The piece of this discovery that intrigued me the most was the cave painting itself. This piece of art, left behind by our ancestors thousands of years ago, is all that's left of their presence on the island. The art they created was a marker to the world of their existence.

The reason this aspect of the story resonated so much with me is because of our current relationship with art and the value we put on it. In our increasingly culturally-corrosive, late-stage capitalist society, the value of art is measured in “likes” and online virality. What we're losing when we don't bring our art into the real world is the impact it has on creating community. The collective, communal experience of art is something that I worry we will lose sight of in our online, isolating society.

What we leave behind, what marks our passage through time, is the art we physically create and share in the real world. I believe it's important to continue to create art and share it out in the real world. Zines, graffiti, CDs, paintings, are all physical pieces of art that can be shared in community and mark our presence in the real world.

Strive to create modern-day cave paintings, because they may be all that remains to mark our time on Earth.

Windows is truly terrible. Remember when your computer didn't shove ads in your face? Windows ensnares you in their horrible Office ecosystem and the tentacles of Copilot now touch every bit of their operating system. I for one just want my computer to do what I tell it to do without trying to up-sell me or devour my every move to train Copilot. I want to be able to use my computer several years without being forced to upgrade through planned obsolescence.

If you've been using Windows for a long time and want out, I hope you give Linux a try. If you want to get started but find yourself overwhelmed by the process of installing Linux, find that one nerd friend or family member and ask them for help! Many of us Linux users would love if those in our circle joined us on the light-side and are eager to help get you started.

In this post, I'll talk briefly about what Linux is and the various distributions, or “flavours”. I'll then go into some customization you can do with Linux.

Linux Distributions

If you are not familiar with Linux, you may be wondering what a Linux distribution is. Essentially, Linux comes in a bunch of different flavours, and each flavour has its own pros and cons. Debian, for instance, is considered a very stable distribution, and is the basis for a number of other distributions. Two other popular distributions are Ubuntu and Arch. Ubuntu, like Debian, is considered a more stable distribution and is used by beginners and advanced users alike. Arch, on the other end, is considered more “cutting edge”, however, it requires more tinkering and isn't considered ideal for most new users. Another interesting Linux distribution is elementaryOS, which focuses on providing users with an experience closer to what they are used to with Apple, while still being Linux.

My Linux distribution of choice is Debian because I don't want to think too hard about the nitty-gritty of my operating system, and I'm okay with older, stable versions of certain software.

Desktop Environments

When you're deciding which Linux Distribution you want to run, you can also choose which desktop environment you'd like to use. A desktop environment is like the user interface, and unlike with Apple or Windows, you can choose from a variety of environments. Some Linux distributions, such as elementaryOS and Linux Mint, have their own desktop environments. From my experience, the two most popular desktop environments are GNOME and KDE. I always recommend taking some time digging through the settings of your newly installed desktop environment and customizing it, finding what works for you.

I use KDE and find it very intuitive with more than enough customization options for me.

Downloading Applications

After you've chosen the distribution and desktop environment, all that's left is to start installing the software you need to start using your newly Linux-ed computer! Most desktop environments will have a “software center” where you can look for applications to install. Software can also be downloaded from other sources when required.

If you want to get up and running, you are going to need an Office Suite and a browser. If you're looking for alternatives to Microsoft's Office Suite, see my previous post on Office Suite Alternatives and try LibreOffice. As for a browser, I recommend Firefox or Vivaldi as alternatives to Google Chrome.

And there you have it! Don't let Linux's reputation as the complex, scary operating system stop you from exploring alternatives to the ever-deteriorating Microsoft and Apple operating system experiences. Linux is as user-friendly as its ever been, and you can always ask for help getting started. All these Linux distributions have forums with folks who are more than happy to help answer any questions you may have.

There's a whole world outside the walled gardens ready for you to explore.

