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A few decades ago I got a letter (snail-mail even) that my domain was expiring soon and asking if I wanted to continue. I signed into the link given and paid a small amount, only to realize I hadn’t even registered my domain with that registrar in the first place. I locked my domain to prevent a transfer, but obviously the money were lost.

150Mbps advertised, 170Mbps in reality. 15Mbps up @CAD50/mo.

I had 1Gbps before but I monitored my usage: playing MMOs (<1Mbps, latency is important not bandwidth), watching Netflix (<10Mbps in HD, ~25Mbps if 4K) and minor stuff like Skype. iOS or Linux SW updates run in the background anyway and many servers were limited in their end. Only things that could very rarely max it out were bittorrent which I usually am not in any hurry with anyway, my BT machine runs 24/7. Most of the time my connection was almost idle.

So I downgraded and saved money for more important things. My building is getting a second fiber provider soon but it still starts at CAD70 for 500Mbps, so I’ll pass.

I’m surprised you didn’t face issues like dead battery or damaged tires.

I don’t have a mac but I do know some of the history as I used to: macOS used to be around $130 but macOS Snow Leopard (2009), Lion (2011) and Mountain Lion (2012) were around $20-$30. Since Mavericks (2013) onwards it has been free.

Libreoffice is available, you can install any application you want on a mac provided it’s built for macOS, just like you can on Windows and Linux. You don’t have to install it through the Store either, you can just download it from wherever it is available and install it.

Business model for the mac is that Apple sells hardware, they also have a few applications one can buy such as Final Cut Pro.

The business model for application developers is up to them.

There are tools/package managers for compiling, installing, and upgrading open-source software on a mac, MacPorts and Homebrew.

You can’t run AMD64 Windows applications but there are both free and paid virtual machines (Parallels, UTM) that can run Ubuntu for Aarch64 and Windows Aarch64 in a VM. Funny enough ARM Windows has a translation layer so it can run AMD64 applications. Don’t expect great graphical performance running Windows in a VM. You might also be able to run older AMD64 operating systems (Windows 7) within UTM but it’ll be slow.

Hassleback potatoes with butter.

I’m a bit confused, OS upgrades are free… I’ve been back and forth between iOS and Android a few times, I avoid lock-in to either ecosystem by using 3rd party cloud services like Bitwarden, Signal, Dropbox free (10GB), etc. I can switch over in half an hour. Most recently they started supporting the open standard Matter so they can use same smart home things as Google or Home Assistant.

As for “bloat”, well there’s a few apps I don’t use, most can be uninstalled, if not it only takes up a bit of disk space, not RAM/CPU so they don’t impact performance and I keep my phones for many years. Right now I got an iPhone 13, it runs like new, it’ll last for a long time.

Are we upset about what they call support staff? All companies do weird marketing stuff, it matters not.

I don’t use a Mac, I run Linux on my gaming PC. If I didn’t game I’d be equally happy with a Mac, the new hardware is great and the OS doesnt get in my way. In contrast with Windows where one feels like a hand-puppet.

I loved that period where WWW was buzzing with naive excitement and USENET was still popular for having conversations, it was a good time.

I’d say Le Gruyère, Comté, Fontina, Manchego and Gamle Ole. Honorable mentions to Jarlsberg.

Same, it’s basically installing Arch while I make a coffee and then I come back to a nice desktop with sane defaults. And I don’t have to mess around afterwards installing NV driver or codecs, it’s all done.

Same, I heard about Digg but never went there. Usenet->Slashdot->Reddit.

I still have a low 4-digit Slashdot account I never use. I felt sad when it got sour. In the the beginning when people announced passion projects on Slashdot the comments were “That’s so cool, it’ll be interesting to see how it turns out. Not something I’ll be needing but I wish them the best of luck.”. In late stage Slashdot it would be “Why! What a waste of time. They should all focus on what I use”. Unfortunately that self centered type of negativity is everywhere these days.

It was not a joke, I’ve worked on Windows and Linux for decades and I’ve worked on Symbian OS and Android as an OS engineer. With the right hardware and stable drivers neither crash. Anecdotally (which admittedly proves nothing) my gaming PC’s only ever crashed because I had bad RAM, which i diagnosed with memtest86.

It’s not the operating system. This is the weakness of Windows/Linux - the many many vendors of PC components and badly written drivers. It’s not the operating system’s fault as such, unless you count the OS’ fault for not running a microkernel with drivers in a less privileged ring like Symbian OS did.

Now, the UI freezing and having weird random slowdown that’s another thing and one of the reasons I prefer Linux. I’m very grateful for Valve/Proton that I have been able to ditch Windows completely now.

I use it too, it’s great. I’ve been using Linux for decades and I know it intimately but why waste time fiddling with installing when Endeavour OS can do it with sane defaults while I brew a coffee ‽ I recently got a new laptop and I was ready to play Baldur’s Gate 3 from the old SSD in 20 min.

I did spend a minute installing btrfs-assistant and btrfsmaintenance though, it’s nice being able to boot a snapshot from grub just in case. I could probably have grabbed Garuda Linux instead but I’m happy with Endeavour.

Windows is rock solid and doesn’t crash unless there are problems with a 3rd party driver or hardware like RAM. That’s why custom rigs can sometimes have problems because it’s not all controlled by one company.

I prefer Linux though. I find Windows annoying.

And much time is saved from debugging. It makes a lot of sense that we let the computer/compiler keep an eye on lifetimes, allocations and access so the code is much more correct once it compiles.

I feel like my old colleagues and I have spent a far too large part of the last 20 years chasing memory issues in C++. We are all fallible, let the compiler do more.

My gaming friends just gifted me Baldur’s Gate 3, so I’m more than happy to shut out the world and focus on what’s important.

I got two of those in my fridge right now, next to le gruyère and a pungent delicious Gamle Ole.

I get the Gamle Ole sent from Europe. One summer the package had been punctured and the cheese had gone angry and stunk up the postal van, my friendly postman looked a bit green in the face.

Superstition by Stevie Wonder.

You specifically only asked for one but I’ll be a rebel and give you Cover You in Oil by AC/DC as a bonus.

Yeah and I’m not convinced a soldering iron is something everyone should have :)

We get tribal over everything. Countries, gangs, skin color, sexuality, religion, even bloody brand of smartphone makes us bicker or call the other person dumb. And the budding optimistic globalism that was happening have totally reversed in the last few years, it was an illusion.

I’ve stopped watching/reading news. I can’t take it anymore. I lost hope.

Maybe in the extreme future but right now we’ve just barely started as a species, will we exist long enough to grow up?