Haven’t actually tried it myself but check https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp#sponsorblock-options

I’m listening to podcast on a daily basis. I’m using Escapepod on a deGoogled Android phone.

Basically I pay for premium feeds, this way the author of the podcast get money and I don’t ads. One example is “Tech Won’t Save Us” via Patreon https://www.patreon.com/c/techwontsaveus/posts?vanity=techwontsaveus and another is 404 Media.

How it works is that premium podcast feed have a uniquely generated URL that I then use on my podcast client. It then downloads the episodes from the feeds, no ad. It’s very straightforward.

No need for YouTube (terrible, part of Google/Alphabet) nor Apple (terrible as it’s doing everything possible to grow it’s closed ecosystem) to have quality content.

It’s all just speculations, both what you suggested and what others said.

You are on the right path with your screenshots but you might not be measuring the right thing.

So, you need a (paper) notebook to record objectively (not your biased feeling assuming a pattern that might not exist) when it happens and for how long. Only from then can you backtrack to WHAT causes it. Sure you can have some hypothesis (update related, screen attach/detach, BIOS, RAM, etc) but that should NOT lead to your data acquisition.

So you htop is nice but AFAICT it’s just about CPU and memory, it’s not about e.g. IO so consider instead iotop, in particular if one process is some indexing (e.g. locatedb). Theoretically if it’s not CPU/memory (which you are saying it’s not the case) then it basically just leaves IO, that can be again indexing, some heavy process that is bottlenecked on disk access, but can also be a bug, e.g. BT pairing/unpairing that happens faster than you can notice.

Think of this as a fun investigation that leads you to better understanding of your setup, good luck.

play around with local LLMs and image upscaling

FWIW I did that for a bit https://fabien.benetou.fr/Content/SelfHostingArtificialIntelligence and I stopped doing it. I did it mostly from FOMO and that, maybe, truly, it wasn’t just hype. Well I stopped. Sure most of those (then state of the art) models are impressive. Yes there are some radical progresses on all fronts, from software to hardware to mathematics underpinning ALL this… and yet, that is ACTUALLY useful in there? IMHO not much.

Once you did try models and confirm that yes indeed it makes “something” then the usefulness is so rare it make the whole endeavor not worth it for me. I would still do it again in retrospect because it helps to learn but… honestly NOT doing it and leaving others to benchmark, review, etc or “just” spending 10 bucks on a commercial model will save you a LOT of time.

So… do what you want but I’d argue gaming remains by far the best usage of a local GPU.

Well I get why you stick to a hardware device you like… but honestly that’s 15 years old. You can get something better and cheaper delivered to your door tomorrow.

I personally went down a similar path while discovering https://www.rockbox.org/ was still a thing, looking for old iPod or Archos I could refurbish, checking 2nd hand market, etc. As much as it pains me to say, unless you are a collector it’s not “worth” it. You can get something ridiculously smaller, with more memory, more features, etc for the price of a meal.

IMHO it’s better to get rid of Windows by purchasing new hardware that is genuinely interroperable by supporting standards.

Ideally you’d check something like https://www.hanselman.com/blog/how-to-update-the-firmware-on-your-zune-without-microsoft-dammit but it might be more work than you want to put it. Maybe your local HackerSpace could help though.

My point finally is that freedom is quite important and feeling trapped daily is not worth ~$50.

Nothing you (nor I) know of but that doesn’t mean it’s the case. I can’t evaluate but https://www.openimagedenoise.org/ is publishing by Intel and in 2026 so maybe it’s good.

Right, then I can’t help you.

To clarify for others though as I guess I wasn’t clear based on the downvotes : I’m not suggesting a single piece of software is a viable alternative to Lightroom. Rather I’m saying Lightroom itself is a collection of algorithms dedicated to photo editing wrapped in a UX one is familiar with. On the other hand ImageMagick (just to pick one I know relatively well) is a set of command line tools for image editing. It’s mostly used as a backend with other tools as interface. I imagine there are plenty of alternatives to ImageMagick too, probably some that can include arXiv STOA algorithms for photo editing, maybe some even with a GUI but my point again is to reconsider the workflow to understand how the tools one rely on actual work.

So to hopefully express myself better this time, ImageMagick + Gimp + Krita + some script in a Github repository based on an arXiv publication + I don’t know what + … all together or in part might be better for some people but no I don’t know an all-in-one open source alternative that cover ALL needs without them being expressed first.

Not.

Now to be slightly more helpful (apologies for the provocation) I suggest you consider alternatives to Lightroom. I know that instantly you will receive countless comments on how alternatives are just nowhere near as good as Lightroom… and that’s OK. IMHO it’s OK because I bet YOUR usage of Lightroom isn’t the usage of others. So… I recommend you forget the brand “Adobe” or the product “Lightroom” and instead you list here the actual function of a tool you need.

This way, by listing actual needs rather than a bundle product with branding and specific UX, you go back to the root of your problem, namely WHY do you need such a piece of software in the first place.

