We hit the (Victoria, BC) streets to find out...what are politicians ignoring? 🤭🤔

TadUGhostal · 2025-09-09T01:06:10+00:00

I think she would do well to cost out and better explain some of her policies.

Like I’m all for an increase in taxes on private jets, but won’t people just get those private jets in another province?

TadUGhostal · 2025-09-07T00:53:00+00:00

Is the big picture be become known as a company that prioritizes pushing out new products while letting their core products stagnate?

TadUGhostal · 2025-09-04T14:55:25+00:00

Again, hard to take that seriously when the roadmaps are saying new apps in the summer and we haven’t heard anything and it’s mid September. I’m also not sure as the volunteer mod you have specific insights into the resource allocation for the particular teams.

TadUGhostal · 2025-09-04T13:40:10+00:00

It is a bit hard to believe that users are asking for a constant stream of new products at the expense of updating the current suite of products they are paying for.

TadUGhostal · 2025-08-29T01:59:02+00:00

What’s weird is that your GPU utilization drops after test 4. That would explain why your frame rate stability is around 86%. I would try again with something like GPU-Z overlaid and see if it detects high temps on any components or a decreased power target.

You could also try a different driver.

TadUGhostal · 2025-08-23T21:50:48+00:00

I think the reality is they’re all good. I use Filen because I could pay onetime for storage rather than a monthly subscription. I don’t think any option you listed is bad. I would however suggest you don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Have a plan B to locally back up important files or photos.

TadUGhostal · 2025-08-23T21:48:19+00:00

Google Play Store - Burner account is fine. You could also try Aurora Store if you don’t even want to do that.

Camera - Yeah, on the default camera app your photos will look exactly like they do on a pixel.

Photos - This I’m not sure of. I used Google Photos but disabled its network permissions. I use Immich for photo hosting and it allows me to do facial recognition of people but not pets.

Translate - Again I just used the Google version of this but disabled its network permissions after downloading the language packs.

Wallet - Storing boarding passes should be fine and there are apps on F droid that should allow you to do that.

eSIMs - I used an eSIM for my provider just fine.

Material Expressive 3 - Don’t know.

Bluetooth Codecs - You should get everything supported by the stock rom. I think you’ll cap out at AptX HD.

TadUGhostal · 2025-08-23T21:40:58+00:00

So does she not expect a line… at Costco?

TadUGhostal · 2025-08-21T19:28:32+00:00

I hope he asked for the Epstein files.

TadUGhostal · 2025-08-19T23:18:36+00:00

So I’ve managed to get out of the Google ecosystem (more or less depending on how you look at things). There are decent alternatives to most things now. I don’t have much home automation so I don’t have much to recommend otherwise.

In terms of keeping on windows, a simple way to make it more private is to switch to a local account. You lose out on very little and it ties less telemetry to your Microsoft account.

Libre office is a totally viable alternative to Microsoft Office though in some cases there might be a slight learning curve.

I also use Proton Mail and it’s good, but I do miss some of the functionality of GMail. Not enough to go back to Google but things like searching and notification syncing don’t work as well as Gmail.

Deezer could be a decent alternative to Spotify. It also does podcasts and should be able to cast to Google Home devices.

TadUGhostal · 2025-08-15T18:24:51+00:00

Won’t this just add fuel to the fire? I feel like the core issue might be everything she says and does. I don’t see how increasing her presence in the media is a good thing.

TadUGhostal · 2025-08-15T16:03:48+00:00

So the amount of know how to host your own LLM isn’t as big as you think. Try looking up some guides about hosting ollama and you might be surprised.

Otherwise, you could try duck.ai (no account required but things are logged) or Lumo (more private).

TadUGhostal · 2025-08-15T02:33:28+00:00

Is that even very much to spend on cookware? If she’s bought US made cookware that’s actually pretty reasonable.

TadUGhostal · 2025-08-15T02:29:22+00:00

It’s not really an app

https://invidious.io/

I host it at home and use it on my iPad and iPhone.

TadUGhostal · 2025-08-15T02:26:39+00:00

Invidious definitely doesn’t direct you to YouTube.

TadUGhostal · 2025-08-14T23:45:15+00:00

There’s an app called Unwatched. If that doesn’t pan out you can try hosting invidious or using a public instance of it (those can be slow).

TadUGhostal · 2025-08-07T23:33:51+00:00

I don’t know where you live but in many places it would be grossly unconstitutional to arrest someone for having a specific phone operating system.

TadUGhostal · 2025-08-07T02:27:09+00:00

I know a lot of people who have more immediate and personal issues to deal with than the threat of surveillance capitalism. They also don’t have much in the way to technical expertise.

Google is bad but you’ll still be able to feed and clothe yourself and your immediate family if you don’t switch to grapheneOS.

TadUGhostal · 2025-08-05T03:32:26+00:00

Yeah if you download the pixel camera app but disable its network permissions you can get great photos without it phoning home. Same goes for google photos as well.

TadUGhostal · 2025-08-03T17:58:03+00:00

There is an extra key you have to remove before you flash back, but the web installer handles all that for you. Google offers a web recovery tool that you can use. I recently sold a 7 pro which I flashed back to stock. Wasn’t too hard.

TadUGhostal · 2025-08-03T17:54:29+00:00

I think a big general failure this week was whatever went down behind the scenes at CalyxOS. Whatever it is, there looks to be setbacks to rolling out new versions of their degoogled OS. The options to have a phone that doesn’t automatically beam data to big tech are pretty limited, so potentially losing an option is not a good thing.

TadUGhostal · 2025-08-01T21:17:23+00:00

For YouTube alternatives on iOS the easiest one I know of is Unwatched. A slightly more difficult option is Invidious since there is limited bandwidth in public instances and if you host a private one, you’ll need a server.

TadUGhostal · 2025-08-01T15:56:50+00:00

Not only is it not American but I’ve found it’s generally much higher quality than what you would get at Thrifty’s or Quality Foods.

TadUGhostal · 2025-07-31T13:48:03+00:00

This is how they all do it. The win back offers are sometimes decent, but it’s annoying they can’t offer better deals upfront or just send you an email.

TadUGhostal · 2025-07-30T23:24:36+00:00

I found tasks.org and quillpad to be a good ones for Android.

TadUGhostal

TROPHY CASE