Visiting all the national parks I can and even a few world heritage sites would be nice.

As far as doing things, I’d like to build some heirloom furniture, a couple of stringed instruments, and maybe a canoe. Might even go full Thoreau/Dick Proennecke and build a cabin out in the wilderness.

Definitely my favorite comic strip as well. Made me want to be outside as a kid, exploring the woods by our house. All the anthologies are worth getting. The full page, hand-watercolored Sunday editions are worth the price of admission alone.

Seems pretty volatile in most countries right now so would depend on how stable you believe your income is and if you could comfortably afford the total cost of ownership (expensive houses tend to have higher property taxes, insurance and financing costs, etc).

Me personally, I probably wouldn’t stretch my finances right now with all the uncertainty just so I don’t stress about making ends meet if my situation changes. But everyones’ circumstances and risk tolerances are different.

Burgers are also used to compare purchasing power parity via the Big Mac Index. Although The Economist is a British publication, it’s funny to think they did it so readers can relate better

Sturgill Simpson as well. I’d throw in Billy Strings too, though he’s more bluegrass/jamgrass than outlaw country. But yeah there’s a lot of good musicians that are the antithesis of modern stadium country.

I only have experience with NewPipe but so far it has been positive. I use it every day on both Android and e/OS (Fairphone) without issue.

The times when YT has breaking changes have been resolved by the dev team within a relatively short period (keep in mind they are open-source contributors after all).

No TV but the more pernicious thing now is anything connected to the internet. Feels like “no TV in the bedroom” should be updated to “no screens in the bedroom” since a lot of folks end up doom scrolling instead of going to bed.

In-person meet ups are great, especially for shared hobbies. A lot of things are starting to be remote only, which can also be fine, but I just prefer meeting IRL.

Was a pretty good day. Walked to the park with my dog, made progress on a chair I’ve been building, and played some mandolin. Mowed the lawn too, I have one of those non-electric reel mowers so it’s a decent workout.

Agreed and when you find a small, indie company making good stuff, they may get bought by a megacorp who ends up worsening the product.

From what I can tell, a Certified B corp label seems to be a decent indicator of meeting at least a minimum standard of ethics. Hopefully more businesses start to put people of profits.

Agree we should be aware of what we’re consuming. Think the rise in certain diseases is correlated to diet and gut health. Lack of fiber, too many preservatives/sugar/etc. is getting more common in modern diets.

IMO it’s the convenience factor you have to try to overcome in most cases.

Some practical things we’ve been doing is buying more produce locally. We go to a weekly farmers market nearby or shop the perimeter of the grocery store only and avoid the center aisles. The trick is to use what you get before it goes bad (which natural food should, it’s a red flag to me if food is shelf stable for months). So we got a slow cooker and now it’s pretty easy to throw a bunch of vegetables in and have dinner ready without much effort or clean up.

The other trick is to just not have snacks in the house, otherwise we’ll end up eating those pretty quickly. I love potato chips, but if we don’t buy them, I don’t miss them and end up eating fruits or something else.

It’s a win-win, because it’s relatively cheap (beans and rice is cheaper than packs of ramen) and healthier.

But yeah it’s an uphill battle and getting increasingly difficult and more expensive to find food that’s good for you unfortunately.

I don’t want big name celebrities doing voice over for animated movies. Give me actual VAs

Right now I alternate between DuckDuckGo and Ecosia. Google results have been getting worse and the forcing of AI summaries was the final straw for me to stop using even the !g shortcut in DDG. At least DDG let’s you disable them.

Waking up late on weekends, making a good cup of coffee, throwing on a record, and just relaxing before the day gets going.

Playing an instrument and jamming with others.

Finishing projects. Making stuff by hand.

Taking long walks with my dog.

Reading outside.

Music and dancing.

Being amongst nature.

That’s refreshing to see in a world of ever increasing enshittification. Wish more companies move in this direction.