Sure, you might end up with an entirely different workflow. Sure it will probably be absolutely alien at first… but so was learning how to use that piece of software in the first place too. Right now you do have the concepts, so replacing one click by a command line tool, or 1 piece of software by 10, is IMHO acceptable. What you will hopefully have in the end if YOUR workflow that is even more adapted compared to what you had first. It will be “weird” and maybe nobody else will get it but for you it will be exactly what you need.

I don’t think it matters so much. It’s possible to test Linux literally in seconds with nothing to install thanks to virtual machines on the Web. It’s risk free.

What prevents people from migrating isn’t technical, it’s mostly FUD and marketing (not to say lies) from MicroSlop.

I think that’s an important distinction here :

• there can be NO genuinely open devices

versus

• open devices can’t be popular

So when you say “what’s frustrating is that we can’t really vote with our wallets, and any right-to-repair or consumer-is-in-charge movement is going to be limited by intelligence agencies, corporations like John Deere, Apple, and the entire entertainment industry” I disagree.

We CAN really vote with our wallets precisely by purchasing things like Precursor, MNT, NitroKey, etc while at the same time expecting, sadly, that it won’t become the most popular devices in the market. I believe allowing creators and maintainers of such system, and even distributors like CrowdSupply, to exist even though they are and might always remain niche, is already empowering. So I’d argue both of us already voted with our wallets on this topic and our acquaintances too.

I’d also be cautious about preemptive pessimism. Sure it’s important to be mindful of worrisome examples like the FlipperZero (which AFAICT is only banned for purchase in Brazil due to lack of Anatel’s certification for wireless, I believe it’s possible to legally bring and use a FlipperZero in the country but I’m not a lawyer) or DRM for streaming (which I thought was a huge deal until I disabled DRM support in my browser and basically nothing changed in my browsing habits) precisely to learn from them. Also FWIW I did gather some ideas on the topic at https://fabien.benetou.fr/Content/SwappingPartsOfTheRestrictionStack so I’d be curious about your opinion on the topic, suggestions welcomed.

TPM. It’s what protects your phone and servers from attackers. Desktop would also benefit from it a lot.

Hard disagree here, TPM is only 1 more protection, it’s not what alone does protect your data. Also desktop vs phone and servers are very different use cases. You can easily get your phone stolen in a public space. Your server if it hosted in a data center you don’t own might get compromised … but your desktop, it means breaking in or inviting in guests you do not trust. The situations are very different. Encrypting disks on a small device holding sensitive data, e.g. banking, that can easily be taken from you in public makes sense for most people. Doing so on a heavy bulky device that sits in your locked house where is quite another thing.

FWIW for RPi https://www.crowdsupply.com/anavi-technology/anavi-tpm-2-0-for-raspberry-pi and more generally to store anything anywhere https://shop.nitrokey.com/shop/nitrokey-storage-2-56

Neat, also got my Precursor there, but then are you saying that projects there are limited and if so how?

To be clear I don’t think anybody wants to pirate anything.

I think most people who met an artist creating content they admire absolutely want to help them make more.

But… when somehow this artist get “represented” by an absolute asshole who tries to get as much money as possible while breaking all the way we have to actually enjoy the art, convince more artists to do the same, coerce others who refuse then repeats the cycle worsening the situation for everybody, including for people who do not even want to be involved, … well fuck that.

limited by intelligence agencies, corporations like John Deere, Apple, and the entire entertainment industry

What do you think of commercial platforms like CrowdSupply with e.g. https://www.crowdsupply.com/search?q=tpm where OSHW solutions can be sold to individual and companies?

Historical context : it’s a 1yo post.

TPM itself isn’t the problem. TPM itself technically might be a good solution, what the FSF precisely put forward is “out of the user’s control”. They even mention how it’s not about theoretical ideas but how it’s actually used. If Microsoft gets to decide HOW your computers works DESPITE you wanting NOT to behave that way AND it makes Microsoft itself, or its partners, even more entrenched then it’s a serious problem, it means “your” computer is their computer.

What we have all witnessed is that bit by bit OSes like Windows, but also MacOS and Android, are not simply providing stores or tightly controllers channel (with fees for themselves) but ALSO removing entirely, or making it radically harder, to install software the user actually wants to install (not malware).

It’s not about TPM, it’s as usual about who control your computer.

It’s not the only way, e.g. “Sorbonne University has decided to unsubscribe from the Web of Science, to refocus its attention on free, open and participative infrastructures like OpenAlex” from https://www.sorbonne-universite.fr/en/news/sorbonne-university-decides-withdraw-times-higher-education-world-university-rankings

I believe the idea is that you run your own instance if none of the existing one fits your need.

If you do set one up for your own LUG you can, if you want, decide to then open it up for LUGs organizers elsewhere.

No idea on iOS, specifically left the OS due to its lack of interoperability.

On Android I did test but https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.atharok.screentime/ or https://f-droid.org/en/packages/godau.fynn.usagedirect/ looks like good candidate. I’m not sure if they have export or publish to API functions but I image at this point would be relatively easy to add.

Interesting, I’d complete it with KDE Connect to add mobile usage.