Hmmm I’m not sure. I’m not a psychologist yet while reading 2020’s “Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump” I feel like he feel just enough humiliation in his childhood to NEVER want to have that feeling again. He would “win” (huge quotes here because the definition of winning remains entirely up to him) no matter what, in golf, politics, business.
So… he might not feel humiliation anymore but if so I bet it comes from possibly having felt a bit too much of it early on.
I have a Tridactyl rule to rewrite YouTube URL to youtube-local (repository https://github.com/user234683/youtube-local/ ) e.g. https://www.youtube.com/ becomes http://localhost:9999/https://www.youtube.com but as others have suggested, I do my bet to avoid YouTube entirely, because Google is bad, Big Tech is bad.
I mean… detecting (some) VPNs is as trivial as
fetch('https://github.com/NazgulCoder/IPLists/raw/refs/heads/main/output/vpn-ipv4.txt').then( res => res.text() ).then( res => console.log( res.includes( "1.2.3.4" ) ) )
thanks to https://github.com/NazgulCoder/IPLists/
FWIW though I did try, connected via a random VPN from ProtonVPN from Argentina… and it wasn’t in that list. So it’s not perfect. Also ProtonVPN has apparently today 13K servers according to https://protonvpn.com/vpn-servers
That being said I can imagine that Google, which is literally built on crawling the Web, has all the infrastructure and expertise needed to have such lists and up to date ones.
I’m not justifying blocking VPN here, only trying to clarify that unless you self-host in a rather specific setup (i.e. not relying a popular cloud provider but truly self hosting) it’s technically not hard to block VPNs.
Honestly I’d say it doesn’t matter much. What matters is that your data are safe and you can afford a bit of time at first when things are a bit different than what you are used to.
If you have a LOT of time or are very eager to learn, take something strange or not very popular. If you are in rush then start with a distribution that is popular, ideally that a friend, colleague or acquaintance also uses. Think of it as a team exercise.
I personally use Debian but others might prefer Ubuntu or Mint to start with.
But… yes, can be anything, just BACKUP your (and by that I mean data you have produced, e.g. documents, photos, saved games, etc) data then you should feel free to try!
Attaching less weight to the ego is the best thing that can happen to boost learning :D
It hurts confidence initially, especially as you land on your ass, but only until you learn something new and empowering, then get excited again! It’s one of the most enjoyable rollercoaster IMHO.
My mindset totally changed few years ago when I started being honest with myself and with others.
It’s true, I’m in that meme… I don’t know much about Windows anymore. Initially I admit I was ashamed about it because I imagined that I’d be judged for it.
What I did though, instead of trying to be better… was to be honest about it :
One day I even told my friendly neighbors : “Look I could fix your Windows computer but… I’m a professional, and I don’t know Windows so much. So I would have to look solutions up and that will take time while going against my principle, so I would have to charge you for it, and it’s not cheap. Instead, if you switch to Linux I’ll help you, and for free.” Guess what, they not only tried but they didn’t even need my help! They even, back then so few years ago, install WiFi driver via the command line on their own.
So… yes, be in that picture, sure, just don’t be ashamed about it if you believe it’s for good reason. Do not be afraid of explaining others too and who knows, they might not only understand but even want to tag alone on this constant adventure for collective empowerment!
Weird, assuming you have Android 13 it should be usable at least as exFAT and thus can be large enough
Thanks, updating (~20min) accordingly.
FWIW I have a CMF Nothing 1 and I can put a 500Go microSD in it.
important enough to set up yet
FWIW for music LMS is 1 container command including it in the location in real-only of you music directory with all your files, that’s it. So… if you are used to self-hosting (e.g. already have a reverse proxy and container setup) that’s maybe 1h top.
yes, also recommending it
Totally, if you want to read or read / sketch then a reMarkable or PineNote would be much better. They’d consume a lot more energy (relatively speaking) but it’s a different use case.
I have a PaPiRus ePaper eInk e.g. https://media.digikey.com/pdf/Data Sheets/Pi Supply PDFs/PaPiRus_ePaper_Web.pdf and even though I don’t know the watts for a refresh but I assume it’s one of the lowest solution you can use.
PS: FWIW if you don’t refresh the display can keep the information on for months, if not years.
