@QasimRashid Is being white a symptom of mental disease or defect?

@aral And, when they're detained by ICEholes they'll whine, "I didn't know it was THAT bad!" Trust us, it's THAT bad. You might as well take a vacay in Gaza.

@brian_greenberg Now might be a good time for Dems and other lib orgs to ditch Zoom, Gmail and other corp surveillance systems for open source systems that offer paid support and training. BTW, even though I've been using Proton for 5 years, each time I communicate with a Gmail acct, goggles can scan and mine my mail. In order to kill this, Dems need to focus.

@Natasha_Jay This is seriously fun and funny!

@bascule Gorgeous photo, both technically and compositionally. Did you make this? If so, congratulations. If not, any idea of the 'tog?

@futurebird Veteran ICEholes are the ones (poorly) training the recruits. The recruits still haven't gotten used to their newfound power and freedom to kill at will. Just give them a few weeks.

@fkamiah17 This is touching. I can't imagine any of the VA employees who treat me being gunned down for exercising their 1A rights. RIP.

@thevhswizard I'm not exactly enamored of it either but, as one guy trying to shovel shit against the tide, it was the best I could do on short notice. If you know of better, easier sources, I'm all ears. Thanks.

@privacyguides

@privacyguides If you can afford one, buy a burner phone with cash and never have both it and your regular phone near each other while powered on. Here's a blog post that covers this.
https://www.mysite-myopinions.com/2026/01/29/avoid-cellphone-tracking-by-iceholes/

@androcat To the end-user, a runaround is a runaround, regardless of how it came to be. For me, with some level of understanding, I'd prefer a quick answer I can "fine tune" vs a slow answer that may still flawed.

@i47i

@androcat My take is biased by my level of understanding. I classify myself as "knows enough to be dangerous." The run around is about the same as one gets from clueless/powerless human support staff. I tried to get a refund from a human, it was a circle jerk of the first order.

@i47i

@androcat The "hate" could be a strong aversion to not knowing how and where their data are used. At least, that's why I look askance at anything MS or any other multi-billion dollar companies.

@i47i

@i47i I should have known there are AI chatbots for these sorts of "lookup" tasks. A system that can assist from simple newbie questions to more advanced users would be very helpful. The Linux world needs to better market these AI support systems. For example Linux Mint could "push" regular tips to users. I spent nearly 40 years in high tech from Radio Shack TRS-80 to huge VAX 11/780 systems but the current tech baffles me in many ways. Thanks to you and androcat for the tips.

@androcat

@i47i Technically, it's very possible but, in reality, most people don't have the intestinal fortitude to figure things out on their own without hand-holding. I've been on Linux Mint for about 3 years and still have some things on Win10 because trying to learn even minor programming is a PITA at this point in my life. Even when tools are available, eg GIMP for Affinity Photo or LibreOffice instead of MSO. converting existing systems, documents and files is often challenging.