I agree, that is a concern long-term.

I think the best path for the future is supporting Linux Phone alternatives like PostMarketOS so they become polished enough to daily for the average user. That likely won’t be as secure as GrapheneOS with specialized hardware for quite a while, but should be good enough for most use cases, and would give us a platform that can’t be rug pulled out from under us as we slowly improve it.

Yes, you can get Signal using the Aurora Store, which lets you download and install apps from the Google Play Store without an account.

Alternatively, you can add the Guardian Project repo to F-droid, which AFAIK also has Signal available.

As Admiral Patrick said, KaiOS phones are a viable alternative to traditional smart-phones, and tend to fill a space between a dumb phone and an android phone.

However, a downside of Kai OS is limited application support, which can be a particular downside when it comes to privacy-respecting encrypted texting apps. From what I can see, KaiOS does not offer any options there on their store.

SMS is now a pretty insecure way to communicate due to the infrastructure being compromised. Having access to a reliable encrypted chat application, like Deltachat or Conversations is a big plus for Android phones.

The downside of Android phones is that the OS is controlled by Google, and many manufacturers force bloated software or offer fairly short lifetimes for security updates, making the phone insecure to use past the End of Life date.

Personally I would suggest getting a Google Pixel phone, which is ironically the most open to having its OS replaced with a privacy respecting OS like GrapheneOS (which is quite easy to install). GrapheneOS is the only OS that can you can really trust to completely turn off the radio chip when you turn on airplane mode, cutting any and all communication with cell towers (but GPS will continue to function).

This would also give you access to F-droid, which only contains open-source software with no paywalls or malware, and access to the best possible privacy communication apps.

Google Pixel phones offer some of the longest support timelines for security updates, which is 7 years from the date of release. A Pixel 9a, as an example, would lose support 6 years from now in 2032. You could continue to use the phone past that point if you stay offline most of the time and don’t log into any sensitive accounts. If your battery degrades or screen breaks, the phone is popular enough that you will easily be able to replace either of those at a local phone repair shop, keeping it alive for a very long time.

Excellent info, thanks for digging into that and sharing! :)

If by Mesh Network you mean Meshtastic, they have very different use-cases.

Meshtastic requires regular nodes/repeaters within its somewhat short range to be effective (putting repeater stations atop hills or mountains can drastically extend that effective range), it also exclusively operates via text, not audio.

NVIS is just a small long-range portable radio that bounces radio waves directly off the ionosphere which is reflected in a circular radius of 150 to 300 miles from the transmitting antenna, and is not reliant on being atop mountains to attain that range due to the reflected bouncing. The video gives details on how it is generally used.

I had no issue making Wii Sports Resort with motion plus.

Looking at it again, I misremembered the Dolphin wiki entry for it. Apparently it only has problems unless using Bluetooth Passthrough mode, which I didn’t really want to mess with to get working with my bluetooth dongle.

you can completely erase the pain point of this by using Playnite as front end (in windows) and configuring your emulators (Dolphin, PCSX2 etc) to start full screen WITH controller support started at run time, along with enabling hot key macros for shutting down game and returning to dashboard etc. Playnite has native scripting control.

Unfortunately I wouldn’t be able to use Playnite, as I’ve fully sworn off Windows personally in favor of Linux. However, even if Playnite were on Linux, I’m honestly not sure I’d go that route for myself. Even though it’s fully configurable powerful, with macros that can be set up to get things just right, and specific versions of Dolphin may be more ideal for a particular game, I’m kind’ve at a point in my life where that type of fine-tuning and tinkering is far less appealing compared to when I was younger, where I would’ve seen it as a fun challenge.

The original merit of consoles was that they’re simple plug-n-play devices that don’t require much though to use, and that aspect is really appealing to me nowadays, as it leaves me more time to troubleshoot or experiment with non-gaming things, like tinkering to get a good audio production setup going on my Linux PC with certain outboard audio (which can be time consuming to figure out). So for me, a jail broken Wii really fits the bill of a simple box that I can just turn on and know everything will just work, and no update will mess anything up and require me to look into it.

But that’s just me! For others, that tinkering and the end result of it is highly gratifying, and more power to em, I say :)

You yourself posted about how 31 people died in ICE custody. The video maker shows how privately owned Flock cameras which are installed around the country are used by ICE without a warrant to track and detain people; he has shown in past videos how to effectively trick those cameras into not recognizing your license plate, and in the OP video now how to detect the cameras.

And you’re calling him a conspiracy theorist without having even watched it? The hell dude.

i loathe the idea of giving google more money

If you don’t mind used or open-box phones, you could pick up a used (and more critically, carrier unlocked) Pixel off ebay, if you want to deprive them of revenue.

Unfortunately some carriers like verizon will not automatically unlock the bootloader even after unlocking the carrier restriction, so buying a used one that wasn’t factory unlocked from Google could be a slight gamble.

