Yeah. It’s kind of like being an actor vs just enjoying watching movies.

Watch porn, or make porn? I know a few friends who would find latter attractive. Not so much the former.

I did exactly that many years ago. Ditched my phone and went with x86 UMPC with builtin 3G modem, the name of which I don’t remember because it was some random Chinese no-name. Unfortunately that experiment coincided with the era of “fuck websites, we’re going app-only because we’re so hip”. I was in a world of pain right off the bat when I got a carrier plan, specifically marketed for usage on PC’s, and it did not work. I called them and they said to me:

• Do you have Android or iOS?
• I only have Windows
• Windows phone?
• No, Windows 8…
• Well, you’ll have to use the app to activate the SIM card…

Turns out, the usage on PC’s meant tethering…

Lots of online things, if they were even available as websites, were highly cut down versions of apps. And SMS 2FA, goddamn. I remember not being able to buy booze and shoes because, apparently, phone confirmations were required in those establishments. Good thing they’re fading out in favor of TOTP and passkeys. But, at a time, I had to swtich to a carrier that allowed me to use “corporate” features like SMS forwarding and SIP telephony. Also, fuck WhatsApp, that shit can burn in all fires of hell.

On the other hand, I really miss that time. It was liberating, just not having like, a few dozen malwares in my pocket tracking me down just to track someone’s dog, or a bus, or to spy on someone’s buying preferences or whatever. But things have gotten quite a bet better over the years, so I’m kind of inclined to repeat the experiment with my new-ish OM3S which I carry because I still cannot imagine going out without a proper PC on me (don’t buy it, though, it is severely underpowered, better get something GPD instead).

Skyscrapers, most likely.

I used to live in a resort city for the past year, and really missed big city things, like specialty stores - for the whole city there was only one PC store, one bicycle store, one music store - and all of them sucked big time. So I had to rely on online marketplaces… oh wait, there were none, so I had to order international and wait for months. Local taxi was also not good, food delivery business practically non-existent. Same for furniture and appliances, instead of home depot and radioshack you’d have to go to bazaars and ask around. But the most important one is opportunities. I was a digital nomad and lived comfortably, but locals, holy hell, I don’t have any idea how they survive with wages this low. Pretty sure some of those construction workers would trade it all away to live as street musicians in SF or NYC, as just surviving there would put them in like worlds top 0.1%, but instead they work for hours on dangerous jobs for what I would’ve spend on a cup of coffee in a local cafe catered to tourists.

deleted by creator

Yep. That’s the number one contender. Well right after overriding default DERP’s with my own VPS machines. I’ll definitely try it out over some weekend.

One of my other concerns with this and other solutions suggested is the reliance on wireguard which can be subject to fingerprinting and censorship. Do you happen to know if it’d be possible to swap out Headscale’s implementation of wireguard to amnezia? I’ll have to do my homework anyway, but who knows, maybe there are some pitfalls to avoid.

Tailscale… is not that good. The underlying wireguard is robust, but tailscale control plane is completely proprietary, as well as their DERP servers that it too often uses completely needlessly. They can also block you off from downloading it, updating, or logging in, if you happen to be in a wrong country.

I’m myself looking for an alternative to it, but having trouble finding something I could share with non tech savvy friends while not being as complex on my end as, say, open/strongswan ais. Any suggestions welcome.

Just don’t make the mistake I’ve did at buying an electric bicycle. The controllers for the engines are mostly proprietary barely sewn together noname pieces of garbage, that you’d need some bullshit adapters and obscure software to flash settings in.

Also don’t dig yourself too deep into cycling. There are good quality bicycles at a cost of a motorcycle or even a used car, and then there’s aliexpress specials made of whatever was lying around, but there are very few in-between options. I’d suggest just getting the latter and throwing it out when it breaks or you get bored.

Votes decide which comments get shown or not, and in which order. If you don’t care whether you are being heard, then you might as well just talk to a wall.

You get reactions on your comments? Reddit is notorious at gaslighting you and never showing your comments (and even posts) to anyone but you and the people you’ve shared direct link to. It does this to something like tenth to third of your comments, depending on how civil you are.

Though, to be fair, it’s not even the worst at it. Youtube is where you go if you want to throw your thoughts directly into a black hole.