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My steps towards anti monopolies in tech area:

Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox -> pCloud

Google Calendar -> FamilyWall

Google Maps -> mapy.com, jakdojade.pl. Though I still use location sharing on Google Maps.

Chrome -> Firefox

Google search -> Qwant

Google Translate -> DeepL

Google Spreadsheets, Excel -> Planmaker

Google Docs, Word -> Textmaker

Facebook Messenger -> Delta Chat, Signal, Whatsapp (due to other people's usage)

Facebook -> Inoreader, subscription to the magazine I like. I also removed all my photos and a lot of posts. I set up e-mail notifocations to 2 important groups.

Pinterest -> removed.

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Very informative and inspiring. Regarding streaming there is also an option in Poland for tvpvod (this one is 45 PLN per year) and player.

My Digital Minimalism Journey

Doomscrolling. Smartphone addiction. Google this, Google that. Sounds familiar? I've begun a journey to untangle myslef from American megacorps and declutter my digital life.

I consider Google the worst big corporation, because while Microsoft and Apple sell products (hardware, software), Google's basically an advertising company. We are Google's products—that's why Google can give us so much for free and still make so much money. "But I have nothing to hide." Me too. I don't commit crimes, I don't watch pornography, I don't do anything classified. If everyone suddenly could see everything I do online, I'd just be slightly embarrased, that's all. But monopolies are illegal and dangerous for a reason. They erode freedom, shape our reality, leave us no alternative, influence our beliefs. I know I'm not immune to this, even though it's easy to believe otherwise.

Another factor I take into account is using local products to support my country's (Poland's) and Europe's economy and security.

Google Search

I noticed long time ago that Google Search became far from ideal, full of ads and focused on shopping. For example, when I looked for information about a medicine, I saw a long list of online pharmacies. I started using Bing, because it gave me information I was looking for—the medicine's description and side effects. (My husband is happy with Google, but his searches involve more shopping, like buying things for his hobbies and renovations.) Recently I've started using Qwant—a French search engine that uses their own index to some extent and Bing. Some people like German Ecosia that uses Google search results AFAIK.

Browser

The problem with browsers is that most of them are based on Chromium (not to be confused with Google Chrome). Chromium, Safari's Webkit and Mozilla's Gecko are like engines beneath the hoods that are browsers. Browsers may have different functions like adblocks, tab management or favourites, but those three are what allows browsers to read and display websites. While Chromium is open source, it's controlled and developed by Google.

I decided to use Mozilla Firefox with turned off telemetry and Qwant and uBlock Origin extensions. Mozilla, though American, is open source and non profit.

E-mail

Almost twenty years ago, as a teenager, I set up my mailbox on Onet—a Polish news portal. When I got married and changed my last name, I changed my mailbox too, to Gmail. Recently I've started using my old mailbox again when I discovered that I could create an alias for my current last name. In my Gmail I set up my mail to be forwarded to my current mailbox and deleted from Gmail. It isn't perfect, because the mail still reaches Google servers, but I changed most logins and I hardly get any mail there.

If you're from Poland, you can check out wp.pl and O2, they have mailboxes too. Otherwise, Swiss Proton and German Tuta are popular, especially amongst those who care much about privacy. Swiss Infomaniak offers a mailbox in Western Europe. There may be some good mailbox providers in your country, you can look it up.

Contacts

I deleted my contacts from Google and store them locally on the phone. I have backups saved on a pedrive and in a cloud.

Calendar

I've started using a paid Polish app called Domownik (dom means home, so the name means it's an app for home, for household matters). I keep my private calendar there and tasks, and recipes, and weekly menu, and a shopping list that I share with my husband, and some notes that I used to keep in Google Keep and Microsoft OneNote. It's Polish and family oriented, so it isn't a good choice for everyone. Some mailbox providers offer calendars too. You may also think about a paper calendar.

