Use ublock origin and enable the annoyances blocklists. You'll never see that reddit ad again

It's definitely a valid concern. I connected a device between it and the rest of my network and spent some time recording anything it sent. I wasn't able to find any telemetry at all. I also keep it segregated from the rest of my network by vlan, and it only has a few specific routes to reach my self hosted services.

I do, however, want to point out that a chromecast is going to have a ton of telemetry. It's hard to be truly certain of any devices these days, but I spent some time digging into the OS and I'm pretty confident that it's truly my device.

I don't use google cast, but I'm fairly sure it could if I used it. It has a remote, so I just use that. If I want to use jellyfin, or whatever app, I just install it on the device and log straight in. I don't use mine as a portable stick like you mentioned. It's intended to turn a dumb tv into a smart tv, and that's all I want it to do.

Im not sure that this is what you're looking for but, I use a Ugoos AM9 pro. It's not a stick, but its a pretty capable android TV box. It uses a remote. it comes with magisk installed. I spent some time auditing it via adb and confirming it wasn't sending telemetry, and I couldn't find anything concerning.

I wish there was an alternate image I could put in it like lineage os, just for the extra confirmation, but I'm already very happy with it.

I feel like the real lesson is not to use Microsoft products at all

You guys have the option to switch utility companies?...

We're a monopoly here. To change companies you have to physically move.

I like both overlapping windows and a sort of tiling

I use kwin-rectangle extension to bring the hotkeys used by Rectangle on MacOS onto my Linux machines

That way I can stack things, or I can use hotkeys to send the active window to a static tiled position/size. I'm a particular fan of thirds on my ultrawide

In a perfect world, operating totally on my local network I'd love if my fridge and freezer took pictures of things as I was putting them in and taking them out to automatically maintain an inventory. If it didnt require external servers, it really could be great. Hell, even if it gave me the option of local execution it could be great.

But this is the real world and we can't gave nice things. This should never have been a failure mode at all. If the computer in these things decides to stop working, it takes fairly few things make it run like a dumb fridge. They just decided that was unacceptable, so here we are.

I have similar feelings about washers and dryers. I'd love to hook it up to my mqtt broker and get local notifications when it finishes. But there is zero reason whatsoever for it to reach the internet.

I wear a wide brimmed straw or wool hat when I'm outside. Skin cancer runs in my family. I don't really care what other people think about it.

Idiocracy had a president that recognized his own limitations, hired the smartest people he could find, and followed their advice to save his nation.

Idiocracy was a POSITIVE scenario compared to this

We went this route, but we did organize a kind of reception dinner afterwards at a local restaurant

Guests insisted on paying for it, but it was under $1k easily

It was great. We did also have a photographer before, during, and after we were wed. We wouldn't change a thing.

Its still going to get splashback

The answer to your question is literally in the third reply on that link.