I’m beautiful and tough like a diamond…or beef jerky in a ball gown.

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Joined 10 months ago
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Cake day: July 15th, 2025

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  • You can’t uninstall Play services once it’s installed (or if you’re on a stock ROM where it’s “baked in”), but you can disable it. Apps -> Set option to “show system” -> Google Play Services -> Disable

    Will it crash as soon as I uninstall it?

    No. However, you won’t be able to use most Google apps and RCS messaging and anything that relies on Google sign in or integrated Google Maps will not work.

    You’ll also get hammered with “Google Play Services are unavailable” notifications from SO MANY APPS. Most of those, you can go into the app’s notifications and disable the alert for “Play Services Availability”. The only one I can’t disable on my phone is from Android Setup, but it only pops up once after a reboot.

    Some apps depend on it more than others. Some will just complain that Play Services aren’t available but otherwise work just the same, but others will lose some functionality depending on how they use those services. For example, my bank app still works but complains Play Services isn’t enabled.

    Most apps that depend on Play Services use it for notifications. So, with my bank app, I no longer receive transaction notifications. I can live without those, though, but some people may not be able to.

    Can I have Android but not Play Services?

    Yes. Most custom ROMs don’t include it by default or offer builds that exclude it.

    Should I use MicroG? If yes, where do I download it?

    You can only install MicroG or other Play Services features before booting into the phone for the first time (e.g. with custom ROMs), but you can’t just replace Play Services with MicroG.











  • I also keep my grounds in a Mason jar.

    Usually I go for ease of ingesting caffeine as quickly as possible and use a generic single-cup coffee maker.

    1. Fill the reusable k-cup with grounds and put it into the coffee maker
    2. Fill the coffee cup with water and pour into the tank
    3. Place cup and press the power button
    4. Take the dogs outside while it’s running
    5. Add a splash of sweetener and/or vanilla syrup
    6. Enjoy

    Obviously, I’m not fancy about it at all. When I do get fancy, I’ll use the French press. Sometimes I’ll cold brew in the French press overnight but I always forget so that’s a rare treat when I do remember.










  • I feel like my experience here is very different from most people’s. I’m certainly not saying they’re incorrect about what kind of interactions they have that are so off-putting, but I also block anyone and anything that takes away what little joy I can derive from this place.

    I’m not here to debate politics or see what I should be mad about, or for people to tell me how to feel about X, Y, or Z. I’ve got plenty of that in the real world. I come here to escape from that with memes, jokes, and interesting shares. I get my news and current events, in moderation/healthy doses, from actual news sites (and block them here), and I stay plenty informed without a peanut gallery of people banned from Reddit telling me how to feel or knee-jerking to this or that (usually some form of violence).

    My advice: If your encounters here are overwhelmingly from people constantly putting up false barriers (which is a charitable way to put it, I might add, and I may steal that aphorism), then I cannot recommend the “Block” button enough. Works for people, communities, and whole instances.

    If that’s not enough, maybe switch instances to one that’s better modded from the top or provides a specific vibe. startrek.website is great for that if you’re a Trekkie. Beehaw is, last I heard, also pretty chill and well modded though it’s still less federated for reasons I don’t even know still apply.



  • I feel that.

    Before I downsized, I was running 3x HP DL360 G6’s with dual Xenons and 96 GB RAM each. Way overkill for my needs but I got them cheap. Unfortunately, they and my air conditioner competed to see who could use the most electricity each month. 😆

    The only thing I really lost in the scale down was the ability to spin up dev/test VMs for every little purpose. I’ve mostly just started using Docker containers for things like build environments.