The dress, it’s power grows.

Shh! Don’t give them ideas.

It says it has an update for itself. So you click your notification and it opens Obtainium. It downloads a newer version of its source, builds it for your phone, changes its path to the new one and exits abruptly. When you restart Obtainium it’s the new version with all the same settings. Magic!

Yes, but if you are freezing the apps then no notifications. I personally can’t live without some google apps yet, such as food, banking and job-related apps. When using shelter you clone these apps into the work area. They then are completely separate new apps that can’t see the rest of your phone. So that’s what I use it for keeping invasive apps like Doordash (Location Whore) or Google Photos (Every Permission Known to Mankind) completely isolated from the files on my phone. I don’t know how much of that is possible for stock Android. But if you put a messaging app in there and it’s set to freeze you won’t hear responses. My understanding is it still works for stock.

Have you heard of Shizuku or Canta? These together allow you to disable some of the bloatware on stock phones.

Thanks! Love finding new stuff.

Shelter is an app that allows you to isolate other apps based on work policy (made by you). Don’t trust an app? Throw it in jail. This allows a separate installation and user account for apps. You also can freeze the apps in the shelter preventing then from doin’ stuff. All with no root.

What kind of phone? If you don’t wanna be specific. I ask because Pixels can get GrapheneOS which I am obsessed with.

Obtainium is a favorite of mine. It installs apps from source. So you find apps you like from izzy or fdroid and copy their source link. Now all your FOSS apps (including Obtainium itself, mhmm, add Obtainium to itself) are now cutting edge. Updated fast to pseudo-versions. There’s a page for hard to add apps here.

“Raspberry Jam Delta V” everyone gets inside “Resurrection Creches”. Which just hold your goo for later reassembly.

Silfen Paths from Judas Unchained. Aliens called Silfen walked from planet to planet directly via actual forest paths. Everything gets wonky time wise when your on one so you might emerge 100 years later. The technology itself is sentient and not maintained. The Silfen who lost interest long ago are asked how they manage the paths. They say they just let them do what they want. At least one path exists to/from Earth. But humans are boring and make things boring, so the aliens avoid Earth.

So if you’re on a walk and you get lost you may be walking to another planet.

The Good Place. The end makes me cry.

My shitty fridge from decades ago has never had a problem with the door being open. I say this is clearly a design issue. I open my fridge, let go and step away. It closes slowly and seals. Unless I jam it full of crap being left open isn’t an option.

My clothes washer and dryer make a sound so I am also instantly notified when it is done. Also, washing/drying are not time sensitive like that. I call bullshit on your smart appliance needs.

I’m sure it was based on her deep beliefs, and not a decision made by strategists for her. We are so fucked…

Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress. A scifi that deals with the creation of classes based on whether you can afford to buy your children good genes. Politicians are charismatic, ruthless and good looking, because they are bred for politics. In this world people without genemods are sorta out of luck, without any of the tools or enhancements rich genemod people have.

Or, check out GATTACA, good movie.

…Song as old as rhyme Beauty and the bEEEAASST!

(runs away)

… Long farting noise

Well if you’re not streets ahead, you’re streets behind.

Ahh so this is that Greta van Fleet I been hearing about.

It’s wonderful isn’t it?

Yup, Thanks, I plan too. I installed Nova and then cut its network permissions. It’s something for now.

I bought a Pixel recently and for 2 days I tried to make it work. 2 whole days of fumbling pain! And I felt fucking horrible. Almost nothing is customizable and everything coated in a thick layer of AI. Every google app has dark patterns. Don’t like it? Well too bad, apps like goog photos keep on asking if you want to upload your life with a recurring popup that tries to trick you. Don’t want Google Search Bar? Well… you don’t get to say no bitch, don’t make me hurt you. It is not a healthy relationship.

So. I just took the plunge and flashed GrapheneOS. Graphene will take a bit of work getting replacements for some of my needed apps like mail and map. But there are lots of neat options and I’m having fun with it. Problem fixed.

I used the graphene web install. I booted up my Pi 4B+ and used gnome-disks to flash a MicroSD with Ubuntu 24.10 then installed the two packages in the web install instructions then I got Brave (I went to the Brave homepage and they have some curl option to download. I needed to install curl, did that then got Brave installed. Once brave is installed you have to disable browser fingerprinting memory reduction and disable the “brave shield” (the little shield near the address bar) for the web installer GrapheneOS page. (It’s a fresh install, on a Pi, and I know the site, no real risk)

After this you can just press the big buttons on the page and follow the instructions on the page.

There are many ways to do this. They have lists of compatible browsers and operating systems. I picked (eww) Ubuntu and (eww) Brave because they seemed easiest on the list and I did not virtualize or use containers in any way cause it messes up the webUSB magic the website uses. I like to play it safe as possible when firmware is involved so I didnt speed up the instructions. And also when you buy a Pixel, big thing! Turn on dev tools and toggle your oem bootloader setting off and on again. If it can’t do that you need to return the phone because it’s locked down by carrier.

Well… I hope my long sleep deprived ramblings help someone else break their chains. Read a bunch about it before starting! Good Luck!