Sorry for being unclear about the way I used “vet” in the title. I can see how that was misleading a little bit. I wanted to hear honest opinions, so if you really like Kagi, I’m happy to hear about it. It’s hard enough to find info right now that we may soon is the opportunity to be picky about our information.

Do you have to be on their patreon? I’ve been hearing everyone talking about this and I find their sudden popularity odd. I found Some More News through Internet Comment Etiquette (best show on YouTube) and SMN struck me as cringy AF even though I generally agree with the presenters. What pulls you to this show? Not really judging, just a little surprised and curious.

The county assessors site for everything state and local. I will briefly check national, but I dont need the pageantry of network television to rile me up anymore than I already am.

That’s Warmbo’s show, right?

This tip worked well in '22-'23 before reddit hit peak enshittification. Agreed on the time. Researching what you are getting is not as easy as it once was.

I never appreciated snapshots until I ran a server. I used to just install a new distro whenever anything significant went wrong. Now I use them everywhere.

I can’t switch from Celsius to Fahrenheit, the switch just reverts. I do think it looks beautiful and has weather stats that I use when I bike but other apps don’t always have (air quality, UV) .

They really shouldn’t be allowed to name anything after a single letter. VW, BMW, ABC, TBS are all bad enough. X conflicts with too many established uses.

I can’t see a problem with fictional characters. It’s when you bring in the real people that the drama starts. Trans JK Rowling, KaMANla Harris, Hillbilly Eilish, and Marjory Taylor Peen all seem like they would raise a few eyebrows.

My German friends and family don’t believe me when I tell them how expensive internet and phone is in the US. They all think it’s expensive in Germany. Having said that, there are some big differences in take home pay.

Agreed. I live on my back patio when it’s warm enough. I’ve gotten called out (not in a bad way) on meetings for my hammock background. ;-)

I want you all to know that I’m happy you’re here, cis het white male frat boy from old wealth with an ivy league education or a neorospicy gay trans Jewish anarcho-communist and everything else out there.

While I won’t judge you on your instance, I will judge you on your ability to be a good neighbor. I’m always glad to see humility, kindness, empathy, comradery, etc. on display.

I’m surprised I didn’t think of the EFF despite donating to them before. Thank you for the links.

This looks really interesting. I try to get stories from varied sources, but don’t particularly want it “curated” for me. I’m going to add this to my rotation.

You got closer than I did. I didn’t mention it in the original post, but I also tried duckduckgo with little luck. I hope to god this is peak enshittification because I can imagine how it gets worse from here.

Yes, I tried Duckduckgo, but also didn’t get great results. Admittedly, I could have revised my terms a few more times, but I’ve had good luck with things Lemmy recommends, and this doesn’t really seem like a niche interest on this site.

Thanks for the recommendation on all the 3 letter agencies. I bet there are mountains of CSPAN coverage out there for me to watch.

I’ll reply without knowing your situation fully. If you don’t have an emergency fund that would cover several months worth of expenses that is probably the single most impactful thing you can do with $10k. A few high yield savings account offer rates around 4%, some of them have strings attached, so read how it works carefully. Think of this as insurance against unforseen expenses that you might otherwise have to put on a card and consequently pay interest for. Pick a number and always make sure you keep that account at that number.

If you already have an emergency fund, you have lots of options. Personally, I am onboard with the folks recommending index funds. I have an ETF that tracks the DOW and it has outperformed most of my individual stocks significantly over time.

Most importantly, strangers on the internet are likely not financial advisors and may not even know what they are doing. Take everything with a grain of salt and if you talk to any investment companies make sure you understand the difference and overlap between a financial advisor and a fiduciary.

As someone who has bought a fair number of smartwatches and fitness trackers and always over-researches every decision I make:

• See the rest of the replies for info on cheap smart watches. They’re basically a cereal box toy.
• Depending on what you need, the MiBand or Amazfit bands had excellent battery life and there used to be 3rd party apps for your phone that did a much better job collecting and displaying your stats than Zepp or MiFit (the official apps) did. I miss my 1.5 month battery life. Its also possible to use gadget bridge so it’s all 100% offline though I understand its still a bit more rudimentary than a corporate cloud-based solution. I remember the bands I got from them running $25-50 USD
• Used Garmin devices or previous gen garmin devices can be had MUCH cheaper than list price on Amazon or so. I picked up a Fenix 6 a few years ago for less than half of the $600 list price. I love the lack of touchscreen because the button navigation is absurdly fast and no mistouches! This suits how I use a watch much better than trying to put a tiny a 2x2cm touchscreen on my wrist. These are fitness watches, but some have a few smart features. Depends on what you plan to use it for I guess.
• If you are a nerd (a good thing) and want to contribute to a cool project, Pine Computers, which makes the pinebook, pinetab, pinephone, etc. makes a device called the pinetime that is basically a smartwatch that is open to the community’s hacks and modifications. I haven’t bought one because my biking depends on my Garmin stats, but I am tempted to grab one to mess with it.

None of these are fancy “smarts first” watches like an Apple Watch or an Android Watch. I found I needed less smarts than I thought as I usually carry my phone at all times anyway. It is nice to have the doorbell ring on my wrist and to reply to texts by choosing from a few pre-written responses while biking, or otherwise unavailable to text. If you really want a bunch of apps and integration with your phones OS, Apple and Android are the big two and its not really feasible to go 3rd party for the same experience.

The change was 95% unnoticed for me. I looked at the session one day and thought “oh yeah, I have been using Wayland”. I don’t mess with many games or AI GPU stuff though, so it may be that more complex use cases result in a worse experience.

I’m out of the loop on the meta despite being active on the platform. What’s the deal with those other two servers? I can see they have strong “personalities”.