It can be but not to me. To me the point is to test what’s actually feasible and usable. It can be Wikipedia on my HDD but it could also be SO on a microSD or a RPi … or it could be something totally different on another piece of hardware with another piece of storage. It will depend on the context.
So again, sure, having the data itself feels nice but in practice I never really needed it. If tomorrow my HDD would die I would shrug. If tomorrow Kiwix library wouldn’t work anymore, I’d be disappointed but I could rely on .zim file elsewhere, e.g. on torrent trackers.
IMHO the point isn’t files, the point is usable knowledge.
Edit : to be clear this isn’t philosophy, you can see exactly what I mean and even HOW I do it (and even when) with the edits of my public wiki or my git repositories.
Commenting inline :
-rw-r--r-- 1 fabien fabien 103G Jul 6 2024 wikipedia_en_all_maxi_2024-01.zim
# encyclopedia Wikipedia English with images and more
-rw-r--r-- 1 fabien fabien 81G Apr 22 2023 gutenberg_mul_all_2023-04.zim
# Project Gutenberg, book collection in multiple languages
-rw-r--r-- 1 fabien fabien 75G Jul 7 2024 stackoverflow.com_en_all_2023-11.zim
# StackOverflow, programming questions and answers
-rw-r--r-- 1 fabien fabien 74G Mar 10 2024 planet-240304.osm.pbf
# OpenStreetMap low resolution for the whole World
-rw-r--r-- 1 fabien fabien 3.8G Oct 18 06:55 debian-13.1.0-amd64-DVD-1.iso
# Debian base ISO
-rw-r--r-- 1 fabien fabien 2.6G May 7 2023 ifixit_en_all_2023-04.zim
# iFixit colection of guides to fix appliances
-rw-r--r-- 1 fabien fabien 1.6G May 7 2023 developer.mozilla.org_en_all_2023-02.zim
# Web development documentation
-rw-r--r-- 1 fabien fabien 931M May 7 2023 diy.stackexchange.com_en_all_2023-03.zim
# Do It Yourself Q&A
-rw-r--r-- 1 fabien fabien 808M Jun 5 2023 wikivoyage_en_all_maxi_2023-05.zim
# WikiVoyage, the version of Wikipedia for traveling
-rw-r--r-- 1 fabien fabien 296M Apr 30 2023 raspberrypi.stackexchange.com_en_all_2022-11.zim
# Raspberry Pi Q&A
-rw-r--r-- 1 fabien fabien 131M May 7 2023 rapsberry_pi_docs_2023-01.zim
# Rasspberry Pi documentation
-rw-r--r-- 1 fabien fabien 100M May 7 2023 100r-off-the-grid_en_2022-06.zim
# Off the grid documents
-rw-r--r-- 1 fabien fabien 61M May 7 2023 quantumcomputing.stackexchange.com_en_all_2022-11.zim
# Quantum computer Q&A
-rw-r--r-- 1 fabien fabien 45M May 7 2023 computergraphics.stackexchange.com_en_all_2022-11.zim
# Computer graphics Q&A
-rw-r--r-- 1 fabien fabien 37M May 7 2023 wordnet_en_all_2023-04.zim
# Graph of words in English
-rw-r--r-- 1 fabien fabien 23M Jul 17 2023 kiwix-tools_linux-armv6-3.5.0-1.tar.gz
# Kiwix to read .zim files
-rw-r--r-- 1 fabien fabien 16M Oct 6 21:32 be-stib-gtfs.zip
# public transport database in Brussels, Belgium
-rw-r--r-- 1 fabien fabien 3.8M Oct 6 21:32 be-sncb-gtfs.zip
# train transport database in Belgium
-rw-r--r-- 1 fabien fabien 2.3M May 7 2023 termux_en_all_maxi_2022-12.zim
# Termux, Linux tooling on Android, documentation in English
-rw-r--r-- 1 fabien fabien 1.9M May 7 2023 kiwix-firefox_3.8.0.xpi
# Kiwix Web Extension for the Firefox browser
Thanks but even though it’s on a plugged HDD I don’t even care for any of that data. What I mean is that none of that data is sensitive. It might be useful, potentially, but it’s not unique. What I mean is that if somehow my .zim file for Wikipedia was corrupted I could download it again from https://library.kiwix.org/#lang=eng&category=wikipedia or elsewhere in ~30min (just checked).
What I’m trying to highlight here is more the process than the actual outcome.
