Welcome to Incremental Social! Learn more about this project here!
Check out lemmyverse to find more communities to join from here!

qyron

@qyron@sopuli.xyz

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

qyron ,

I should consider having one of these made to hang on my door.

qyron ,

Ouch!

qyron , (edited )

Okay.

Now that we already know we are pretty much at the hands of one pupeteer, what options are there?

I already read about Kagi (apologies if mispelled) but I like to write as a hobby and 300 searches per month go fast.

What other options are there?

Edit:

For those who may be arriving now:

  • Kagi seems to be a good option for an alternative search engine; it is a paid service, for which I don't have the €€€ right now. Many speak very well about it.
  • SearXNG is a thing as well, to my understanding a decentralized search system. Worth the try, in my opinion. If it's something that is decentralized, it is worthy to support and divulge.
  • There is mojeek.com, supposedly not very good but any option that goes against the monopoly is worth the try! I'm going to try this one.
  • Brave.com is an option but is a bit shady.
  • You should try Ecosia if you want to support reforestation efforts. Read somewhere in the thread it is part of the Bing ecosystem.
  • Yep is a thing as well. Somewhere in the thread, a lemmy points they use the search results for AI trainning. So... That is that.
  • And it seems there is a search engine by the name of dogpile.com.
  • Startpage is another search engine (portal?) suggested by another user. I've used it before and like it. Read somewhere it somehow piped a standard google search but removed tracking and ads.
  • and I just remembered Presearch.com. This is a really shady one (crypto warning!) that I suspect is a fork/collab with Brave Browser. I've used it, they have reward-per-search reward system (or had) where they give you crypto for every search. Good results, some that don't come up neither on DDG nor Google.

p.p.s
Should I start categorizing these from "shady" to "worthy"?

p.p.s 2
Does anyone remember StumbleUpon? I know it was never a search engine to begin with but it was the best source of good internet content I ever got acquainted to.

Can we get something like that back?

qyron ,

That was one of the most out of the blue comments I have ever read. It sounded so... unreal. Something out of a sitcom. Then I read "sugartits" is the name of the lemmy you were replying to. That's was really top mark. Kudos for you.

qyron ,

Read somewhere on the thread Ecosia is part of Bing ecosystem.

qyron ,

It's a hobby as it is.

If I ever manage to sell enough copies of it to be able to pay for a Kagi subscription, I'll do it and make it public knowledge.

qyron ,

You're welcome.

qyron ,

You can't know everything.

qyron ,

Hate requires too much emotional investment. What I want is options.

qyron ,

Done!

qyron ,

Today, I was the 1% getting to know something new.

qyron ,

I agree with you by principle but there are those who have no interest in ever having a house of their own, either by personal or professional reasons.

Maintaining a house entails expenses, from current maintenance, to taxes and the eventual full overhaul because someone decided to trash the place.

I don't want to see people exploited to have a roof over their head and I'm a hairs width away from starting to actively trolling stupid people that think their busted places are gold plated to ask fortunes. But I don't want to see people be deprived of what is theirs and/or see it trashed by others that consider because they are there just for a limited time frame any concern for consequences is out the window.

Where are you writing from? Tenants have pretty strong protections where I live and an eviction is not a trivial matter here. And if people actually knew how to read, the law is pretty explicit on what is licit, both for tenants and owners (the word "landlord" sounds too much like feudalism to me to use it). Rent prices are high here but a poorly kept place can backfire so badly to the owners that they can see the rent not being paid in place of having work done on the house by the tenants.

qyron ,

A landlord-tenant relationship isn't the only way to solve this, though. A more humane way would be housing coops.

Co-ops? How do those work? I've known co-ops for building purposes, not for renting.

The primary purpose of rent isn't maintenance, though; it's profit. The concept of making profit by mere ownership is even called "rent-seeking".

Wasn't aware such concept existed.

Well, I'm deprived of 30% of my wages. Why does my landlord need two houses, anyway?

I'm deprived of my income through various means as well and don't like it but I have to trade my money for other things I require to live. Hopefully, we can shed this system but I risk with a good amount of certainty I won't be alive to see it.

Why can't you own more than one house? Let's state, for the purpose of the argument, you inherit a house. You already have one. Do you sell the other? For what reason? And for what price?

Wow, what a classist statement.

This is a self appointed criticism. I had to read the law to explain it to others and it is not hard to understand.

Not everyone has the time/ability/resources to take advantage of laws protecting the tenants (guess who usually has more resources for lawyers; it's the one with more capital).

Again, I speak based on my reality; this applies to my country. A quick search on the internet gave me pointers to which articles to read and then it was just a question of time (think of two bathroom breaks for a relaxing #2) to read and relate law with specific questions.

Also, you ignore the inherent power dynamics. My current landlord demands more rent than what is actually legal where I live. I didn't bring it up, because if I did, I would have risked having to look for a different appartment.

