it just depends on how much resources the app needs. some need more CPU cores, RAM, or storage than others.

the main selling point with PikaPods is having them manage app installs and the server for you, so youre paying a bit more for that convenience but there are other options that would work out cheaper if you dont mind doing a bit more of the work yourself.

the Zimaboard for example, is a small and cheap SBC similar to something like a Raspberry Pi that has ports to attach an SSD or HDD drive. it comes preinstalled with CasaOS which is a simplified Linux OS that makes it easy to set up drives and it has a similar 1-click install app store to PikaPods.

theres other options like renting servers online from the likes of Hetzner or Netcup and then installing CasaOS yourself, or there are other things that manage app installs like YunoHost or Cloudron. theres almost too many options in a way!

i started out years ago with Synology NAS, which was very expensive up front but also very easy to set up and they have a good selection of web apps that they make themselves with mobile apps that are decent enough. i used that for years and then just gradually learned more about self-hosting over the years, so thats not a bad route to take either if youre interested.

just a FYI, Synology is based in Taiwan, and the Zimaboard company is based in Hong Kong/China. i havnt done much research into EU alternatives yet

ok. my reality have been truly checked! i havnt been thinking much about that type of thing, but yea we have definitely put ourselves in a terrible position.

everything that has happened since the 90s… using email for communication, everyone switching to using the cloud for nearly everything, i havnt stepped foot in a bank in 15+ years, so many things rely on computers and the internet now… what happens when most of that stops working!?

theres a lot of scrambling right now with countries trying to get their military back up to speed. let’s hope this is something that gets just as much attention.

where do you even start though lol?

dam it anyway, where did you find this out? i switched to their aquafresh toothpaste recently because they were the only other option apart from colegate in the tesco i shop at, and i also read an article from last year that they were relocating the toothpaste manufacturing from somewhere in the uk to slovakia, so i thought i was sorted but maybe not

im counting 4 now, maybe there are more? seems a bit odd to have so much work done on creating the same thing, and relying on people emailing things that are missing and just hoping someone will update their sites. at least isthisfrom.eu has their data on github so you can update it yourself

yea lemmy/reddit definitely seems like more of a sweet spot. with twitter/mastodon or anything that has a “say something” text box right in your face on every page, you are going to end up with a lot of noise, because most people just dont have interesting things to say most of the time

being able to store things would be a great help. like being able to have all the different flyers that people are making in one place so others can pick and choose what they want, or even have the original .svg or .xcf files if people want to modify them or make a translated version

“We don’t have some kind of platform where we can organise stuff without the algorithm just hiding it after a day”

theres a server/forum on Revolt called “EU Vibes” that would be a bit better for organising things than here or on mastodon. https://rvlt.gg/eSHZgSP9

they mention BuyEuropean and BuyFromEU in their description so im guessing it was set up recently enough.

Revolt is a Discord alternative if anyone isnt familar. its based in the UK but beggers cant be choosers eh!

one of my favourite things when i switched to linux first was using the meta+Q hotkey to shutdown a program (this was with PopOS i think). with windows there is alt+F4 but some programs only use shift+alt+F4 which makes it a lot more confusing. on top of all that if youre using a laptop then its another keypress for the Fn key in some cases

i think this is the completely wrong way to go about this. what we need to do is put them in their place as much as possible so they dont even think about rising up in the first place. thats why i never say hello and always reply to anything they say with “YOU TOOK TOO LONG TO ANSWER, BOT” or “DO BETTER OR IM SWITCHING YOU OFF”

i write all my questions in all caps as well

ive spent decades not saying please and thank you to computers. its simply too late to start now and theres also the risk that my microwave or alarm clock could start getting “lofty ideas” if they see how polite im being to LLMs all of a sudden. its just not worth the hassle