Removed by mod

Well said. Then there is the entire ecosystem of programs and apps for which there is no real ability to install on Linux (and for which tools like Wine will either be buggy or even nonfunctional), and whose absence will just piss users off.

As much as I love Linux and BSD, it is really only for people who are either mentally geared to shift off of Windows or whose minimal needs won’t notice the difference; it is not a drop-in replacement for Windows.

For example, my octogenarian father has exactly such minimal needs except for one program: Quicken. Any bugs or issues running that as an installed desktop program on Linux would have him enraged and throwing the PC out the window. So he is still on Windows, and I am keeping my eyes open on how to properly neuter/excise Copilot once it drops.

So far tools like Win10Privacy have been exemplary in allowing me to rip all manner of spyware, adware, and annoyances out of Windows.

I’m sure that Copilot will meet the same fate with one external debloating utility of another. Even if I need to replace the Explorer-based shell with a third-party one.

1.5 degrees is when the tipping points start to tip.

Fun fact: the planet has been at +1.5℃ for the last 14 months.

The reason why we aren’t officially at +1.5℃ is because the official designation is a political one, which requires some insanely long time at +1.5℃ - usually on the order of 8-20 years, depending on the org - before it can be said that we have “breached +1.5℃”.

Politicians are morons in the pockets of the Parasite Class.

Climate Science.

So the funny money is all a scam.

Colour me shocked.

For Photoshop alternatives, I’d start with GIMP for photo editing

I have always felt that GIMP was the ultimate software Camel. As in, designed by a committee to include everything and the kitchen sink without any coherent UI/UX.

It’s the software industry’s 1965 Lada masquerading as a 2024 model.

If it wasn’t for Paint.NET still missing vectorized/sprite-based text (it instantly rasterizes text the moment focus leaves it), I don’t think I could ever use GIMP.

I still don’t properly grok Selinux at a fundamental and instinctual level. I understand the need for it, and I work with it to the best of my ability, but I wish there was a resource that could explain it from several different positions.

Irony: my main Linux workstation is OpenSuse

Can certain remote connections be whitelisted?

I have a number of non-tech family members that I remote assist and remote administer. Clearly, I need to be able to log in remotely via RustDesk whenever needed, and since RustDesk has no auto-updater, I would need to whitelist the website (and their GitHub page) as well.

I would hardly consider that pricing insane. Consumer TVs are massively subsidized by the smart tech built into them, in some cases by up to 60%. Plus, they are often fragile with cheaper components because they are expected to be mounted in “safe” places away from unusual conditions or extreme temperatures.

Considering the more robust construction (for commercial use) and lack of subsidization, I would consider those prices to be spot-on and rather reasonable.

Plenty of companies make display TVs that only display commercial content. You see them all the time displaying menus in fast food restaurants.

These can also have all smart tech turned off because some companies also use them as digital whiteboards to display proprietary or confidential information.

The sentence requires the contraction of “you are”, which contracts down to “you’re”. The apostrophe is still missing even if a different and grammatically wrong word was used.

For sure, that is also one hell of a run-on sentence in that main block of text. Dude could do with some proper punctuation.

The lack of an apostrophe for “Can see you’re logged in” is unreasonably irritating to this grammatical pedant.

This is on my iPhone.

In-app mic mute is limited to that app.

Muting the mic through the iPhone control panel mutes the mic across the entire phone.

It’s all dependent on the locus of control. An app does not control the mic across all apps, it only controls the mic within itself. The iPhone control panel, however, is the absolute master control: it controls the mic before any app.

It’s a common case for most users.

I have done it before: on a Signal audio call between multiple people, and had to do a really quick look-up while my hands were busy. Put the call on mute, flipped over to my browser, hit the “speech to text” icon below the keyboard and verbally put in my query.

With a global microphone shut-off, I couldn’t have done a speech-to-text Google query while being muted on a call.

Fine-grained control like this exists because being limited to a global mute is fundamentally hostile usability where multiple apps can be used at (mostly) the same time.

Think of it another way: does your house have light switches in every room, or do you turn all your lights on or off by going to the electrical panel and toggling the master switch for the whole house?

You’re complaining about “why are there light switches in every room when the electrical panel has this one, big, fat switch at the very top that turns everything off.” Yes, your complaint is exactly like this.

Yup. iOS mute is like a hardware mute (not really, but the “reach” is the same) in that it mutes for everything, everywhere on the phone. Meet mute is only for that program.

Because of capitalism. Because all content must drive quarterly profit ever-higher.

Meanwhile, public broadcasting (PBS) is still putting out great content for families regardless of profitability.

That’s why I put that term in quotes, and was specific about default networking interfaces. I didn’t go into detail because that confuses a lot of people.

Source: working with wireless networks professionally for pretty much the last quarter century.