I read an interview a while back with an wine expert (I can’t find it anymore of course…), who said that recently more wine producers have started to use bentonite (which is a sort of clay) instead of animal products to fine the wine, because it is readily available and cheaper. So more and more wines are vegan even though they’re not labeled as such. It’s still good to be thorough though and hope more wine producers start using bentonite.

Proton offers the service of downloading most APK’s directly from their website, bypassing the play store. They do this to help people get their apps in countries where it isn’t accessible. Take a look at protonapps.com and they also have a lot of information on how to set up their apps on different operating systems

Haha well the battery life sucks and the camera is fine, not great

To be fair, the Fairphone is not the greatest in terms of specs, its more middle of the road but on the expensive side. But its has a way longer life. So I get that you want to think on it, because it’s more of a commitment to justify the cost

I’d say the paid plan is definitely worth it. The VPN is awesome. Very fast and with a lot of servers around the world. The drive is solid and they keep adding more features like automatic backup for you photos and secure file sharing. Lately they added a Docs to the drive, similar to google docs.

I have a family plan with my wife and brother in law and we share the costs, that makes it even more worth it.

I use a Fairphone with e/os, which works fairly well as an os. Regular updates and they listen to user feedback. And e/os has an app lounge where you can download apps from the play store (without a google account) and f-droid, which is very easy. And the fairphone is great with interchangeable parts.

For maps I use a combo of organic maps and Magic earth. Magic Earth isn’t Foss but is privacy focused and has traffic alerts for driving.

YouTube - Newpipe

And for mail, passwordmanager, VPN, calendar, and drive I use Proton.

The transfer into proton is indeed very easy and with their family pack you also get Mail, Drive, VPN, Calendar and they keep working on adding more. Very happy with proton and their fight for privacy

While I do agree that Tolkien’s work is exceptional, The Wheel of Time shows us that studios have no problems with fucking up good source material. So it can probably go either way

Sure, but results in the past give no guarantees about how successful a future endeavour can be.

I’m not trying to take a side here, but just reserving judgement.

Why?

People also should be able to pay the artist directly and not some billion dollar company who continue to try to squeeze the artists and limit creativeness all in servitude to the almighty dollar (or any other currency)

Quite interesting to see them trying to live without a car in a society where cars are such a necessity. I live in the Netherlands and many of my friends don’t have a license or own a car, but over here the infrastructure is build around accessibility for people without a car. For example, I live in a small town and I can hop on my bike and reach 5 supermarkets within 15 minutes. But it’s interesting to see people trying out different modes of transportation where it’s not so easy.

Yeah it takes so much dedication and practice to become a successful writer, so it’s really remarkable that he wrote such a great story as his first novel. It shows his unique mind. And the raw (if you can call it that) feeling of Elantris adds to the charm for me. Its like seeing the writer grow and evolve before your eyes.

Oh wow, I didn’t know that! And so far I’ve enjoyed how he wrotw the WoT series. Keeping in touch with the overall feeling of the books, but still writing within himself and not trying to emulate Robert Jordan.

Nice! Reading WoT takes a while, but it so worth it

Thanks, I’m really looking forward to it! It’s been a long journey through these 15 books. And Brandon Sanderson is great, I love the Mistborn and Stormlight books, but Elantris is one that really gripped me. Such a interesting and well-written story.

I’ve started A Memory of Light. The last book in the Wheel of Time series.

And I’m also reading Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

I deleted my Google account recently and I agree that Google maps is in a league of their own. I now use Magic Earth in my car, but searching for something is not as good as Google maps. But so far the realtime traffic info is good

I just watched episode two and I’m less optimistic than before. While it’s still better than season one, they’re combining too many storylines which makes it chaotic. Right now I’m thinking that they should never have made the show. The story is too large and complex too catch within a tv-series. Even though I enjoy watching the books come to life.

I watched episode 1. I thought it was better than the first season. Some better visuals and the pacing wasn’t as fast. It felt a bit more in line with the books on that front. So I hope that trend continues, because the pacing in the first season was terrible. It’s quality still doesn’t come anywhere close to the books though.

Edit: also the storyline of Nyneave is better than the first season, more in line with the books so far.

And the show gave more background information, so that’s good for people who haven’t read the books. But I still can’t really get over some storyline changes, because I don’t see the necessity.

Flight simming. Started out with a cheap joystick. Now I have an expensive one, throttle quadrants, rudder pedals, a vr headset and I’ve built myself a button box and a flight seat. And I’m now I want a helicopter collective. Oh well…