LibsEatPoop [any]

You raise very valid points. Those are absolutely concerns I might have too if I actually believed in a god - am I following all the rules, am I good enough to get the good ending etc etc. It’s good to not have illusions that a higher authority will take care of the problems of this world and actually work to fix it ourselves.

And in moments of hope, when things are improving, it seems we as humans are succeeding in that. But looking at the world now, those moments seem fewer and fewer. It gets harder to keep working on improving, or even thinking that we can improve.

But I don’t want to just say injustice is natural and bad things will always happen and cannot be stopped. Individually, yeah - there will always be people who do things that are not good. But on a societal scale? A better world is possible. In this aspect, having a belief in a higher authority, one you believe will be “good” and “just” can help centre you and give you hope. I guess, spiritual rather than actually religious. But I can’t even believe in that.

The legislation, House Bill 500, would allow employers to stop offering their workers “reasonable” lunch and rest breaks, mandatory under current Kentucky law, and end the requirement that employees who work seven days in a row receive overtime pay… According to the Kentucky Lantern, the bill also “(prevents) employers from being punished for not paying minimum wage or overtime pay when an employee is traveling to and from a workplace.”

Kentucky has been in the spotlight recently for other pieces of legislation scaling back worker protections, including one bill passed by the House removing working hour restrictions for 16- and 17-year-olds, which Pratt said would get children “off the couch [and] quit playing Nintendo games.”… It is also the state where, in May 2023, U.S. Department of Labor investigators discovered two 10-year-old workers operating dangerous cooking equipment while working late shifts at a McDonald’s.

The bill passed a Republican-led House committee Wednesday in a party-line vote and now moves to a vote by the full chamber.

When I was younger, I became a “rational” and “atheist” type - I have to thank my parents for that. They were the scientific but spiritual type and allowed me to come to my own conclusions, rather than forcing religion down my throat. I’m glad, too. Because when I met religious people later on, I was able to look at the absurdity of it all and brush it off.

But now I’m older, and I sometimes wish this weren’t the case. I truly wish I could believe in a soul or a heaven/hell or reincarnation or any other form of higher being than us. I get it. I get why people do. The world is ruled by evil people who do terrible, evil things and this belief in a higher authority where they will one day be judged, and all the innocents who suffer will finally have peace… it’s the only way to cope with it.

I don’t believe in a soul, but I wish I did.

Yeah, thankfully.

In a memo sent to employees Mozilla says it wants to bring “trustworthy AI into Firefox”. To help it do this sooner it’s merging its Pocket, content, and AI/Ml teams.

Eww.

I’ll need to switch browsers soon. I do not want AI crap.

Edit - There is also the reduction in their privacy services (VPN, Relay etc.). This could be the start of a trend in that direction too. Only time will tell.

That is disappointing to hear, but good to know. I think I’ve heard about Joplin’s sync being not-very-good earlier too. On the other hand, I’ve heard similar things (and you mentioned it too) with regards to Obsidian, but I personally haven’t encountered any yet.

On organization, is there a limit to sorting files into folders (is that what is meant by notebooks)? I prefer that over tags in any case. On features, if the options were between Notesnook and Obsidian, it does have upsides. Obsidian has the community plugins, but I only use a handful and it seems a few of them are built-in already in Notesnook. And it is cheaper, of course. The downside is it is a much smaller company (with two main devs as far as I can see?) which means if something happens, future updates would depend on the community.

And Cryptee also offers a lot of features for a lower price (its github is very scarce tbh). Notesnook still looks like a good choice, though.

I’m currently on Obsidian, but looking to change to an open-source alternative. I am a heavy note-taker but have no need for Obsidian’s “knowledge base” like features.

Glad to see you recommend Notesnook! The free tier looks very good by itself. Sync, unlimited notes, offline, rich text. Do you mind answering what “limited organisation” means? What are the other downsides of the free tier? The paid plan is definitely cheaper than Obsidian, but there are cheaper open-source alternatives I’m also looking at (each with downsides of course).

One I know is Joplin which, similar to Obsidian, requires payment of Syncing. It’s Basic plan (all I would need) is a third cheaper than Notesnook, while the Pro is more expensive. Then there is Cryptee which I could also use for free for a long time, or pay similar to Joplin. Notesnook is cheaper than Standard Notes though!

For the email, you can use an email alias service like Addy or SimpleLogin. They’re both open-source and offer free tiers. I never give out my real email to anyone now except actual contacts.

After that, I think a VPN would probably still work to disguise what you’re doing from Walmart, but I’m not a 100% certain on that so I won’t link any.

But yeah, definitely use email alias wherever you can.

I use the firefox web browser app because I refuse to download more apps. I have the ones I have. I’m not getting more.

There are a few manufacturers you can look at. Other than Framework and System76, which you already know of, there’s Tuxedo, Starlabs, Slimbook etc.

Other than that, The Linux Experiment is my go-to channel for Linux-related news. He has a playlist for Linux hardware. You can find some good reviews for different products in there.

Specifically, the reviews for the Tuxedo Stellaris 17 and System76 Pangolin might be of interest. Both have AMD.