Libb

I remember reading their first few issues (not that I am old, I am a time traveler that’s it). I liked their magazine and that they made their PDF for screen. I also liked its quirks. But back then I was not even a Linux user so I did not follow their work, and nowadays I don’t use Ubuntu much, so… ;)

Thx a lot for reminding me this magazine existed, I will read a few of their most recent issues.

It won’t be the longest time compared to others that commented here, nor will it be the funniest one, but it ought to be the stupidest thing one has searched for.

I spend the last couple months searching for a 1$ notebook (without any important or precious notes in it) plus the 0.50$ crystal Bic pen that accompanied it.

I don’t care about these two but I also cannot understand how/where/when I lost them. It just makes no sense. So, for the last two months I’ve been searching everywhere, which also means searching every single one of the many streets I could have walked by (I try to go everywhere I can walking).

And, yep, I am still searching today. Maybe not as actively but I still am. And that still drives me crazy to not know what happened to them :p

On the other hand, around the same time I also lost a portable Samsung SSD drive that was worth a couple hundred. But this one I barely searched for it as I was almost certain I had mistakenly put it in bag of stuff I gave away to a charity (yep, the drive was encrypted, like all my other drives) ;)

While Firefox is a completely separate entity from Chrome, Mozilla does recognize that some things are better off standardized. So if you’re worried about your extensions not working on Firefox, that shouldn’t be a problem.

?!? What does that even mean?

Most people will understand that as ‘my chrome extensions will work on FF’ or as ‘my chrome extensions are also available for FF’, which is not true. There are alternatives, yes, but there is real probability they will not find an exact alternative to whatver their most important chrome extension is. Yeah, there are also much better extensions available on FF (looking at you, my dearest and unrivalled uBO) but people usually don’t give a crap about that, or they would have ditched Chrome already.

I am all from promoting FF but not by using so large an… approximations. I almost wrote ‘lies’ but those are not exactly lies, they’re just missing the whole point by trying to make things (uselessly) look better than they are.

Edit: clarifications.

As a shut in with social anxiety and very introverted I’m wondering how to find friends now that I got better.

Like others have rightly suggested: hobbies, volunteering, taking classes. Imho, hobbies with IRL encounters are great. You can also check moist local public libraries, they will often have activities.

Are you into sketching or anything art-related (photo, painting,…)? Try to find groups, classes,… Urban sketching groups should be the simpler to find in many cities, no matter how big or small they are. People going out together to make some (street) photography, maybe?

Do you play chess? There are cafés, clubs, shops that will organize encounters or simply let anyone play some games with other people. Here in Paris, beside a shop or maybe two where you’re almost sure to meet other players (not to play there as there is no room for that, but to chat), the first place I would suggest any newcomer to go and have a look, weather allowing, is at the jardin du Luxemboug. There is a dedicated spot where anyone can meet other players and start playing. Chess sure is a great way to meet and start talking to people be it as a player or as a spectator.

Scale modelling is too. Be part of a club with regular meetings. Imho this is one of the best way for anyone looking to spend hours discussing with other people that often are more than willing to talk about a common interest: building/painting/criticizing scale models and, well, just having a chat about the hobby and whatever thematic a specific model kit may be about (race cars, tanks, planes, boats, scifi, figurines, such or such history period, it’s endless). Scale modeling is not only a niche hobby it is also a rather lonely hobby too. So, any opportunity to meet a fellow modeler will often be appreciated — any impression I may have been a scale modeler myself would not be a pure coincidence, and even though I quit practicing the hobby I’m still always more than happy to talk about it.

very introverted

No mater what you decided to try, as an extreme introvert myself, I would say the most important thing to keep in mind is that there is no assurance this will work.

As a matter of fact, I would say that more often than not it won’t work. And that’s nothing to do with you (, or I, or anyone else)? It’s just that most people are not going to those places/gatherings in order to be picked up as new friends by others. They go there to enjoy whatever it is they’re enjoying doing.

Just be fine with it and don’t ever think it is because of you that you did not met a new friend. Even if it happens you will screw something because you were too shy, or too anxious or whatever, that’s fine. That’s just how things are and how they work. This also why true friendship is at least as precious as love is, it’s rare. Also, the older you get the harder it will be, says I a 50+ years old dude.

Just keep on trying… and don’t push too hard or you risk pushing people away ;)

Check your mp ;)

They have a lifetime account promotion going on now, worth getting?

Depends how you look at it.

What I can tell is that I already had their smaller lifetime and waited for that promo to get a larger one.

That plan is worth a little over 3 years sub… As a comparison, the previous cloud service I used (iCloud) I have been using it for a long time… since it was introduced (was it called MobileMe already, or was there another name before that? Can’t recall). So, provided Filen does not go bankrupt, I worry not I will get my money worth after those 3 years. Seriously, though, Keep in mind that Filen is a very small and very young company and, unlike Apple, there is possibility the company won’t last.

It’s a risk I’m willing to take as it really was the closest to what I would call my ‘perfect’ cloud. Not quite there yet, but close enough for me to use it and closer than any other including Proton Drive, which I’m already paying for (I use their Mail+ plan, which comes with some cloud storage)

Also, note that you can get up to 50GB free storage: 1) by creating your user account using an affiliate link (you may want to check my blog, to use mine) you will get 20GB free instead of the base 10. 2) you then share your own affiliate link to get up to 30GB extra more free. That free storage is then added to whatever plan you decide to purchase and/or to subscribe to, if any. Also, all plans are stackable.

Edit: by all means, take some time to test their free account (there is no real restriction beside storage) so you can see by yourself how well Filen meets your expectations. My needs are really… simple.

Filen.io

It’s a cloud much more than a dedicated photo backup solution. So, depending you specific needs it may not fit the bill (it does, for my limited needs).

What makes it great imho is that it’s based in Germany and uses zero-knowledge E2EE. It’s also available for Mac, Linux, Windows and mobile. And it has either sub-based plans or lifetime ones (BTW, right now they’re on sale).

(if you want to know a little more why I picked up Filen and not the others available, feel free to check my blog, link in my profile)

Edit: it can be used as backup tool too, not just as a simple cloud, there is a setting for that.

+1 to replace TM with BTW (and to remove the version numbers, too) :p

• 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 ;)