Google Drive, OneDrive

I still use them to some extent. We pay for a family plan on OneDrive. Unfortunately, when I checked European providers like Filen, Proton, Koofr, Cryptee, kDrive, Jottacloud, Hetzner... (if you just want a few GB of storage for free, check them out), it turned out OneDrive is cheaper. My husband loves photo remainders there too. I want to use Swiss pCloud where you can pay once for a lifetime. They also offer nice photo gallery and playlists made from your files. I hope I manage to change it this year.

Google Maps

I checked out a few navigation apps like HERE WeGo, Magic Earth and Organic Maps, but eventually decided to use mapy.com (former mapy.cz). You can download one country's map for free and they have great hiking trails map. I know it works best for Czech Republic and its neighbours (which I happen to be), so I'm not sure if it's as good in other countries.

There's an option to share location, but currently I'm the only one in my family who use it, so I haven't had a chance to try it out. Location sharing is the only reason why I'm still keeping Google Maps on my phone. Next time we're visiting my parents I'll try location sharing in WhatsApp and if it works, I could get rid of Google Maps.

For public transport I use Polish app jakdojade.pl.

Google Docs, Microsoft Office

I've used LibreOffice for years (and OpenOffice before that), so I don't need to change much on my PC. However, I used Google Docs and Sheets on my phone. I had a Google Sheets file for recording my weight. I decided I'm going to keep a digital version of that as ODS (LibreOffice file) on my PC (with a backup in a cloud) and I'll start noting my weight and pressure in a notebook, so if I ever have to show it to a doctor, I can just bring it with me. I used to write fanfiction in Google Docs, so I'm either coming back to writing on my PC in LibreOffice or I'll try French Cryptpad.

Google Translate

I've started using German DeepL instead.

Social Media

I have a blog and used to have fanpages on Facebook and Instagram. I don't offer any services or sell any products; it's a project born out of passion. Running a fanpage was so time consuming and hardly anyone was interested in my work, so I decided to stop doing it. I still have my blog; I started running a small blog on wordpress.com with updates and interesting links, so that anyone who's interested can subscribe to it via newsletter or RSS app. I write an update only once in a while when I change something on my main website or if I find something interesting. I deleted Instagram and Facebook (I changed there some settings though, to get some most important notifications to my mailbox), and Tumblr too (too much mindless scrolling).

I downloaded an RSS app instead (I chose Bulgarian Inoreader, but there're others). I follow news sites and blogs I like. It's a feed, but it's my feed, in a chronological order, without ads, sponsored content, algorithms and stupid or hateful comments. Just news and blog posts in a chronological order. I noticed I started to actually read articles! On social media apps it was so easy to read a title and go to the comment section immediately.

Podcasts and Music

I follow my favourite YouTube channels in the RSS app and I got rid of YouTube. I listen to my favourite podcasts in Swedish Spotify. We used to have a family plan in Spotify, but we use American Tidal for music now, because it's a little cheaper, there aren't so many YouTube-like podcasts that my son watched (and I don't want him to), and Tidal pays artists three times more than Spotify. Personally, I'd love to come back to having my mp3 files and playing my own music (I only listen to my own playlists anyway), but my family isn't on board. I'll try to buy my favourite songs to support artists a little and find a way to convert my CDs to digital files (I did it years ago, but I got rid of them...).

Films and TV shows

We had Netflix, Disney+, HBO and Prime at one point. Currently we only keep Netflix (where we have lots to watch) and Prime (my husband says it's cheap enough to keep; I'd just get rid of it if it were up to me). We may pay for i.e. HBO for a month when there's something we want to watch.

I love watching TV shows, so I don't want to give up streaming altogether.

Phone

I use an old iPhone. Android is controlled by Google and iPhone is the only Apple thing I use. Degoogled Android like Graphene OS or Dumbphones are too much for me (just like self-hosted cloud).

