@fgtech I agree. I really need to avoid the big box stores.
@fgtech I agree. I really need to avoid the big box stores.
@Cheri I've been experimenting with Twitter, making it more about my interests and less about personalities. So I'm focusing it more on topics like: archaeology, rail, high speed rail, transportation, new urbanism, etc. Like a custom news feed.
@V_ Maybe not. But I have a fundemental distrust of companies that act like they owe nothing back during the good times, but yet when times get seriously rough (ie. war, global recession, global pandemic, etc.) they all of a sudden, seek safe harbor (and government bailouts) from the country they are headquartered in.
@jayeless @Cheri While it gives me no pleasure that Australia has the same problem, there is some thin comfort to find out that the US is not alone. I think you are right as too the cause as well. A smaller factor might be that neither the US or Australia has a lot of really old man-built stuff like Europe and many parts of Asia has. We are young countries without a lot of built to really really last examples to inspire us: (eg. Roman roads, Great Walls, castles, cathedrals, temples.)
@crossingthethreshold The Kobo reader software isn't quite as polished as Kindle's but it works well and the hardware works great for me.
@pimoore @JohnPhilpin @crossingthethreshold I know nothing about Rakuten but I think they own Kobo. Rakuten/Kobo has some sort of deal with Walmart in the US, and Walmart sells Kobo readers in their stores. At one time, Kobo was very popular in Canada and parts of the EU, but I don't know if that is still true. In the developed world I think Kobo is No. 2 ebook and device retailer to Amazon.
@JohnPhilpin Kindle books are still on Amazon. There may be third party software (Calibre?) that would let me download to a computer and strip DRM and manage my ebook collections, but I very rarely read a fiction book twice so I don't bother.
I have ebooks on 4 services:
I started out with ebooks on Palm Pilot PDM buying ebooks on Fictionwise. (I loved Fictionwise.) Then Barnes & Noble bought Fictionwise but let me transfer my library from Fictionwise to Barnes & Noble. So I have lots of books there.
Amazon Kindle. Lots of books.
I'm sure I have a couple of books with Apple, because I tried them out.
Kobo.
@crossingthethreshold I made the switch to Kobo about 2019 mainly because I was too dependent on Amazon/Kindle. I have to say I've been fairly happy with Kobo and I like that the store is uncluttered. I hope you find the switch good as well.
@arush Congratulations!
@jean DOT is one of my favorite alien invasion/bug eyed monster/nuclear giant critter type movies. My theory is DOT is an experssion of the collective British nightmare of their tidy gardens getting overrun by weeds. :-)
@odd I didn't know that but it makes sense.
@Cheri It's always a Day of the Triffids type scenario in my mind. It could happen with web crawlers too. Looks around
@odd Just "maybe someday" for iOS. They do have a MacOS version.
@Ron I'm glad you found the translator info. One thing I did like about Vivaldi's translator is that they are hosting the translation software on Vivaldi's own servers in Iceland. That's a nice detail that relates to individual privacy since Iceland has very strict data privacy laws.
Vivaldi is getting a lot of press coverage with this update and I can understand why with a list of new features this long. Each feature, gives the user a means to move away from Big Tech services that report your every move, if you want to use them. It's nice to have the option. Plus Vivaldi is free, although I'd pay a reasonable fee for it because I like it that much.
@Ron I like Vivaldi browser a lot and it is what I use every day for years now. I prefer having the tools I need built into the browser as opposed to having to rely on third party extensions because I don't know who has created those extensions.
@jemostrom It does! But no HTML editor. :-( They do let you choose 3 levels of install: Light so it's more like Chrome or Edge, Mainstream and The Full Monty if you want all the features. You can also cherry pick what features you want to have or hide.
@Ron I couldn't find a list of languages supported. They are starting out with 50 - 60 and will add up to 108 languages in the future. Sorry, that's not much help.
@bradenslen Oh, and cool, the new RSS reader in Vivaldi will also handle podcasts and YouTube channels with no promoted content.
@Cheri That could happen! Decades ago I was in a tobacco shop in the UK looking at Havana cigars. When they saw I was an American, they offered to change the bands and box on a box of Cubans so they would look legal and ship them to me in the US. Alas I was a poor college student at the time so doing that was way over my head.
I did buy one Cuban cigar to smoke just to say I'd done it. Cost a fortune, since even in 1980 tobacco in the UK was very expensive.
Bangers: They must make them in the Republic of Ireland so people won't starve. Like we won't have to have a Berlin Airlift of bangers to Belfast, but there might be shortages.
@odd There are a bunch of Stumbleupon replacements listed there that I want to investigate when I get time. Back in the old days Stumbleupon was great fun for finding sites.
@adders I hope things get better for you. I think they will, because demand is building and demand for change is building except we are all on a ship in a dense fog, unable to see and in uncharted waters, so moving dead slow, foghorns sounding and hoping we don't ram something or hit a reef.
I do like your idea to take the time to explore close to home, be it odd parts of the high street or even footpaths unwalked.
@odd That was a good essay. There is a movement of retro webmasters that are encouraging "surfing the web" again. Here is a guide to resources and starting points.
@jean Wow, when you say you are going to move you don't mess around! I hope your new place brings you peace and joy and that the person in the next flat does not take up tuba lessons. :-)
@cambridgeport90 Websites opting out of FloC are not keeping or banning Google from indexing the website, so the web pages within the website will still appear and rank normally within the Google organic listings.
The only thing this does is to tell Google not to include your webpages for sorting people into cohorts for Google's own advertising network purposes.
@johnjohnston I would be in favor of that approach because so many WP webmasters will never hear about the plugins.
The rule here is that everything Google does or proposes is for the net benefit of Google not us. I guess this wouldn't be so bad ifthey didn't have either a monopoly or a duopoly over so much of the Internet. And it's not just the monopoly, it's the slime. :-)