WARNING: POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD

The God of the Woods is about an inspector trying to solve the mysterious disappearance of a wealthy teenage girl while at a sleep-away camp in Upstate New York, Camp Emerson. The teenage girl, Barbara Van Laar, is the daughter of the wealthy family that owns the land upon which Camp Emerson sits. The strained relationship between Barbara and her parents, along with the family's troubled past in those very woods, leads investigator Judyta Luptack on a journey to not only find Barbara, but unlock the mystery haunting the Van Laar family.

The past plays a significant role in this story. A majority of the story is told through flashbacks with a number of different characters, each providing pieces to the larger puzzle of the central mystery. The book was 450 pages on my e-reader, which is quite long for a mystery book in my opinion. Often with a mystery I find there is a lot of clue-finding and theory crafting that takes up a bulk of the plot. In The God of the Woods, I found the meat of the story was less about the mystery and more about the Van Laar family and those unfortunate enough to be caught in their orbit.

The characters divulged so little about themselves in the present (Upstate New York, 1975), that it felt like the only way to learn about them and their motivations was through their eyes months, years, or even decades earlier. Between the length of the story and the numerous flashbacks, I often felt myself losing momentum and putting the book down after the fourth or fifth flashback. The characters themselves were mostly interesting and complex in their own way. But boy oh boy were some of them insufferable. In my opinion, the weakest link in this story was the character Alice Van Laar. Alice's helplessness and lack of even a sliver of a backbone was utterly infuriating. It didn't help that she is so central to the core mystery as the mother of missing teenager Barbara.

Overall I did enjoy my time with The God of the Woods. Aside from Alice, the large cast of characters were all unique and interesting. They felt like they belonged in that world and when the story stayed in a single time frame long enough, I was immersed and engaged. I enjoyed Liz Moore's writing style and how each character had their own voice, each making a distinct impression as we learned how they ended up at Camp Emerson on that fateful day.

If you are looking for a slow burn, heavily character driven mystery novel, this book might be right for you.

As of writing this I've watched 108 movies this year. Most of them are not movies I've watched already, and they range from new releases to movies from the 50's. There was no real rhyme or reason to which movies I chose to watch. Some were from recommendations from friends, family, and the internet (specifically the movie podcasts The Big Picture and The Rewatchables), and other choices were from randomly flipping through Tubi when I had some time to kill.

There are still so many movies I have to watch, ones that most people can't believe I still haven't seen, but I'll get through 100 more in 2026, and so on and so on.

But in this post I just want to talk about my favourite movies released in 2025.

2025 Movie Lists

My top 5 movies of 2025, in no particular order:

• One Battle After Another
• Weapons
• Sinners
• 28 Years Later
• Marty Supreme

I enjoyed all these movies immensely. With every single movie on this list I left the theatre thinking about the movie for days and weeks after, enthusiastically discussing them with friends and family and recommending them to anyone I met. I saw Sinners twice this year, once in IMAX and again in 70mm at the Revue Cinema. That movie took my breath away every time I watched it. One Battle After Another, Weapons, and 28 Years Later, were the movies that stuck in my brain the most this year. I would remember scenes or lines from them and that would lead me down a rabbit hole thinking about the grander themes of the movies or how beautifully they were shot. Weapons and Marty Supreme were two movies that had me on the edge of my seat the entire movie, with loads of laugh-out-loud moments immediately followed by tension, or in the case of Weapons, a scare. I watched all these movies in theatres and I'm so glad I did. KEEP THEATRES ALIVE!

Other movies I thoroughly enjoyed:

• Eddington
• Black Bag
• The Shrouds
• Wake Up Dead Man
• The Phoenician Scheme
• F1
• Superman
• Companion
• Materialists

Of the superhero movies released this year that I saw, Superman was my favourite. It was fun and funny, and the action set-pieces were great. Companion is a low-key movie that I feel more people need to watch. It's very well-written and a fun thriller with good acting mixed in. The Shrouds I watched in a theatre that had two other people in it and, as with a lot of Cronenberg movies, I left the movie trying to parse what I had just watched. I watched Eddington when I got home a little drunk and that was one of the most stressful experiences I've ever had watching a movie, but man was that movie incredible.

