Buy some games on discount. I can easily get Fallout 4, or about 7-10 other games on steep discount. PC gaming is the best.

All of them, but if I had an order.

E-Books for series I like and for day to day reading

Audiobooks for series which I want read to me

And Physical Book for series I adore and want the complete physical set.

Ascendance of a Bookworm, shoutout to !aoblightnovel@bookwormstory.social

I’ve never been one for reading. Even for books with movies I love, I always found reading books myself a chore.

But when I saw the Ascendance of a Bookworm anime, I wanted to know what was going to happen after the season ended. This lead me to the Manga, which was behind at the time, then the light novel.

The word is rich and it has a depth that isn’t daunting. The character you meet feel like they have their own lives, and the sheer number of side stories which isn’t about our main character is wonderful.

This was the series the made me get an eReader just for the books and the many spin offs. And I now preorder it to get the prerelease chapters to get my bookworm fix every mynesday.

The translation work is amazing the story is my cup of tea, and I will recommend it to those who want something new.

TBH, when Manjaro broke it was my fault, I know it was my own fault, and I feel if I was running EndeavorOS the results would’ve been the same if I did the same actions.

That said, yes the miss-matches repos drove me insane, especially as someone who likes keep my update number at 0, and I can’t update AUR packages. And there were a few niggles and grips here and there. But as a power user, who didn’t want to touch a terminal, Manjaro has the best set of Setting and Configuration GUI’s I’ve used thus far in Linux. If another distro took what Manjaro did, but kept it to the Arch Repos, then I’d use it in a heart beat.

I too am using Linux, but finding an “automatic” linux is difficult since most distros are about performance. It’s like trying to find an Italian Sports Car with an automatic.

And for the general user, they don’t install their OS. It’s preinstalled on a Laptop, or an all-in-one, think-dell office PC that their company provides them. Sign in like you do with everything today and you are good to go. Even Macs do this.

Linux has improved, but the desktop os’s need to be more stable (in 1 year I broke 2 manjaro installs and my BTFS file system died in my Fedora install), packages need to be more up to date, and there needs to be gui’s for any setting that a user needs to access like restarting a systemd process. A general user will not touch a terminal. Let alone download a git repo, just to update the latest build of Mangohud since the Ubuntu version is so out of date that the GOverlay GUI Utility that’s on Ubuntu doesn’t work with it.

Because to most people, a computer is like buying a car, it should just work.

A Mac is an Automatic, no configuration is needed outside of your favorite radio stations. Sure most people hate that the infotainment was replaced with a touch screen that only support carplay. But hey for the rest of the time they don’t think about it. A widows PC is the same thing, but made by Tesla/BMW where the heated seats are a subscription service.

Linux is a range from manual to a kit car. Sure it can look like the big boys or even cooler. But the amount of work that’s required is insane to the average user, and most people won’t want to touch the hood, let alone to configure the infotainment so it can connect to your iPhone since it technically supports car play. But to those that know how to use it will swear that their manual car is better in every way than an automatic.

PlayStation Vita. It was the fame system that could, but has no support, then was saved by indis.

Has very little use now-a-days thanks to switch and steam deck, but as a easy to mod system with PS1, and PSP support, I still love it.

You also need more than 512 MB of ram on a dual core.

I’ve seen enough Android Go phones sour many peoples view on Android that their second phone is always iPhone.

I think we need to define cheap.

Cheap as in a used iPhone that still works. Agreed

Cheap as in a new Android phone with Android Go and the bare minimum specs that will keep it going. Hard disagree unless you are using it as just a dumb phone.

I’d check on eBay for old office laptops. You may find an old thinkpad there

You can get away with an Intel Mac Mini, and the iPhone 6.

I think you need to figure out a project first.

No point in saying I’m making an app, use Swift then realize that you needed Objective C since the app was a game.

You also want to look at your coding preference, and existing frameworks.

Node and React is a perfect and quick way make simple web based apps that work on iOS, while also giving your self the opportunity to learn how to use xcode and swift if you need native call functionality.

Unity, Unreal and GoDot are all gaming frameworks that have iOS build support. Again with xcode and Objective C native call support. I think swift also works but I never got it to work 😅.

The project determines the framework, the framework determines the coding language. And yes making a native iOS project counts here too if you feel its the best fit for your project.

I found the $600 to be reasonable considering how much I make. But they do sell smaller ones for 200-300 the bowl just has a smaller volume.

Amazon sells them with the search term “with compressor”. I got this one 2 years ago, it’s pricey but you can get smaller ones with less volume for cheaper. https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B01FXMW4AS/

An Ice Cream Maker. Been making my own Ice Cream for years now and its amazing. The cheap machines which requires you to freeze the bowl is nice, but the one with a heat pump built in is amazing. In 3 hours I can make batches of Mint, Chocolate and Vanilla Ice Cream.

For whatever reason I read time as tires. And I’m like. No this is stupid the roads would be damaged.

Then I reread it 2-3 times then I got it. And I agree we need to stop changing our clocks.

FreeCAD. All the CAD you need without the subscription and blocked off features.

Software. What’s a computer without software other than an over glorified calculator.

That was my first experience with Linux back in the early 2010’s and pretty much up to recently. However with changes to my workflow and Steam improving and sharing the improvements with Wine. My software library went from web browsing and office software t

99% of games, and all of my business software.

The UX experience needs some work under the hood. There is still a nasty tendency to over rely on the terminal to fix basic problems. (IBT=off for VM to work).

But its close enough that I can almost recommend it to my grandparents… Almost.

Do I use adblockers? Yes

Why? Honestly it’s not about the ads, nor the tracking, or user privacy (though it is a perk). Nope I block ads for simple device security.

Fake links to sites I never wanted to visit with fake download buttons, or play buttons which download viruses or malware to my machines. I remember having a machine with Norton, and having to re-install the OS every year or so since too many accidental clicks caused me to download the wrong things.

And don’t get me started with those old grotesque ads found on the bottom of pages. Nor the cleanup of my Grandparents machines with Viruses that live in RAM, or Ransom Ware which a cousin installed while looking for minecraft skins.

An AdBlocker is a security tool on the internet, it makes sure that the links you are clicking are from the site itself. It helps simplify the decisions needed since now instead of 2-10 download and play buttons, there maybe 1 or 2.

My Grand Parents don’t have viruses any more, I don’t get viruses any more. Sure it sucks that the site I visit doesn’t get the $0.05 which it might get from ads if I visit. But after trying to do it legitimately for years, I just can’t trust ad providers (even on Google) to get me the correct links or information any more.