It’s not their fault the average consumer doesn’t have a sizeable media library

I guess it just boils down to how much you accept a company to push you around. For me, the writing was on the wall with Windows Vista, even though I did have a Windows 7 machine/ partition later that actually worked well.

I also gave Windows 8 a chance when it came preinstalled on the notebook I bought, but I hated it. So I finally fully switched there, and no Windows since then (excluding the machines my employers provide, IDGAF about them since I get paid to use them and don’t have to administrate those). There is way less need for Windows nowadays, back in the Windows 7 days, you could basically only play Linux native and OpenGL titles, PulseAudio was iffy, Vulkan and by extension DXVK didn’t exist, AMD drivers weren’t great (AMD had just begun releasing documentation late 2007 and fglrx was a pain), so there were a lot of things that just wouldn’t work, and yet switching was possible.

As the author notes, there are way fewer blockers nowadays, and most people are just looking to excuse their complacency. And I think it’s fine to be ok with Windows, but then you shouldn’t complain too much. Microsoft under Nadella only cares about numbers.

It’s Ford’s Quantum Computer, it will factor any number you want, as long as it’s 15.

It is (was?) actually worse

https://neodyme.io/en/blog/bitlocker_screwed_without_a_screwdriver/#teaser

Scarcity breeds innovation /s

There are plenty nowadays from what I remember.

1. They save on the ARM licensing fees. I’m not sure about the details, but I believe it’s both a flat fee and cost per chip produced
2. They can freely add proprietary vendor extensions, which I’m not sure ARM allows
3. They’re less restricted in general chip design (I think ARM has restricted options in the last years, Apple has some special privileges as a founding member)

I mean peertube exists, and it actually integrates into the fediverse…

The average Linux user definitely will not care about reproducibility.

I think a lot of people do care about it, just not under that name. But I think a lot of users asked themselves at least once “what did I do back then to achieve X”. Not in that the whole system is reproduced 1:1, but certain aspects. That’s something much easier to answer with nix.

Well, you don’t need to learn nix as a programming language for a simple installation, you can use it like a slightly different json, which the configuration.nix part was about. You can get the reproducibility aspect from just that, so I wouldn’t say you get no benefits at all without learning the language.

There are more disadvantages (like time required to rebuild because you added a single package), so Arch is the better choice depending on preferences. Arch is a very good traditional distribution in my opinion, can’t go wrong with it

Arch is easier in my opinion, at least if you want to leverage the power NixOS can offer. A simple /etc/nixos/configuration.nix maybe not, but once you enter custom options / submodule territory and use stuff like lib.mapAttrs, I’d say NixOS is quite harder. Or just a more complex overrideAttrs. But then again, Arch doesn’t have an equivalent to that…

While there is quite the push thanks to Valve, they built upon the work of others, mostly Wine (which I think they fund nowadays) and DXVK (they hired the dev after a short while). So they’re definitely not freeloading, but the main lifting has been done by Codeweavers and Wine contributors through their massive work over the years, plus the quantum leap that was DXVK.

I’m not trying to shame Valve here, they definitely go beyond what they’d be required to by license, but I feel it’s also not fair to call them the reason most games work under Linux when others have poured literal years of work into making it possible.

I think an Apple machine will set you back slightly more than a League capable Windows 11 machine

Yeah, this wasn’t about whether they’re screwing the customers - they are - but about whether this has any negative financial implications for them

unless you’re running one of the Enterprise/IoT SKUs…

That is the whole point. They’re squeezing the users they don’t give a shit about. But personal users almost never buy Windows licenses from Microsoft I’d bet. So what if they switch away? And how are they or their kids going to play Fortnite or League after switching?

The money for Windows non-Enterprise is made with OEM deals. They probably wouldn’t even notice if nobody bought personal licenses anymore. Might as well make actual money from selling data about them.

Enterprise is a different story, once you squeeze too hard, companies will find ways to replace you; they are somewhat resilient to pain, but it does have limits.

Just because it doesn’t offer features a database has doesn’t mean people aren’t trying to use it as one

I support your argument, but unfortunately there are some real monstrosities out there that have carried small businesses since decades

The 4k you find on streaming services can’t really be compared to the 4k you find on Blu-ray. It’s a different league. Turns out bitrate actually matters

Maybe if we curve the TV?

I don’t think they’re sensationalist, they just don’t sugarcoat the industry bullshit. And believe it or not, they need to make money from this, it doesn’t pay itself. It’s like saying newspapers should be free, or else informing the people isn’t their primary concern.

“A farmer wants the money. Giving the good away for free would be great if they just wanted to feed people, but that’s not their primary concern.” Can even play that game for nurses etc

It’s kind of an interesting phenomenon here. There was the news of the flight attendant this week who want allowed on the flight she was planned on because she was too drunk, so much in fact that she crashed her car on the way to the airport, and quite some people were basically “I think being drunk at work is fine”

It’s very much engrained in society still, I mean go out, drink, IDGAF, but don’t hit me with that “it’s actually good for you / this is culture / this world can’t be enjoyed sober” stuff. Quit lying and take some responsibility

The relationship between alcohol and stress is very complex, and if I’m not mistaken research shows that it can reduce resilience to stress. I didn’t find dedicated studies on the issue quickly though. The ones I did find stayed that alcohol consumption for stress relief is associated with a higher risk for alcohol use disorder.

Personally, when I was still drinking, I avoided this scenario and never drank when stressed because of that issue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xU5yIH_P9I talks about the issue, I guess there are more out there and it’s not a scientific source. But maybe it’s a start