I could write more about each movie in particular but I think I'll just leave it at that. If you're reading this and you haven't seen some of the movies on this list, I definitely recommend renting them, or if you get the chance watch them in a theatre. I really enjoyed a lot of movies that came out this year, and I only saw a fraction of them. I'll probably have more favourites from this year that I'll catch-up on in 2026.

Here's to 100 more movies in 2026!

One of my favourite experiences when exploring the blogosphere is finding an interesting blog with a tremendous backlog of cool content. Finding these blogs is more difficult on the open web compared to finding profiles on centralized social media, but the reward of finding these highly unique pockets feels greater.

Finding Blogs

There are plenty of ways to find interesting blogs about almost any topic. The easiest place to start is with a simple query on a search engine. However, with a search engine, you are more likely to be inundated with irrelevant content and links to social media profiles.

Another way you can find blogs is on the different platforms that host them. For example, write.as has a blogroll of different posts by members at read.write.as, and bear blog has their own aggregator at bearblog.dev/discover.

There is also a fairly new website called Feedle. Feedle searches the blogosphere for content and blogs related to your search and provides you with RSS feeds for both the search term and the individual blogs. Feedle is a great way to find independent sites and blogs that cater to your particular interests.

Finally, there is a collection of over 400 blogs registered for the Bring Back Blogging campaign, and the entire directory is available on the project website. If you view the Bring Back Blogging directory on a computer, you can search and filter through it to find ones that might interest you.

Following Blogs

The best way to follow blogs is with an RSS reader application. Most blogs generate an RSS feed that you can add to an RSS reader application. When you add a blog's RSS feed to a reader application, you will be notified any time there is a new post on that blog.

There are a number of RSS reader applications to choose from. As with my recommendations for blogging platforms, I will try to recommend applications that follow more privacy-first and open policies and practices:

• Android: Feeder (Google Play, F-Droid)
• Mac, Windows, Linux: Raven Reader
• iOS: NetNewsWire

To follow a blog, you can copy and paste the URL of the blog into your RSS reader application and add it to your feed. You can try this out with my blog. If you copy https://koolaidwithkaran.com into your reader application, it should allow you to follow this blog. Once you add my blog, your reader application will notify you any time I publish a new post.

Establishing your place on the open internet can be an incredibly rewarding experience. Extricating your online identity from the silos of centralized social media brings many benefits, particularly when it comes to online mobility and freedom of expression. Armed with a simple RSS reader, you can then connect with others who have done the same, and begin a new journey of online exploration.

Starting a blog can be as easy or as difficult as you'd like it to be. Whether you want to make a text-focused blog, or an entire personal website with all kinds of content, there are plenty of platforms to choose from.

On this blog, I've always tried to promote privacy-respecting and open source solutions over ad-focused, proprietary ones. As such, I will not be recommending some of the more popular blogging platforms most people are aware of. For example, Medium is a popular blogging platform that many people use, but it is often riddled with invasive ads, trackers, and paywalls. With the following recommendations, I will endeavour to share platforms and solutions that ascribe to more free and open practices.

Writing-Focused Blogging Platforms

Write.as: I've mentioned write.as a number of times in past posts, but I doesn't hurt to add another recommendation. Write.as is very minimal and prides itself on its clean, distraction-free writing environment. Creating an account is easy and within minutes you're ready to start writing and publishing. There is also a guide to writing posts, as well as a general how-to for the platform.

Bear Blog: Bear Blog is another minimal blogging platform with a focus on providing a clean, tracker-free experience for your readers. Bear Blog is very easy to use and customize. With Bear Blog, it's simple to organize your work into separate categories with dedicated pages for different content. There is also extensive documentation and guides to assist in customizing your blog.

