Film Cameras

I sometimes carry a point and shoot camera with me. They are usually pretty inexpensive but they can still take nice photos. Good places to look are secondhand stores or local classifieds. Try asking people if they have one they're not using anymore.

I'm also considering getting an instant camera to use occasionally, like a Polaroid.

Fujifilm also makes instant cameras and film. the film is a little cheaper than Polaroid and probably is technically better as well, but the cameras don't seem as nice as Polaroid ones.

Ideas for living a slightly less modern and healthier lifestyle

I keep thinking about this. It sounds strange to type it out but it makes good sense in my mind.

• Using paper maps instead of internet maps



They still make and sell paper maps. A typical map that will cover your city will cost around $8 these days. Maps that cover a single town or city will generally have every single named street, and they have an index of street names so if you have an address, you look up the street name, find the square on the map it's in, and then you'd have to figure out how to get to the actual address. But you're a human with a functioning brain and not a retarded husk of an NPC, so it really shouldn't be a big deal or difficult at all.

If you're a AAA member, you can basically get unlimited free maps through AAA. I have a few of my town. I keep one at home, one in the car, and one in my bag. I also have maps that cover my county as well as one map of my whole state which I use on longer trips.

• Using a small notebook to write notes, thoughts, and reminders rather than using an electronic device


• Don't take your phone with you every time you go out, replace it with something that respects your privacy better, replace it with a feature phone (i.e. a flip phone)


• Make plans to meet with your friends regularly instead of only chatting with them online


• Replace screen-based entertainment with healthier alternatives as much as possible

Make your Web browsing experience feel like it's the late '90s

As you could already tell I like '90s culture and all that kind of stuff. Web design, too. Although I'm growing increasingly sure that the Internet was a terrible mistake, that doesn't mean you can't have fun surfing the Web and look cool doing it. Just don't stay on the computer. Go outside, dorks.

Let's start off with your browser. There's a lot of content online talking about browsers.

Online Spyware Watchdog has a lot of articles on Web browsers and has some guides on how to make them a little better.

Against Modern Browsers also has some unseful information, so check it out.

I'd rather not explain things about privacy and stuff all over again when other people already explained it enough. But I will make some basic recommendations:

• Avoid google chrome like the plague. It's total spyware from a horrible company. Maybe the worst company in the world. Also it looks supremely not-aesthetic. Into the garbage it goes.


• Check out Pale Moon! It's my favorite current browser. I switched to it from Firefox after Firefox dropped support for Complete Themes. It works on Windows and Linux which is nice. If you use a Mac then I'm not sure if it works there, but you're probably too busy sucking your friends off in the back room of a Hot Topic at the mall or something, so you should be fine anyway. Anyway, you should install Pale Moon and give it a try. It has plenty of good add-ons, too. Once you've installed it, go here and have a look at the available themes. My personal recommendation is the Moonscape theme that's based off of Netscape.


• If you must use something else (if some site doesn't play well with Pale Moon) then I would recommend Firefox. In my opinion they're going down in quality but it's still better than chrome for now. Waterfox is also alright. But be aware that both of these can spy on you. Here's a guide for configuring Firefox to not spy on you. I assume it works the same in Waterfox.

I probably should include some screenshots of my browsers so you have an idea what it looks like. I'll try to get them and add them a little later.

Privacy

I don't like the way things are going with respect to people's privacy. I don't like surveillance, and you shouldn't either. But I don't want to try to convince anyone why, at the moment. I think maybe I should explain some ideas I have about privacy (as a pragmatic approach).

Ideas I have:

Passwords and using a password manager

Passwords should be long and not something that's easy to guess, and you shouldn't use the same password twice. These days, the people you give your passwords to online don't take care of them well at all, so there's a decent chance that your passwords will get leaked. If you use the same password everywhere, someone could just try the password they already have in a different site and get in to another one of your accounts.

It's really easy to find dumps of passwords and usernames online. When I was still in school we (students in general) would find them and use them to get freee accounts on various services. As far as I know nobody tried to do anything really malicious with the information but I'm sure you could, if you wanted to. It just goes to show, this stuff is pretty easy to find.

So unfortunately your accounts can be compromised, but you could at least take steps to mitigate any risks.

One of the problems is that it's hard to remember unique passwords for every site/service. People tend to use the same password everywhere so they don't have to remember many (not good), or use weak passwords (not good), or maybe do something like write them down (also not good depending on who could see what you wrote). Plus, a lot of sites are really stupid about passwords and force you to follow arbitrary rules so you have to try to remember those, too.

A password manager will keep all your passwords so you don't have to remember them, but it'll also protect them by encrypting them. You won't be able to see your passwords unless you unlock them with a "master" password. Obviously you have to remember this one, but it's better than remembering fifty of them.

A password manager may also have organizational tools, and you can add notes to entries so you know the email you associated with each account you made, and you could note down what the fake name and birth date you used was, too, in case you needed it later. Giving fake info is something you should do when the service doesn't actually need it. Of course you couldn't do this for applying for a loan or with a bank or something.

A password manager can also auto-generate a decent password so you don't have to come up with anything on your own.

For the reasons above, I definitely recommend a password manager. One thing, though. Try not to use one that's connected to the internet. They may be more convenient because you can access your passwords from different devices and locations, but it means that some company is storing all your passwords. Good for security from being hacked, but bad for privacy because you can't really trust that they're not looking at your passwords. Even if they say they don't. And on top of that, if their database were to be compromised then all your passwords and usernames would be out in the open, too. So for this reason I believe an offline password manager program that runs on your device locally is the best way to go.

I'd like to come back and add some links to password managers I think are decent choices.

Not relying on the internet for everything

staying away from the worst offenders when you can

phones

Phones

Using a regular cellphone instead of a smartphone seems like a good idea. The dumbphone finder here is a nice tool to see which phones can work for your situation especially if you're someone who wants to switch from a smartphone to a simpler device.

The Payphone Project tracks numbers of payphones. All the ones I tried are out of service.