You can get some of this with a pi hole/vpn setup. There’s actually a really nice one you can get as a droplet (basically a virtual machine) on Digital Ocean.

https://marketplace.digitalocean.com/apps/pi-hole-vpn

Once it’s up and running it can be a full tunnel vpn or just a dns solution (also over a split tunnel vpn).

Might not give the full tracking protection exactly but will kill most ads.

You’re welcome.

Stay strong and know strangers have your back, even virtually and anonymously.

Just wanted to say “this too shall pass.” Surgery is never fun but at least it’ll be fixed soon. Losing pets hurts but you have all the good times to think back on, and maybe a new pet to look forward to as well.

I have been one of those people who are pretty negative with their outlook on life. I started therapy because I was tired of being frustrated and angry and, frankly, depressed all the time.

One of things I learned is that if you aren’t naturally “happy go lucky” you have to work at. Why I ever expected to just be happy now seems like a real “no shit” moment. But once some told me that I’ve been able to look at my life in a different light.

I’m still negative as fuck, but at least now I can recognize it for what it is, short circuit my thought process a little bit, and not spiral as much as I used to.

Good luck, fellow traveler!

I don’t really have a recommendation per-se, but I did come across this site recently which might be interesting to you.

https://abandonwaregames.net/

They have installers for some of them, and links to Stream/GOG/etc. if you can still purchase them.

Maybe I do have one recommendation: https://abandonwaregames.net/game/star-wars-dark-forces (I think it’s $3)

Way to brighten someone’s day with something simple. Super awesome!

Replying to recommend NewsBlur to anyone that is looking for a reader. They have a free tier, and solid mobile apps (for iOS anyways).

https://NewsBlur.com

Check out NewsBlur. It spun up out of the demise of Google Reader. https://NewsBlur.com

This is it. There is a kind of understood, cultural part that some of the other commenters are missing.

There are situations where (traditionally) tipping is expected, and that is at a sit down style restaurant or at a bar. If the restaurant requires you to fill your own drink, bus your own table (clear the dishes), or carry your own food typically Americans do not tip (this would apply to most fast food places, or places as you’ve described where you walk up to a counter). Do most of these places still put out a tip jar? Yes. Do most customers tip? Probably not (check the jar, it might have some token coins or a few dollar bills in it, but it will not be full).

Are you an asshole for not tipping? That depends on what the situation is. Did you just sit down for a 2 hour meal with 10 people and leave $5? Yes you are an asshole. Did you drive through Starbucks or a burger place and not put a couple bucks in jar? You are probably not an asshole.

It was very obvious for me. A post would only have one comment, but then dozens when I clicked to the original instance.

Maybe I’ll try to spin up a brand new one and see if it’s any better.

I ran mine for a couple weeks, and communities I’d been subscribed to from day 1 were still missing most comments on the posts unless I clicked through to their page. Maybe there was something funky with my install, but I used Lemmy’s ansible scripts to deploy so I don’t know what else I could do.

I asked another commenter here the same question that I’m going to ask you.

I was running a my own single user instance, but I had a hard time getting comments to come in to mine. Have you found a good way to get Lemmy to more reliably pull in comments from remote instances?

I would have to browse out to the original instance to see most of the comments, then back to my own if I wanted to comment (if it was under a comment that my instance hadn’t pulled in, then too bad), then back out to the main site to continue reading. I found that process very tedious so I switch back to a more populated server which seems to pull in most if not all of the comments.

I tried out my own, one person instance, and I had a hard time getting comments to pull in. I would have to browse to the original instance to view all of the comments. Have you found a good way to overcome that?

I switched back to a more public instance just because I found the process of going out to view the content, back to my own instance if I wanted to comment, then back to the original again to keep reading the discussion very tedious.

Being on a more populated server seems to give most if not all of the comments directly.

Laughs in BBS

or

Laughs in Newgroups