Kenny
Platform Engineer | Privacy Advocate | FOSS Enthusiast
📍 Sydney, Australia
💬 Signal/Threema
I provide commentary on social issues that mostly relate to digital technology. A follow is not indicative of endorsement.
- I haven't posted here in a while and, truthfully, that's partly because I didn't appreciate logging in one day to see a bunch of age verification nonsense. In Australia, Bluesky is not mandated to do anything but, yet, they did. No drastic actions for now but I probably won't post much anymore.
- I managed to get "Reverse Scroller" set up to reverse the scroll input for my locked down MacBook. It's still insanity that I need a third-party app to do this but at least it's done now. 😌
- I went searching for my next yearly mobile plan. Again, there's nothing for minimalists like myself. In the last year, I used 12GB of data and that's with more impulse browsing than usual. The cheapest plan I can find is ~$150. PAYG plans are impractical as the cheapest one I found is $51 per GB.
- It's been almost two weeks with me trying to adjust to scrolling in reverse to what I'm used to. I hate it because whenever I switch to my non-Apple machines, I then have to re-train myself again. Thinking about just abandoning using a mouse.
- Got a mouse to use with MacOS and forgot that you can't have separate "natural scrolling" settings for trackpad and mouse. I want to throw this whole setup in the bin now. No, I can't use a utility to fix it. This machine is locked down.
- I joined a tech interest group today. Most of the participants were 70+. Surprisingly, they were quite informed on a lot of topics. Despite mistakenly claiming that Facebook and Google are owned by the same company, one ~80 year old said his social group shies away from FB due to privacy concerns!
- Call me slow but I just found out that #AppleEarPods have a USB-C variant. I grabbed one immediately due to its reasonable price and I'm already convinced that it'll be my go-to for voice calls on Android as well as for as for voice chats when gaming on my #SteamDeck. Such a great product!
- A friend linked an Instagram post with no context whatsoever that I ignored. The next time I saw them, they mentioned a restaurant that apparently they'd messaged me about. I had to kindly tell them that I can't view Instagram posts because Meta makes you log in...
- Just switched my default browser search engine to noai.duckduckgo.com. This isn't an anti-AI move. I'm just trying to be mindful of the additional compute being used all the time.
- @ente.io is a media management tool that I've been using for 2 months now. I love that I can organise and share (with others) my photos and videos knowing that everything is private. The price is affordable and I can see myself using for many years to come. 🤞 This post was not sponsored. 😅
- As someone who's dabbled a fair amount in self-hosting, photo management is really something I don't think I want to spend the energy managing. Ente is actually self-hostable if I change my mind. 😀
- Reposted by Kenny
[This post could not be retrieved] - TIL about what3words. I quite like the concept but it's proprietary and the company behind it will take legal action against you down for stepping outside their ecosystem making it a nonstarter for me; not to mention that their app doesn't work on my phone without installing more proprietary crap.
- I found this government dataset on Telstra Wi-Fi payphones. You can export the data as GPX and import it into an app like @comaps.app. Super cool! data.wpcouncils.nsw.gov.au/explore/data...
- The elevation graph feature is something I'm greatly looking forward to being added to @comaps.app. Sadly, it seems like there are blockers before it can be added. codeberg.org/comaps/comap...
- TIL: After installing Fedora Silverblue, you should almost immediately install the Flathub version of Firefox if you want a functional browser for video streaming. This is because there are a bunch of dependencies that are a pain to manage that just work out of the box with the Flathub installation.
- Tell me you're an evil company without telling me you're evil. People often ask me why I disallow them to take photos of me. It's because of bullshit like this. 👇
- Unpopular opinion: Steam sales need to stop being glorified. Games are often on sale throughout the year and often cheaper on other legitimate websites. This has been true for many years now.
- Just had a scramble to join a video call because Zoom no longer seems to allow Android devices to join through the browser by using "Desktop site". I, relunctantly, installed the APK which didn't work anyway. I then resorted to joining the call without a webcam on another device. Boo. 👎
- Reposted by KennyUse Signal. We promise, no AI clutter, and no surveillance ads, whatever the rest of the industry does. <3
- Reposted by Kenny[Not loaded yet]
- I've been waiting like 5 years for this. lol
- I've seen a bunch of people and orgs make a huge deal out of the Steam "leak". They even go so far as to link to Steam's official announcement where Valve says it's all a load of nothing. 🤦
- Thank you to the person who let me use their Windows machine to install the "XBox Accessories" Windows app so that I could update the firmware of a few official XBox controllers so that they could pair with my Linux machine over Bluetooth.
- The "Limited Access" to Contacts feature in iOS 18 is great. It should be the default and users should be warned when giving apps full access. Users should be responsible for the contacts shared with an app. In reality, most people will just give full access. support.apple.com/en-au/guide/...
- Reposted by KennyRight now there are a lot of new eyes on Signal, and not all of them are familiar with secure messaging and its nuances. Which means there’s misinfo flying around that might drive people away from Signal and private communications. 1/
- I've found that LinkedIn becomes a lot more tolerable once you've configured your notifications properly. Those LinkedIn Premium ads though...
- Finally some movement on an F-Droid build of the official Bluesky Android client. I'm hyped! github.com/bluesky-soci...
- Overnight, a bunch of Australian Mullvad servers started being blocked by Reddit. Back to using frontends. Redlib has been working well so far.
- My current, temporary desktop setup is a Steam Deck with a basic M/KB combo connected to a UGREEN USB hub connected to a GL-MT300N-V2 via Ethernet. My Android phone works well as a webcam. I have a notebook but it doesn't satisfy the gaming itch. It all just works. 🤓 Sent from my Steam Deck.
- Got scammed in the last few weeks with this no longer circulated 1977 Australian 2c coin. Presumably, it was given as a change where the cashier thought it was a $2 coin. I think it's the first one I've ever held and it's pretty neat.
- I've been catching up on the whole boycott US companies thing and realised I've already been unofficially doing it for a while now...
- I dined at a relatively well known German restaurant that uses a QR ordering system. They had a daily surcharge that added like 40c to the total. I went to the counter instead and paid the amount with no surcharge. I get QR ordering systems to save on cost but to then pass it onto patrons. 👎
- Pretty annoyed at @humblebundle.com right now. Compared to how they used to be a decade ago, they feel extremely scammy nowadays with their expiring keys and games that don't replenish keys for months. They definitely don't live up to their name anymore. old.reddit.com/r/humblebund...
- I've had two friends try Mumble out with me now. One gave some praise about how it was nice and simple. The other one exclaimed "OMG it's like MSN Messenger". 😂
- I REALLY want a universal communication system to replace all the fragmentation we deal with. I wish I didn't even have to try Mumble. @matrix.org is the closest to what I want but @element.io has repeatedly shut down community PRs that don't fit their enterprise focus. Looking forward to this.
- Just set up a Mumble server for voice chat because all the other options are really not good enough. I've convinced one person to try it with me. Let's see how it goes. I'll post any notable updates.
