If you use browser extensions like Ghostery and AdNauseam it’ll click on blocked ads in the background, essentially giving Google fake info. After I started using extensions like that my survey questions have been all over the place, and I’ll answer them in a way that feels potentially accurate but is actually 100% false and irrelevant to me lol. So I get money, falsify their info, and block ads and trackers all at the same time, it’s perfect!

goddamn you 😂

I love that, Zabes has such cool girl energy lol

Not who you asked but I’m in the desert area of SoCal, it’s usually super dry (15-30% unless cloudy) and it’s been consistently over 100 for a few weeks now. One of the absolute best things about California is that it always cools off at night, down into to the low 60s most of the summer and 70s during the peak. It can be really hard to dress for sometimes, especially since the sun is so much hotter here than other states I’ve been to. 105 with a real feel higher than that during the day, maybe 62 with a breeze at night, that’s a huge temp variance lol. I appreciate it though, it could be like other places in the country and the world where it’s not getting below 80 at night.

The most humid places in Cali are also usually much cooler, due to being near the beach. But it kinda comes out in the wash depending on the day haha. Most of my knowledge is SoCal though, NorCal might be a lot different. California is massive, with tons of different climates, so it’s impossible to talk about it without being specific about locations.

I used Nova for years, but it felt increasingly outdated so I switched to Action Launcher. Then it too started to feel outdated after a few years so I switched to Smart Launcher, which I’ve been loving. I miss AL’s side drawer but SL has a lot to offer if you want something slick and simple, with custom widgets and layouts. I recommend you check it out!

Meh, while I totally get what you’re saying I think there’s something to be said about these stepping stones between dying closed source platforms and developing FOSS platforms. Especially since most content people are used to and want to engage with is on said platforms. Not everyone wants to jump onto new platforms with learning curves, but this is an in-between for the people gaining awareness.

That, and having a fundamental disagreement with the way a platform is run or what telemetry they harvest doesn’t mean I don’t like the content there. Social media has been a constant battle between the owners, the content creators, and the regular users. At the end of the day people use it for community and connection, even if venture capitalists are hell bent on destroying their product.

Untrue.

https://www.britannica.com/story/what-purposes-do-mosquitoes-serve-in-ecosystems

https://blog.nwf.org/2020/09/what-purpose-do-mosquitoes-serve/

https://www.mosquitoreviews.com/learn/mosquitoes-pollination

There’s different species that serve different purposes in the ecosystem.

https://www.lukerchocolate.com/en/innovation/meet-the-mosquito-behind-cocoa-tree-pollination/

https://www.nps.gov/articles/chocolate-midge.htm

All that being said, I can’t stand them lol

It does in fact exist!

https://adnauseam.io/

Ah okay that makes sense

Some people (myself included) tie the music they like to a part of their soul, and exposing that to someone who may treat it with complete disregard feels very vulnerable

how the hell did you and the person you’re replying to get your names to look like that

It does kinda feel like a porn site! Dirty and guilty almost, useful in the moment and then you realize you don’t really wanna spend any more time there than you have to haha. It makes me a little sad though because I feel like I’ve learned so many interesting things there, found so many niche hobbies and communities over the years. But like you said it’s just a website and at the end of the day it’s the humans who make the communities. Doesn’t matter who’s hosting it, I think we’ll always find a way to gather and share cool things with each other. I’m hopeful in that way for the future of the fediverse.

And yeah, finding something better to do with my time other than feeding my addiction to information via infinite scrolling is definitely a good thing. Data paralysis, info stasis, whatever you wanna call it, is numbing and and I think so many people use it as a crutch and vice because life is hard and inaction is easier.

The apps I’ve been using have been glitchy, or at least lemmy.world’s performance is, so I keep going back to Boost just because it’s such a great app experience. I haven’t been going to it as much though, it feels a bit ruined for me. Like there are still great people and communities, but I feel like I can’t engage now because it gives data to the admins. And the quality of content overall has gone down between some subs still being dark, other subs protesting by pivoting to joke and NSFW content, and a lot of high quality users moving to Lemmy.

For the most part I avoid negative content, but I was on a lot of subs that had to engage with it (r/LGBT, trans subs, etc) Plus I like to be kept aware about what’s going on with legislation regarding human rights in the US so that can be a bummer I guess but I don’t blame the platform for being the messenger. So I haven’t really noticed a mental health shift but I have been trying to move away from reddit and do other things I enjoy, so I guess that counts? I’ve been reading and playing video games a bit more which is really nice.

I just used PowerDeleteSuite to overwrite and delete my messages. I’ve also been using reddit for about 11 years. It feels sad in a way, like I’m losing a friend. The communities could be really great sometimes, and it’ll take a while for the fediverse to truly catch up in terms of growth and features. I left my account active so I don’t lose my saved posts but it might as well be dead, the app is garbage and the site is dying.

I hadn’t heard of Clipious before! What are some of its advantages over SmartTubeNext and ReVanced??

If you can sideload Android apps SmartTubeNext is a great option https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTubeNext