The new Thunderbird is bad, at first sight.

I don't understand the big deal with the new UI. My Thunderbird looked almost identical. Simple, clean. Unified folders and all that. Now it is worse because the app does not respect me and my system.

Also, a massive topbar with a huge search bar that makes it more difficult to grab the window and move it around. Plus why 2 search bars? Isn't the "filter messages" bar enough?

Idk what's up with the people who think that improvements always should bring less features, less customization options, less compatibility with the system.... If anything Thunderbird should have made it more compatible with the system, like allow me to use the HUD and search through the menu like I can with 90% of all apps.

Overall a bad experience and now I have to get my emails back somehow.....

I start to hate more and more the Gnomes. They are the apple-fan-boys of Linux, thinking of how great it is to make everything more simplistic and unusable and geared to only the Gnome world. Linux is going to lose more of its uniqueness, defaulting to 1 theme and 5 accent colors, and 1 desktop environment, Gnome. And the rest will still be around, but small, and butchered by the GTK4 and such decisions, making the Gnome apps look like weeds in a field, not matching anything on other desktops and not working well on other desktops.

Did you ever realize that the most popular browser in the entire world, is made and controlled by an ad company? And the most popular search engine....Same goes for the most popular "social networks". And mobile operating system....

Insane....

And now Google, who has the power to change the internet for the worse, is trying to do something that I had anticipated many years ago. You see, we think that we fooled these companies by using adblockers, or some interfaces like invidious and the like, but the truth is that we could do that because they allowed us to. As soon as these will threaten their existence they can throw massive amounts of money at it and make it difficult if not impossible to bypass these.

Example: since Google owns the search, the mobile operating system, maps, the most popular video platform and so on, AND they own the most popular browser in the world, they are trying to introduce some technical things into the browser and some of their websites to block the adblockers and more.

Basically if you visit Youtube.com via Chrome, then Youtube first asks Chrome about you. Like...are you using an adblocker? If Chrome says yes, then Youtube can refuse you. Therefore you cannot visit Youtube.com unless you do what Youtube says you should do. In this case deactivating your adblocker.

They call this the "Web Environment Integrity API" and are working on it already github.com/RupertBenWiser/Web-…

Here's a snippet from their proposal:

Users like visiting websites that are expensive to create and maintain, but they often want or need to do it without paying directly. These websites fund themselves with ads, but the advertisers can only afford to pay for humans to see the ads, rather than robots. This creates a need for human users to prove to websites that they're human, sometimes through tasks like challenges or logins.

And this is their first point in their explanation. Of course they will fight for this. It will get harder and harder, if not impossible to block ads and trackers.

This is easily predictable when you understand that the main goal of humans on this planet is to trade. This for that. An evolution that results in big companies doing this sort of shit, even when they have more than enough.

I have been screaming about this for more than a decade. But most people do not listen. Do not want to talk about this. They make it look complicated (ad-based economics, surveillance capitalism, blah blah blah). In truth it is the same practice and incentive for Google as it is for the guy who owns a small grocery store. Stop thinking that this is an issue with big companies and billionaires. It is not. We are all, or most of us, scammers, charlatans, tricksters. On small or big levels.

What can we do about it?

First understand it. Understand why these things happen, because if you do not at best you can make some politicians approve some laws to try and stop these big players. And this does not work. We made a big book and a huge documentary all about this.

Second, try to use trade-free alternative platforms. See trom.tf/ - the ones that we offer. Or visit the Trade-Free Directory and search for some directory.trade-free.org/

We need to understand where the problem originates (trade) and inform people about it, but also try to use alternative platforms and software, so we don't depend on this motherfuckers.

#TradeRuinsEverything #tromstuff

I bought a Dell Inspiron 7620 2-in-1 (mouthful) some 6-7 months ago. Took me many months to choose a laptop and this one was the best for me. It is a 16` 16:10 with a powerful CPU and a good GPU. The screen is amazing, the keyboard is very good, and the chassis is aluminum.

In these months I had to fix the touchpad because it was not working anymore, and that was a massive issue, but the worst is that the battery capacity dropped to 83% capacity in only a few months time.

You see, this laptop is really thin.

When I stress the laptop a bit it is so hot you can barely touch it. 80-90C. And I had to render the TROM II documentary on this laptop. Got crazy hot, for many weeks on end.

Therefore, I highly suspect that the battery capacity dropped because of the heat. I cannot see any other reason.

But now is July and I am in Spain. Thus, it is hot as fuck. This is tomorrow:

So I decided to buy a laptop fan. This sort:

After two weeks of use the temperature of the laptop would not go above 80-85C when I'd stress the laptop. So a 5-10C cooler. But I was not happy!

I said let's try something else. Let's order a fucking fan....you know a normal one. But a small one. And cheap as fuck. I spent too much time looking for one, but I eventually bought this one for 7 Euros:

First the way it is designed. You can put this fan in many different ways.

And so it allows me to position it anyway I want. Like directly bellow the laptop:

Best part? It has a rechargeable battery inside so you can use it for 1-3 hours on the battery alone. This is useful because now it is so hot I take it with me when I move with my laptop. Like put it in bed to blow air on the laptop while I hold it on my lap. It has 5 speeds and it is more powerful than you may think :). Plus it has a USB C connector so it is easy to find a replaceable cable when you need one.

Actually I was so impressed that I ordered one more, to blow air on my USB C dongle that is metal and I noticed it got extremely hot. I use one single dongle to connect my laptop to the charger, external monitor, projector, mouse, speakers, LAN, and more. I love it because I can plug/unplug with ease. But because it was getting so hot my LAN connection will drop several times a day.

Now that I got that cool fan, there is no drop anymore :).

Conclusion.

These special laptop fans are bullshit. At least those under 20. I tried several and they were very inefficient. And no, is not because they try to keep them silent and thus less powerful....the small fan that I got is also very quiet....but at least it works! Also, fuck you people who design such thin laptops and do not care much about the heat dispersal. Why the fuck you put a fan inside if it is so inefficient anyway? I guess they have to sell these laptops based on looks....I see....

Anyway, if your laptop gets hot, invest some 20 Euros and buy yourself a metal stand for it plus a mini fan. You can always repurpose that fan. And you can get a nice laptop stand.