What Is Difficult To Get Rid Of

I keep Google Family Link and Microsoft Family Safety to have parental control over my children's computers and phones. My children keep using Microsoft Edge browser too because of that. It's less about time limits and mostly about blocking some websites (I want them only to use websites and download apps that I allow them to). I haven't find a better way yet.

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‘Snape is a child abuser’ is definitely coming from a generation of new Gen Z fans who weren’t growing up alongside the books and have failed to understand that the wizarding world is a reflection of 1970s-1990s British society and not 2025 therapy offices. Snape is an old school strict teacher who has methods - particularly towards Neville - that are mean and belittling and counterproductive but that also weren’t out of place with teaching in general back then. Corporal punishment wasn’t outlawed in English private schools until 1999. Nineteen Ninety Nine!! Historical context has been lost. Snape assigning cauldron scrubbing as a detention in comparison- he’s practically a softie.

He’s meant to be understood as a bitter, jaded, petty, tired to the bone teacher who has been held back by a job he’s too ambitious and too clever for. He’s not meant to be understood as truly abusive - because if he was, Harry would be deploying his usual coping mechanisms (conflict avoidance) instead of what he actually does, which is mouth off at Snape at every possible opportunity. It’s basic genre convention that every boy hero in a boarding school novel needs an antagonist teacher to put in his place while all the children cheer, lol. It’s not that deep.

Severus was designed so that kids at the time would see him as the classic rude, miserable teacher who ruins all the fun, is super strict, and seems to live to make sure you can’t do whatever you want. This was a very common archetype in fiction for those of us born in the ‘90s or earlier. He wasn’t created for people to think he was a child abuser but to remind you of that teacher who always gave everyone bad grades because they were extremely demanding, snapped at you for asking a question they thought was stupid, or seemed to live for catching students doing something wrong just to punish them.

We grew up with tons of characters like that (Miss Finster from Recess comes to mind—she basically lived to catch T.J. doing something wrong). They weren’t characters you saw as crossing a line with students, because EVERYONE had at least one teacher like that. The person we clearly saw as an abuser was Umbridge, but that’s because Umbridge wasn’t just about ruining fun—she wanted to repress and dominate the students. She physically harmed them and hurt them, abusing her institutional power. She was the character who scared you and made you angry. That’s why in the 2000s people hated her even more than Voldemort—because we had all either had a teacher like her, knew someone who had one, or heard horror stories about those teachers.

I feel like Gen Z doesn’t understand what it was like to grow up surrounded by boomers with zero emotional management skills who had done no self-work, and instead live in a paradise of Gen X and millennial teachers you can follow on social media. Honestly, they have a totally distorted view of things.

Anyone born in the ‘90s or earlier can clearly see the intention behind Severus as a teacher and what kind of archetype he represents—and they don’t associate him with someone abusive. Rowling wrote those books at a specific time for an audience that would understand that. I’m sorry some people were born 20 years later, but that doesn’t change the facts.

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What do you think about Severus's "obsession" with Lily that Snaters always use as an argument? It's so frustrating that they're constantly portraying him as a creepy stalker or an incel

People will make up any nonsense to hate on Severus, and if that nonsense paints him as a sexual deviant, even better, because it gives them the perfect excuse to stick to their prejudices and outright condemn him. But the reality is that Severus was neither an incel nor a stalker, and that’s what I’m going to make clear from the start, because I’m done with terms and behaviors being twisted for convenience and confusing fiction with reality.

First, Severus never, ever, confessed his feelings to Lily. In fact, it’s Rowling who confirms he was in love with her; within the books, romantic love is never explicitly mentioned. What we see is that they were friends since childhood and that Severus clearly had a deep attachment to Lily. But that attachment can easily be explained by the fact that Severus was a child from a terribly violent and dysfunctional environment, who was alone, and Lily was probably the first person to treat him kindly and offer him affection. That, for a child with severe emotional neglect, creates an immense emotional attachment to the person who finally provides some comfort and love. And that’s not the behavior of someone who is sexually unwell; it’s completely normal behavior for people with avoidant or disorganized attachment styles due to family dynamics. You could even interpret it as something purely platonic, but it’s clear that Rowling had a different idea, so we accept it if she wants (or wanted) it to be romantic.

