He uses a version of Emacs called MicroEmacs.

I recall seeing his MicroEmacs configuration a while back when I was exploring options to start using Emacs.

I am surprised that 0 A.D. is not mentioned.

Although initially unplayable, the game was fun in the mid-to-late 2000s.

I haven’t checked it out in a while, but it holds high nostalgic value for me.

Refurbished ThinkPads are available in countries where Framework, System76, and Pine64 do not ship.

Besides, ThinkPads are really well-built machines that perform well for everyday tasks at a fraction of their (or the aforementioned competition’s) original price.

I love my two machines, which are from before Lenovo took over completely. Their keyboards, port selection, and repairability are almost unparalleled compared to today’s competition.

Pardon me if I sounded dismissive. 1Blocker is good, and so is AdGuard.

I remember those being one of the first ones to do the job well, back when Apple launched content blockers. Wipr came much later, and I only recently switched to it (around late 2022).

• Windows 95, 98, 2000, XP, 7 spanning a decade and a half.
• Ubuntu 10.04 going up to the release where Unity became the default DE (11.04, I think). Came back to 10.04, as it was an LTS release.
• Linux Mint Maya because of Cinnamon, and it was terrible.
• Fedora 16 to 25 or 26.
• Linux Mint 19

Been with Linux Mint ever since. It just works. LM19 was also around the time when I stepped into Apple’s walled garden with iOS and macOS.

On Safari for iOS and macOS, I prefer Wipr instead of 1Blocker.

It’s lighter, easier to use, cheaper, scores more on d3ward’s ad-block test (but that may fluctuate).

E: added specific browser.

some governments […] have been trying linux as a way to cut expenses

I have been hearing such news for close to two decades but not without news where many such organisations switch back to using proprietary software due to a mixture of reasons ranging from usability to politics.

Though I agree with your overall point, I can’t see why rounded corners (or the lack of it) might be a noticeable issue.

First time I am seeing Conan O’Brien in a meme.

The Hot Ones interview seems to have worked wonders for him and his show, regardless of which stills are taken from the interview. :D

I never found that to be a problem. In fact, I find the thumbnails distracting. But I can see it being a problem for others.

The rare occasion I work with image files, I just open it to identify, if I haven’t already named it properly.

It also helps that most of my workflows are not image-heavy.

Interesting.

Before Shokz was AfterShokz. :-)

The comma is deliberately omitted and it’s placement is left to the reader.

For me, desktop UI peaked at Windows 98.

Installing the 95/98 GTK theme by B00merang is one of the first things I do after a fresh installation of Linux Mint.

I do try other themes once in a blue moon. But I soon realise it is a downgrade and revert back. The last theme I tried was the Arc theme back in mid-late 2010s.

Are those still being made? Can a consumer buy one?

The screenshot for StartPage is blurred for some reason. Re-uploading again:

E: Re-uploaded a fresh copy after restarting Voyager.

Contributing here with another sample point.

I did not find the mentioned link on either search engines’ first page of results.

DuckDuckGo:

StartPage:

I am not sure why a black bar appears when taking a full page screenshot of StartPage on Safari for iOS, but both screenshots are unedited and uploaded as-is.

I am aware of paid alternatives to ad-supported services like email, search, etc.

Even when considering media, music is something one can buy vinyls or use a streaming service that better(?) compensate the artist.

But movies and TV? Aren’t advertisements baked in to what most consume today, albeit at different levels? For instance, product placements in movies, ad-supported free streaming, paid streaming with ads, etc.

Unless we are talking about truly independent media which is either not easily accessible/discoverable to a layman like me, or isn’t as entertaining as the mainstream ones (highly debatable/subjective, as one hasn’t explored the offerings enough).

I would genuinely like to learn more about ad-independent media, and how you consume it.

Thanks for highlighting Pulsar.

I always found Atom clunky, but it was instrumental in changing how editors were made, perceived, and used.

It did not deserve the death/abandonment it got.

Unless I misunderstood “cloud service functionality”, an Obsidian vault can be placed almost anywhere on the file system. For instance, a remote/WebDAV drive or even the Dropbox/iCloud Drive/Google Drive directory.

Migrating is as easy as moving the vault directory from one location to another, and pointing Obsidian to it.

As always, on iOS, there are some caveats as it lacks a traditional file system. So, the Obsidian app cannot access the vault directory on, say your Dropbox. But there are workarounds for it, like hosting the vault on a remote Git repository - which is what I ended up doing. Of course, this is a non-issue on Android.

Obsidian has a help page that goes in detail about what I just said.

As for the Git repository workaround, I referred to this article to arrive at my current workflow.

As an aside, I would like to touch upon my experience with using the inbuilt sync on apps like Agenda and Joplin - both offering syncing using iCloud and Dropbox while the latter offering a whole lot more. It is a flaky experience at best, wherein a significant number of notes never really sync between the devices. This forces me to use my phone to view a particular note while my computer for another. This is where the plain text file foundation for apps like Obsidian and Logseq wins me over.

Hades.

Having just finished Hollow Knight (in fact, I mentioned starting it in one of the previous discussion threads ), I find Hades to be a bit too repetitive. But I don’t want to make the same mistakes I did with Hollow Knight and give up early.

I will give this game a few more days before forming a conclusive opinion.

Speaking of Hollow Knight, I am glad I didn’t give up yet again. The game really opens up after the first few boss fights, and it was really fun exploring the lore, levelling up, and going through some of the bosses.

That is a very astute observation, and I would not worry about the temporary decline for this very reason.

Also, looking at your username… ”can somebody please find Margot Robbie so that I can make sense of all this”