Both Bear Blog and Write.as generate RSS feeds for your content, allowing anyone with a newsfeed application to follow your blog and receive updates. Both platforms also have the option to upgrade from a free membership to a paid one for additional features such as email subscriptions and more customization options.

UPDATE: I just saw that write.as has closed free account registrations. The subscription model is still quite reasonable if you would still like to use the service. I've been a paying customer for almost two years now and have had a great experience with this platform.

Personal Websites

Neocities: Neocities is another platform I've discussed before. Neocities provides free website hosting without integrated tracking or ads, as well as a simple and clean user interface. They also have a web-based code editor so you can change any of your website's pages from within the platform. Using Neocities requires some html and css knowledge. However, you can start-off with a template and learn as you go with different guides and tutorials.

Creating a personal website requires more effort than signing up with a simple blogging platform. However, building your own website provides you with an almost unlimited number of customization options.

With a few clicks and keystrokes, you can stake a claim to your own corner of cyberspace. If you want to make your website or blog even more unique, you can always buy a unique domain name for your website. Namecheap currently has a domain name registration deal where you can grab yourself a unique .xyz or .space domain name for about $1/year.

Building your own home on the internet can be an extremely rewarding experience, and starting a blog is a great place to start.

In my next post, I will go through how you can share your blog with the world and follow your favourites as well.

Blogs were the 'it' thing in the late 90's and early 2000's. Then came the introduction of centralized social media websites like Facebook and Twitter. When these sites took-off, many people abandoned their blogs and personal websites for the uniformity and ease of a centralized service with a rapidly growing user base. Eventually, blogging culture as we knew it disappeared to the far corners of the internet, kept alive by small groups of enthusiasts and believers in the form.

Internet culture changed with the creation and proliferation of centralized social media and microblogging, and during this era our online values changed as well. Where many bloggers in the past created for creation's sake, the ad-driven revenue models of new social media sites drove creators to create for the purposes of virality, “likes”, and “shares”.

I want to avoid diving too far into the murky waters of the pros and cons of centralized social media in this post. Rather, I would like to focus on some of the benefits of bringing blogging culture back into the mainstream.

A Personal Place on the Internet

When you start a blog, you're effectively staking a claim to your own little corner of the internet. In this little virtual plot of cyberspace, you're free to express yourself how you'd like.

When we publish our thoughts and express ourselves on centralized social media platforms, we're merely “renting” space on the internet from large corporations. You are confined by the rules and restrictions of the platform, and at a moment's notice you can be unceremoniously “evicted”. When you build your personal space on a social media platform, you are at the mercy of an entity that sees your presence on their platform as a revenue generator and not as an individual.

Creating your own blog or website may be more difficult than creating a profile on a social media platform, but the end result is a significantly more personalized space that you can claim as your own.

Online Mobility

Another major benefit of starting your own personal blog outside the constraints of a centralized social media platform is increased mobility. Mobility is the ability to move from one platform to another with all your content, work, and connections.

Because of the siloed nature of centralized social media, moving is made much more difficult. Exporting your content and connections from one platform to another is nearly impossible because these proprietary platforms lock your content and connections to within the platform.

When it comes to the mobility of content on a personal blog, changing platforms is simply a matter of moving files from one place to another.

Blogging culture also cultivates more organic connections. On siloed social media platforms connections are often algorithmically driven and those connections are limited to the platform itself. When you have your own personal blog, you make connections through real, personal interactions. For example, if you have your email listed on your blog where people can connect with you, that connection will go with you wherever you move your blog.

Developing organic connections and having complete control over your content gives you freedom you wouldn't otherwise get on a centralized social media platform.

Encouraging Independent Expression

When we stake a claim on our own little plot of the internet, we are free to express ourselves in ways we otherwise cannot on centralized social media platforms.