Fine, starting from there, the reality is—as I’ve said—that he never confesses, never puts her on the spot to go out with him, never tells her he’ll hurt someone if she doesn’t date him (cough unlike James Potter cough cough), and when Lily cuts ties with him, he accepts it, and apparently, they never speak again. Severus doesn’t become bitter towards women because of that. He doesn’t specifically hate women because his best friend/crush told him to get lost. First, because she didn’t reject him romantically—Lily ended their friendship due to political differences, not emotional ones—so the incel narrative of being rejected by women doesn’t apply, as this wasn’t an emotional or sexual rejection. Second, because Severus does not hate women. In fact, throughout the series, we see him interact much better with girls than with boys. Yes, he’s harsh with Hermione, but his treatment of her, despite everything (despite everything, I repeat), is much softer than his treatment of Harry, Neville, or Ron. He has a cordial relationship with McGonagall, and we can infer he had a rather close relationship with Narcissa from the scene in HBP where she even seems to know how to easily find his house, and from the way they speak to each other.

There is no evidence that Severus harbored anything specifically against women, either before or after Lily. This image created in fanfiction to make him the absolute villain is absurd because it contradicts canon. In the canon, we see Severus constantly triggered and having direct, very violent confrontations with various male characters—it’s not the same with female ones. Severus’s abusers throughout his life have always been men (his father, James, Sirius...), and not just any men, but men who represented hegemonic, toxic masculinity. It’s with them that he has active conflicts, not women. The incel theory falls apart on its own.

Now onto the stalking. When? I mean, Severus and Lily were friends who spent time together not because he followed her around, but because they had a friendship dating back to before Hogwarts, and to top it off, they lived near each other. Let’s go back to the fact that Lily tells him to get lost, and Severus leaves. He doesn’t insist. He doesn’t pressure her. He accepts her words and leaves. The scene where he goes to the Potters’ house after Voldemort’s attack is something that happens in the movies, not in the book canon. As far as we know, he wasn’t even aware that the prophecy would involve Lily until Voldemort chose the Potters as his targets. So we can assume Severus wasn’t stewing over Lily all those years—he was busy with his own messes, not chasing her everywhere. That’s not the behavior of a stalker, and I’m sorry, but caring about someone who was basically the most important person in your life during your childhood and teenage years and not wanting them to be killed—even if it’s been years since you spoke—isn’t obsessive; it’s just being human.

I mean, think about a friend you had in school or university with whom you shared some of your best moments, and then suddenly, years after losing touch, someone is going to kill them. Would your logical reaction really not be to try and do something? It’s crazy to say that’s weird or out of place.

Lastly, let’s address the “obsession.” I don’t know if the problem is that the people who repeat this mantra have never lost someone violently and don’t understand grief and trauma or what, but I’ve lost several people in my life, and to this day, many years later, every time something reminds me of them, I cry, or my mood just plummets. Because the wounds of loss don’t heal; you learn to live with them, but they don’t close. Anyone who has experienced that kind of loss—that sudden, premature loss—knows it. Severus isn’t obsessed with Lily. Severus feels guilty for having played a part in Lily’s death, and he feels terribly guilty.

What drives him isn’t obsessive love; it’s guilt, it’s grief. It’s knowing that maybe, if he hadn’t overheard the prophecy, she’d still be alive. It’s not having been able to stop the attack. Imagine someone you love deeply dies, and you think it’s your fault, or you think you could have prevented it. Are you seriously going to tell me that wouldn’t haunt you for the rest of your life? Because I don’t know if I’d be able to live with it. I think people don’t understand that what motivates Severus is the need to settle the debt he feels he owes Lily, to atone for his sins and make up for the damage he caused—not an unhealthy romantic obsession. It’s his way of dealing with grief and guilt, and honestly, if people don’t get that, they should talk to a therapist to learn a thing or two about trauma and loss because they need some advices very hard.

