Christina's 5 Questions, October 2026
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Got a double vax (for COVID and Flu) earlier today and am
starting to feel it.  So, not being up to much, I thought
I'd while away a few minutes answering another round of
Christina's 5 Questions [1].

(Thanks Christina, must be challenging coming up with all
these great questions, time and time again. I appreciate the
thought you put into them!)

1. How best for a North American to plan deGoogling? Beyond
   easy fixes like installing F-Droid, using proxies for
   video watching, how much planning should a beginner do to
   migrate from a Gmail account, install a custom ROM,
   choose new alternative FOSS apps?

   There are just so many places one could start; Google's
   tentacles twitch and curl throughout most of the
   Internet's plumbing.  Using an alternative search engine
   is probably the easiest; DDG, StartPage and Qwant all
   have their issues, but probably none of them profile you
   to quite the same extent.  Migrating to another email
   provider is a good idea, although I correspond with gmail
   account holders often enough that a lot of my email still
   falls into Google's clutches.  Given the state of Firefox
   these days, using a completely non-Google-ish browser is
   more of a challenge.  I compromise by using de-Googled
   alternatives like Vivaldi and Iridium, and de-Mozilla-ed
   alternatives like LibreWolf.  And I love Dillo, but the
   lack of javascript support does make it more of a niche
   item.
   
   The most recent de-Googling thing I did was to remove
   Google Maps from my phone, and replace it with MapQuest,
   who somehow have the integrity to continue labelling Lake
   Ontario, "Lake Ontario".  The only thing I've missed so
   far are the integrated bus schedules, but since they are
   posted at every bus stop, I don't feel the loss that
   keenly. 

2. What is your preference: hiking up a mountain, or reading
   a good novel?

   Much as I would like to say "hiking up a mountain," if
   I'm being honest I would have to admit it's "reading a
   good novel."  I have fond memories of day hikes in the
   Rockies with my family when I was a kid, but that was a
   long time ago. I've not been on too many mountain hikes
   since.

3. What were your horseback riding experiences? If none,
   have you ever caught a fish?

   My first and only horseback riding experience was on
   Centre Island, near Toronto, when I was five or so.  I
   hadn't been on one of those amusement park ponies more
   than a couple of minutes before my eyes started tearing
   up and my nose started running like Niagara Falls.  Yes -
   that was when I discovered I was violently allergic to
   horses. It was devastating, for in that moment I knew my
   dream of becoming a cowboy was as dust in the wind.

4. What is an activity that makes you feel alive? Have you
   repeatedly remained hyper for hours post-activity?

   A brisk walk on the beach the morning after a good
   night's sleep, on a sunny autumn day with an edge of
   coolness in the air, can make me feel very alive indeed.

   I don't really do "hyper" though.  Maybe for a few
   minutes after I've had my morning coffee. 

5. Adult citizens in my locality have the opportunity to
   vote in two elections this month. To what extent, if you
   are eligible to vote, do you research a candidate running
   for public office?

   Well, what a coincidence! I too have the opportunity to
   exercise my franchise twice this month, and in fact just
   yesterday paid a visit to the community hall where I fed
   my ballot for our municipal election into the tabulating
   machine.

   I tend to do more candidate research for municipal
   elections than provincial, with the main objective of
   weeding out candidates who prefer lower taxes to
   maintaining civic infrastructure, and joyless school
   trustees who consider arts and music classes to be a
   needless distraction from the One True Purpose of
   Education, which is of course job training.

   Provincially, I typically vote for party rather than
   person. I did watch as much of the leaders debate as I
   could handle, but it's kind of obvious which party is
   more likely to support the stuff I care about (eg. public
   education, health care), so it's typically not a
   difficult choice who to vote for.

[1] Christina's Five Questions, October 2026
gopher://sdf.org:70/0/users/christyotwisty/phlog/2026-10-5Q.txt


Last updated: Sun Oct 18 15:21:17 PPT 2026