Looking back, my subscription-ending journey—or perhaps more accurately, subscription-consciousness journey—was a product, at least in part, of post-COVID lockdown reflections on what I really need and how I’d really like to spend my time. The excess of my subscriptions had started to feel akin to hoarding, and I needed to clear space, even if most of that space was intangible. There was also the lightbulb realization that has become more and more common amongst Millennials, that, despite our monthly investments in accessing various forms of media, we don’t actually own most of the culture that we consume. What’s more, should the companies that do own that media go defunct or be sold to entities that we may prefer not to do business with, we really wouldn’t have much recourse—except to unsubscribe.

This could mean years and years of playlists and TV shows and films that we would no longer have access to because they were never really ours to begin with, ultimately leaving us with nothing. And while I’m not interested in owning many things from culture, save for books and some fashions, I do think ownership of culture in its various forms serves more than capitalistic desire. Our things can be physical memories of what we love or once did, what has been passed on and gifted to us, and sometimes, reminders of what we saved and scraped for—emblems of hard-fought earnings. We are robbed of this when we choose to rent something out of convenience or compulsion instead of mindfully acquiring things that are truly meaningful to us.

https://conversationalist.org/2025/06/25/soapbox-unsubscribe-subscriptions-community-streaming-platforms-netflix-spotify-amazon-capitalism/

https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-gaza-06-26-2025-a5c3052d1d983329b5d9a2f3986811fe

Easy, short but steep
1 mile out and back
312 ft elevation Gain
Hiked 5/27/25

This short trail begins with a very steep grade down to Connaught creek (formerly bear creek) with a stair section at the lowest. Photos of the falls come from this area downstream. Climbing another staircase puts you at the falls, surrounded by a massive mist cloud. Entertaining, but no pics. This was still during melt season and it was absolutely raging at the time.

Connaught creek rushes by as Bear creek falls rages in the distance.

The steep stairwell leading to the river below.

The steepest part of the trail is these steps, but it maintains a lot of slope in its short run.

cross-posted from: slrpnk.net/post/23993774

Practical Retrofitting for Obsolete Devices | Much like classic cars can be fitted with an EV motor, it is possible to retrofit older devices in order to make them usable again in a connected world

I created a new community on PieFed ( !action_movies@piefed.social ) and tried using lemmy-federate.com/ to get federated across other instances, but get an "instance is not registered" error.

Apparently, there are... issues?
lemmy.ca/post/45479147

So wondering about other ways to get federated.

1. Can I do it myself, at least for the one other instance where I have an account (lemmy.ca)?
   To me, at the moment it seems a bit 'chicken and egg'. I can't see it on lemmy.ca, so I can't subscribe to it from lemmy.ca. And lemmy.ca won't federate it until I subscribe to it. I must have it wrong.
2. Promo communities: I know about those, but I don't want to use them just yet. This is a "soft launch" until I get more familiar with having a community and get some more content into it.
3. Other ways?

Thanks.

Ever since Microsoft announced that it would end support for Windows 10 in October, the company has been trying hard to convince users to make the switch to Windows 11. First, it warned that unsupported Windows 10 PCs will no longer receive security updates, making them easy targets for hackers. Later, it advised users to trade in their old computers and buy a new one that comes preloaded with all the Windows 11 goodies.

Now, once again, Microsoft’s Executive Vice President and Consumer Chief Marketing Officer, Yusuf Mehdi, has published a fresh blog highlighting all the benefits and advantages of Windows 11, including a statement claiming that Windows 11 PCs are up to 2.3 times faster than Windows 10 PCs. However, what they failed to make clear is that this claim is entirely based on a comparison of new versus old hardware, rather than the software itself.

Microsoft’s sketchy Win 10 vs Win 11 performance claims pit a 9-year-old PC against a modern machine to claim 2.3X gain

Odd that no AMD PCs were included in the performance comparison.

^{Hassam Nasir (Tom's Hardware)}

I’ve been seeing these signs pop up everywhere, sometimes in the most unexpected places.

They help.

Thanks for seeing my work!

Secretary Kristi Noem and the Department of Homeland Security announced $94 million in federal grants to over 500 Jewish-based organizations across the United States.

I recently sat down with Rabbi Sanford Akselrad from Congregation Ner Tamid, who told me the temple spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on security.

"The fight against hate against the Jews would morph yet again, um, so when someone says that they are, they, they love Jews but they, but they hate Israel and you get a little deeper, what do they mean by that..... and usually when they go into the territory not of being critical of Israel which is fair game. But they say Israel has no right to exist at all now.... we get into the area of antisemitism," Akselrad said.

More grants are expected in the coming months.

Department of Homeland Security announces $94 million in grants to protect Jewish organizations

^{Tricia Kean (Channel 13 Las Vegas News KTNV)}

I'm trying out starting a new community.

• !action_movies@piefed.social
• piefed.social/c/action_movies

I wanted to crosspost some posts I already made elsewhere, e.g. piefed.social/post/984528 / lemmy.ca/post/46999890

But there's no crosspost button.
1. Is there a way to do it?
2. And I'm curious: why is there no crosspost button for so many posts?