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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 5th, 2023

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  • I’m pretty happy with Linux actually. I’ve used a few distros and DMs over the years and honestly we’re at a point in time where it’s pretty nice. A more user friendly and robust connectivity management would be nice, and a few of the file browsers could benefit from a UX revamp. DMs could also enforce stricter design choices by default to gently guide developers towards a consistent UI/UX. But overall it’s quite solid.

    The same can’t be said about most of the OSS that goes with it. Most of the apps available for Linux are garbage. I mean, they do some things well obvioulsy, but are overall terrible to use. With their crap UX and a UI stuck in the last century the only reason people use them is they have no other choice and are desperate…





  • Everything you say is what past me would have answered ten years ago, thinking current me is an idiot. Yet here we are. ;)

    You are right and make good points. But you are not 99% of computer users. Just considering installing a linux distro puts you in the top 1% most competent.

    (Speaking of which, I still have a laptop running EndeavourOS + i3. Three months in my system is half broken because of infrequent updates. I could fix it, I just don’t have the motivation to do so. Or the time. I’ll probably just reinstall Mint.)


  • It’s a bit more complex than that (and you probably know it).

    When you enter the Apple ecosystem you basically sign a contract with them : they sell you overpriced goods, but in exchange you get a consistent, coherent and well thought-out experience across the board. Their UX is excellent. Their support is good. Things work well, applications are easy to use and pretty stable and well built. And if they violate your privacy like the others, at least they don’t make the open-bar sale of your data their fucking business model (wink wink Google).

    Of course you there’s a price to pay. Overpriced products, limited UI/UX options, no interoperability, little control over your data. And when there’s that one thing that doesn’t work, no luck. But your day to day life within the Apple ecosystem IS enjoyable. It’s a nice golden cage with soft pillows.

    I used to be a hardcore PC/Linux/Android user. Over the last few years I gradually switched to a full Apple environment : MacBook, iPhone, iPad… I just don’t have time to “manage” my hardware anymore. Nor the urge to do it. I need things to work out of the box in a predictable way. I don’t want a digital mental load. Just a simple UX, consistency across my devices and good apps (and no Google, fuck Google). Something I wouldn’t have with an Android + PC setup. :)

    The whole “special club” argument is bullshit, and I hope we grow out of it. Neither the Apple nor the Google/Microsoft environments are satisfactory. Not even speaking of Linux and FOSS. We must aim higher.






  • The Apple M series is not ARM based. It’s Apple’s own RISC architecture. They get their performance in part from the proximity of the RAM to the GPU, yes. But not only. Contrary to ARM that has become quite bloated after decades of building upon the same instruction set (and adding new instructions to drive adoption even if that’s contrary to RISC’s philosophy), the M series has started anew with no technological debt. Also Apple controls both the hardware to the software, as well as the languages and frameworks used by third party developers for their platform. They therefore have 100% compatibility between their chips’ instruction set, their system and third party apps. That allows them to make CPUs with excellent efficiency. Not to mention that speculative execution, a big driver of performance nowadays, works better on RISC where all the instructions have the same size.

    You are right that they do not cater to power users who need a LOT of power though. But 95% of the users don’t care, they want long battery life, light and silent devices. Sales of desktop PCs have been falling for more than a decade now, as have the investments made in CISC architectures. People don’t want them anymore. With the growing number of manufacturers announcing their adoption of the new open-source RISC-V architecture I am curious to see what the future of Intel and AMD is. Especially with China pouring billions into building their own silicon supply chain. The next decade is going to be very interesting. :)


  • Probably a mix up of sorts and the responsibility lies with the contractor that installed it. I don’t believe the Bored Apes crew organized everything themselves down to the lights, it’s not their job. They just paid a company to do it for them.

    Asia is much, much more serious than the West regarding sanitation, especially since COVID. UV door frames at the entrance of public transportation is a thing. Where I live, before entering a pharmacy during COVID I had to step in a pond of sanitizer, then was sprayed with the same, then had to wash my hands.

    I’m not surprised the contractor had a stockpile of UV tubes to be used specifically for sanitation purpose. Now, did they just confused them with regular black light tubes or did they use them on purpose, or a mix of the two? I guess there’s going to be an investigation to sort that out. Wouldn’t like to be them, the Hong Kong judicial system is not known for being lenient, quite the opposite.