SpillsHerCoffee

Cat stuck.

I am now giving myself no more than 5 minutes per day on each of 3 social media apps. This might be just the right approach for me.

Two dandelion seeds about to fly away from the primary poof.

Dandelion

I havent looked too deeply into Brave. I'm paying for SurfShark so I use their extension, along with DuckDuckGo as my browser, which-I believe- blocks tracking, but I had to manually opt out. It's been a huge messy soup trying to change every dang thing I use for "the internet". And my brain hurts.

Still waiting for you to present me with any alternatives rather than just plying my feed with articles about how bad Proton is.

A. I don't "promote" anything. I simply noted changes I have made. I have almost zero following.
B. Your choice of words is highly inflammatory and does not promote discussion in any helpful way.
C. These issues with Proton are new to me, so I learned something.

No need to troll.

I finally get a random "social" interaction on my bluesky and it's from a troll! A leftist troll, sure, but a troll just the same. Remember folx, trolls come in all shapes and sizes and politcal persuasions!

Thank you for this reminder.

8 hours and 6 minutes until the Severence finale!

Nothing like facing an elimination diet that not only vastly reduces options but requires me to eat or prepare absolutely everything from fresh, unprocessed ingredients while I suffer a severe executive function block and intense aversion to cooking and meal prep. #histamineintolerance

Also... I dislike the mention or placement of references to Dump Truck or his friends on my feed. I'm not here to argue and have no tolerance for nastiness. If you have something more constructive to respond with, I'm listening. Otherwise, you will be blocked.

Pretty sure Proton isn't giving money to them, but merely stating one piece of the puzzle. I am independent... not really a Dem. Everything is volatile and subject to leaning ways I don't agree with. But Proton does remain, however, very committed to data privacy, unlike some others. Suggestions?

Leaning into Discord and Substack for online social and community. (Still haven't figured out Pixelfed or Mastadon.) Just started using Signal for texting/video chat.

Leaning heavily into Hoopla and my libraries.

I am slowly moving away from the digital "norms".
Replacing: Gmail with Proton, MS Office with LibreOffice, Chrome with Opera, Google with DuckDuckGo. Using SurfShark as a VPN and antivirus along with Incogni to remove data from brokers. Using hard drives instead of the cloud.

And so much more.

Real things (many of) you can do:

Cancel Amazon Prime and STOP USING AMAZON.

Opt out of ALL data tracking and remove as many permissions as possible.

Delete your Facebook.

Stop spending money on stuff you don't actually "need".

Shop small and local.

Use cash as much as possible.

I have been spending MANY hour divesting myself from as many of the Big Corps as possible. Canceling this, deleting that. But it's not as simple as cutting a thread. Maintain control and ownership of my VAST digital photo library and remove it from the cloud... is A LOT OF WORK.

Do we need more cat content, maybe? Is that what the peoples want? Shhhhh. He just woke up from a nap beneath the snuggly blanket.

It has occurred to me that I have zero ideas how most social media works, but turns out -for me- it's not really all that "social". Particularly here in the void of Bluesky. Alas.

Not my wheelhouse.

It might be the soundtrack. Or the fact that it's not really at all about the military and a lot more about humanity.

I don't really know, but... same.

Frozen ball of dew dropping from a blade of grass covered in frost

Early morning frosted dew drops.

Ice. Water. Light. Movement.
#slowmotion #watermovement #ice #watermeditation

Wee red astronaut Lego minifigure on a wee iceberg flating out into Lake Michigan towards larger chunks of shelf ice.

Adventure! Wee Lego astronaut floats out to sea upon the ice.

Use this full moon eclipse to do some shedding that will help in your digital security and privacy.

Do some digital dusting.

Go through every single app. Log out and delete the ones you don’t need. Tighten up permissions on the ones you want to keep.

Audit those apps.

I enjoyed a warm and bittersweet morning of saying my goodbyes to the vestigial beach ice at Indiana Dunes State Park Beach.

I enjoyed the full moon as it rose the dark was setting in, and again this morning as the moon was setting and the sun was rising. My body needs sleep and rest when I can get it. Eclipse or no eclipse. Grateful to those who are sharing their photos and observations.

The list of how and why to boycott or delete or refuse or stop is longer than I can track. But I believe in doing the best I can to do what I can.

Changing how we shop, eat, work, entertain ourselves, and just exist in the world right now is vitally important for those of us who are able. But it takes work and sacrifice and it sucks. But I'm doing my small part where I can. Leaving the Googleplex is going to be the most difficult.

The process of making changes to and decluttering my digital environment has been a full time job. Going the extra miles to fight the oligarchical and fascist technocrats is not easy, nor is reformatting my entire way of "being" online. It is something I am "privileged" to be able to do.