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If a father is left with a child and he doesn't know what to dress the child in, what to feed them, what diapers to buy etc. - that means he has been completely uninvolved in the child's care, which means he has been a bad father and a bad partner. So if a writer wants to create a good father character, please do not make him completely clueles 🙈

(My husband can take care of our children on his own 🙃)

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Fanfiction is like karaoke.

Most people do it for fun. They share it with other people for fun. They write / sing in public in a designated place, but they don't want to be great writers / singers and they don't need negative comments.

Unless someone openly says they want to be a professional writer / singer and asks for constructive criticism, don't offer it.

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I've finally got to know why something didn't feel right for me in the Finn's story in The Last Jedi. The story gave him the reason to fight the First Order, showing him the backstage od war. But he had already known it. He didn't need a reason, he needed hope that fighting FO is not a lost cause.

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D*enerys is not the heroine of ASOIAF, nor is she truly a villain, instead she occupies the niche I like to call “The Anakin Skywalker Role”

To expand on that, that is a character who starts off as a hero, one who wants to do good and change the world, but through various actions of increasing depravity becomes the villain. These actions are not normally provoked by malice, but perhaps initially by the loss of someone close to them, think here how Anakin slaughtered the Tuskens after the death of his mother, or how D*enerys burnt a slave woman alive after the death of her husband and child.

As the audience we recognise that these actions are terrible, and yet we almost understand them as well. Grief and loss are terrible things, and the media is full of heroes who do violent things in the name of grief and love (John Wick is just one very obvious example of this).

At this point the majority of the audience don’t register their actions as ‘villainous’, nor do the majority for quite some time after that. Slowly though their actions continue in this same vein, actions hidden beneath a veneer of ‘doing the right thing’ or ‘caused by loss and grief’; think here of Anakin assaulting Rako Hardeen during the Deception Arc, or of the way he reacts around Rush Clovis; or think of D*enerys crucifying the Masters regardless of their guilt, or burning someone who offered her insult.

The whole time their actions are hidden by a veneer of respectability, of doing the right thing, of fighting for good. Anakin fought for the Republic, for Democracy; D*enerys fought to free the slaves and to find a home. Honourable intentions, there is no doubt of that, and yet there is the reason the phrase “The road to hell is paved with good intentions” exists, and that is that good intentions mean nothing if your actions cause suffering along the way.

Eventually though, the hero does something so terrible that you can no longer make excuses for them. Whether, in Anakin’s case this is assisting in genocide and child murder and the downfall of democracy; or in D*enerys’ case the burning of Kings Landing. This is the point where you look back and realise that this fall from grace was inevitable, that they were always going to go this route. And that is one of the saddest types of arc, one where you see how all this potential and all the good intentions have faded and warped, until nothing but paranoia and a lust for power and violence remains.

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sully family photo human edition by @calsz0ne on Twitter and @caffecal on tumblr

click for better quality

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[A meme. A man with a lownmower with a description: "Din trying to enjoy mandalorian family life". A tornado behind his back with a description: "Moff Gideon, Darksaber, Mythosaur".]

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I think Grogu in human years would be about 2-3. He physically quite capable (he can walk, is potty trained :p), but still a bit clumsy and slow. He doesn't really speak, only some words. And his look is still babyish.

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Din knew the right size of the beskar shirt for Grogu ❤️

(Maybe he remembered how he could embrace the kid or the size of his coat when he washed it.)

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You know what's interesting? Din didn't really want to become a dad, but not because he doesn't like kids, but because he felt like he couldn't provide a good life for one.

Din's instinct when seeing Grogu for the first time was to wave his finger at the kid. He doesn't have a distaste for children, if anything he has always had a soft spot for them.

"Travelling with me... It's no life for a kid".

