This man left Facebook for 6 months. Here is his compelling story

Posted: June 26, 2021 by ng36b in blogs
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How’s that lack of Facebook going?

At the beginning of the year, my wife and I dumped our Facebook accounts. We pulled off our pictures and then selected the “Delete Facebook” button, which is not conveniently located in the Settings menu. After a brief “cooling off” period, Facebook finally deleted our accounts.

So, now that its almost July, how has that worked out? Well, it’s a bit of a mixed bag.

The biggest downsides is there are many places that only communicate with their patrons over Facebook. My girls very Christian ballet studio is one of them, which is ironic because Facebook is becoming more and more anti-Christian everyday, and its likely just a matter of time before their Facebook page will get suspended due to “hate speech.” It seems that people forgot how to use a website, blog, email, or text messaging to communicate with their customers, and instead of these relatively private methods, instead picked an application that hates their beliefs and sells their private data.

The other big downside was losing Messenger Kids. No Facebook account, no Messenger Kids. My kids used the crap out of that to talk with their friends. Now we’re looking at Duo and Signal, but its hard because so many people can’t think of using anything but Messenger.

In the “plus and minus” column is the number of people my wife and I lost contact with. I still use LinkedIn, and I had a lot of people reach out to connect with me because I had dropped off Facebook. We’re now getting more friends texting and talking on the phone, but if anyone had only connected on Facebook, we don’t have much contact with them now.

The upsides are pretty huge though, and the first is time. I spent a LOT of time scrolling on Facebook, and with pretty much no positive gain. I couldn’t even say I was “reading the news,” knowing that Facebook was significantly filtering my feed. I now have a lot more time for other pursuits. I put in 1,700 square foot garden this year, hosted a few maskless parties, finished writing my book, and expanded many other pursuits. It’s hard to realize how bad of a time-suck Facebook is until you are removed from it for an extended period of time.

I also feel better. Facebook had become increasingly negative. Between “Orange Man Bad” and the preachy woke mob, it wasn’t free of politics and it wasn’t particularly friendly when you expressed anything remotely conservative. We had a close friend lose her mind when we pointed out that Trump, as un-Christian as he is in other matters, had a better record on abortion than most Presidents. There’s nothing untrue in that statement, and you don’t have to like Trump to agree with it, but she took it as a personal attack, and we haven’t talked this whole year. Honestly, I don’t miss it. I avoid personally attacking people, and I’m happy to debate a topic, but if you get so riled up thinking you’re woke position is 100% correct, well, I can’t help you.

The last big benefit is privacy. While there are still plenty of ways people will steal or sell my data, I’ve certainly turned off the biggest offender. At least now I have to exchange real functionality (like Google Maps) for private data. Facebook was just happy to hoover everything up and tell you to suck the big one if you didn’t like it.

Right now there are still many people that “can’t survive” a loss of Facebook. Six months later, I don’t understand that. Yes, you lose some functionality. Yes, there really isn’t a full-on replacement app. Parler, MeWe and Rumble all have aspects of Facebook, but aren’t the full package. But there have always been better ways to interact with people electronically. Facebook, for all its advertising about “bringing people together,” is happy to tear apart the fabric of society when it suits its liberal agenda. The benefits of not being there, whether its time or mental health, far outweigh the fake social interactions I had before.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency.

I eagerly await the Left’s Denunciation of George Floyd’s Brother as a Racist White Supremacist…

Posted: June 26, 2021 by datechguy in Uncategorized

…for saying something I’ve been saying for years.

After the sentencing of the former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin on Friday, George Floyd’s brother had a message in an attempt to bring everyone together.

“I just want to reiterate: not just black lives matter, all lives matter,” Philonise Floyd said outside the building just after hearing ended.

I eagerly await the denunciations from Democrats around the nations, from CNN insisting he is a racist and his banning from twitter and Facebook and Instagram.

Now mind you I agree that all lives matter and so does truth but that doesn’t matter, these aren’t MY rules these are the left/media’s rule and by those rules he must pay.

Of course in my opinion truth matters as well and the truth is that if the police response had been 20 minutes later than it was George Floyd would have been just another drug overdose death, large swaths of the country would not have been destroyed and practically nobody in the world would know or care what Mr. Floyd’s brother said about anything.

Just What Canada Needed

Posted: June 25, 2021 by datechguy in Uncategorized

Name a phrase that was common in the 20th centuary that you haven’t heard in the 21st:

The Montreal Canadians are going to the Stanley Cup Final

All that remains is to discover who they will play. It might be the NY Islanders but I’m not sure if it’s allowed for any Tampa Bay team not to make it to the finals now that Brady is in town.

No Tampa team has failed to do so since he signed.

Well this should take the populace’s mind off of what Trudeau has done to the country at least for a week or two.

This weekend I’ll be taking part in the largest emergency communication exercise in the United States

Posted: June 24, 2021 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
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The fourth weekend in June is always Field Day weekend for us Amateur Radio operators.  An estimated 40,000 of us dedicated operators will be gathering in parks. on remote hilltops, and other locations where no facilities exist, to practice emergency communications.  We will bring everything we need to communicate with fellow Amateur Radio operators all across North America, and all across the world, under very adverse conditions. 

We will operate out of temporary shelters, which include camping trailers and tents.  All of our equipment will be powered by portable generators, car batteries, and solar panels.  Our antennas will consist mostly of wires supported by ropes which are held up by trees. All of our radio equipment is portable, consisting mostly of specially designed high frequency transceivers, which have a power output of 100 watts. With that setup the club I belong to will make in the neighborhood of 2000 contacts in a 24 hour period.  The contacts will be spread out all across the world with a majority of them all across North America.

We Amateur Radio operators take Field Day very seriously because emergency commutations is at absolute center of Amateur Radio. Ir is what we do best.  Whenever there is a major disaster, such as an earthquake or a hurricane, the only communication into and out of the affected area is through Amateur Radio.  That is because of the nature of our equipment, which does not rely on any infrastructure, and our expertise.  Throughout the year Amateur Radio operators practice and hone their emergency communications skills.  Field Day is just the largest of many practice sessions we take part in year round.

To make things more fun Field Day is also a contest.  All contacts are directly between two stations only.   That is the way Amateur Radio is.  We log every contact we make and submit our logs, which are recorded using logging software on laptops.  During each contact there is certain information we must exchange with the other station. This simulates emergency messages we handle during a disaster such as supplies needed.  Field Day contest scores are posted by the organizing organization, the Amateur Radio Relay League, in their magazine called QST and on their website WWW.ARRL.ORG.  There are serious bragging rights at stake.

Field Day is also very much a social event.  Amateur Radio clubs usually organize all of the preparations and activities at each individual  location.  Club members and their families gather to socialize along with all of the radio related activities. The club I belong to, the Eastern Connecticut Amateur Radio Association really out does itself when it comes to the socializing side of Field Day, along with the more serious stuff.   We have a huge potluck supper Saturday evening. There are always people gathered around to talk and enjoy each others company.  I always brew a batch of beer for Field Day and share it with everyone.

Here is a map to all of the Field Day sites all across the US and Canada.  The one I will be at is in Thompson Connecticut, which us at the northeastern corner of the State.  It is listed under the call KZ1M.  ECARA will have six complete stations set up.  If  you are in the neighborhood please stop by.  We are open to the public.

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