After all the personal services I have self-hosted for many years, in the long-run what are my top 5 in terms of usefulness and daily usage? 1. Nextcloud 2. Miniflux 3. Linkding 4. Kimai 5. HomeAssistant Thank you devs and community 🙏 #selfhosting #opensource #nextcloud #miniflux #linkding […]

Hard to think of a platform/app that has billions of users, which does NOT have any "proprietary algorithm" used too help it scale and grab attention nor deliberate lock-in features preventing people easily moving to alternatives. If it's the case that those features go hand-in-hand with large […]

I posted about Kagi News a few weeks ago, when it was in stealth. It has just now been officially announced, along with mobile apps. I have been using this for weeks already and I think it is one of the very few well crafted AI augmented apps I have come across. It does what LLMs do best - […]

Today I spotted a digital sign that is meant to just show a simple grid displaying the latest bus arrival times... but it is running WINDOWS 10. Yikes. #windows #bus #transit #transport

How the normally dreaded "Privacy Policy Update" should be done. ✅ Clear, simple, and dread-free notification email. ✅ Link directly to the applicable markdown file commit, easily allowing a diff between previous versions. ✅ Privacy gets better/clearer […] [Original post on fosstodon.org]

More realistic and holistic take on switching from Windows to Linux. One "lifestyle change" for me was actually instead of finding the perfect "Lightroom alternative" on Linux for hobby photography (tho LR did run OK in a Windows VM), was to just get better at taking photos without the need to […]

In the spiritual and philosophical world, I've come to find the real answers and solutions are in the silence. The teachings or "non-silence" are just tools, not answers or solutions. The tools can help reveal the silence by clarifying the mind, if I use them as tools. Picking up when needed […]

"The grass is greenest where you water it" https://thewokesalaryman.com/2025/09/23/money-escape-society/

This site does considerably better than just asking "Is this the year of the Linux Desktop?". It lists and breaks down the current status of major software support in Linux, so you can decide whether the switch is right for you at the current moment, as well as a guide to help you make an […]

Last night I had the best dinner ever at a fancy restaurant in our home city. We are vegan and gluten-free and the restaurant had plenty of options both. Everything was artfully prepared and delicious. It's been there for over 20 years. None of the vegan sites (Happy Cow etc) promote it, and […]

What is always certain, but totally lacks "thingness"? Pure observation. Awareness. Consciousness. That thou art. Verify for yourself. 🙏 #nondual #spiritual #mindfulness #consciousness

Instructions that came with a third-party ink cartridge for my old HP printer. Until now, I had automatic updates turned on, and HP did indeed push a new firmware update just 2 months ago, for my ~10 year old printer. Here I was, all impressed by HP still […] [Original post on fosstodon.org]

This article describes the "curation effort" in order to stay out of distraction and algorithmic recommendations, as a kind of "tax" on content consumption. For example, maintaining an RSS feed, tweaking settings, using alternative clients. Those seeking meaningful content that actually helps […]

Those of us who seek freedom from distraction, clarity of mind, and personal growth... sadly, we are a minority. And the mainstream Internet today just isn't made for minorities. It's made to monetize the masses and this wont change any time soon. Its somewhat a relief to not worry about […]

This article describes the "curation effort" in order to stay out of distraction and algorithmic recommendations, as a kind of "tax" on content consumption. For example, maintaining an RSS feed, tweaking settings, using alternative clients. Those seeking meaningful content that actually helps […]

Half decent anti-scroll distraction-free news for everyone. Kagi has some of the cleanest and least crappy use of AI I have seen so far. Aside from questionable use of accordion UI for large blocks content, its working fairly well after some customization of the settings - a given for any […]

This is the way 👏 https://leshicodes.github.io/blog/spotify-migration/ #selfhosting #music #spotify

Is this the first significant ethical truly open-source AI model.... or just good marketing? - 70B parameter open weights. - 15T training tokens. - Technical report containing exactly how they trained it and what data they used - truly open source and build-able (?). - Multi-lingual. - […]

Maybe an adjacent category, which is something like monks or certain spiritual teachers who already had a following outside of the Internet, and only use youtube as a convenient upload point for followers to view recordings, along with already having them on their own monastery website or a […]

"All the concepts you have formed in the past must be discarded and replaced by void." – Huangbo Xiyun Daily #zen #buddhism #xiyun #huangboxiyun

That old saying keeps coming up lately, particularly in regards to AI: > "We Shape Our Tools, and Thereafter Our Tools Shape Us" I've been contemplating this lately. Rather than asking "what should I build with my tools?" , I instead first ask "What shape do I want to be?" #spiritual #tools […]

Dunno if its just me, but there was a point some months ago where it looked like AI generated images were becoming more convincing and they would soon be impossible to tell from non-generated images. But then it started going backwards. Extra fingers etc gone, and yet even more obvious than […]

Something I appreciate about #bifl or #buyforlife mentality, is that "shopping" has a certain background anxiety in it which became obvious only after becoming a much calmer person. There is anxiety motivating one to buy products, anxiety motivating one to not buy the product in case of regret […]

