I now have a similar mindset, which is a departure from having hope and excitement for the future of humanity when I was young. It feel like, within me, much has been lost. This has a been a transition over the last decade but is really beginning to cement itself.

Like you I have been working to reduce my footprint, as well as reliance on consumerism and that portion of society. Honestly, this has been a successful experience for the most part. I have a lot less “stuff” then my peers, but higher quality and control in the areas that I think matter. I build and maintain as much of what I have has I can. I selfhost my own FOSS services and generally am protected from advertising, narratives, and ways of thinking being forced on me. I quit my job and now work for myself on my own terms. I’m doing ok, and I can ignore many of the societal norms that trap people in day-to-day routines they do not have control over. I have been lucky to be able to do this, though of course there are significant tradeoffs.

The part that is missing for me is finding local communities that support walking, human socialization, and collective support to counter the loneliness that comes from loss of belonging in a hopeful “global” narrative. Unfortunately this generally does not exist in my country and I don’t believe it will in my lifetime. If anything we are actively moving in the opposite direction. After decades of trying at home, I am looking elsewhere to find a small likeminded community. This is now my primary focus. It feels like since COVID many people older than me have lost their minds, becoming quick to anger and immune to reason. People younger than me (at least where I live) often appear lost and having given up on trying to address these challenges for themselves: hiding in memes and embracing an even more shallow society. Social media and consumerism are now dangerous weapons and most are still entrapped by them.

All this is to say I believe we are in a time of massive transition. I don’t know for sure what the future holds (though the novel 1984 seems relevant) and I am trying to prepare for it to the best of my ability while accepting that I can’t prepare for everything and also trying to carve out my own life away from the noise. This is still a work in progress and I very much crave a community to do this with. An online community like Beehaw gives some relief while searching for local community.

Well then use VLC and a remote control program like Unified Remote or KDE Connect and use your phone as a remote control for volume and mouse.

I second the recommendation of using Jellyfin.

Additionally you can use something like the Unified Remote app to make your phone control your computer instead of a mouse. Want to turn up the volume just use the volume rocker on your phone. You can also turn your phone screen into a large trackpad. Very convenient for watching media. I think there is an open source version called KDE Connect but I haven’t used it yet myself.

Background:

I use Obsidian for journaling and knowledge management. Each page is saved as an individual .txt file rather than in some database which ensures continuity of my data even if I switch applications one day.

I sync the files between my devices using Syncthing. Some of my notes are collaborative with others: by sorting my notes into specific folders and syncing select folders to select devices I have a notes library with a mix of personal and shared notes.

Syncthing is good at managing file conflicts. It surfaces the conflict and lets you select which file should remain. It also has options for very good versioning control.

Answer:

So, to your question, I would love to contribute to Syncthing to provide an optional capability to merge content from two conflicting .txt files rather than selecting one or the other. This would greatly improve the collaborative experience when using Syncthing to manage notes in Obsidian or similar applications.

I think there are a not-insignificant number of people who could get value from this. Syncthing is written in GO, and I’ve never contributed to an open source project before. I’m looking forward to giving it a shot but if someone else starts first that’s just fine with me. :)

I’ve been thinking about this recently with the heat in my region. Wouldn’t a light cloak, with very light clothing underneath, work well for sun protection (one or two layers over skin) while still keeping fairly cool (due to airflow)?

TL;DR: You’re correct, in my professional opinion.

The catalyst in most hydrogen fuel cells are still too expensive and have a limited life. Hydrogen will mostly be sourced as a waste product from oil and gas extraction (though it could be done with clean electricity and electrolysis), that’s why oil and gas companies are becoming so interested in pushing hydrogen (see the successful “clean” natural gas campaigns, but depending on how you measure it natural gas can result in more emissions than coal and is just a bunch of greenwashing. Same would happen with hydrogen in my opinion). Additionally, we’d have to build out an entire hydrogen delivery infrastructure that serves only that purpose. We’ll just end up with commercial fuel stations like we have now. Fuel cells (for many fuels) can make sense in very remote applications, or industrial applications where specific waste gasses can be turned into supplemental electricity right on site.

Battery-electric on the other hand is much more flexible and fits into our existing infrastructure better. It’s not just power dense batteries for cars; it’s (maybe gravity) batteries for communities, safe and long-lived (maybe salt) batteries for homes, better batteries for our electronics. Research in one area can support improvement of the others. They all connect to the same electricity grid so the energy can be shared among applications. Batteries play a role in decentralizing and democratizing energy (today you can put PV on your house, charge your car or home battery, use your car to power your house in a power outage, etc). As mentioned we can use greener and cleaner batteries (even completely non-chemical) in some applications, and one day we can hopefully get to the point of using ultra- or super-capacitors in place of high-density chemical batteries. In the mean time we have batteries that work and are getting quite affordable, we can transition to this solution now without waiting for a miracle breakthrough, then continue to iterate the technology over time.