For commercial offerings this is probably true for at least some of them, but creating your own VPN isn't terribly difficult if you are serious about your privacy. I typically just use them when I travel to countries like China where I can't get to a bunch of necessary services, so I don't mind if they route my YouTube traffic through CIA headquarters, but if I was doing anything more than that I would just set up my own.
I like the app or website called "A Better Route Planner". It lets you set up your vehicle and select what your criteria are for chargers. For instance, I like to make sure there are at least 2 charging units in case one is out of order.
I believe this is the inside of an industrial, water-tube boiler. Like where it is being manufactured. If you look in the upper left, you can see tubes to be welded in. It isn't a perfect match, but those openings in the pipes look like where blowdown piping would go in.
Source, I designed piping systems for these.
That said, it is really difficult to get a sense of scale here and this could be some much smaller heat transfer device that just uses the same design.
I haven't started to DIY yet, but after reading Becky Chambers' book, A Psalm for the Wild Built, I started researching mycelium building construction materials and am now several days down a rabbit hole of learning the pros and cons of various mushroom and substrate types.
Will I do anything with it? No idea, but it is cool and provides buildings that will last if the natural, casein waterproofing is maintained, but will decompose quickly once abandoned or demolished and actually feed the ecosystem.
Weirdly, the only parts of the Internet that I'm really liking these days are Hacker News, Lemmy and the one part that I do pay for, which is Kagi Ultimate. It is very refreshing not to be the product and I do occasionally need to use a search engine for something.
It totally would have been clear, had I paid attention to where things came from in my main feed. I'll be more careful in the future and I hope I didn't cause any offense.
I do apologize for my miss-reading of the question! Feel free to delete my response since it has nothing at all to do with the question asked. Or I can if you would prefer.
I'd like to say that I like the thought behind this post, even though I don't have anything to contribute on the negative side. I'm currently firmly entrenched with Deeper Roots, Alchemy blend and don't see myself branching out for at least a while longer.
Yeah... This one hurts to agree with. I'm going to go rethink my life now...