I don't know if you have heard, but Loops.video is a Reels/Tiktok like app from the creator of Pixelfed. I recall it being announced, and checked just now on a whim. All of a sudden, it appears pretty close to ready to launch!

What are Lemmy's feelings about the best cloud storage options these days, if you really want to break into the 1-2TB range? I'm not there yet, probably not even halfway there, but I like the peace of mind of potentially having the space if I need it. And I think subscribing to something in the Netflix price range is maybe something I'm ready for.

My thoughts so far:

pcloud - Intriguing because you can pay for a "lifetime" plan of 2TB of storage. But it's $350, which is a lot, and I don't know that I love the interface or usability, and I don't know if I trust them.

iDrive - Super affordable. 5tb for "just" $80/year. It might be the best deal, but nothing about their identity suggests to me that they are "good guys." By which I mean, I'm not sure I trust them to make long-term promises for any specific plan.

Mega - I like its very anti-google, very encrypted attitude. Born from the ashes of megaupload, they built encryption and zero knowledge into it. I LOVE that you can connect to it through the android app Solid Explorer and therefore don't even need the mega app if you don't want it. I hear bad things about it though? And it's pretty expensive at $115 per year for 2TB.

My personal thoughts/reasoning/caveats:

Homebrew stuff: I don't quite trust myself to use a homebrew setup like Nextcloud or Syncthing correctly. There's too much in terms of labor, upkeep, catastrophic single points of failure where you could lose everything. I feel like I'm 70% of the way to being smart enough to do this.

Avoiding the Bad Guys and the Free Stuff: I've tried the free version of just about everything, from Google to Onedrive to Dropbox to Mediafire to Mega. There's even an android app that offers 1 free terrabyte?? But I don't want something from the bad guys where I'm going to be integrated into their closed source death drap: Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, and I don't want a too-good-to-be-true free service where I'm the product.

I also would prefer to avoid something from the upstarts who kinda-sorta imitate the bad guys: Dropbox, Mediafire, Box. Because I'm not sure how much I can trust any specific long term promise from them.

It sounds like you're saying nothing is good enough! What exactly do you want!? Something from good guys, not bad guys. Something like Standardnotes, but for file storage. They emphasize privacy, good governance principles and longevity of their service. Or Linode, with their independence, sense of mission, love of Linux & free software, all of which tells me they are good guys.

Probably the correct answer is (1) here's this magical perfect source I never thought of, or (2) I'm thinking this much about it, I should probably do Nextcloud or syncthing given all the constraints that I'm putting out there.

Anyway, that's my thoughts on cloud storage. What are yours?

I joined on June 1st, 2020. Today is December 30th 2021, so it's been about 1.5 years.

Under my username, it displays as "Joined 2Y ago." So it's rounding up. I think it makes more sense to display years + months, or days, or maybe any other way that doesn't make it round up.

Michael Fogus' 2021 list of best articles/talks, technical/non technical books, music and movies and programming languages.

A review of 49 lists from 33 outlets, recommending more than 700 books, with 185 of them on multiple lists. This page filters them all down to the books that made the most best-of's for 2021.

This is a site that aggregates a bunch of music best-of lists from approximately 100 sites, ranging from USA Today to AV Club to Paste to Decibel. Pretty mainstream I think, but a decent enough birds eye view of mainstream 2021 music lists.

I think I should start with the meta, which begins with a site that aggregates 2021 best-ofs.

Here's a pattern you've probably seen:

1. Racists/nazi shows up and says racist/nazi things
2. Get called out for it and/or banned
3. They claim they are unfairly banned "for disagreeing." They completely leave out the part about them being a racist nazi.

You know, that move. I've seen it more times than I can count and I bet you have too. They call disagreement with nazism "opinions you don't like", leaving out the nazism part. Any way of framing disagreements with them while subtracting out the actual content of what they say.

It's so common that I think it deserves a word. I know there are generic descriptions: e.g. "being a troll", but I think something specific to this particular behavior deserves its own word. That way it can just be identified and dismissed for what it is and not argued with.

I like discovering new things. So I went through the entire list of games in the Bundle For Racial Justice and Equality. I found some I liked, and wanted to share.

What I don't want to share are the relatively widely known games: Oxenfree, Celeste, Oneshot, A Short Hike, Pyre, Octodad, Hidden Folks, Night In The Woods. Games that already have over a thousand reviews on Steam.

Here are some of my obscure gems:

Cromwell - Clearly inspired by Reigns, and I loved Reigns. A story based card game with swipe-left or swipe-right decisions. Reigns was amazing, I was sad when I finished all the Android Play Store versions of the games, but am glad there's another one in the spirit of that series.

A New Life - It was made by Angela He, creator of Missed Messages. The atmosphere, the aesthetic, is just so awesome to me. Why can't other creators make games so lush with feels and beauty as Angela He? There's just no comparison imo.

Elsemir - a really well done 2d graphical point + click fantasy game. Click through to the itch.io page and check out the reviews and screenshots.

I could go on, but I'll pause there. What did you find in the itch.io bundle?