Nice write-up about the benefits of switching to a paid search engine (Kagi). I like the "boat tied to a submarine" analogy of a lot of other free software that might seem good at first but is still not user-funded. As a user, I prefer to be the sole funder of the product I use, where possible […]

After over a decade of relying on an old copy of Adobe Lightroom running inside a Windows VM, I finally learned #darktable properly and it was well worth it It's like driving manual vs automatic, there is a learning curve but quickly becomes intuitive and I can feel the power and control After […]

I hardly watch movies but finally got around to enjoying #Flow. It felt very #spiritual and metaphorical, with an artful style and mindful pace. The theme that facing challenge, discomfort and unknown together with others, can help us grow out of our neuroses […] [Original post on fosstodon.org]

What makes a good viral post these days? - Shock people - Sensationalism - Cuteness - Laugh at misfortune - Gossip - Say something polarizing - Say something that allows people to excuse themselves or blame someone/something else for problems - Say something agreeable that people can latch on […]

Reading the The Simile of the Saw in the Buddhist Majjhima Nikāya. Made me realize the mainstream Internet can be an interesting way to practice being unaffected by harsh words, gossip, distraction and other triggers. AND also being equally unaffected by messages I would agree with or overly […]

A fairly dire collection of scientific snippets about the side effects from unchecked use of tech... probably only getting worse now with AI. https://ledger.humanetech.com/ #enshittification #tech #humanetech #socialmedia #bigtech

Interesting insights and predictions from the linked report on AI affecting tech jobs. It's a different and nuanced narrative compared to the usual popularized low-hanging doom and gloom attention seeking articles. https://www.linuxfoundation.org/blog/tech-jobs-redefined-2025/ #ai #jobs #tech

Maybe I am a complete idiot... but I really like walking down some of the newly renovated "solar-punk" streets of my city. I do it often. That seems a lot more like "progress" to me than a fancier smartphone or bunch of shallow AI wow-factor apps. This IS growth, and it's the type of growth I […]

Looking at recent years, I noticed the nature of my suffering change slightly. It's the same old repeating life-problems but I just see them a little differently - often referring to them as still there, but only "short". The fact that they come and they go is more immediately obvious, and I […]

Interestingly Apple added built-in Linux container support to Mac OS. It could soon be at a point where developers only need to write native apps for Linux, and those binaries will run on any desktop/laptop device with built-in support, no matter the OS. It's become an almost opposite […]

Meta and others caught using serious and advanced malware-like backdoors to bypass device permissions, open ports and track sensitive data from BILLIONS of devices. Yet another reason to delete it, it's literal malware. If Google actually cared about your security, they would remove these apps […]

Trying to encompass the full extend of what BIFL means to me ("Buy It For Life"): - Lasts a long time. - Doesn't go obsolete easily. - Simple timeless design and aesthetic that wont feel "dated" easily. - Reliable time-tested construction which doesn't have unforeseen bugs, issues and failures […]

People who share videos, watch videos, and live-stream etc: you want a good alternative to centralized video apps? Don't just complain about Google and Youtube, or the lack of good alternatives. Help FUND the alternative. Help build something better […] [Original post on fosstodon.org]

Since I intentionally curate a fairly drama-free Mastodon feed, I only just learned about some drama surrounding my instance (fosstodon.org), resulting in founders/admins @kev and @mike stepping down. I only vaguely peeked at the reasons... but seems like a drama stereotypical of Mastodon 😆 […]

In the workplace, there are high-trust jobs where a person is given independence and autonomy, or low-trust jobs where a they are monitored and micro-managed. Similarly: Software can be high-trust where it serves the user, source code is visible and the user is trusted to pay the creator for […]

The sooner I took responsibility for my online and software experience, the sooner I got free from the supposed clutches of "big-tech". Sure, they do serve the masses and that's OK. But for the minority discerning user: Block, hide, avoid lock-in, use alternative clients, use open-source and […]

The design of software distribution ("app store") can shape the nature of software itself, much like the design of a social media app shapes the nature of its content. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMSGOVWKn80 #opensource #appstore #FUTO

While I am not a fan of this particular laptop, its nice to see a mainstream brand selling a Windows-free version of their device for a cheaper price since it has no Windows license. Additionally, the Chinese govt offers almost a 20% discount on the cheaper model for choosing "Chinese tech" […]

People only talk about "AI slop" now but it was mostly already "human slop" before that, at least the ad supported stuff. I mean... human slop is what trained the AI in the first place. I still think there is good small-web and community-focused stuff, or donation-supported work, that is worth […]

Given that most big platforms have completely normalized clickbait thumbnails and titles, seeing a more straightforward image or title which is exactly the thing I is actually looking for, is now what stands out.

AI is not the danger. Its humans. For example, tech-heads talk about "AI alignment" from the lens that we must stop it from killing us all. I think in reality it's more about WHO's interest should we align it with? The majority? the rich? the underprivileged? All of the above? A tiny "rich […]