I’ve seen this in various threads on Lemmy. I’m sure Kagi has some cool features, but I don’t know how any search engine can overcome the walled garden effect that is plaguing the internet today. The data just isn’t out there to be curated anymore, it’s locked behind the hedges of the different sites.

I think search might have been killed. I expect in my lifetime, we’ll have to sign all our communications using encryption to keep algorithms from impersonating us online to trick people into buying stuff. I’m kind if surprised there isn’t an organized resistance collecting legit reviews.

That makes sense. In a recommendation thread, PIA or Nord would be the highest voted VPN, but if you read the comments and see your fellow privacy nerds talking about Mullvad, you might choose that because privacy is important to you. I also find popularity does not always corelate with quality.

I know Glassdoor has issues. I didn’t know they allowed suppression of comments. I imagine a former employer of mine would have gladly paid $$$ to fix their 1.7* rating rather than actually pay us more so we could actually give them a higher rating. Instead they had new hires rate the place highly before they got dumped into the live operation. Still one of the lower ranked companies on Glassdoor.

I found a few similar sites that seem more “pure”, but they really only work for the tech industry.

I agree with you about the torrent of sewage. Its hard to find good data. Honestly, a 1yr pre-enshittification reddit dataset searched with Ctrl+F is likely better at answering many questions than today’s google search.

This tip worked well in '22-'23 before reddit hit peak enshittification. Agreed on the time. Researching what you are getting is not as easy as it once was.

I never appreciated snapshots until I ran a server. I used to just install a new distro whenever anything significant went wrong. Now I use them everywhere.

I can’t switch from Celsius to Fahrenheit, the switch just reverts. I do think it looks beautiful and has weather stats that I use when I bike but other apps don’t always have (air quality, UV) .

They really shouldn’t be allowed to name anything after a single letter. VW, BMW, ABC, TBS are all bad enough. X conflicts with too many established uses.

I can’t see a problem with fictional characters. It’s when you bring in the real people that the drama starts. Trans JK Rowling, KaMANla Harris, Hillbilly Eilish, and Marjory Taylor Peen all seem like they would raise a few eyebrows.

My German friends and family don’t believe me when I tell them how expensive internet and phone is in the US. They all think it’s expensive in Germany. Having said that, there are some big differences in take home pay.

Agreed. I live on my back patio when it’s warm enough. I’ve gotten called out (not in a bad way) on meetings for my hammock background. ;-)

I want you all to know that I’m happy you’re here, cis het white male frat boy from old wealth with an ivy league education or a neorospicy gay trans Jewish anarcho-communist and everything else out there.

While I won’t judge you on your instance, I will judge you on your ability to be a good neighbor. I’m always glad to see humility, kindness, empathy, comradery, etc. on display.

I don’t see any Arch sticker. If it was Arch, it would be the biggest sticker.

I’m surprised I didn’t think of the EFF despite donating to them before. Thank you for the links.

This looks really interesting. I try to get stories from varied sources, but don’t particularly want it “curated” for me. I’m going to add this to my rotation.

You got closer than I did. I didn’t mention it in the original post, but I also tried duckduckgo with little luck. I hope to god this is peak enshittification because I can imagine how it gets worse from here.

Yes, I tried Duckduckgo, but also didn’t get great results. Admittedly, I could have revised my terms a few more times, but I’ve had good luck with things Lemmy recommends, and this doesn’t really seem like a niche interest on this site.

Thanks for the recommendation on all the 3 letter agencies. I bet there are mountains of CSPAN coverage out there for me to watch.

I’ll reply without knowing your situation fully. If you don’t have an emergency fund that would cover several months worth of expenses that is probably the single most impactful thing you can do with $10k. A few high yield savings account offer rates around 4%, some of them have strings attached, so read how it works carefully. Think of this as insurance against unforseen expenses that you might otherwise have to put on a card and consequently pay interest for. Pick a number and always make sure you keep that account at that number.

If you already have an emergency fund, you have lots of options. Personally, I am onboard with the folks recommending index funds. I have an ETF that tracks the DOW and it has outperformed most of my individual stocks significantly over time.

Most importantly, strangers on the internet are likely not financial advisors and may not even know what they are doing. Take everything with a grain of salt and if you talk to any investment companies make sure you understand the difference and overlap between a financial advisor and a fiduciary.

So I already responded, but I’m seeing here that you are also a cyclist! I have tried a number of watches over the years and Garmin is absolutely the gold standard for fitness focused smartwatches. Some of them, like mine, only have buttons, no touchscreen, which sounds bad, but is actually amazing. Sure I can only choose from prewritten SMS responses, but I can get there with a few button clicks while riding (even on gravel). With my touchscreen watches, I used to have to stop to reply. The TFT screens also look better in direct sunlight than an LCD or OLED. So now, whenever my wife texts “where are you?” I can send a “out riding, love you” with only a few clicks. I also send her my GPS location when I ride in the road so she can have some peace of mind. I hear Wahoo also released a watch, haven’t heard much about it.

Cons are a weak app ecosystem and not quite as “smart” (meaning it is not as filled with tech gimmicks and an endless stream of notification chum). The stat analysis of your health data is best done via Garmin Connect app or even better, the desktop website. They let you download some of the reports as a CSV, but I’ve found that more often than that, the formatting and how the data is broken up in the csvs needs some work.

Do remember, while not a Google or an Apple, Garmin is still a big evil corporation trying to make money off chumps like you and me. You likely won’t get these features and keep your privacy 100% intact

Someone close to me had positive things to say about the Wyze watch as well. If apple and android are tier A, wyze is below that, but above all the F tier temu and amazon junk.

As someone who has bought a fair number of smartwatches and fitness trackers and always over-researches every decision I make:

• See the rest of the replies for info on cheap smart watches. They’re basically a cereal box toy.
• Depending on what you need, the MiBand or Amazfit bands had excellent battery life and there used to be 3rd party apps for your phone that did a much better job collecting and displaying your stats than Zepp or MiFit (the official apps) did. I miss my 1.5 month battery life. Its also possible to use gadget bridge so it’s all 100% offline though I understand its still a bit more rudimentary than a corporate cloud-based solution. I remember the bands I got from them running $25-50 USD
• Used Garmin devices or previous gen garmin devices can be had MUCH cheaper than list price on Amazon or so. I picked up a Fenix 6 a few years ago for less than half of the $600 list price. I love the lack of touchscreen because the button navigation is absurdly fast and no mistouches! This suits how I use a watch much better than trying to put a tiny a 2x2cm touchscreen on my wrist. These are fitness watches, but some have a few smart features. Depends on what you plan to use it for I guess.
• If you are a nerd (a good thing) and want to contribute to a cool project, Pine Computers, which makes the pinebook, pinetab, pinephone, etc. makes a device called the pinetime that is basically a smartwatch that is open to the community’s hacks and modifications. I haven’t bought one because my biking depends on my Garmin stats, but I am tempted to grab one to mess with it.

None of these are fancy “smarts first” watches like an Apple Watch or an Android Watch. I found I needed less smarts than I thought as I usually carry my phone at all times anyway. It is nice to have the doorbell ring on my wrist and to reply to texts by choosing from a few pre-written responses while biking, or otherwise unavailable to text. If you really want a bunch of apps and integration with your phones OS, Apple and Android are the big two and its not really feasible to go 3rd party for the same experience.