Many of us spend a significant amount of time online. Our online presence should be as unique as we are in the real world. We change the way we dress and carry ourselves to express our personality and individuality, yet we conform to the rules and limitations of social media platforms where we express ourselves just a frequently when we share our pictures and words with the world.

With a personal blog, one can express oneself and carry their vibrant personality from the real world into the digital world. Your written posts can range from a single word to a three thousand word essay, and your pictures can be in whatever format and in whatever dimensions you like.

The internet should be a place filled to the brim with individual uniqueness, and personal blogs are a great way to make that happen.

Starting a blog means you get to take back ownership of your online identity. With that freedom, you can more easily express your individuality and make more choices about where and how you want to share that online.

In my next post I will discuss how and where you can start your own blog.

Write.as

Write.as is the platform I use for this blog! It's a privacy-conscious platform that does not serve advertisements on your content or collect and sell your personal information. They follow a minimalist motif with a focus on creating a clean, workable writing space.

They have a free tier you can sign-up with and a reasonably priced subscription model if you want to use some of their additional features. And if you'd like, they also allow anyone to self-host their own blog through WriteFreely.

I've been using write.as for a while now and I've been very happy with it. They also have great customer service for the rare times I've needed it.

Neocities

Neocities is considered the spiritual successor to the early 2000's website hosting service geocities. Like geocities, you can create and host your own website on neocities for free.

On neocities you can build your website from the ground up, allowing you to creating your own unique home on the internet. I've used neocities for some time and I've had a great experience with the site so far.

If you aren't familiar with using HTML or CSS, there are plenty of resources available on the site and elsewhere to make learning easy and rewarding. You can also build off a template providing all the functionality you need like navigation panes, banners, and footers.

Gemini

I've talked about the gemini protocol a few times now, but I truly believe gemini provides the best experience for both reading and writing blogs. Unlike regular websites, you don't need to know HTML and CSS. Instead, gemini uses a simplified format called gemtext that's very easy to understand and apply.

You can read more about gemini in a previous post of mine, and there you'll find a link to the Lagrange browser you can use to start exploring the space yourself.

Similar to neocities for the web, there are services you can register with to host your own content on gemini. Below are two services I encourage you to check out:

• Yestercities hosting (gemini://cities.yesterweb.org/): Yestercities is hosted by the Yesterweb, a community of 'small internet' enthusiasts and creators.

• Smol Pub (gemini://smol.pub/): Smol Pub is another blog hosting service where you can manage your posts through the command line and access your content on both the web and gemini.

By staking a claim to your own little corner of the internet, you wrest control of your online identity out of the hands of exploitative social media companies and into your own.

I will admit, it takes time learning some of the more technical elements such as writing HTML or self-hosting your own website. Nevertheless, the long-term rewards of that work pays dividends in reclaiming your place on the internet.

There are millions of people who face dangerous, real-life consequences for sharing their thoughts and ideas on the internet. This often includes marginalized communities and journalists in countries where information and news is actively suppressed. For some like myself, anonymous networks like tor are interesting on a technological and ideological level. But for many around the world, the tor network is the only way they can safely and anonymously access content and communicate on the internet.

The three things I'll be sharing are the Snowflake proxy by tor, the I2P router, and the Signal TLS proxy. Each tool gets progressively more technical in its implementation, however there are plenty of guides available to assist with setting them up and troubleshooting if there are issues. If the technical stuff is overwhelming, feel free to share this with a more technically proficient friend or family member. Every little bit helps.

Snowflake Proxy

The Snowflake proxy is an add-on available for Chrome and Firefox. It is developed by the tor project as a way to help people anonymously access censored content on the tor network in countries where that access is heavily restricted.

After installing the add-on, you will see a purple snowflake icon in the corner of your browser. You can click it and switch it on, and just like that, you'll be supporting the tor network and those who need it.

