I have to upgrade my Mint install every two years

I know you’re joking around here, but you don’t have to upgrade every two years. You can use an LTS release instead, or, on the opposite of the spectrum, a rolling release.

Release schedule and duration of support should always be factored into the decision of choosing a distro.

Save your sanity and do Settings -> Blocks -> Block instance -> lemmy.ml

I approve this comment.

I guess it’s why some Jellyfin streams started transcoding for me.

You’re better off using the Jellyfin Media Player standalone application anyway.

Or ctrl+w to close the fucking site and never come back.

It’s apparently a hobby and to be competitive, you need to be able to spew bullshit at amazing rates. Personally I’ve maxed out at 140 wpm

I’m limited by the rate at which I can think of bullshit.

yet all I needed is a “this side up” symbol …

Platforms like reddit and Tumblr benefit from a friction-free sign up system.

Even on Reddit new accounts are often barred from participating in discussion, or even shadowbanned in some subs, until they’ve grinded enough karma elsewhere (and consequently, that’s why you have karmafarming bots).

Is this a problem here?

Not yet, but it most certainly will be once Lemmy grows big enough.

If your average Windows user calls tech support, they’ll get a simple answer

They’ll get a simple answer alright. In fact, they’ll be lucky if they get any answer at all that is not reboot, retry, reinstall or some other cargo cult nonsense from some on-paper “MCSA” in a third world country.

And sorry for going on a rant here, but Windows tech support forums are truly the shit tier of all tech support forums, because very few people actually have the skill to properly diagnose problems in Windows when something outside of the realm of expected behavior occurs. It’s all learned behaviorisms instead of understanding: reinstall your drivers! defrag your hard drive! run ipconfig /renew! clean your cache folder! delete your cookies! Never: “look in the system eventlog for an error event coming from this source, and tell me what the error code says”

What is the problem with “jargon” anyway? You can’t discuss technical things without using technical language.

If you take a bunch of Windows nerds (yes they exist), and get them talking about group policies and registry edits and powershell cmdlets, you get the same thing.

But people whose life or personality doesn’t revolve around their computer should also be protected from user hostile and privacy invading practices.

people not knowing shit about tech is not their fault

I don’t agree with much else of what you are saying, but you are quite right here. We should indeed not throw people under the bus because they’re not tech savvy and only know how to use Windows. They need to be defended from all those horrible anti-human and privacy invading practices by Microsoft and other Big Tech companies as well, and we should keep fighting and pushing back on those companies pushing their anti-human features, regardless of whether an alternative exists.

BUT, ultimately Linux is the answer, and people are not wrong for pointing that out. It’s the only viable alternative that is user respecting by design. It’s the only way to free yourself from the abusive relationship between you and Microsoft, because much like an abusive partner, Microsoft will never change. So if you’re tech savvy, and you would be able to switch to Linux but for some reason you don’t, I have little sympathy for your Windows problems.

Ah crap, was replying on an old tab that I hadn’t refreshed.

Ah crap, was replying on an old tab that I hadn’t refreshed.

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It was much easier to “hide” sit back then unless you were in the know in the industry.

It wasn’t hidden. Everybody knew back in the day what an evil piece of shit he was.

It has just been forgotten about and many current adults weren’t old enough, or even around, in the heyday of his evil empire, so he has been able to whitewash his image. My 50 year old ass remembers though. Fuck Bill Gates.

No 7 sucked too. It just came off the back of Vista which was a real hot mess, so 7 appeared better.

The thing is, Microsoft has always had an adversarial (or abusive) relationship with its customers, forcing things on them that most of them don’t want. Like active desktop and IE integration in Windows 9x, “activation” and Fisher Price UI in XP, bloated (for the time) Aero UI that required a 3D capable GPU in Vista, UAC in Vista, forced automatic updates in 7, abandoning the start menu in favor of that awful tile UI in 8.x, telemetry you can’t disable in 10, a start menu that acts more like an app store and advertising place in 10, forced TPM and Microsoft accounts in 11 … the list is endless. And then when they back down on one thing, people are like: “Hurray, the czar heard us! Windows is actually good now!” … forgetting all the other things they have been forced to swallow in the past.

No. They’re all bad, some are just worse than others. You’ve all just been stockholm syndromed into thinking better of the “less bad” ones.

$100 though … a Chromecast used to be like $35.

Very simple, they learned not to care and the ones who did care got weeded out.