I do almost the same thing as a(n unpaid) hobby that I do as my (paid) job. I’m a software developer who writes open-source software on the side.

I’ve also seen a few of my other hobbies grow into serious industries with real employees. The (hobby) drone industry and the 3D printing industry are quite large and growing (I assume).

If you thought about the planet you wouldn’t be using smart devices at all, especially not completely unnecessary ones.

Relativity would prevent this. If the train moves at the speed of light, then nothing inside it will move because time will stop. The amount of trains inside trains doesn’t really change much except the effect of time dilation (slowdown) on each train. You can’t actually accelerate to the speed of light.

They may have mixed up the British commonwealth. Canada has a similar population to California

If they go into influential people’s houses or into important businesses, I can think of a few reasons to bribe them to do things for you.

I just sat down to do my annual donations, so I’ve got the list ready to go:

• local food bank
• local safe injection site
• Signal
• KDE
• OpenMedia (closest thing to EFF in Canada)

A few places I couldn’t afford to donate to this year, in case anyone needs more ideas:

• archive.org
• EFF
• miscellaneous software projects I’m using (mostly Steam Deck plugins because I’m in that community a lot)
• Gnome

I also give a bit to Tor and The Beaverton monthly.

I like to divide my spending into two broad categories: needs and wants. For example, I need food and shelter to survive, but I only want that really cute blahaj (even though it feels like I need it). Things that I want I can skip, things that I need I cannot. You have to be very honest with yourself for that to work well though.

Of course life is not fun if you’re only surviving, so it’s OK to treat yourself occasionally with things you want. Just make sure you’re saving enough before spending on “wants”.

It’s also often possible to break down “needs” further, since you may need some functionality (e.g. something to eat, something to hit nails with, etc.) but the specific item is not a need. I will prefer the cheapest option if I don’t have any other requirements. I tend to like things that’ll last though (they’re usually cheaper in the long run), so I’m willing to not cheap out if that’s a factor.

I am a very pragmatic and minimalist person though, so I don’t think this advice will work for everyone.

Just FYI forgejo does have federation, but it’s disabled by default. No idea how good/stable/complete it is… https://forgejo.org/docs/latest/admin/config-cheat-sheet/#federation-federation