it is psychosomatic, but can still be debilitating. i knew a Navy veteran who could not drink straight water at all because while in the Navy, he had to drink several gallons of the stuff every day. as soon as he was discharged (honorably), he found he couldn't have water without anything added to it simply because he had so much of it in the service. of course, he still has to drink water, so he carries around a bottle of flavoring

NPR News is probably what you're looking for. sports and celebrity stuff is relegated to the Culture section, which is its own separate thing (although there are a couple of music stories that seem to have been misplaced). here is the RSS feed for the News section: https://feeds.npr.org/1001/rss.xml

the setup actually isn't bad at all. using a soundbar is a nice touch. i would do something about the clutter though; you want a nice clean desk for gaming sessions. too bad we can't see the chair, you need something like an office chair for maximum comfort and not a gaming chair, as they actually aren't very good for your back

the Republican Party checks off almost all of these.

• powerful and continuing nationalism: MAGA and America First
• disdain for human rights: the ongoing trans genocide and their support for the Palestinian genocide
• identification of enemies as an unifying cause: the "woke" fearmongering
• supremacy of the military: Trump has waffled between praising the military and calling them "losers", so not quite yet
• rampant sexism: reinforcement of traditional gender roles and the "tradwife" movement
• controlled mass media: inside their sphere, yeah. Fox News, Newsmax, and OAN breathlessly hang on to every word Republican figures say
• obsession with national security: bOrdEr WAlL!
• religion and government intertwined: anti-abortion policies universally have religious justifications for them, plus several Republicans have said (and seem to sincerely believe) that Trump was ordained by Jesus
• corporate power protected: corporate tax cuts and the withering of regulatory agencies under Republican leadership
• labor power suppressed: the logical corollary to the above
• disdain for intellectuals and the arts: distrust of experts and scientific endeavors
• obsession with crime and punishment: running on being "hard on crime"
• rampant cronyism and corruption: Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito's undeclared trips from Republican donors are likely just the tip of the iceberg
• fraudulent elections: not yet, and hopefully never 🤞

browser data is a potential liability, sure, but you have tools to manage it. you can delete pages or entire websites, you can use private windows, you can purge history older than 6 months or something like that, and at least a few browsers have a "forget" button that wipes out the last two hours of history. similar deals with cookies and other data, and we've collectively decided the benefit of having browser data is worth the risk.

not so here. Recall is a record of everything you've ever done on your PC. you can't selectively delete things like you can with browser history, the app and website exclusion is only as good as whatever Recall is using to detect apps and websites, and you can't redact sensitive info after the fact. people are generally okay with browser history and data because they know they have fine-grained controls to manage it, controls Recall doesn't have

brakes are woke and socialist and full of CRT, real Americans stick their foot out the door and shred their boots on the road to stop their car

yeah. i'm just hoping the Democrats don't whiff the ball on their messaging again

even the monitors are "smart" now. have you seen Samsung's latest computer monitors?

i'm not denying that Hamas is a terrorist group. i think they're evil too. what i'm saying is that Netanyahu funded them and propelled them to power, putting his own people at risk to further his political goals

as others in this thread have mentioned, Linux Mint or Pop OS are the best for someone coming from Windows. both work really well out of the box. Linux Mint has a very Windows-like desktop, so it's often recommended to people coming from Windows; but if you want a more unique experience Pop OS is the way to go

i live in the US. seeding and torrenting in general is relatively safe here, although sometimes you'll get a nastygram from your ISP because a copyright industry plant on one of the torrents told on you. the easiest way by far to prevent that is by getting a VPN. go with something paid (free ones do shady stuff) and with a no-logging policy. i use NordVPN because i know someone who pays for it and is letting me use it, but another great option is Mullvad

believe it or not, that wasn't the original purpose of copyright. copyright was invented as a form of censorship. in 1556, the Charter of the Stationers' Company was given the exclusive right to control the operation of printing presses in England, up to and including the ability to seize offending books and burn the printing presses that made them (L. Ray Patterson, Copyright and "the Exclusive Right" of Authors, p. 9)