We don't need to go back to handwritten mail, FOSS is the way to go.
this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2025
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Writing someone a letter is a very personal thing and you're creating a memory. Something tangible, concrete, also weighs in on reality. Looking at a piece of paper with your handwrite makes you understand you're commiting to something.
I'm a FOSS loon but the craze of making everything digital is absurd. I've listened to people criticizing others for using paper and a pencil to take down a memo, note or even journaling, when they can do it on their phone.
Is existing so dreadful nowadays? Does the notion of leaving proof of existence scares?
Its nothing to do with contempt for the media, or not wanting to leave evidence of my existence or anything like that, its just that I got shit to do.
Yeah, handwriting sucks. I used to type my homework in a mechanical typewriter, holy cow even that sucked. Going from that to an electrical typewriter that could hold a line in memory was amazing, but still nothing compared to a proper word processor. Wordstar in MS-DOS anyone?
I still like to sketch my ideas from time to time, but all my permanent notes are stored in Joplin, encrypted, in local backup, and synced to the cloud. I can’t afford to lose them, and I can’t afford to lug around with me a heavy suitcase of papers.
I’ve seen young people wishing for simpler times, kids using Polaroid cameras, hunting retro consoles that were already ancient when they were born, longing for music that was way before their time, etc. I get they’re disillusioned with the current state of things, but romanticizing the past is not a healthy way to cope with the horrible today.
I don't doubt you have a busy life. And that is not the subject at hand here.
What should concern us, collectively, is that we are constantly being pushed the notion that we do not have enough time and that tech is always the solution, when it is not.
I'm going to take a risk and say you write faster than you type and reaching for a pencil is quicker than launching a program.
I most certainly don't write faster than I type, and sending an email or a chat message certainly doesn't take longer than finding something to write with and something to write on. There is a big factor of habit and lifestyle - I don't usually write stuff down, so I don't have prepared/assigned tools for that, but I use my computer a lot, so I do have software installed and tools/commands memorised.
And, frankly, out of many possible options, plain text is something computers are really good at - there's basically no risk of running out of space, it's indexable and searchable, it's editable, and it's very universal.
Things do get a bit more complex when you include formatting, and a lot more complicated when you start adding annotations or illustrations, or even just more freeform writing styles, but there's still a major factor of habit - I don't know what my note taking would look like if I had a habit of pen and paper, but I know I'm very comfortable with using tech for that, and it works great for me!
I’m going to take a risk and say you write faster than you type and reaching for a pencil is quicker than launching a program.
Maybe for you, but opening KWrite takes only 5-6 key presses and I type much faster than I write
Not to mention the fact theyd be expecting me to write well enough to be able to reread it later. Even if I wrote it at half my typing speed I still would not be able to make that shit out.
This is why I never gave up on DVDs, even though people would laugh. As soon as Prime shoehorned ads in the middle of a show or movie, that's when I cancelled. I'll have to do the same with music and get my iPod battery fixed up if I can.
It's not that they're inserting themselves everywhere it's this right here: "shoehorned ads". On top of extracting as much data from you that they know more about you than almost you do yourself. dystopia authors couldn't have written it better.
That’s exactly what is so nice about FOSS based systems. You can use technology but without the tech bros and the corporate enshittification.
or, you know, you can have best of both worlds with open technologies. tech that you own and control.
help desk -> sysadmin -> CISO -> goat farmer
We're techy enough nerds to know there's another way to be free of billionaire influence while still keeping some resemblance of modern communication: self-hosting.
Lots of things have always had middlemen. Any sales representative you've ever encountered is a commission-driven middleman. Cars, insurance, housing, the guy at the phone store - they all exist solely to make money doing what a well made website is valuable of. If a company has a sales team, they ate unnecessary middlemen.
That last panel hit me like a truck because... yeah, that's what people think happens when they do their little personal choice things to pretend they matter.
They really buy like a paper book once and go "ah, yes, Bezos is fuming right now" while he makes another billion.
We have lost all sense of how to influence society and all ability to gauge scale. For all the folksy traditionalism in this (which includes driving a gas guzzler from the 70s, apparently?) the Internet has created this entirely disproportionate sense of our footprint on the world and this strip is as much a result of the hyperconnected dystopia as everything it's complaining about.
In my experience this is extra bad for Americans who, frankly, didn't need that much of a push to go from their individualist, self-centered perception of society to this vision of sitting on a couch listening to a walkman as activism.
The comic is hyperbolic and not in a good way. "They wouldn't like it" - yeah, if millions of Americans did the same. And it isn't even necessary to go pre-digital or pre-internet to "cut out the middleman".
I agree with you on most, but this:
which includes driving a gas guzzler from the 70s, apparently?
is hyperbole on your part.