Ah, wasn’t aware they were so far behind, thanks for the heads up.

Hadn’t heard of IodeOS either until seeing that chart. They also seem a bit slower than Lineage for certain updates, but for the more privacy minded, may be the best option for non-pixel folks.

If you have a compatible Bluetooth adapter (it can be hit or miss), you can select Real Wiimotes in the controller section of Dolphin, and make sure continuous scanning is enabled, then once a Wii game is running, you press 1 & 2 simultaneously on the Wiimote, and it’ll sync up (but certain controllers, like Wiimotes with motion plus built in may need you to use the dedicated sync button instead to sync).

You’ll also need a USB IR bar for the Wiimotes to function, which can be had for around 8 bucks from ebay.

However, I personally couldn’t get the Wii motion plus functionality to work in the handful of games that use it, and some games still don’t work right in dolphin, like Wii Sports Resort.

Seconding the Wii. I personally dismissed it for many years as a gimmick console, but recently gave it a chance and did a deep dive on its library, and was astonished how many good titles it had available.

However, after experimenting with Dolphin vs using the games natively on a modded console, I ending up forgoing emulation, as I found that it was significantly less convenient to use compared to just booting up the console and immediately having the controllers synced up and working perfectly.

That avoided the need to boot up my couch PC, navigate to Dolphin with my Bluetooth keyboard/mouse, make sure it was set up properly (some games need certain settings enabled to avoid weird visual glitches, like Resident Evil 4) launch it, full screen it, and then sync the Wii controller (certain models of controllers must be synced with the sync button in dolphin, while others let you hold down 1 and 2 simultaneously). And if I left a game to play a different one, I had to go back to my Bluetooth keyboard, launch a game, full screen, and sync all over again.

I could’ve negated most of that faff by installing a retroarch distro to my couch PC, like Batocera, but I personally hate the UI/UX of retroarch and its various frontends.

I also found that my Wii motion plus controllers simply wouldn’t work correctly for the games that utilize it, and some games still don’t work properly in dolphin, like Wii Sports Resort.

The only downside of using the actual Wii is that it only outputs 480p, but with cheap component cables and the deflicker disabled in the ROM loader, it usually isn’t that bad once you’re moving around and immersed.

But that’s just my 2 cents.

What alternative OS you adopt depends on your phone and needs.

If you just want to mostly degoogle you phone, but aren’t that concerned about privacy or security, LineageOS is basically that. It’s as close to a stock android experience as you can get, minus the pre-installed google apps. It supports a wide range of android phones.

If you want more security and privacy, GrapheneOS is currently king, but the downside is it only works on Google Pixel phones, and it’s possible certain apps won’t work (banking apps can be hit or miss, and the Uber app I believe blocked it). It otherwise functions just like a regular android phone and can install sandboxed google play to use any app you could need, making it just as easy to daily drive. It’s the best choice if you’re an activist, journalist, or fear state actors. But even if you’re not, I’d say it’s the best choice if you already have a pixel phone.

CalyxOS has paused development, so not currently an option.

eOS has a bigger focus on security and privacy than LineageOS, but isn’t as secure as Graphene. The advantage is that it supports more phones than just the google pixel.

PostmarketOS is not based on Android, and instead is a real Linux Distro made for mobile. It’s still very much in an alpha stage, with varying levels of support for different phones, many of which cannot take calls or even use their camera properly. I would only recommend it to developers or people who want to tinker with a project phone.

The reviewer concludes it’s not a good sequel, didn’t enjoy most of their time in it. It’s a fairly okay detective game wrapped up in crappy action-brawler combat and a pretty lame open-world.

I assembled a rather large list of free Linux games a few years ago, and most of them are low-spec friendly. Hopefully you find something interesting from it :)

https://lemmy.world/post/14336843

Glad you enjoyed! :)

I’ll be posting more of StrafeFox’s stuff here, they’re criminally lesser known considering the consistent quality of their videos.

Catalonia during the Spanish Civil war did a good job of demonstrating that smaller communities could federate and work together cooperatively without a centralized hierarchical government.

https://kolektiva.media/w/pKgGZtPdpr8MBeMxNTQjGJ?start=35m23s

The average American reads below a 6th grade level.

Here’s a great example of how that compares to other adjacent grades.

the Movim XMPP client could probably be modified to replicate discord, as it’s already close.

I also thought buying the name for so much money (over a million, and Peri refinanced his house to afford it) just wasn’t worth it.

But with so much invested now, they’re likely to fight it out in court to the end. Apparently the Italian company’s ownership of the name is dubious, but it will still be costly to fight.

I would say being willing to troubleshoot, find adequate directions, implement them, and even figuring out how to chain those commands together, would make you fairly technically inclined. At the very least it would make you unusually open-minded about learning and trying new things (being here on lemmy further points to that).