Din didn't want one because he didn't think he could be a good father. But he can, we've seen it. He likes the companionship and I think it's something he's always craved.

Din's journey with Grogu isn't so much him learning to enjoy having kids around so much as it's him learning that he can be a father, that that's something he's capable of doing.

It's refreshing to see that they didn't go with "the macho bounty hunter who hates kids learns to love them" but instead went for "bounty hunter with a soft spot for kids learns that he can actually be a good father".

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The Evolution of Din as a Father

One of the things I love about The Mandalorian is how you get to see the relationship between Din and Grogu grow.

I know we talk about how much of a dad Din is in some of the earlier episodes (particularly Eps 1-3) but actually I think that there is a change in Din's attitude towards Grogu: from a natural instinct to protect him to actually viewing him as his own child.

I've spoken before about how Din has always had a soft spot for kids and that he naturally feels quite protective of them. In some ways this is just a natural response of people to look after those who are vulnerable, but I do believe that a lot of it also comes from his background and Mandalorian culture.

Din is initially protective of Grogu because he is young and vulnerable. He knows that someone is going to have to look after the little guy and he takes on that role. I don't believe the reason he went back for Grogu is because he instantly thought "this thing is my son now" but because he couldn't leave an innocent child in the hands of those people. It would be against his moral code to do so.

And it stays this way for a few episodes. Din agrees to help Grogu because he wants the child to be protected, to return to his family/home. He didn't necessarily go into this with the attitude of a father but the attitude of a protector. He didn't just decide to become a dad on the spot.

But over time, he begins to view Grogu as his own. Those natural protective instincts begin to grow into more fatherly ones. The way he views his relationship with Grogu shifts.

For me I believe this begins to happen during the time skip in Chapter 4. Before then I think that Din was making sure that an innocent child didn't get hurt, doing what he was given the job to do. But spending time on a quiet backwater planet with the child allowed his attitude towards him shift. And from then on I think that's where the real father-son dynamic begins to develop.

It becomes even more prominent in season 2. There is a very clear change as Din starts viewing Grogu as his own child. The sacrifices he makes for him become greater, his attitudes towards protecting him become much more personal.

I actually love that we get to see this relationship grow. And yes, as I mentioned earlier, we definitely talk about Din being such a dad in the first couple of episodes, but actually watching the show I love how Din becoming an actual father to Grogu doesn't feel so unnaturally sudden. It isn't a case of looking at Grogu and thinking "he's mine now" (as much as we love to joke about this). It's the changing feelings that are so beautiful.

The flow from "I will protect this child because it's the right thing to do" to "you know what, having him around actually brings me comfort" to "I don't want to think about a life without him in it".

It's such a good narrative because it actually grows. We see the progression across the series and I love how natural the progression of Din and Grogu's relationship feels.

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I find it very sad that Philip and Peter didn't keep in touch.

Did Philip shut himself do much that Peter's attempts at contact remained unsuccessful?

Or were the attempts successful, but Philip seemed to be changed, even boring, or seemed to move on with his life on a different direction and after some time Peter stopped spending time with him?

Or did Peter move on and kind of forget about his brother, unaware that the latter was heartbroken?

And over a decade they had no contact though both seemed to wish they did.

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ISFJ

I believe that Data (”Star Trek: The Next Generation”), Ron Weasley (”Harry Potter” - books) and Mando (”The Mandalorian”) are ISFJs.

Czytaj dalej

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I've seen that quite a lot of people don't like Rey's outfit in TROS. As much as I find TROS awful, I've been thinking about Rey's outfit and I've come to conclusion I like it. It seem comfortable and suitable for travelling and fighting, which is important as, she is a Jedi, in the Resistance. I don't think she needs to change her style much through the movies. Louise hair is impractical and I interpret the white color that she conciously chose the light side. She added the hood as a Jedi accessory, but she kept her style, which means to me that event though she became a Jedi, she remains true to herself.