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I toyed with making 2022 a year about less tech. By less tech, I mean by adopting Big Tech, it'll be less I have to think about tech. The intent is that by doing so, I can focus in other areas, right? How great would it be to just integrate calendaring, task management, doc creation and files all into one happy place! I even went so far as to seriously consider readopting a WordPress install for this site, despite how much of a hassle it would be for me to convert these text files.

However, it doesn't work that way. I find that if I don't think about the processes, that is, I don't think about why I am doing what I am doing, I just don't tend to do them, or at least not to the level that I ought with all of this "free" processing power at my fingertips. Things just get done with a backdrop of scarcity.

And there's something about doing things the hard way that makes other things easier. Becoming more adept at one thing tends to provide the added boost of pulling together other skills as well.

I don't want a one-stop shop for everything I do online. I want my own email provider with my domain; I want to choose my calendar to be in whatever medium I desire; I want my task management system to be either a virtual sticky note on my screen or an actual sticky note; I want to manage my own backups while I understand EXACTLY where in the world they are located...I want privacy; I want security. And that's EXACTLY what Big Tech DOES NOT want me to have.

Oh, sure, they could provide it—they are far more knowledgeable on it than I ever will be, but they choose actively to run in the opposite direction, which is rather telling. So be it: folks can use those services if they wish. But as the ol' Damn Yankees song goes, Don't Tread On Me:

We walked the ground of ancient ones
Lit the fire with the rising sun
You and me, we got a full-on rage
Won't get fooled, no, I won't be caged

So, OF COURSE, I remain on my platforms for 2022! You can go ahead and fold that note to shove into the Resolutions' box! I did make a shift from DuckDuckGo since its g! option that forwarded queries to Google was in my regular rotation. So, I'm running with Startpage, the search engine that uses what I want from Google, specifically its superior ability to index sites. Startpage just packages it with privacy (which should have been there from the start). Although, I'm pretty sure I'd run with SP just to evade all that doodle proselyting nonsense.