As noted elsewhere Syncthing-Fork is still going strong, and a drop-in replacement, it's on F-Droid.

You dropped this - /s

Do naps finally count as sleep? Coz that's been a fail forever.

Love my garmin, but sleep tracking is bs.

Ah, another well-thought-out tech law from OzGov in the vein of such hits as 'The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia' and the AssAct. I swear we're the designated test ground for dodgy laws for the five (7,13,etc) eyes...

So would people having webpages instead of social media accounts

And there's your problem... (in the voice of Jamie Hyneman, Mythbusters). To see a real return of webrings, people would need to have (make) their own pages and curate some links.

Thinking about it, with the rise of selfhosted, it's actually really viable, cobble together a docker stack with a WYSIWYG HTML editor somewhat oriented to the task (pretty sure something out there can be repurposed), a web server, proxy, and that's about it (probably missing a fair bit, not my bailiwick, still, once the stack is made and solid, I'm guessing many would host, I would). Set a threshold of how many people you're willing to host, say 50 or whatever so you're able to check for CSAM or other legal minefields, and Bob's your uncle, stir in some solid security to keep it isolated if you're using it at home (or VPS) and it's golden.

OK, more complicated than I initially thought, and it's way less friction to use something like faceplant, which is entirely their point. Still, I think, if given the opportunity, and functional tools, and low enough friction, many would prefer to have a hand curated presence on the web above a facebook page.

I'll stop, but thanks for the interesting thought seed.

What is inside these things, from a chemical perspective, and what are the kids breathing into their lungs?

In most cases insanely high concentration nicotine salts. Back before corpos got a hold of them, most everyone vaping used nicotine freebase in concentrations <20mg/ml. Freebase absorbs slowly, you had to work hard with 20mg/ml to get a headspin, like hyperventilating for a minute. Also less addictive. Salts absorb much faster, and the disposables (disgusting waste, but that's the profit model) are at 50+mg/ml, so the dopamine hit is a lot more instant. Of course, cigarette manufacturers have been finding additives to make their products more addictive since at least the 1950s, so whether or not and how long before those things make their way in is anyone's guess.

You can still get reusable vapes and freebase nicotine, and it's still the most effective way known for smoking cessation, but the enshittification has basically happened.

Nope, As long as you're not as uncreative as to use Correct Horse Battery Staple.

Wouldn't it be nice to set 'em all up to want something (perhaps the glowing suitcase (soul?) from Pulp Fiction) and watch the greedy bastards fight, fight, fight...?

You might like to look here, https://github.com/LinSoftWin/Photoshop-CC2022-Linux

No idea if it works, but I installed something similar a few years back, and it worked (might have been CS6 at that). Searching Photoshop linux github has a few hits. There's also a project for GIMP to skin the interface to look like Ps, I just sucked it up and learned GIMP...

Check out Bazzite, atomic updates and immutable OS are the future and bazzite is surprisingly stable even with nvidia. Steam is fairly frictionless for most games these days, but look at protondb.com to see if your faves are good to go. Pirated via Lutris.

Second https://github.com/LinSoftWin/Photoshop-CC2022-Linux

If by adobe you just mean photoshop, that works fine on linux, or you can get the version of GIMP with the photoshop menus. Wider adobe, that's a vm.

MS Word, I reckon Libre's fine but YMMV, there's office 365 anyway.

Games as noted are mostly there.

Many torrented apps : If you mean the *arrs etc, they go fine, better even (more contained, safer) in docker

Android apps: We've had Waydroid for a while now.

Hopefully that puts the FOMO to rest...

You're using gmail, you're already screwed, might as well get laid too. But seriously, look into alias providers like simplelogin and anonaddy, it works for this use case and can smooth the transition away from gmail in the future. At the end of the day you need to make contact with potentials so it can't be truly private, plus they'll be mining your data, combining it with facebook shadow profiles etc, it's technically quite plausible to identify you from that alone. VoIP, aliases and so forth are band-aids. At the end of the day you need to make a choice, is the potential of finding someone worth more than some of your privacy ? Or...

Consider local hobby groups, hiking, meet-ups and so forth. The so called 'Third Place' (other than work and home) is on it's last legs, but it's not dead and will hopefully see a resurgence, find and partake in one. Put yourself out there.