The best advice I have for new nerds: Refuse to pay rent.

[trevorflowers@hachyderm.io]

The best advice I have for new nerds: Refuse to pay rent.

Don't subscribe. Don't lease. Don't use their cloud. Don't slip down the freemium slope. Don't create accounts on their services.

Buy it once. Run it local. Avoid commercial software.

It'll be a huge pain and you'll be an outsider but it'll be endless, interesting, and hard fun that'll pay you back with a curious mind and an understanding of the fabric of our intellectual infrastructure that will make you light-years more capable, useful, and healthy than the "AI" zombies.

[qurlyjoe@mstdn.social]

@trevorflowers
Sage advice, I’d say. As Abraham Lincoln is credited with saying, It is harder to get out [of trouble] than to stay out.

[yrabbit@mastodon.sdf.org]

@trevorflowers (Gloomily) they (whoever it may be in each specific case) will always find a way to compensate for lost income, whether it be a fee for using personal solar panels or rent for living in your own home (eigenwoningforfait).

[michael@social.chrisco.me]

@trevorflowers Its so nice to own instead of rent.

[gcvsa@mstdn.plus]

@trevorflowers It sort of reminds of the rush in the late 1990s for so many people to hitch their wagon to an MCSE certification, when they had no previous interest in computers. Every decent Systems Engineer I've ever known loathed Microslop with the fiery passion of a thousand suns.

[miss_rodent@girlcock.club]

@trevorflowers This might be harder to do now, but, considering I've stuck to this approach since the mid-2000's and continue to - it is still -possible-, at least. In spite of the best efforts of the tech industry & their pet governments.
Creates extra headaches (I spent multiple days to get lineageOS running on a phone they do not support, but I got for free and needed to degoogle, for example), but, those et easier to navigate the more of them you have to navigate.