Category: Lifestyle

Lifestyle

The Blockbuster Video Rental at Home

By Zach | by Zach

I see a lot of nostalgia for the video store rental atmosphere online these days. Rightly so. The experience was whimsical and wonderful. Friday nights walking into Blockbuster with my parents and sister was always an adventure. The outer walls were filled with the latest Hollywood hits. The interesting and obscure was scattered vicariously throughout the middle sections and and the video games were always closest to the register where it’d be more difficult for…

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Lifestyle Uncategorized

Active Listening

By Zach | by Zach

As Jeff Kennon describes in his blog posts. Active listening is a lost art. It’s difficult to slow down in our daily lives and pay attention to those around us. Afterall, we are busy people and always occupied with ourselves. “Now this habit of asking about another’s day I’m trying to walk in is much more involved than just spouting out some southern hospitality. I’m trying not to ask how someone’s doing as a form…

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Lifestyle Travel

The Economics of Wireless Earbuds

By Zach | by Zach

Several years ago now apple introduced their new iPhone with the notable omission the headphone jack. I was in college at the time and I recall the move from Apple being highly controversial. I remember everyone walked around with those apple wired earbuds across campus talking on the phone and listening to music. It was still the same as today in some ways. Android users were mocking iPhone users with the typical back and forth…

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Lifestyle Privacy Software

(Update) The Push to Eliminate Google from my Daily Life

By Zach | by Zach

It’s been 3 weeks since I started my attempt to fully remove google from my phone. The journey has had some ups and downs. I think I have a mostly stable solutions set in place now. The services I was trying to replace were Youtube, Youtube Music, and Google Maps Youtube – Winner (NewPipe) Initially I narrowed my selection of Youtube replacements down to two options. LibreTube and NewPipe. Just based on LibreTube UI I…

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Internet Lifestyle Privacy Software

The Push to Eliminate Google from my Daily Life

By Zach | by Zach

For a while now I’ve made an attempt to eliminate the use of Google from my daily life. Around 18 months ago I picked up a Pixel 3A and installed Ubuntu Touch on it. While it was fully functional technically speaking it was an abysmal experience overall. I may detail that experience later, but the Tl;dr is that I flashed CalyxOS on the phone and that was the biggest catalyst to this change. Since then…

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Lifestyle

How to Afford a Home and Get Out of Debt

By Zach | by Zach

There’s no denying that times have changes. Interest rates are high and the price of homes are even high. Astronomically high if you want to live in a major city. I’ve been a home owner for a few years now and as luck would have it I bought my house right before Covid at a very low price with a low interest rate. Since then my house has nearly doubled in value. I thank the…

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Lifestyle

An Antidote to Social Media

By Zach | by Zach

Social media is toxic. It shortens your attention spans and is linked with depression. We find ourselves impulsively doom-scrolling any brief moment of time we find ourselves insufficiently sedated with a constant stream of algorithm generated addictive content… or so I hear. While the truth is probably not as sensational as all of that, there’s no doubt that social media has become the opioid of the masses. Personally I find it dystopian to go into…

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