Hello! Thank you so much for joining the newsletter. This is new for me, so let's see how it goes!

This week, I posted about AI, but I want to assure you, I'm not going to turn into all AI all the time. I had assumed all AI companies were doing the same shady things with books. Digital downloads from piracy sources and sites. I was wrong.

Quick Tip

Quick tip: Make LibreOffice feel like Microsoft Office

If you need a word processor in Linux, you can use the typical big tech collaboration tools in your browser, but Libre Office is a great FREE open source office suite. If you're switching from Word to LibreOffice Writer, you don't have to relearn everything:

• Go to View > User Interface and select "Tabbed"  For that ribbon-like interface
• Set .docx as your default by going to Tools > Load/Save > General and choosing "Always save as" > Word 2010-365 document

Bonus: If you need other formats, there are plenty to choose from. I've never run into compatibility issues.

Who is Katie?

I'm Katie. I'm a mom, a programmer, and someone who can't just become a "ghost" off the face of the earth like some privacy influencers can. My kids' school apps, sports team apps, and doctor portals aren't optional. Not to mention my own work and doctor apps. So my approach to privacy and open source isn't theoretical. I try to manage the data that goes out about me when I can.

If you want to know more about me, you can read my "about me" on the website.

AI and books

I'm working on posting regularly, the next few weeks I plan on posting 3 times a week, but posted 4 this past week because I wanted to share what I learned about AI companies. Recent legal decisions allow AI companies to scan and train on physical books but for copyright they can only keep one copy. So shredding the physical copy is fine. I had assumed AI companies would stick to pirating digital books rather than setting up industrial destructive scanning. The positive from the specific recent legal battles is that Anthropic (Claude's company) had to pay out to publishers and authors for their work.

As I was thinking about that, I wondered how this is all happening. How are they buying all this instead of free digital piracy copies? The companies aren't profitable, and like a lot of tech, it's propped up by rich investors until they get out of the red.

But you and I get dragged into this too. Some states are using tax incentives to draw data centers in. That's our money. You've probably also heard about rising costs in water and electric bills due to AI infrastructure. I include a screen shot of my electric bill in the post. My water+sewer bill was over $300 for this past quarter.

AI companies aren't profitable so they pass costs on to us as much as they can.

Read more here on the website

Where to get started

• Start Here on the website
• Why I switched to Linux, and why I think you should too.
• Thinking about ditching your phone? Here's an overview of my privacy phone

What's new on the blog - Try Linux!

I've noticed more traffic on the "try Linux" on a USB, and interest in Mint, so I pivoted to more practical suggestions for now. I want to show off different distros so you can see what they look like.

I posted yesterday about Zorin OS

and recently about elementary OS

I'll do Mint next.

Have a great month!

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