I grew to love Linux because I was hating Windows, I don’t hate Windows because I love Linux. And I don’t want to hate Windows, I wish they were slowly becoming anti-user, but they keep adding (forcing) features that are so unfriendly to the user.

Yes. If Windows was still like Windows XP, I don’t know if I would have ever switched. It used to be fun, not soul sucking.

There’s lots of other reasons I’m glad I switched, of course.

I find the windows update and Linux graphical updater processes identical. They only diverge at the end when the Windows one fails with a mysterious error message and offers to retry or open a troubleshooter that won’t work.

Windows arguably is, indeed, two or three different systems stapled together. There’s the C code kernal bits, the .Net runtime higher level bits, and the Electron “this didn’t need to be fast anyway and we only knew how to write JavaScript” bits.

until it came time to install new software.

That is the big giveaway. I used the term “It’s free” too many times when setting up software for them. “I used to have to pay for all of that.”

I always hard code IPv4 addresses. Load balancing and DNS resolution are an admission of weakness.

(This is sarcasm. WTF Steam?)

Can I find a broken window and start sanding it with sandpaper, as an extreme example?

Yes, provided you have a way to polish it back to transparent again, after changing the shape.

I’m pleased to report that all those other promised utopia frameworks turned out perfect, and aren’t in any way still a huge daily pain in the ass. I expect no less from this time around. Computers are finally smart. It’s great.

It’s the AI that is prone to delusions, or was that just me?

A little more time and a lot more money. But the savings will be huge. The savings will make the current era of extravagant burning piles of money look like a sound investment. You’ll be glad you got in on the ground floor…

We do need a little more time, though. And money.

That’s a pretty good description of what GrapheneOS does with the sandboxed Google services.

I have found that the only apps that don’t work well with Samdboxed Google services are ones that work hard to invasively probe their runtime environment.

Thwy usually fall into these three categories:

• Bank apps that do it “for my safety”. Nevermind that a website version exists for attackers to target without the same (dubious, invasive) “protections”.
• Streaming apps that do it “because this paid subscriber might be some kind of dark web pirate and we need to protect our content from being uploaded to the dark web one more time.”
• Apps whose developers are shitty at writing code for memory management. But GrapheneOS has good options to allow these to run, anyway.

That looks like exactly what I’m looking for in my next phone. Thanks.

Do you have access to credit unions?

The GrapheneOs team is quite particular about hardware.

I would gladly purchase a phone that came preloaded with LineageOS.

“Better than we have now.” often wins over waiting for perfection.

CoMaps is quite nice.

There are also still companies selling navigation devices that mount in a car windshield, assuming the car doesn’t already have one built in.

Pro tip - those navigation devices also often have an accident camera that records if it feels an impact - which is a good idea anyway.

GMS apps work fine. The only ones that don’t work are ones that act invasively enough to notice they are sandboxed and disable themselves.

Mostly bank apps. Which is irritating, since they all have mobile friendly websites that work fine without needing to know my location and everything else about my phone.

Google has made it extremely hard to degoogle.

Just remember that there are no nice reasons why they are working this hard to keep your phone captive.

We can argue about how bad it will get, but there’s only worse things coming from this effort.

Uh…so they’re giving people years of weapons and hand to hand combat training and then fucking up their ability to retire in a quiet dignified way?

That is… Not how I would have handled that situation.

Edit: I’m just… processing that people can make stupider choices than I thought possible.

This feels like the “poking a sleeping bear for no clear reason” special kind of stupid.

Americans can head down there to pick crops.

I can also mow lawns, and make a pretty decent cheeseburger. So I feel like I’ve got options if I’m allowed to visit seasonally to work.

(Edit: Since tone is hard in text. This is meant sincerely. I’ll do what is needed to feed myself, same as any immigrant, if I’m allowed to, when the time comes. Immigrant workers deserve respect and legal protections.)

I text my friends. I assume that everyone else just thinks I died.

The move between seeing “your brother in law took the kids to the zoo” to “your brother in law liked this trash article” was such a jarring transition.

It was awful.

“Oh, look. He’s a little bit racist. Now I get to know that. Thanks Facebook.”

If they came with wall mounts, you might think like I did “I’m not sure I want to wall mount these.”

But now I can say - it’s great. It feels good to have them wall mounted in a prominent visible place.