I2P Router

I2P stands for the Invisible Internet Project and is another anonymous internet network similar to tor. In order to access the network you have to install the I2P router. It's a program that is quite straightforward to install and allows you to view I2P websites, or eepsites, from your browser. Even if you have no interest in exploring content on I2P yourself, running a router improves the speed and overall efficacy of the network for those who need it. There is even a mobile app available on Google Play and F-Droid that allows you to run a router on your phone.

I personally run an I2P router on my desktop computer, and overnight on my phone. Similar to the Snowflake proxy, you can take a “set it and forget” approach and have your router running continuously.

Signal TLS Proxy

I've previously talked in detail about the messaging app Signal, but in general Signal is an encrypted private messaging application. In September of this year, in response to crackdowns by the Iranian government on access to the application, Signal shared a proxy tool people outside Iran can use to help those in the country access the application.

If you or someone you know has a rudimentary understanding of Docker, Signal has a very simple step-by-step guide for setting-up a Signal proxy. If you do run a Signal proxy, the Signal Organization has a number of tips for sharing it securely in this blog post.

Other Ways to Support Internet Freedom

These tools are just a few examples of ways you can support the fight for internet freedom around the world. In addition to these tools, you can also support the organizations and communities developing and maintaining these tools and networks through donations. They are often run by volunteers and not-for-profit organizations, so funding is a vital part of keeping these networks alive.

Internet freedom is something many of us take for granted. We can access, share, and consume content with little to no restrictions. But for millions of people around the world, that freedom is severely limited.

Every contribution we make to improving internet freedom goes a long way to helping millions of people across the world access this global network tying us all together.

Gemini is for Everyone

Since I'd last discussed Gemini, it has grown quite significantly. There are numerous sites (called capsules), and even some social applications built on-top of the existing framework. Though the content still leans tech-oriented, there is a growing sector of non-tech capsules and blogs on the network.

Even with all its growth, the protocol remains unchanged in its 'minimalist' quality. Gemini is still 'text-first' in all regards, and that has made for a greater focus on the quality of the text published. Where a writer no longer needs to concern themself with how the text will look with CSS or HTML, in Gemini they simply write, and the reader's browser will add whatever styles the reader wants. The headings, text, and links remain unchanged, and as such the writer's work remains front-and-center.

If you're someone who does a lot of reading online in the form of articles and blogs, you'll be quite familiar with the distracting and often invasive advertisements that occupy a majority of the screen. On Gemini, there are no ads or pop-ups. The protocol is purpose-built to discourage monetization of content and integration with harmful trackers. People publish content on Gemini because they have something to share, and not for 'likes' and 'retweets'. It really is a breath of fresh air.

Getting Started

The first step is to download a browser to access Gemini. One of the most popular Gemini browsers is Lagrange. It is feature-rich and works very much like a normal web browser.

After you've downloaded the browser, you can start clicking through links and discovering content for yourself. Below are a few aggregators, search engines, and directories on Gemini that can provide you with a nice starting point:

• Medusae.Space (gemini://medusae.space/): A Gemini directory
• Antenna (gemini://warmdel.se/~antenna/): A Gemini Aggregator
• Kennedy Search Engine (gemini://kennedy.gemi.dev/): Gemini Search Engine
• Waffle News (gemini://gemi.dev/waffle.cgi/): Read News Websites on Gemini
• smolZine (gemini://gemini.cyberbot.space/smolzine/): A Periodical Gemini Zine
• Midnight Pub (gemini://midnight.pub/): A Hosted Blogging Service
• Smokey's Capsule Collection (gemini://tilde.team/~smokey/capsule-collection.gmi): A Collection of Various Capsules

If you'd like more information, there's a great Gemini Quickstart Guide and the Gemini Protocol's Official FAQ. If you are more technically inclined and would like to learn how to create and host your own Gemini Capsule, the Quickstart Guide has links to different servers you can use.

Gemini is a worthwhile space to explore if you haven't already. The growing community is very active, and I believe there's plenty of opportunity for more unique and diverse content to make its way onto the network.