TL;DR: yes, if one is actually serious about just getting and storing, they should verify periodically if the data is indeed fine. What I do want to highlight though is to first know how to do it at all. Anyway, you are right that for a proper solution on the long run one must understand how (cold) storage actually works. My heuristic is that it’s like can food (which I don’t use much), it might last a while, but not forever.
2W for a RPi Zero with data on a microSD
FWIW :
fabien@debian2080ti:/media/fabien/slowdisk$ ls -lhS offline_prep/
total 341G
-rw-r--r-- 1 fabien fabien 103G Jul 6 2024 wikipedia_en_all_maxi_2024-01.zim
-rw-r--r-- 1 fabien fabien 81G Apr 22 2023 gutenberg_mul_all_2023-04.zim
-rw-r--r-- 1 fabien fabien 75G Jul 7 2024 stackoverflow.com_en_all_2023-11.zim
-rw-r--r-- 1 fabien fabien 74G Mar 10 2024 planet-240304.osm.pbf
-rw-r--r-- 1 fabien fabien 3.8G Oct 18 06:55 debian-13.1.0-amd64-DVD-1.iso
-rw-r--r-- 1 fabien fabien 2.6G May 7 2023 ifixit_en_all_2023-04.zim
-rw-r--r-- 1 fabien fabien 1.6G May 7 2023 developer.mozilla.org_en_all_2023-02.zim
-rw-r--r-- 1 fabien fabien 931M May 7 2023 diy.stackexchange.com_en_all_2023-03.zim
-rw-r--r-- 1 fabien fabien 808M Jun 5 2023 wikivoyage_en_all_maxi_2023-05.zim
-rw-r--r-- 1 fabien fabien 296M Apr 30 2023 raspberrypi.stackexchange.com_en_all_2022-11.zim
-rw-r--r-- 1 fabien fabien 131M May 7 2023 rapsberry_pi_docs_2023-01.zim
-rw-r--r-- 1 fabien fabien 100M May 7 2023 100r-off-the-grid_en_2022-06.zim
-rw-r--r-- 1 fabien fabien 61M May 7 2023 quantumcomputing.stackexchange.com_en_all_2022-11.zim
-rw-r--r-- 1 fabien fabien 45M May 7 2023 computergraphics.stackexchange.com_en_all_2022-11.zim
-rw-r--r-- 1 fabien fabien 37M May 7 2023 wordnet_en_all_2023-04.zim
-rw-r--r-- 1 fabien fabien 23M Jul 17 2023 kiwix-tools_linux-armv6-3.5.0-1.tar.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 fabien fabien 16M Oct 6 21:32 be-stib-gtfs.zip
-rw-r--r-- 1 fabien fabien 3.8M Oct 6 21:32 be-sncb-gtfs.zip
-rw-r--r-- 1 fabien fabien 2.3M May 7 2023 termux_en_all_maxi_2022-12.zim
-rw-r--r-- 1 fabien fabien 1.9M May 7 2023 kiwix-firefox_3.8.0.xpi
but if you want the easier version just get Kiwix on whatever device in front of you right now (yes, even mobile phone assuming you have the space) then get whatever content you need.
If need a bit of help I recorded TechSovereignty at home, episode 11 - Offline Wikipedia, Kiwix and checksums with a friend just 3 weeks ago.
I also wrote randomly update https://fabien.benetou.fr/Content/Vademecum and coded https://git.benetou.fr/utopiah/offline-octopus but tbh KDE-Connect is much better now.
The point though is having such a repository takes minutes. If you don’t have the space, buy a 512Go microSD for 50EUR then put that on, stuff it in a drawer then move on. If you want to every 3 months or whenever you feel like it, updated it.
TL;DR: takes longer to write such a meme than actually do it.
OS vendor is in cahoots with hardware manufacturers
That’s pretty much the strategy since Microsoft has been established. It’s not very creative, it’s not even legal, so it’s impressive (in a bad way) that they manage to keep on making it work.
Thanks. It’d nice to provide the location, lat/lon or OpenStreetMap link.
This kind of posts typically hint at how manipulable we all are… and it’s true, but what they omit is the cost.
Readying a random meme and getting “pwned” by it typically gets you a good laugh. Sharing your bank details over the phone does not. So… what this kind of stuff does rather show how rational most of us are, namely we don’t mind getting played if we have fun doing it.