• 46 Posts
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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: November 27th, 2023

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  • Are you keen on using wireless headphones or speakers? If not, I’d go all the way for one without Bluetooth so the thought of present or future vulnerabilities won’t have to cross my mind whenever I use it.

    In addition to the Bluetooth vulnerabilities other commenters have mentioned, a recent one affects headsets with Google’s Fast Pair feature. Once forcibly paired, an adversary can register the headset with their Google account. The headset thereafter pings nearby Android devices as part of the find lost devices network and can be used to track the victim.

    Not sure if they are in production any more, but I can recommend the old iPod-looking Walkman and Sansa MP3 players. Currently also using a no-name iPod nano clone for the fact that it has a microSD slot, even upgraded the internal battery a few months ago.







  • If you are in the US, take a look at Fidelity or Vanguard. They haven’t required the use of a smartphone app.

    Using a phone with Android 8 isn’t best practice for security by any means, but unless you are being targeted or going around downloading shady apps, it’s more likely it will run into app incompatibility issues in the coming years than anything else.

    For sites where I’m making a low-value, one-off purchase and never coming back, I’ll use a pseudonym alongside a prepaid gift card, or failing that, a privacy.com virtual card. Not quite a sustainable strategy with eBay or Amazon, especially if the package needs a signature, so I’ll just use a privacy.com virtual card and supply a P.O. Box address

    Mostly accepted that it is the way it is for these things. If the privacy-friendly option is giving up a few conveniences, I’ll take it. But if it’s keeping me from reaching certain goals, I’ll tolerate a compromise. I don’t think I’m being targeted either, so it’s all tolerable in my personal threat model.


  • I did once while abroad. None of the shoe stores had the style I wanted in wide, so I went on Amazon and found a pair which reviewers tended to say fit well. Particularly that the listed size matched their expectations when they tried the actual shoe on. Ordered the size I thought would fit me and it did in fact fit me perfectly. It lasted about a year until it started leaking at the glued seam, which to be fair, wasn’t too disappointing for a 48-Euro no-name pair.

    Granted, that was for men’s hiking shoes, can’t really speak for finding good high heels online. Other than for that one-off occasion, I’ve only shopped for shoes and clothes in-person.








  • Mixed bag. I’m lucky enough that most of my work can be done on a Linux machine. Workplace does require us to bring our own devices, but the policy is extremely lax, no need to install any monitoring software or the like. Which lets me have a Linux desktop chilling on my desk.

    But I do have to keep a laptop with Windows around. We sometimes have to work with overcomplicated Office documents that break on alternatives like LibreOffice or the occasional piece of proprietary software that needs direct USB access, which Wine cannot yet provide.





  • New appliances. A matter of time until the fridge chokes itself since the coils are covered in dust and impossible to reach without tipping the whole fridge over. Also sorely regret replacing the old electromechanical washer instead of repairing it. New one fills with too little water at random and apparently it’s a controller board issue with no easy fix in sight.

    Also Apple mobile devices, I understand they can’t keep supporting them forever, but the bootloader’s locked so I can’t even put something less demanding on it.


  • Kemove K87 with Red switches and o-rings at work. Keeps noise down and the tenkeyless layout is a nice compromise between desk space and functionality. Might switch it out for an ikbc tenkeyless with Cherry MX Silent Red switches that I got for cheap once. That I purchased to see if something without o-rings would feel better, but I’ll have to fix a couple broken switches first.

    At home, a no-name tenkeyless with blue switches because that was what was on discount and I didn’t mind the clicking. Before that, I used a Monoprice full-size with brown switches and o-rings to keep the loud pinging down. Miss the feel of the brown switches, but not how much space it took on my desk.

    I originally worried that my typing accuracy would suffer on the reds due to the lack of tactile bump, but I’m growing to prefer it since I don’t find myself making more typos, while the low actuation force makes long typing sessions more comfortable. Haven’t looked at more niche low-profile, etc. options though, can’t quite convince myself to drop more than $50 on a keyboard.