Posts by Portent 75 publicly visible posts • joined 5 Jan 2009
WINE and Proton have made tremendous improvements in recent years, to the point that many Windows games run at least on a par on Linux and in some cases better. So Catia and other similar applications don't need to be rewritten. They just need a few tweaks to make them Proton compatible.
W11 - A new task bar and a lot more spying. Also a significant cost upgrading several machines.
W10 - When end of life I will no longer get random updates and reboots. Life will be peaceful again.
I'm staying on W10 :)
I have a Samsung Galaxy Tab Active8, an 8" rugged tablet. Admittedly it isn't the prettiest tablet in the country. But it still manages to be dust and waterproof even with a removable battery, external SIM and sdcard tray, and a headphone jack.
I'm sure Apple will work out a way.
I've yet to find anything that works better for me that the Jabra Elite 75t Active's. I've had mine a while and originally got them on a deal, although they are now quite cheap as they have been replaced with newer models. The case is small in the pocket, it won't break the bank if I lose them, they sound fantastic with a lot of base, clear but not overly bright high's, all the software bugs have were ironed out years ago, they have great battery life, have good multipoint connection, they had noise cancellation added in software, even after newer models came out, and the Active version is IP57 so waterproof. The only two downsides are the lack of wireless charging and that they run in a master/slave configuration so you can't have only the left earbud in. I think those two issues were resolved with the Jabra Elite 7 Pro's so I might try those when they come down in price, although I have heard that the sound quality isn't quite as good for some reason.
I'm not sure I agree, One of the main Unix ethos is to "do one thing and do it well". The use of multiple small utilities, each feeding data to the next, is a deliberate design choice so that each utility is small, concise, reliable and works with each other. Personally I think I like that design choice.
I'm 50 now and worked in IT since I left school. I didn't go to university and have luckily never found it held me back (it was a different world back then). Like you I learned on home computers in the 1980's and 1990's (VIC 20, C64, Amiga). The difference with people who learned during that era was that we did it because we LOVED it and not because of the money (the money definitely came later and was definitely good). I'm probably in the minority nowadays but when interviewing people I don't care about their level of education. I look for that genuine passion for the subject. I look for the person who is self taught because they want to be in IT. Sadly most people nowadays seem to get into IT because it's a well paid job. But I look for the real enthusiast who still teaches themselves new stuff as a hobby.
What if the universe is indeed inside a black hole? As matter falls into that parent black hole the amount of matter inside it increases. As matter inside increases then it causes expansion of our universe. If this is the case then the rate of expansion will vary depending how much matter is falling into it. Clues that this is happening would be a very rapid rate of expansion at the start of our universe and then a difficulty over time to precisely measure the rate of expansion.
Yes you do have a tracking device in your pocket. Google has previously been found to track you based on mapping all the wifi routers in your area. Based on the strength of each signal it is able to position you surprisingly accurately. That's why, whenever you turn on GPS on an Android phone, it asks if it can track wifi to make it 'more accurate'.
Microsoft is an interesting company but not one that sees the future very often. It did predict the massive adoption of DOS, BASIC and Windows (all of which were licensed from other companies or the idea copied). But since the early days they seem to have failed to predict the next big trend.
Internet - Spent years trying to catch up
Games - Had to buy DirectX to compete with other API's such as Glide (3Dfx) and PowrerVR. Then had to throw money at XBox to make it successful.
Languages - Had to copy Java to create C# (after losing a battle for Visual J++)
Smart phones and tablets - Too little, too late
Two major factors in this are:
1) MS has a lot of money it can throw at the problem. The WINE project is primarily a volunteer effort with some corporate support such as, more recently, Valve.
2) MS can look at open documentation and even look at the source code for Linux. But WINE developers have to blindly guess and try to reverse engineer Windows API's (which MS can and do change over time).
A number of years ago my broadband provider was taken over by Talk Talk. I received a nice letter from them welcoming me. They then managed to completely forget I was a customer. I wasn't billed for two years but I was stuck on a really slow connection. I couldn't upgrade it to a faster line because Talk Talk said I wasn't their customer. I couldn't leave Talk Talk because whenever I tried the new ISP said there was a Talk Talk marker on my line and I would need the leaving code. Talk Talk wouldn't give me a leaving code because they said I wasn't their customer. I was stuck on 2mbit for years. While many would say it was great not being billed I needed the line for work and it would stop working randomly several times a week. Of course Talk Talk ignored me when I reported the problem because they said I wasn't a customer.
I only managed to get it sorted when I raised a complaint with OFCOM.
Phones are "good enough" now. The problem is that batteries degrade. So last year I bought one of the last premium phones with a battery (and headphone jack!) - an LG V20. I even bought that used so it was very cheap, and bought a couple of new batteries for it. I now don't plan to change my phone for two or three years unless I break it, it fails or 5G becomes available, cheap and desirable. I'm now out of the new phone market for a while and I suspect many people are.
2018 was the year I finally lost trust in Windows and moved to Linux full time for everything except a few small Windows only games (and frankly I haven't used those in months). I'd dabbled in Linux for years but earlier this year I'd just had enough of not feeling like my PC was actually mine. I'm now happily running Kubuntu with Firefox and am looking to reduce my footprint on anything Google too. The only area I don't think I can replace Google from is youtube.
Top end smartphones are just too expensive nowadays. I just buy a sim only deal and either a mid range phone (Lenovo P2 was my previous one for £199 with 5000mah battery) or a used previous generation top end phone (LG V20 for £160). The V20 is an interesting prospect. I can swap batteries for use days away from a charger, the DAC is amazing on headphones, a huge screen and it still has infra red for controlling my TV. Yet is was cheap enough that if it fails tomorrow, or if I drop it, lose it on a night out, or whatever, that I can just go and buy something else without worrying too much about it.
When I compare that to a £1000 iphone X or £1250 S9 it's just obvious to me that buying a new top end phone is for poor people. It even sends the message that you care what people think of your phone rather than how you can use money to improve your life. It's nuts.
Also no notch :)
If you're a a non-gaming application developer you seem to have choices:
1) Self host it. Charge what you like. Keep 100% but spend a little on advertising it.
3) Put it on the Windows Store. Pay MS a percentage. you'll still need to advertise it.
What's the advantage of having it in the Windows Store? What do you get for handing over a percentage, however small or large, to MS?
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