Libb

• MullvadVPN, and a free and privacy respecting OS is another good idea.
• So is using privacy respecting apps: LibreOffice instead of MS Office, Codium instead of VSCode. And so on, with many FLOSS alternatives to the usual proprietary ones.
• Services also matter, imho: I'm using ProtonMail for my email (Tuta would be another clever choice, imho, and there are probably others). I've very recently switched from iCloud to filen.io for my cloud storage needs.
• Using one's phone as little as possible. I've almost nothing on mine, I mean only stuff I'm required to have (banking and IDs, stuff like that), no email, no social, not even music or games (the game I enjoy the most play I also I enjoy it the most when I play it offline: chess ;))

And then... I also started using analog tools much more in the last two years. This helps a lot maintaining one's privacy. Amazon can't track my reading habits when I read a printed book (even less if I do not buy it from them), Goofle cant'" track my writings when I use pen and paper instead of their apps, Apple (or Google or Microsoft) can't track my paper agenda or my paper notebook. And the NSA or whomever is playing that role in my country can't ask any corporation to install backdoors in my IRL encounters with people so they could spy on me. At least, they cannot do that for now ;)

What was a time that two adversaries had such different objectives...

Then, would they be adversaries in any meaningful way? I mean, fighting against someone means both must be competing for the... same objective, resources, whatever. If they aren't they aren't competing.

That's not a bad idea, thx!

Yep. Like I said, videos are great and legit. They just can't replace a book, like today's trend seems to be.

Even as far as using an how-to go. Like everybody else I enjoy watching someone doing it while explaining how/why they do it. But I would also rather use a text file when I need to quickly find any specific step of said how-to than using the limited playing control video is giving us. It's no wonder YT added chapters to videos in order to make the situation somewhat better: chapters are just text ;)

• Lemmy, wanting to believe more people will come here from reddit, like I did ;)
• Discord, for the few online courses I'm following that offer Discord salons.
• I have a mastodon account but almost never think about using it.
• I quit Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,... and have not looked back. I miss them as much as I would miss, say, being spat on in the face by strangers in the street.

/me dutifully write this down.

Never tried that, thx for the suggestion.

What are ways to minimize that besides not using Google?

1. Do less online, and more offline?

My journal is paper-based and so are most of the stuff I write, my agenda is paper-based (ok, they still can track the agenda of the people I have appointments with :p), my sketches are seldom shared online, the few photos I value are printed and not stored online. Most people I interact with, I meet them IRL.

2. And what you do online, do it using less or even better none of the gafam products and services?

I mean, they want our data. Why make it easy for them to get that while also giving them money to do it?

After 35+ years being their customer, I'm slowly but definitely switching from Apple to Linux. Not because Apple sells bad products (they're great working tools, I used to earn a decent living working with Mac and iOS) but because I don't want anything to do with them and their greed (making unfixable/unrepairable device on purpose) and their overarching ability and self-entitlement to destroy every ounce of privacy we once took for granted, as citizens of free and democratic countries.

Even GNU/Linux, I'm starting to wonder if it's not just a stopgap for me as I really do not agree with the 'moralization' of everything that I see happening in FLOSS. Freedom as I define it means people should be allowed to think and speak freely, no matter how much I disagree with them, their ideas and even their fundamental values.

Edit: That may not be much but here is a few of the things I have changed (beside re-using analog a lot more)

• My main computer is now running GNU/Linux. I keep a Mac for a few specifc tasks and because I don't wnat to throw it away.
• I do not use iCloud anymore (and certainly not Google Drive), and I switched to a small German cloud company (Filen.io). It offers less features, but it's fully encrypted and secure and don't track me (check my last blog post if you want to read my reasoning for picking them and not some of the many alternatives),
• I use Proton Mail (I keep my Gmail activa as a trash email, though and only for as long as I will need to transfer all my accounts elsewhere).
• I use LibreOffice instead of MS Office.
• Also, I quit most subscriptions services. Instead, I will donate to FLOSS alternatives even though I often get less features in exchange for my money... I get way more privacy (and freedom).
• The only one I have a hard time leaving is YT: most creators I enjoy are there, not elsewhere.
• Also, I started reading printed books instead of ebooks (here again, feel free to check my blog to see why and how it's going ;)

edit: clarifications and some details.

Yep, I drink tea (I already was) and decaffeinated coffee. For the most part, I drink good old water.

I learned to ignore it to some extend

That must not have been an easy thing to do, and I feel for you knowing how omnipresent coffee is. Heck, I had my first coffee I was not 9 year-old. I remember it vividly, it was a large and thick cup (to my kid eyes at least) half filled with black coffee (not the tinted water many people erroneously call 'coffee'), without milk but with sugar, way too many. I liked it, probably because of the too many sugar in it, and I never quit drinking coffee for 50 years or so, up until very recently and only because my doctor told me so.

As for the smell, obviously I would not compare it to poop like you did but I reckon there is one thing they may both remotely share, very remotely though, a kind of 'earthy' smell?

I call them Satan’s dick because of how inedible they are and how they ruin anything they’re mixed in.

:)

What seemingly random thing do you vehemently hate?

Hate is a strong word, with or without vehemency.

There are things I despise (most media, social or traditional, being an example of), there are things I don't like (bananas), stuff and behaviours I disagree with (certainties and personal opinions used as indisputable truth, violence), and then there are people I dislike, some deeply (like... nope, I won't name anyone) but I'd rather not hate. Not anymore, like I may have hated when I was younger.

Hate helps no one solve any issue, helps no one in becoming a better person. It certainly does not help me, quite the opposite.

My spouse and I have been living for the last 25 years in a small apartment in a big city. It's 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom, 1 living room + kitchen and a couple closets. I reckon the whole surface of our place would barely qualify as enough for a 'master bedroom' to the average US menage but we're not Americans so we don't care ;)

We're not poor (we're not rich, either). We simply have chosen to live like that. Learning to make with the little space we live in. Exactly like we have chosen a couple decades ago to not own a car (and to not take the plane) anymore. We want to try to reduce the amount of waste we generate and reduce our 'ecological footprint' on this planet.

Trying here being the important word: we do our best but there are obviously many things we could do better and a few we probably can't improve much upon (like, I have lifelong health issues that require regular medical care and surgery, which means a lot of waste are being created just to keep me alive a little longer but, nope, I don't feel like ending myself sooner would be a good idea, not even to spare the planet some waste, sorry ;)