NotAnArdvark

Who are you getting VoIP and texting from? A while back I was trying to find a way to text without a mobile number and didn't have any luck.

I find the mobile interface (the browser) to be really good, at least in comparison to Lemmy.

I feel like a proper contingency in this scenario would be some sort of "instant death" system. Knowing you're going to die, but waiting 96 hours for it to happen sounds terrible.

County's have zero money, and they're likely the ones who would be paying for rural fire fighters.

Volunteer firefighting, in my experience, could be a lot more effective with key positions that were paid with the rest volunteer. Managing a volunteer organization is really challenging when you have neither the carrot of a salary, or the stick of being fired. So you need to be well-run to make sure everyone is feeling appreciated, effective, and to exploit that feeling of civic duty and being part of a team.

The rural pool of potential volunteers is shrinking as young people move to cities and smaller towns die. Those that can volunteer might not be up for the increasingly strict procedures and standards imposed on them provincially, and their day job is almost certainly a 20+ minute drive from the fire hall anyway.

This is all aside from the fact that it's a really hard job. At any moment, day, night, on the shitter, you're under huge social pressure to respond to all calls. Most of which are false alarms, mandatory mutual aid for which you're likely to be stood down for, or frequent-fliers who really need mental help not volunteers who can only offer to check vitals and wait for an ambulance. And the real calls can involve seriously traumatic events - many of which involve people we know from the community - for which we're offered next to no assistance with dealing with after the fact.

And this is a problem that effects almost everyone. Next time you're on a road trip, think about who would respond to help your family if you got in a serious accident, and think about how well trained they might be.

“These people who are mad, they’re mad because they used to get something for free, and now it’s going to be not free,” he said in an interview with The Verge.

I find this an irritating statement. Before this shit-show, I would have paid ~$5 /month to keep using Reddit the way I was. I got huge value from all the different communities - and their history - that Reddit made possible. But they never made that a real option and instead burnt a lot of bridges.

If you did the math I would strongly suspect this unit could never pay for itself. In that case you're either using it because having the backup power is worth it, or because you believe there's some environmental benefit. On the environmental front, again, I can't imagine it'll ever "pay" for itself. So... Well, ok, or you get it because solar power and batteries are fun.

I'm pretty excited to see this. A long time ago I had a macOS hardening guide, and it had lots of great ideas too.

I would personally stay away from installing anything (for security purposes, at least) that wasn't part of your official distribution. I think there's more safety to be had staying with high visibility, high use packages.

I'm my experience, if iPhone users don't like the way Apple messaging works with Android contacts, they bitch at the person using Android telling them to get an iPhone.

I'm wondering how the subreddit blackout is affecting things. I've noticed my VM has really dropped down in bandwidth used the past hour or so.

I'm in Alberta and seeing all the indications of it being really dry does give this ever-present uneasy feeling. The gravel roads are extra dusty, the quack grass in yellowing, fields have white salt deposit spots from where the last bits of pond water had evaporated.

We've got a well-oiled watering routine going for our trees, but if this is "the new normal" it feels a bit futile - soon enough the water table will drop below our well pump. So, there is a feeling of only delaying the inevitable.

I want to like macOS but Apple, IMO, is doing scummier and scummier things with it. For instance, I haven't signed in to iCloud. Once a day it seems, I'll get a little notice telling me that not all functionality will work until I've signed in. Ok.. So I click the little 'X' on the notification. It opens the settings to the iCloud setup screen. That's not what 'X' is supposed to do!