On the note of “keeping your phone in airplane mode”:

No Bluetooth enabled devices is a good point too.

Those devices broadcast identifiable data whenever Bluetooth is enabled, and that data can be logged very easily. If an app has Bluetooth permissions it has the capability of logging that info. Or a simple device that logs nearby Bluetooth devices. About 2 years ago I placed a device in my apartment next to a road and within a week I had the habits of my neighbors logged with accurate timestamps. I took that device apart after that, it’s a macropad now.

So for the sake of privacy, no Bluetooth headphones, watches, etc near your “Go bag” phone when it has a battery in it. IMO avoid such devices in general.

I’m liking Linux Mint and Kubuntu personally.

Especially Kubuntu for my main desktop PC, Linux Mint for my little clunker PC I use to run my 3D printers.

Drinking soap makes my stomach upset and drinking alcohol makes me upset, that means I’m a human right?

Basically Lightroom is for editing photos in a specific format, there’s a couple alternatives that work well on Linux. Primarily Darktable and RawTherapee.

It’s really good at what it does and is basically an industry standard.

But Adobe being Adobe I really want to stop giving them money but I need to replace it first.

Mine that’s still on Windows is while I’m transitioning away from Lightroom.

It’s the only thing left at this point that’s holding me there.

I would just dual boot a system for when I need to use it but I really wanna stop using Adobe software for a number of reasons.

I’ve already switched my mom and grandma to Linux, and I’ve personally only got 1 PC still on Windows. Its days are numbered though.

I’m shocked!

Shocked I tell you!

Only 60%‽

Blows my mind that it’s so low.

I had completely forgotten about those movies!

Cheesy action flicks that I remember loving, I’ve got to watch them again

Thank you for reminding me that they exist!

God the fear of accidentally sleeping through the alarm would probably keep me from sleeping at all

“When you hear the beeping you need to swap out the battery because if you don’t you’ll die. Goodnight.”

Or on Blue Sky or Mastadon

Hell reach put to your reps and tell them that they should have a Blue Sky and Mastodon for if something like this happens in the future.

Ain’t no better time than now due to the Twitter outage.

NGL I usually only do component level repairs on the power boards (or in the case of appliances most of the components are easy to find docs for and are much larger) but I usually find stuff by poking around with my multimeter or looking for obviously blown things. But my experience is more from the realm of appliance repair (and all from experimenting).

Testing capacitors can be done (and if they’re big enough) something I’ll do as well. I ain’t gonna test capacitors that are smaller that a grain of rice.

There are times though that it’s easier to just buy a new board rather than do component level repair.

Good news is that when it comes to TVs those boards are usually really cheap.

Usually if it’s a charging port, it’s pretty common that there’s like dirt in there or something.

But soldering a type C connector is pretty tough due to the size. Especially for my (lack of) experience level.

It could be a learning opportunity for you though.

NGL when it comes to that kind of fault I usually just replace the mainboard, they’re usually dirt cheap and it’s a hell of a lot easier to swap that whole board than it is to poke and prod for an hour just to find out it’s some 40 pin monster with micro-soldiered pins.

The power board is usually what I do component level replacements on. The t-con board and the main board I usually just swap.

For TVs it’s usually really simple, like internal fuses or blown caps. And a few with bad backlights or mainboards that are dead.

For 2 of them it’s been shorts in the LCD itself which meant I had to block the clock pin from the TCON board for the specific part of the screen with the short. Basically killing a line of pixels to get the TV working again. In general if the TV is 4k and smaller than like 45 inches you’ll never see it unless you look for it.

That’s a super involved fix (involving A LOT of trial and error to find the right pin) but it keeps it out of a landfill.

In general fixing a TV is always cost effective unless the actual LCD has physical damage.

I’d say TPU

It’s a lot less gnarly than ABS and depending on the hardness you get can it can be anything from a pain to a cakewalk to print.

Plus IMO it’s got more uses due to it’s durability.

In the last few years I’ve fixed about a dozen TVs, they can definitely suck to fix at times (especially the really new ones) but in general the fixes have been simple. And all of them were snagged out of the dumpster at my apartment complex.

And that’s just the TVs I’ve fixed. I like to fix things.

In terms of phones they’re a nightmare though. I’m keeping an eye on HMD phones and Fairphone though as both of them are a LOT easier to fix than other brands.

In the event of my current phone breaking I’d love to get either one of those brands.

Each time I update

So in general that’s each time there’s a new LTS version I want to update to. I don’t so the nightlies or daily branches for most of my software and the ones that I do I basically throw some cash like each quarter or so depending on how much I use their software.

Blender for example I think put about $100 towards it last year, that was only the second year I was able to support them and the first year (4 years ago) I only put $15 towards them. And Blender got the most I put towards a project last year.

This year I’ve already put $30 towards Godot though. It’s ahead of Blender right now in 2025.

I try to do what I can, sometimes I can’t contribute and sometimes I can. I like to help where and when I can.

Unfortunately I may have to hold off for a few months as I just got a suprise bill for $1800 so it may be October (hopefully) when I can throw some cash their way again.

I also contribute to some content creators I enjoy, though not as many as I’d like.

He was all of our friend and we left him behind

We’re sorry Tom, we didn’t think about what we were doing

Getting my friends to shift over is a pain in the ass for sure

Whenever I download a new version of Blender I typically throw them $10 - $15.

Just like with other open source software I use, I give it a shot and if I like it I’ll throw them $10 - $15 each time I update.

Edit: It’s not much but it’s not nothing. No raindrop feels reasonable for the flood and all that.