When my phone was up for renewal last March, I specifically went looking for an iPhone 13 mini, because I’m sick of my phone being the centre of my attention all the time. And it’s worked. The smaller screen means I’m far less likely to get it out and idly scroll the socials, instead waiting until I’m at my Mac or have my iPad. But the screen is still big enough for GPS and such.
In terms of socials; I’ve been pretty much all in on Mastodon and Lemmy, having gone from posting twenty times a day on Twitter, to posting just six times in total. And that was to spam my Mastodon account.
We ditched Netflix in April, and haven’t missed it at all. I signed up for it the very first day it was available for Apple TV back in 2012, so it felt weird getting rid of it. But ultimately, Disney+ feels like better value, so we’re on that for now.
I have Apple Music, which is fine for in the car or while I’m at work, but I spent an awful lot of time listening to my library of ripped CDs on my iPod when I was out and about. I got the iPod in ‘22, but finally got it flashmodded early last year, and love it.
Switched from Sony Xperia to Google Pixel for my smartphone.
Got a smart oven as a gift, so far, I’m liking it paired with the easy prep Tovala meals, but it seems like a pretty capable toaster oven/air fryer. Apparently it can dehydrate as well, haven’t tried that yet. This is the first “smart” device I owned outside of a smartphone, and probably would have bought it for myself, but now that I’m using it, I have to admit, I like it.
I’ve did some distrohopping and in effect switched from Fedora to Fedora Silverblue (very enjoyable)
I’ve completely removed all centralized social media apart from YouTube (I’ll have to invest some more time in PeerTube before I can make the switch) from my life
In general I spend less time doom-scrolling and way more time actually reading interesting stuff (I’ve found LessWrong, a forum about the art of rationality/more rational thinking)
I have replaced all remaining proprietary software components on my desktop with open source ones (e.g. I now use FOSS frontends for Discord and Spotify, namely gtkcord4 and Spot), the only exceptions being the Nvidia driver (I hope that will change in 2024 with NVK) and some games (although 80% of my very limited gaming time is now spent in open source games like Beyond All Reason)
I got a tablet/ChromeBook convertible (Lenovo IdeaPad Duet 5 8GB) which I installed PostmarketOS on and am now daily driving Linux in school where everybody else is using iPads
I am in the process of finally building my own NAS/homeserver
On the negative side I spent way less of my free time programming than I would have liked to
I do also have some goals and ambitions for this year:
Host all my stuff on my own server, this includes files (documents, photos, backups, media) as well as services like my website and automations
Like others here, I dumped Reddit and moved here (and to Mastodon) full time. I also moved to Linux full time on my home laptop and haven’t missed Windows one little bit. I’m looking forward to experimenting more with a couple of other distros of interest (currently Pop_OS) and am having actual fun using my computer again. Heavy emphasis on adopting as many FOSS alternatives as possible in ‘24, and starting to separate myself from the big G.
The process of trying to separate from Google is tough for sure. I believe Louis Rossmann said “it like quitting heroin cold turkey; you can’t, it’s something you have to lean yourself off of slowly”. In my case, Google Photos, Docs and Voice are the most difficult to switch from, but in the case of Google Photos and Docs, I have multiple backups in the event something happens to my account.
I finally installed RethinkDNS on my phone. I configured redirections to invidious and other alternative front-ends on firefox, desktop but also mobile thanks to the recent update. I stopped appending “!g” to all my duckduckgo searches. And i got so addicted to a new social network that I quit all others LOOKING AT YOU LEMMY
Rhythmbox and Strawberry are the best, IMO. Rhythmbox has a lower impact on system resources but Strawberry is ideal for people with extensive music collections that you store offline like I do.
Mpd and Cantata. Deadbeef for playing from a directory or for conversation. I haven’t found anything as good as cantata but I have to admit that I miss the monolithic and do everything of musicbee.
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