There are no legal limits in my country; if one part asks and the other accepts, it's legitimate. What exists is the notion of fair rental values, which are established by the government.

It fits the congept of a feudal society quite nicely, though.

Does not imply I have to like and abide the use of the word.

I wonder how much of the concept of tenants "trashing" the place is actually occuring. It seems to me like the occurence is highly exaggerated.

It's a hard thing to gauge. I've seen my share of houses completely destroyed by occupants: destroyed kitchens, bathrooms, walls covered in filth, tobbacco smoke and whatever it may have been, besides other damage.

On one, I helped the person move out and I was horrified. On others, I helped cleaning.

qyron ,

I have municipal housing in my town. Rent is, at most, 15€. That is affordable even for the poorest of the poor.

qyron ,

I'm already left leaning. You don't need to preach to the choir.

qyron ,

Oh, regardless the latest onslaught of right-wing screwballs let loose, my country is very much left leaning. I'm safe on that front.

And the last time we had to deal with right wingers, we used force and settled the problem in a day.

We're famed for spending our time sleeping but when we do wake up, things get messy. Fast.

qyron ,

I'm against wage slavery in any form.

I work for a salary, like anyone else. The same way I like to earn my money, others do as well. Do I earn enough to live? Yes. Could I earn more? Yes. Are salaries too low for a decent living? Most. But that sentence as been reduced to a non sequitur and I won't engage it beyond this.

Just because you're pessimistic, doesn't mean we should stop criticising currently occurring injustice.

Allow me my pragmatism; a deep systemic change to completely upturn the current operating societal norms would only be achieveable through a massive uprising, which would probably lead to serious conflict. I prefer to never see it but make my best efforts to foment change for others to enjoy it.

Because I don't need more than one house for shelter. The other house could enter a usufruct property relation with the community. The accumulation of generational capital is one of the main drivers of economic injustice in the world.

I'm starting to get a sinking feeling. You have two houses. You decide to start a family. You have a child, maybe two. Each child gets one. Where is the generational wealth? At best, you give the next generation an easier entry into adulthood. Is that wrong?

Let's ignore the fact that you can't make that statement for every juristiction and that not every country has as good tenant protections as yours. Doubling down on the classism, are we? The whole power imbalance is unjust (the whole "justice" system is).

I am pretty confident I was speaking from my own experience, which implies it may or may not be transferable.

Then you have a problem with accurate descriptions. That's your problem, though.

Which you seem to be giving more value than it is worth.

Yeah, sure. I'm guessing: selection bias.

What do you need to know? That I worked with a moving company and was inside dozens of houses, in order to make my statement more "valid"? Or that family of mine worked as house cleaners and the things they saw should never be writen?

qyron ,

Portugal

qyron ,

Lived, no. Went there a few times and have coworkers that grew up there and their parents still live there.

The housing was purpose built to house a wave of immigrants that returned to the country in the 70's. It was built with money from a state-funded development initiative to foment building of new houses in the very early 80's, by the municipality, and was overhauled to add external insulation and improved windows somewhere between two or three years ago.

The rents are reviewed yearly by the city hall. On average, rents are around €10. Central government does not interfere.

But homeless people can't be forced to live there. We have had cases in our country where homeless people were housed and simply left some time after. Where I live, to my knowledge, there has been no such cases.

We also have a program - nation wide in this case - where extremely vulnerable people can resort to our Social Security to get aid in finding housing. I know a few cases of single mothers, elderly and even entire families being housed, with the rent being assured by social services, either by directly sourcing a house and paying the rent or providing the monetary support for the people to find one by themselves.

Lately, these programs have even started to relocate these cases inside the country to move population from high density urbam areas, more problematic usually, to low density areas. This creates a flow of people and money to less populated areas.

qyron ,

The removable battery is achievable by moving to Europe.

qyron ,

Nobody is discussion the level on convinience for it, here

qyron ,

Come again! We act all Mondays and Fridays!

qyron ,

Stronk. The joke is "stronk".

qyron ,

Explore, Expand, Exploit and Exterminate.

Learn the terminology, Nate.

qyron ,

This thread gets crazier the deeper I read. And depth is the crux of this meme.

qyron ,

I understand the joke but let's be honest an admit we do not know.

Hottest summer in my life was in 2007, being so hot and humid it felt like breathing inside a sauna.

I can objectively see weather patterns changing, which implies the underlying climate is changing as a whole, but objectively speaking, up until now, 2024 has been a proper year, with real seasons, rain, cold and snow where it belongs.

So, I call this on the over estimate.

qyron ,

And somehow I doubt we share the same understanding of the expression being used and have the same view over the use of sarcasm when conducting polite conversation.

qyron ,

Nice one. You managed to use a non sequitur, a personal note, attached to a sentence where a concrete statement is made, to undermine my comment.

Isn't that what is called a red herring?

qyron ,

Sadly for me, my app doesn't parse me through cross linked comments. But I appreciate the effort.

qyron ,

I wasn't aware we are at a show. Audience? Where?

