It's just assumed that some American military equipment will be bought. It isn't explicitly agreed that they'll buy American.

Dumbphones aren't just about privacy, they're also good for treating phone addiction.

I think the idea that we need lots of people on these social media sites is a myth. Just a few 1,000 people is enough for a functional forum site, and you probably just need 5-10 active users to make a subreddit or Lemmy community viable.

If it's Boeing I'm not going.

AI is definitely useful for things like medical imaging analysis and meteorology. Too many people collapse "generative AI" into "AI" and it needs to stop.

With fingerprinting and even just IP tracking, I think the question is more whether they can be trusted to not track you (i.e. whether it makes business sense).

I'm okay with forsaking one avocado toast a month for a search engine that actually works, but if I don't feel good about where my money goes then I'm signficantly less willing.

I like spending money on the things I use. The status of paying customer is an enviable position (minus the paying part).

I really wish Kagi wasn't American. Kagi is such a good product, and I'd be willing to pay for it, but in no universe am I willing to pump more money into silicon valley.

With regards to Ubuntu Touch. https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/114662076331894612

GrapheneOS is a Linux distribution. The desktop Linux software stack has far worse privacy and security. It isn't a viable starting point for us. The Linux kernel is also by far the most problematic portion of the overall system from a security perspective. A fully monolithic kernel is a terrible architecture for security. A vulnerability in any part of it gives full control over the whole thing. It's also entirely written in C with major resistance to many systemic security improvements.

GrapheneOS sure is critical of a lot of entities. Recently Firefox, and in the main thread Fairphone. TBH I don't think they're wrong on any of these fronts. Firefox is broadly a mess in terms of organization, Senior Linux Kernel Devs have opposed Rust for reasons so bad even Linus called them out, and the Fairphone I don't know enough about either way.

I like the approach of getting away from smartphones and going with multiple dumb devices.

Anki, Qobuz, and Threema are the potential barriers. I guess I can technically use Anki on a laptop, same with Qobuz (since I don't listen to music while travelling anyway). And Threema I don't actually have any friends on and I basically just use it to transfer files between devices.

So I guess all things together I wouldn't even need a cellular-capable laptop ... if not for banking. As a countermeasure against card-skimming I only transfer money onto my card when I'm about to use it.

I was thinking South Korea, which techinically doesn't fit because Russia was already on that continent but still.

The important part is that Valve doesn't need to sell it's own kidneys (and enshitifies it's service) just to appease shareholders. I like that Valve chooses to be evil, rather than being required to by law.