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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: August 7th, 2023

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  • I grew up with DOS and used Windows 1 (barely, DOS was better), 3.1, 95, 98, etc… But curiosity made me try a bunch of OS in the beginning of the 2000s, like BeOS, QNX, and Linux (Kheops, Mandrake, SuSE). I dual booted for many years, keeping Linux as my main OS but having to boot Windows for games. I preferred Linux but I was pretty much OS agnostic for a while. I even worked as level 1 tech support for many years, helping people with Windows and Office products.

    But then came Windows 8, 10, and now 11, + Office 365 + OneDrive. It’s very difficult to stand any of those new versions, with the ads, the constant peddling for Microsoft products, the “forced” login with a Microsoft account, the updates whenever they feel like it if you don’t pay enough for Windows, if the updates are not breaking something. A few years ago I was helping a friend and discovered a version of Windows 7 where you can’t even change the wallpaper.

    TBF, I knew it was coming. Anyone in IT knew for years that Microsoft planned of having everything subscription based. To me, every new versions of Windows or Office, or Teams, is now more intolerable than the previous one.

    Anyway, at some point I stopped gaming/dual booting and pretty much kept exclusively on Linux. My workplace used Windows, and I use Linux at home. I’ve been using Debian for 15 years now and despite minor issues with sound recently, since pipewire, every time I use Windows, I’m reminded of how much worse it could be.

    Recently I quit my job as a level 1 tech. I can’t help people with Microsoft products anymore. Having calls from people telling me they cannot delete files from their OneDrive when it tells them it’s full, then discover it’s a bug and users with their drives full cannot delete anything, is just disconcerting. Before all that, I could at least see/understand the reason why things were working like they did; I could help and explain it to the users. Now, I’m as frustrated as they are when I use Microsoft products.


  • I had the same experience as OP when I tried Matrix a few years ago. No hate on it but it was not easy and I gave up because I already had a simple IRC setup that’s working for me and my friends.

    Some IRC clients are now web based and it’s been enough to keep a few of my friends there instead of Discord. We use The Lounge. It can keep a history, display images, videos, play mp3s, and show previews of most URLs. Like, we can simply copy/paste images into a channel and they are uploaded on the server and displayed in the chat. There’s also push notifications and it’s mobile friendly.

    Convos also does something like this. Apparently it can also do video chat but I’ve never got it to work.

    I’ve recently been thinking about giving Matrix another try but I’m pretty sure my friends are going to stay on “modern” IRC anyway.


  • Email and IRC push notifications through The Lounge. The rest is disabled. Even amber alerts, because my government uses them for everything. It’s “illegal” to disable them here but with a few commands on adb its possible to disable the service and never have to hear that end of the world alarm for an elderly person missing 200 km away from me.


  • A decade ago I was whining to my friends that I didn’t like Steam because I was using Linux and Steam was really shitty on that OS at some point. I remember not being able to get the correct keyboard layout in chats, and tons of little annoyances, like not being able to choose where you install games. It was disappointing.

    As someone that loves FOSS, I never really liked the model of “not owning my games” but I must admit that it works for most people that don’t care about such things. Valve made huge progress with Steam for Linux over the years, and Proton was indeed a game changer.

    I have to tip my hat to them.


  • Sadly, it’s been a good part of IBM’s business model for years. They call it Capacity on Demand.

    Inactive processor cores and inactive memory units are resources that are included with your server, but are not available for use until you activate them.

    I learned this when I moved into a corporate IT environment with Power servers. I couldn’t believe that some companies would pay a quarter of a million for a server that is intentionally stunted/limited unless you pay even more.

    But cars are computers now. “Everything’s computer!”. So they will follow that subscription model.




  • Bell Canada. They have salespeople doing door to door. They also “partner” with landlords to setup little kiosks with salespeople in the hall of big buildings. Like, you’re getting home, pass the RFID lock for tenants only, then there is a Bell representative waiting for you next to the elevator.