But let's end this exchange while we're on a good note and let's agree none of us denies climate change, which I haven't.

qyron ,

Best zombie horror story I ever read had a female lead. The kind of woman that would casually strip the pants off a corpse after putting it into permanent rest to make pads and be completely non chalant about it.

qyron ,

The Huntress or something like that.

qyron ,

Sounds awfully like 2 AIs talking at each other

qyron ,

Oh, for f sake!

Have an upvote and get out! Go to horny jail!

qyron ,

I've been using this brand for some time now and the phones are well made. The option to go strong into the rugged segment payed off. But this is way over the top.

qyron ,

Explore this brand a bit, then.

I specifically bought one 4 years ago to have something that could withstand existing in an industrial environment (dust, oil, hard surfaces) and for €150 it still lasts today.

Parts are easy to find as well.

qyron ,

"This program is really expensive and I keep having to buy a new computer every two years because it gets so slow."

You're being fucked with, when there are alternatives out there.

But that is none of my business.

qyron ,

Can I share an episode?

We're a Window$ free house; Linux is the daily driver on every single computer we have.

I have school age children. They have IT classes. I set up a machine with Mint, clean install, to serve has the school workhorse. Not one task assigned at school can not be done in the Linux box. My child came home a few worried a few times because the teacher disliked having a linux box in the room.

What happens is the teacher is terrified has they cannot load a single piece of software on that machine, as they do with all the other students, at will. The notion of explaining to all the other students they need to go to some site to download some program while my child just needs to fetch it (or already has it pre installed) from a secure repository is baffling. The knowledge that that humble and rather older machine can not be trivialy tampered with is mind disturbing.

At some point the teacher explained how to maintain the system (clean temp files and random junk Windows collects over time by just having programs installed and removed) and looked at my child and chidded that was something she could not do.

I taught my kid how to do basic system maintenance. Through the console. Like a boss. They upgraded the system while they colleagues were "busy" hunting down temp files.

qyron ,

What if - and this is a BIG if - this person was actually telling the truth?

Let's imagine that JC Sandals decided it was time to come back to Earth and take a look around. No intervention, no preaching, no nothing. Just sight seeing and talking to random people.

So JC is somewhere in the US (it is a predominently christian country), travelling the land, hitch hiking to get to places.

Then one day this person just sees this figure walking along the side of the road - long hair, big fuzzy beard, sun bleached Converse All Stars, ratty jeans, a loose t-shirt (perhaps an old, baggy one, with the Master of Puppets stampet on the front) and lets add a beat up military style jacket and a scuffed backpack to finish the look.

So we have our trucker see this figure and outn of nothing he decides to stop and give him a lift. They go through the motions - "hey, wanna a lift? where are ya headin'? / "that would be nice" "I don't really care, I'm just going about for myself" - JC hops onto the big rig and off they go.

After the initial uncomfortable minutes they eventually strike up a conversation, just small talk at first - where they have been, where they are going, the road - and at some point our trucker just lets out he feels alone when doing those long hauls but the good book always gives him strenght to carry on and protects him and helps him go back home safely. And he's sincere in his words. JC just listens and nods.

At some point, JC questions our beloved trucker what is his favorite passage or verse on the whole book and our friend happily replies and there is true engagement in the conversation. JC shares some insights and remarks our trucker never considered about the book, some perhaps absolutely against his beliefs, which somewhat aggravates our pour soul trucker. Untill at some point he just can't stand it anymore and falls silent. He wants, needs, to get rid of this strange hitch hiker, and his strange demeanor.

So our trucker announces he's going to stop to refuel and if that destination is good for his passenger. And JC replies it's just fine. And then of the blue, JC stares at our poor trucker and says.

"I can see your a good man, so I'm going to take care of that for you."

And our trucker miraculously sees the fuel gauge pump up. Now he's scared. There is something with this man. His throat closes, his heart races.

"Can you pull up here, please? Right here."

And our trucker watches as his hands steer the truck to the side of the road, pulls up and puts it into neutral. JC thanks the poor man, about to crap his pants, opens the door and he is just about to get off the truck:

"You have your bible on hand? Nevermind that, I'll give you mine."

Then out of his side pocket, JC pulls out THE BOOK, this huge full size copy, smiles at the trucker, pulls the cover to the side, signs it, as we see on the picture, with the dedication and throws it onto the passenger seat.

"Nobody will ever believe you."

JC lets out a laugh and throws the door shut.

And nobody believes.

qyron ,

Been using Fdroid to the point where my first boot into a new phone is:

Open chrome > download fdroid > open settings > uninstall/disable every single application I can > open fdroid > install all the relevant apps I require for making my phone useful

I'm just waiting for a small life upgrade in order to be able to support some app developers; it will be money better spent than using the standard google apps.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • incremental_games
  • meta
  • All magazines
    •