Good points. Yes, I do prefer to give an instance at least the benefit of the doubt. Difference tho really with Fediverse is you have to search and follow stuff to see it. It does not get inserted into your feed through ads or people playing the algorithms. So generally I’m only seeing what I follow. I suppose we do need to choose our instances wisely. Certainly, if an instance (not just a user on it) is really spamming or impacting on other instances, I suppose there can be grounds to block it. But we have not all been spammed yet by Threads. I don’t like Threads (cancelled all my accounts years ago) but I left a few good friends and family there that I would like to reconnect with, and follow them. I also like that my metadata stays on the Fediverse side, so I don’t need a Threads account or their app tracking me.

I just would not like to be denied the option to even reconnect with my family and friends. Same goes for WhatsApp interoperating on Signal protocol - I have many friends and colleagues I left behind on WhatsApp, and would like to reconnect again with them.

Especially when any individual can decide themselves to block Threads or Lemmy.

I agree 100%. I don’t need someone else overriding my existing right to decide whether I want to block or not (where is that going to stop). Anyway, I connect and follow individuals, not their whole instance. I’m not going to see anything from Threads unless I choose to follow someone. And if any friend reboosts stuff I don’t like (from Threads or anywhere else) I block that “friend”.

341 Mbps down, 144 Mbps up at about $65pm in South Africa (advertised 300/150).

I’ve been using the Proton Mail Bridge for a while, which allows Betterbird and Thunderbird (amongst others) to securely work with Proton Mail.

Shouldn’t be necessary, as Google accounts have a setting for notifying addresses you provide after 3 months of no activity - https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3036546?hl=en. The account deletion was for accounts not accessed for two years, and I think it excluded those with YouTube video channels.

About 3 months back I cancelled Netflix (after being in it for many years) and moved to free Tubi.

My morning always starts with a mixed bowl of:

• Diced paypaya
• Diced seedless grapes
• Slices of banana
• 3 or 4 heaped tablespoons double-cream plain youghurt
• Cocoa powder to flavour
• Some powdered almond nuts

Three fruits are part of my morning breakfast, along with Double Fat Plain Yoghurt, and powdered almonds and some plain cocoa powder.

Yep good advice, some services have no investment value loss e.g. short term insurance, life insurance, etc. You can switch elsewhere for a cheaper rate and lose nothing.

Unless you have a family or dependants, I’d cut out life insurance and focus on the essentials for now to recover. I also learn long ago to pay my credit card off every month to not have to pay interest on it…

Each quirky hobby mentioned here, deserves its own Lemmy community!

And I forgot about those one-liner replies with something semi controversial, without any sort of backing. In the few places where I’ve managed my own community groups, I made it a rule that you can disagree, but then have to back it up with some reference. That made it super easy to get rid of trolls, and supported better debate as it forced people to fact-check a bit.

Actually, you are quite lucky with SDR, as there are many such stations on the Internet where you can tune in locally at that location and listen as if you are there. I operate one for listening to our local ham radio frequencies on VHF at https://openwebrx.gadgeteerza.co.za. But mine is very simple compared to some of the more complex one’s available.

I certainly notice it as I post a lot across networks. I always have a title with my content explaining what’s what. There are so many times I have to reply to a commenter, saying “yes, that was what I mentioned in the post”. Clearly, way too many just dive in and comment on a title without even bothering to read the post content. It’s not that the content is pages long, it is usually maybe 3 or 4 paragraphs.

It’s no wonder so much misinformation takes hold, as few take the time to critically comprehend what they’re reading.

I think it is partly just fast scrolling and laziness to actually read the point being made. But then you may ask, why bother commenting at all then…

“Be careful what you wish for”

–Aesop–

Credit card everywhere in South Africa for me - firstly safer, but I also settle it in full monthly so avoid bank costs and interest, and I get a lot of benefits back like 35% off fruit & veg, 75% off fitness devices annually, etc.

I do yes as I also have a channel that I do videos for (my only income as I fund my own website without ads or 3rd party trackers). I do make my videos’ ads skippable though. And yes my own browser blocks ads.

But the pleasantness, or lack thereof, comes down to a site’s rules and moderation. The vast majority of people don’t want to be aggravated, and they also don’t really want to pay to use a website.

But scammers and clickbait are everywhere. I think a lot depends on whether they can game the algorithm to force their way into your home feed or not. Many news media sites also use clickbait, and the same goes for politicians wanting to get attention through fear and anger. But I agree very often clickbait crosses the line - it is really irritating when you see a thumbnail of something, and that image literally appears nowhere inside the content.

I mostly follow technology channels though.

That’s a wide open topic, but for self-hosted I use FreshRSS with Full Text RSS coupled to it to get the full text of feeds. For desktop, I like cross-platform open-source Fluent Reader (just did a video about it today in fact) - again because it pulls in full text and can still sync reading progress across devices through multiple services inc FreshRSS, Nextcloud, and others.

The “popular vote” is also not a perfect system. When there are a majority of rural voters in area, and those voters are poorly educated, they come up with some interesting choices of town mayors, who then have no clue how to actually run a town council and provide services (not inside the US but just saying, no political system seems to be perfect).

Eggs are pretty nutritious actually (as long as not too many, like many other things) and yes they contain some cholesterol, but a body with zero cholesterol is a dead body. The brain needs cholesterol to survive. It’s all about moderation, as the dieticians love to say.