Hmm, that hasn’t happened to me before, or if it did, it was a one time thing so I didn’t remember it. I just did a screenshot and it took about 6 seconds to go away. I did another and made sure to interact with it, and it stayed up a littlw longer before also disappearing.

GOS didn’t make me use my phone less, but deleting traditional social media certainly did. After I deleted most algorithm social media like Instagram and Reddit (YT amd Tumblr haunt me still) or turned off the history on YT (no history = no recommendations), I stopped using my phone as much. Lemmy and Tumblr do make me do that awful “pick phone up, look at app for 10 secs, put it down, then pick it up again 2 mins later” habit, but the fact that I can even notice that in myself is a win imo.

But when I check my usage/screen time, I tend to fluctuate. Voyager (Lemmy/Piefed) will get around an hour of doom scrolling (or tech scrolling) from me, while Tumblr gets about 45 - 60 mins out of me each day (fanart is a hell of a drug). So unfortunately 2 hours of social media from me seems to be my average. I could certainly go lower, and I want to, but I’m grateful that it’s already limited to that. I hear about people scrolling social media for literally 8+ hours, so I’m certainly not the worst of the bunch.

But since GOS is very minimalized and has encouraged me to adopt as much FOSS as possible, that helps too.

The only one I knew of was Magic Earth, but the newer version makes it paid, so you’ll have to use a version from before October or so. This is what mine says:

version 7.1.25.34.36A60BB6.67629954

com.generalmagic.magicearth versionCode 2025122009

I think HereWeGo also is an alternative, although I haven’t used it, and reviews on Google Play are mixed (3.3).

Currently in that “sifting through online resouces” phase, but less because of broken stuff, and more because I want to set up everything prefectly the first time. Which is probs impossible lol. I am majoring in Cyber, so tech is my life, but this homelab is how I actually put what I’ve learned to use and learn even more than what college will probably teach me.

I’m on winter break and having a blast (kind of 😅) setting up my Proxmox to have all the services I want. I have gotten stuck several times, but I can find info eventually, and keep moving forward. Thankfully there’s a website that contains Proxmox setup scripts for almost every service imaginable, making a homelab way more accessible.

Linux skills/terminal knowlege helps this process go by faster, and my networking knowledge helps too. But that’s basically all I got lol. I can understand an okay amount of what scripts do, but I’m no programmer/scripter. I screw up mount points, look up how to check ssh key fingerprints every 10 mins, I fail to get VPN tunnel configs to work, a whole slew of issues. But I always end up learning something in the end, and get one step closer to that sweet sweet setup. So just learn and break things while you don’t care about it. Who cares if I fuck up the jellyfin config? It only had like two videos in it anyway. Best to screw up now so when I go data hoarder I know how to save my info.

Edit: Just got SMB to work for both my VM and LXCs, and I’m so happy. Every accomplishment with my homelab has me fistbumbing the air and floating on clouds. Make a homelab just the high it gives you when you do something right.

I feel like the author is being a tad dramatic about Pixelfed. I think the whole “can’t see text posts” issue could be solve with a simple “Let me see text posts” toggle, either for the overall feed or hashtags, or account, whatever. The more customizable the better.

My second point is, expecting to have one account to see EVERYTHING on the Fediverse is insanity. Do you expect a Peertube account to read Mastodon posts? A Funkwhale that can look at Misskey? I think servives like Masto, wafrn, and misskey/sharkey should make efforts to have embeded posts from media based services like Peertube/Funkwhale, but different services have different purposes. Some people on Threadiverse (Lemmy, Piefed, mbin) probably don’t even have Masto accounts. Pixelfed’s main goal is to be similar to Instagram, a place to post pictures/images. Instagram doesn’t do walls of text, but if you really wanted to just write words and screenshot it. But why try to make something that “does it all”? We’re getting mad at Facebook for doing exactly that, they have games, vertical videos (Tiktok), marketplace, live streams, groups, instant messaging, and more bullcrap. Pixelfed deserves to exist just as much as Mastodon does.

My final point is, some people don’t want to do a whole blog in addition to their pic. Tumblr has a healthy blend of image and text capability, and some people just do text while others just do pictures. Some people just want to post a picture and communicate through that. Why does text have to weigh heavier than images? I feel it’s a bit unfair to make it sound like people only see brainrot and sensory overload on Insta/media-focused services. I miss many artists from Instagram and Twitter, I wish they’d migrate to Pixelfed or Masto.

I say this as someone who barely uses either Masto or Pixelfed, because it’s far harder to find content I’m interested in on there compared to Threadiverse. Here, we have neat, ordered communities where you get what it says on the tin. But you have to work to find what you want everywhere else, which would feel rewarding if we had the people and content to back it up.

The only thing stopping me from liking Pixelfed is the network effect (lack of content I want to see), and that’s obviously out of anyone’s control but society itself. Of course there are more features it could have (all fediverse services are constant WIPs), but I don’t think Pixelfed is a bad client. Loops obviously needs work, but it has app clients, federated servers, and open code like any other Fediverse project. I don’t understand what issues you or others are having?

Ugh, I’m so tired of this. I never had twitter in the first place, but I did used to have Instagram and I loved it for all the artists I’d follow on there. But I dropped that a year or two ago (officially deleted my accounts 😤) and just stuck with Tumblr ever since. But so many of my favorite former fanartists just REFUSE to let either service go, despite them very openly stating their new AI policies or worsening ToS policies.

I know Bluesky will turn out the same way as the others, but I’ve been trying to encourage artists to move to BS and use bridgy fed so I can still see them on Mastodon. Like you’d literally get the visibility of TWO platforms by using bridgy fed rather than sticking with just Insta or just Twitter. And yes, Instagram and Twitter have bigger numbers than BS or the Fediverse, but one day the AI issues will grow too big and you’ll lose those numbers anyway when you leave the platform. Plus how many of those numbers are bots anyway?

But it just sucks man. I only have Tumblr and the occasional visit to Pixiv as my source of fanart. Mastodon and Pixelfed are just lacking, or make it very hard to find the artists I’m looking for (and I literally joined Pixelfed.art!). I’ve tried following hashtags but it’s a little dry…

Every day I get more thankful for my hand-me-down car. It has no heated seats or anything fancy, but that also means no subscriptions, no wifi tracking/stalking, no digital touch screen over physical buttons, etc. All I’ve ever done is use a clip holder on my AC vent for my phone, so I’m used to it. It’s given me time to see how others feel about Android Auto and features in newer cars, and I can make an informed decision whenever my baby decides to kick the bucket. Hopefully I can get something not too stalkerish nor with subscriptions.

Okay, but people still need emails for basic services and accounts, so would you rather them use Gmail or Proton?

Like duh don’t email your mom with a detailed plan on how you’re gonna do a terrorist attack. Crazy idea, I know.