Recent content on Gunther's Guides & More
Generative AI and Coding 🔗 Generative AI (genAI) and more specifically, LLMs (large language models) are upending a lot of fields right now and none more so than computer programming. My personal experience has been that while AI can be useful for generating somewhat bland, occasionally inaccurate written content for human consumption in other fields, it really does shine at writing code. That…
An Introduction to “Game-Key Cards” 🔗 Recently, Nintendo has stirred up some controversy amongst their fan base by introducing game-key cards for the Switch 2. What are game-key cards? In short, they are physical game cartridges that can be inserted into the Nintendo Switch 2 which don’t contain any game data. Rather, they simply contain a license key for the game, which is then…
This screenshot basically sums up “the internet as we know it”. For the past decade or so the social internet has consisted of a handful of websites that the vast majority of people frequented. The list isn’t just limited to 5 websites, and the websites themselves have changed over time, but include or have included sites like: Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, YouTube, Instagram, and…
If you haven’t heard, there’s a bit of an incident going on at Reddit right now. In its wake, potential alternatives to Reddit are booming. I’ve tried out a bunch of them, and I’ll be giving you my thoughts on each. Lemmy 🔗 I’ve had a Lemmy account ( @gunther@lemmy.ml ) for well over a year and I mod a small (and honestly, pretty inactive) community there, so I know…
⇧⇧⇩⇩⇦⇨⇦⇨ⒷⒶ Cheating in video games is a time-honored tradition. As a kid, I would scour the early internet for websites that would list cheat codes I could use on my collection on PS1 games. Some games had no cheat codes and others allowed you to unlock secret characters, get unlimited extra lives, and get other cool perks just by entering the right sequence of buttons at the start up screen. Of…
Since I was a young, I was told, “be careful what you post on the internet, the internet is forever.” Despite this, I know I’m not the first person to realize that it just isn’t true. Even a quick internet search for the title of this blog post yielded some articles that already document this epiphany. Nevertheless, I feel like it’s worth saying again since the idea…
I think Mastodon is amazing and it always baffles me when people don’t agree! Now I know that intelligent, reasonable people can have differences of opinion, but it is also possible that everyone who doesn’t like Mastodon is wrong and the only reason why they don’t like it is because they don’t know how to properly choose an instance. In all seriousness though, choosing a…
I discovered the Fediverse about a year ago and was blown away. “The Fediverse” is a network of federated social media platforms including Mastodon, Pleroma, Pixelfed, and others. I talked to people in my life about what a cool idea federated social media is and was disappointed when people seemed more confused than excited. For most of its existence, the Fediverse was virtually…
When I first started focusing on moving toward more privacy-friendly software and services, I knew that at some point I would want to install a custom OS on my phone. I’ve always used Android as my mobile OS, and Android, being a Google product, is of course used to gather data on its users. While I was not as privacy-conscious when I bought my current phone a few years ago, by good fortune…
Introduction 🔗 Though digital privacy is complex and achieving “complete” or “100%” privacy is virtually impossible, that doesn’t mean there aren’t simple steps you can take to improve. Most people’s digital privacy practices are pretty poor, which may be disheartening, but it also means that there is a lot of low-hanging fruit to be picked from the…
People who care about privacy online are often frustrated by the inability of the masses, often including their friends and family, to see the importance of using privacy-preserving online services. But companies like Google and Facebook work very hard to make sure people reach the conclusion that online privacy simply isn’t that important. The first and most obvious way they do this is by…
Disclaimer: The following is my opinion based on personal experience and does not constitute expert advice or guidance. I am not sponsored by, supported by, or otherwise financially biased toward any of the services mentioned. The Problem with Gmail 🔗 Like most people, I used to rely on Google heavily for basically all of the core online services I used. When I realized what an invasive and…
Disclaimer: This guide has not been meaningfully updated since 2020 and may be out of date. Use at your own risk. A (more) updated version can be found on Eip’s website . Bans are scary and Nintendo hasn’t been shy about banning hacked Switch consoles. However, educated hackers know that bans are avoidable and they know how to avoid them. The Q&A below should answer any questions you may…