First of all, by-default internet connected cars haven't been a thing until relatively recently (10 years max I guess). And then, gas guzzling does not necessarily correlate with age. Cars consuming less than, say, 5l/100km have existed since at least the 80s (1st hand experience, and the car was already 20 years old at that point).
Your comment made me remember how 25 years ago it was unthinkable, even illegal, for a company to spy on you without consent. Tech isn’t the problem, regulation has also become a joke, that’s what gave tech bros free reign, as long as they make loads of money fast so rich investors can concentrate even more wealth.
I guess the car thing comes from the use of "pre-computerized". Cars have had computers in them much longer than they've been connected to the Internet by default. I guess my mistake was taking the panel at its word there.
Also, man, I appreciate the alignment, but the "millions of Americans" really made me feel icky. Beyond the moral and political refusal to give Americans primary decisionmaking power on these things, these trends and companies are global. Even in the US you probably would need tens of millions to make a dent, but some of these userbases are in the billions. Millions of Americans decided Facebook was for old people and left it and it's still the biggest social media platform on the planet by some margin. That'd be the collective inability to gauge scale in a dystopia of global monopolies I was talking about.
I’ll buy something other than a ‘gas guzzler’ the second I’m not required to trade away my privacy to go electric, and can disable every single last beep, ding, screech and other unnecessary sound some stupid fuck thought was a good idea.
Honestly that exists. Just bought a BMW i3 (their first electric) and you can disable just about everything, even the sound it makes to alert pedestrians, the infotainment warning screen everyone hates, and seat belt chimes, through an app and a BT OBDII dongle. The 2014-2017 models all have 3G cellular antennas so they mostly don’t work anymore (3G is totally gone in my area). It also has buttons for climate and their great iDrive infotainment controller. It’s a fantastic quirky electric at dirt cheap prices.
BUT, your point stands since that’s 1 out of how many electric vehicles? Yeah, sucks.
Oh how I long for the day someone invents a car without a touchscreen.
I’m a fan of big screens myself. What I’m not a fan of is putting everything into that screen. I want the screen for the infotainment system only. All hvac and essential controls should still be physical buttons and dials. And of course, ditch all the tracking and data collection that comes with the car.
I'm going back in a lot of areas, yeah.
When you make a wrong turn, sometimes you need to go backwards to correct and go forward again
pre-computerised car
No one want to fiddle with carburetor anymore thank you very much.
And tbh, 2010-2015 is comfortable enough and less bullshit.
Speak for yourself, there's nothing wrong with my carburettor!
My distributor on the other hand is a pain in the ass. Electronic ignition has its upsides...
Pretty sure they mean computerized interiors like infotainment systems. Probably not talking about ECU and internal computerized parts.
But all displayed item from bottom panel is item from the 80s and 90s though, so precomputerised kinda either mean carburetor or primitive ecu that only control very limited function and can't scanned with a scanner tool, which is still imo bad. As an automechanic I certainly doesn't want to go back to scratching my head trying to figure out what's wrong.
Edit: not to be too pedantic about it, but that's what i get from this comic.
I agree the examples are all over the place.
Pre-telemetry cars from the naughties are the sweet spot. No cell connection either. New cars are icky.
On one hand, firmware update sound really nice so lemon isn't as sour. On the other hand, good, reliable car have absolutely 0 chance of getting enshittified by car maker, and they have to make sure the thing is good from the get go or risk getting forced to recall.
telemetry ... cell connection
When did this start to be a standard feature anyhow, and how does adoption track across brands & timeline?
There were a few sites that tracked manufacturer adoption of when the telemetry black boxes got installed, but I cannot find the specific ones I referenced a few years ago. You can “shop” for telemetry insurance and check that way too. The car won’t be eligible if it doesn’t have the hardware.
In the EU, cars have to be equipped with automatic emergency call systems since 2018. So probably since then most brands will have had it, as they are required to have cell connection hardware anyway.
My favourite cars to own were made between 2003 to 2011. They’re so peaceful to drive compared to modern cars that constantly fucking screech and ding at you just for starting the damn thing.
Same here, mine is 2006 and already quite computerized for my taste.
But recently I did a trip in a 2020s car and it was ... disconcerting. First of all it was automatic which I'm not used to. Unable to get it in gear, the 9yo boy in the backseat said: look at the screen, it's telling you what to do!. He was right. Even so the car would not let me back into a patch of high grass, kept blocking the wheels. Jarringly.
I think that's more aimed at Internet connected vehicles than those with an ECU.
This is what using Linux feels like.
I’d like to add to the third panel: go see live entertainment. Local, not Live Nation. Support local bands, artists, thespians, and comics.
Pre-computer cars sucked. Anyone that’s worked on mechanical fuel injection will tell you so.
Nah, mechanical injection diesel engines are awesome.
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