    But with Bell it’s not just their marketing. Once they sell you something they change the terms and/or charge you a different amount than what was agreed.

    If you discuss this with one of their salesperson, they will claim that Bell has changed and promise everything will be fine this time if you take a new contract with them. But spoiler, they don’t change and are always just more aggressive with their marketing.

    Sometimes I feel a bit bad for the salespersons because they are often immigrants or young people that have not been fooled by Bell yet. They are enthusiastic but end up getting told to fuck off by people that have experience with Bell. I’m usually polite but very firm with them.

    EDIT: Same with Hello Fresh. I have never used them but since some salesperson knocked on my door to try to sell me their services, I will make sure to never buy anything from them.


  • pedz@lemmy.catoMemes@lemmy.mlXiaomi naming convention
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    3 months ago

    But it was maybe a few months old at best. Maybe it had a defective battery from the start but I contacted Xiaomi and I’ve been told it was “normal” in “winter”. Then when I looked online for this issue with Xiaomi phones, the people on the forums said it was “normal”, and that I expected too much.

    In the end it was probably a defective battery. I couldn’t believe that they were selling millions of these and that people always just kept them warm all the time. Like, they have a proper winter too in some parts of China, and I can’t imagine millions of people having their phone dying on them as soon as we get into sweater weather.

    But obviously this left a bad taste in my mouth. This and having to ask permission to root my phone.


  • I decided not to buy another Xiaomi phone when the one I previously had would turn off when it was a bit mildly cool outside.

    Like, I would take it out of my pocket to look at bus schedules but it would turn off after a few seconds of being exposed to 5°C, saying the battery was dead. Another time I had it attached to my bike handlebar and it kept turning off because apparently 13°C with the wind was also too chilly. Every time that fucking Xiaomi phone was feeling a bit chill, the battery would just die. And not even in freezing temps!

    I looked online and everone of the fanboys on the forums kept saying that this is normal, battery performance degrades in winter, that iPhones do the same, and apparently all other phones do the same. In short, I had unreasonable expectations.

    Yet, all my other phones’ batteries didn’t die within seconds of taking them out of my pocket, even in winter.

    So, I don’t have to bother with their names anymore.






  • A few years ago I had a depression and two dreams were coming back repeatedly.

    My apartment was a floating in the middle of the ocean and I had to defend it against “invaders”, like my landlords, my parents, some of my “friends”. They were all trying to “attack” me and invade my now lonely isolated floating apartment.

    The other one is my fit coworker hunting and running after me to capture me and bring me back forcefully to my parents, from which I was running away, in my mid thirties.


  • Yeah. My parents live in a rural area and coverage has been abysmal for years. They barely even get 4G/LTE signal outside the house. They see ads promising them more speed and more coverage but in reality, it’s going the opposite way for them. And they don’t understand it at all.

    Now that the telcos are turning off the 3G network soon in that region, it’s going to be even worse. And because there’s not a lot of people in that rural region, it’s not worth it for the cell companies to improve anything.





  • pedz@lemmy.catoMemes@lemmy.mlI do what I want
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    7 months ago

    Hah. I live alone, no kids, no house, no car. And I am usually fine with that.

    I live in a tower in the downtown of a big city and have a very nice view. I share a pool, a terrasse and gym on the roof. No need to maintain the pool, the concierge does that. No driveway to plow in winter, no grass to cut in summer. No house maintenance.

    I have free time and disposable income. I can travel anywhere I want, pretty much when I want it. I’m on my second trip in the Carribean since the beginning of the year.

    In summer I take multiple days to cycle for hundreds of kilometres to go camping/hiking in national parks and explore the great bike network of my region. I live on an island, pull my kayak with my bike and explore the waters around whenever I feel like it.

    Seeing my friends with kids not being able to get a free weekend once every few months, I don’t mind how things have turned out for me.