I did once. It was back in the days when all of my software was pirated - even Little Snitch (where you had to add Little Snitch itself to its blocking rules, to prevent it from phoning home). As far as I can remember, it was too expensive to buy - at least for a permanently broke student at that time. Later I discovered Radio Silence. I wrote that I had RS from 2021 onward, but I think I already had it in 2018. Not 100% sure.

Radio Silence

This is an outbound application firewall for MacOS that allows you to block applications from phoning home. It blocks outgoing traffic rather than incoming traffic, which can be toggled within the firewall settings. It has a time-limited trial period, but I did the one-time-purchase for 9 $ and it served me well since I bought it in - I think it was in 2021 - originally to keep a not-so-legally-obtained Photoshop Suite from connecting to their servers. The app is not intrusive, no annoying pop ups or the like. The app launches automatically at system start up. Occaional updates (bug fixes or to match with the latest OS version) are included with the licence.

Today I use it to block a pirated version of SketchUp (the only remaining software I have installed that has been pirated) from calling home, als well as Affinity 2 (and, probably in the future) the now free Affinity 3 (since it was aquired by Canva).

I consider this app worth its money.

12 € per year for my email provider.

I rather donate for software projects that I find useful for me. I donate towards the fediverse foundation for covering server costs for my home instance, and (irregularly) for open source software that I use myself, like VLC player or LocalSend. This time I wanted to donate to FreeTube, because I used it very often in the past year, but unfortunately they only recieve Bitcoins. I don’t have a wallet, nor want to create one just for this.

As a dog I can tell you that I don’t lie on the internet. Being a good boy doesn’t come from nothing!

Constantly, until the day I moved out completely. Privacy only existed on paper. My room occasionally was searched while I was absent, and I only noticed because it was done sloppy (things were arranged differently). This was especially the case for all school related things, but included the occasional search for cigarettes and alcohol.

I’m really glad that the whole computer/ internet/ mobile phone/ social media thing started to happen while I was becoming an adult, and thus was on the brink of moving out. Maybe this helped me to spark a general interest in online privacy.

Sometimes at work we do have interns from a nearby school. They participate for two weeks, in order to prepare them for entering work force in a coulple of years, and to find out what these students are interested in. These students are around the age of 14 - 17 years old. To gain a school licence for our software we use at work, we make them to register with the software vendor to obtain such a temporary licence. This involves to register with the email adress they recieve from their school. Many of these interns struggle with that, because they cannot do this on their own, either, they don’t know how to, or, because access within their phones is restricted by parental controls. One intern told me, that their parents regularly search their phone - and the worst part ist, that this is seen as completely normal to them! They already have been conditioned to constant surveillance that it would be weird to them if they were left unattended regarding this matter.

If my parents would have had access to my online activities (if availiable back then), they certainly would have had a field day.

I jokingly used to say: If we [my parents and I] lived in the GDR [Eastern Germany before the fall of the Iron Curtain], we woudn’t just have had a car, but also a telephone. [The reason for this is that citizens who were actively involved in the suveillance of certain people, along with the spying of their neighbors and own families, were often members of the StaSi, and thus were rewarded for their loyality towards the party with a car whitout the long waiting time, and those who were within the party also would have had an own telephone at their homes as a reward for their loyal services.]

I wouldn’t call it a “mask”, because it implies deception. Depending on who you are around, you show (and hide) different treats of your personality: In an employment setting you do not act the same way you would act when you hang with your boys (or girls, respectively) - you show different aspects of your personality while you are with your significant other, rather than with your parents. Also, your online behavior would be different from your offline behavior when navigating public situations.

Different people around you and/or different social settings make you filter things regarding your personal beliefs and/or personal traits.

Best Christmas I’ve had was when my girlfriend and I first spent the holidays all detached from our respective families. No expectations that have to be met, no yelling, no surpressed needs, no fake happy harmonic family bullshit, no driving around - just silence and a few chill days together without any obligations whatsoever.

Since then we spend each years Christmas like that. A time dominated by tranquility and good food. Right now my girlfriend is playing computer games, I am scrolling the fediverse, perhaps watch a movie later.

My Youtube feed via FreeTube for videos, and Mastodon for (mostly) news articles, as well as news outlets present in my country.

I don’t clean regularly, given that I have neither children nor pets. When I am expecting guests over, I just make sure that the toilet and sink are clean and that the kitchen is cleared up and dishes are done. And, of course, vacuuming the floors.

After all, an appartement (or house) is a place where someone lives, and thus, things are in use constantly and lying around. It’s not supposed to be a furniture-store display.

Two years ago I was gifted a green Rick-and-Morty Pickle Rick coffee mug with Rick’s pickle face one one side and the words “PICLKE RICK” on the the other side. I use it almost daily.

Translation: Bicyles don’t stink … are silent

With all the world (at least western nations) drifting backwards at least into nationalism (some countries even at full throttle into fascism), this could be used as an advantage: Why not shifting the narrative into the direction, that a stable, clean and healthy enviroment is pinnacle of patriotism (like the narrative of a healthy body was used in national-socialist propaganda 90 years ago in Germany), along with renewable energy that makes each nation independent from others. Wind turbines and solar power for freedom, so to say. Things like coal rolling or similar acts like wasting resources will be deemed as un-patriotic then.

I believe it did happen more than once. The reason why life on Earth has developed into such complexity is that the primordial soup, where life developed out of, has been cooking undisturbed from events like supernovae and such that would have wiped out everyhing (Earth istself as well as the whole solar system) nearby. Life could develop over several billion years, and cosmic events like asteroid impacts didn’t wipe out all of life. Remaining life startet over again.

If life developed on another planet with similar features like earth, it could have been wiped out by a nearby supernova, by a collision between two planets and similar events, before it got any more complex.

Not as a kid, but as a young adult entering the workforce:

Never trade shifts with anyone.

When I heard this advice, I thought that this would be a dick move, because you are supposed to help out each other, since everyone appears to be in the same position (or metaphorically in the same boat). But some time later I witnessed what was meant: I had two coworkers that engaged in a shift-trade. One of the coworkers had an appointment and so he asked another coworker if they can switch shifts. The other one agreed to cover the shift, but he never got the favor back, as if that agreement never took place.

It turns out, that at work, everyone ist fighting for himself, and you should, too, catering to your own interests.

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I went to school in Germany. Over the years we watched as a class

• Mr. Bean (English lesson)
• Schlaflos in Seattle / Sleepless in Seatte (as wished by the girls in class - English lesson)
• Und täglich grüßt das Murmeltier / Groundhog Day (English lesson)
• Das Phantom der Oper / The Phantom Of The Opera (Music lesson)
• 1984 (Politics lesson)
• Animal Farm (Politics lesson)
• Es war einmal das Leben / Once Upon a Time… Life / Original title: Il était une fois… la vie (Biology lesson)
• Apollo 13 (during the bus ride on a class trip)
• A Christmas Carol (at the last day of school before winter/ Christmas holidays)

Sometimes, I think it was in 6th grade, we had lesson in a room that was permanently equipped with a TV and VCR (as opposed to these portable TV carts a teacher had to roll into the room). When we behaved well (and we did!), we were allowed to watch MTV for the last remaining 10 - 15 minutes before lesson was dismissed.

Sinalco Cola. I replaced Coca Cola with it more than ten years ago.

Yosemite

I’ve learned in school quite early that it is pronounced as Yo-semmy-tee, but I deliberately pronounce it Yoh-ze-mite, because it’s funny.

Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead.