everyone, and dropping a black box on the open web by doing so. It’s just another example of people trading convenience for actually using the appropriate tools for the kind of job they’re trying to do.

How so?

Isn’t everything a pain to selfhost?

Sometimes, but my point is you don’t have to start from scratch. It’s free software. You are allowed to make extensions or even fork it.

Sure, go for it. Though XMPP has so many features at this point, it might already have Matrix, irc, Discord, and email for all we know. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

We really need to stop abandoning existing foss projects and thinking a whole new thing needs to be invented. Free and open-source software is not a product, it doesn’t abide by the same rules and relationships that proprietary tech does.

It’s more organic. It’s also a commons that we can continue to draw on, and reshape. If I recall correctly, there were something like three different vector graphic editors from the same codebase before Inkscape managed to be the one that gained traction.

Matrix isn’t perfect, but abandoning it just to reinvent it all over again just because some people really need a thing that works like Discord, even though Discord is absolute hot garbage; is just going to re-create all the same problems. Matrix today is better than it was two years ago. And Matrix in a year will be better from now.

The problem is they’re making it suck more, by piling their usual proprietary shitware on top of it.

I would love to have a good pair of ar glasses to play games on my Steam Deck with. Connect a controller, and not have to hold up the heavy Deck itself.

But given Apple’s propensity for walled gardens and lock-in, and Meta putting manipulative spyware into everything they make, these hypothetical glasses won’t be coming from either of those companies.

I guess that would beg the question, how much is it worth to you pay extra to not have additional spyware in your home? Or as others have said in this thread, there is at least one brand of television that still sells dumb tvs.

Simple solution I use: Fuck television sets, get a computer monitor and basic speakers instead. A display should do only one thing and do it well.

Pinta has become my favorite image editing tool. Every other one I feel like I have to fight with in order to do anything (looking at you Gimp), but Pinta is so easy and intuitive it’s a joy to use.

I mean yeah, I just said above that someone almost killed me. They were probably a human driver. But that’s a “might happen, never know.” If self driving cars are rear-ending people, that’s an inherent artifact of it’s programming, even though it’s not intentionally programmed to do that.

So it’s like, things were already bad. I already do not feel safe doing any biking anymore. But as self driving cars become more prevalent, that threat upgrades to a kind of defacto, “Oh, these vast stretches of land are places where only cars and trucks are allowed. Everything else is roadkill waiting to happen.”

I imagine bicyclists must be æffected as well if they’re on the road (as we should be, technically). As somebody who has already been literally inches away from being rear-ended, this makes me never want to bike in the US again.

Time to go to Netherlands.

If you’re going to be regurgitating animal ag astroturfing propaganda, I hope they’re at least paying you. It’d be really embarrassing if you’re just simping for fascist funders for free. Anyway, Cowspiracy is a whole documentary debunking regenerative cattle ranching, in addition to plenty of other sources. The whole thing is just a nonsense nonstarter, and anyone arguing otherwise is right up there with climate deniers and anti-vaccers.

I am at a weird-feeling place at the moment. I got too comfortable buying things from Amazon, so my brain doesn’t know how to shop now. But I canceled my Prime soon after the inauguration, and I’m thinking I need to delete my account all together to kind of force myself to start working on using alternatives.

Maybe you use a better projector than I did one time, but in my experience they are a recipe for massive headaches and pretty much the worst eye strain.

I have a Steam Deck, Miyoo Mini Plus, and Retroid Pocket 5. Even though the Deck gets cumbersome, it’s still what I use 99% of the time. One of the best game devices I’ve ever had.