The only reason I keep Netflix is kids.
We don’t really watch it otherwise.
Even my in-laws are now pirates using hacked amazon fire sticks that are being hawked around their retirement community.
My mother in law is like “I get every streaming service and channel for 1 dollar a day, isn’t that great”.
I’m all “if it’s simple and works for you yeah, absolutely. “
Yeah it’s not too bad. Just the dash kit is fairly old and held together by those plastic clip. I always break those things. It’s a juice isn’t worth the squeeze honestly. I actually upgraded my radio a while back to a wireless CarPlay/android auto and mean to ask them to swap em. But forgot.
If my windscreen starts to steam up mid-jourmey, the last thing I need is to take my attention off the road to change the climate settings in the UI where dials and buttons will do the job much faster without needing to take my attention off the road.
This is why ill never get rid of my 2009 Tacoma. Three knob AC controls are the pinnacle of UI engineering. One knob for fan speed, one for temp and the third for vent/airflow selection. The backlight on one of my knobs has burned out at this point, but i dont need it…Can adjust the AC without taking my eyes off the road.
When it was ubiquitous, this meant i could do this in any car. Borrowed my inlaws FORD F-150 once, had to pull over to figure out how to turn off the goddam heat. It had BOTH a touchscreen and series of dash buttons but there were so many it was hard to figure out what did each thing while driving. I also had to update their dang infotainment, it wouldnt work on some random USB device, i had to go get a USB-A 3.0 device to get it to work at all and even then it was idling in my driveway for an hour and a half. Even tried just doing it via WiFi…nope
I have 3.
Dakboard above the fridge shows calendar and shared photo album. It also runs bluetooth and serves as a relay for Homeassitant and a few kitchen devices (ie: igrill mini probe for meat).
pikvm for a desktop
pikvm+ kvm for lab rack esxi servers.
the latter two also run tailscale and allow me to SSH proxy if needed as a back VPN/remote access utility.
There is also a 4th. It runs NUT/UPS tools for their network gear and a mail relay for alerting and also tailscale so I can proxy if necessary.
Since its tailscale etc. Only key based auth is allowed on these boxes.
When i ordered mine, they didnt have a US version. So i ordered a German model, and a keyboard (the German Model was overstock and discounted). And just swapped the keyboard.
It took about 30 minutes and probably 100 screws but it was simple.
Eat it every Sunday. Family comes from three counties to join.
The pasta does get a very small amount in it after it’s strained. But pasta is never used for leftovers. More pasta is made if eaten the next day.
Again. Y’all do you.
MS goes out of their way to make shit harder than it needs to be.
For example. The store, they have a store for business where you can simply whitelist known apps buts it’s a PITA to setup AND they have been threatening to decom it for ages
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-store/microsoft-store-for-business-overview
Want to add safety/security features like secuirty keys. Well if you do it on a non domain joined machine you can just sign into a m365 account to enable a passkey or yuibijey as a second factor.
Want to do that in a business environment. Congrats now you have to deploy a windows CA and issue user certificates to tie to this. Even if you are signing the machine into m365 with ADAL.
They go out of their way to add complexity and failure points.
My family is Italian. From Italy. I’m pretty sure we know how to make sauce. But hey. You do you.
Sauce is scooped out of the pot while it’s on the stove and mixed with the noodle of choice in my house.
Edit: to add my wife, who isn’t Italian, knows how to make ketchup and noodles with the best of them and even then it’s scooped from the pot onto then noodles while plating. And she puts fuckin ground beef in her spaghetti
Normal folks put pasta on their plate and then sauce. They aren’t cooked together, and only combined when plated unless you are wasted and trying to cook it on a George Forman grill or something.
Tthe problem is now if you have the store disabled basic shit, like the ability to open .heic files is broken or use stuff people want like sticky notes is broken.
We turn off most of what we can’t but having the store enabled causes all sorts of stuff.
Also windows 11 has ads baked in even with the store disabled. Plug in a Logitech mouse, get a pop up for their software. Open the picture viewer and get an ad to install some video editor that isn’t clear whether it’s a Ms product or not.
No to mention basic things like copy paste and edit are now weird icons because I guess they think most users are illiterate.
Most of the 11 UI changes are not for the better. Having to beta test it for work is frustrating and I run an IT shop.
Not as uncommon as you would think. What normally do then is use the 6 month releases until the next LTS
I have been using this hub. Works fine in Linux and windows.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0871ZHCKK?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title
I also use this usb dongle for my Xbox controller. It works fine in Linux. I really should try playing a few games on Linux.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0785SFKYF?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title
I was just thinking about how theres almost no gradient between what makes you a “quirky and fun small business” which they want to act like and “oh shit better put on our IBM corporate hats and make another video”
Yeah im similar. I still use 1080 monitors and just 2 at a regular workspace. Its about the perfect DPI for reading text. Things like 4k just make it harder or you have to bump up the fractional scaling, in which case why the more pixels?
Im fine to keep it to a laptop monitor when im mobile, and 2+laptop monitor for email when at a desk.
Beeper does want you to proxy your iCloud account through a Mac on their network for iMessage. You are logging into your iCloud account through their site. They are in effect using Mac minis in a farm to provide the service based on what I looked into (including self hosting it, but then you can’t use a beeper app, you need your own)
https://help.beeper.com/chat-networks/imessage?from_search=125277302
I would agree with most of what you said.
There are also a not-insignifigant number of people that struggle when at home 100%. Some people are rock stars and able to just get stuff done. But a lot of people are not, sadly, organized enough to handle such an unstructured environment and able to still be effective.
This isnt a new thing due to covid or the move, but a LOT of folks just do better with a hard separation of work/life and a lot of folks arent self aware enough to know they need it.
As someone that can and has worked remote, and chooses to come back, it can be frustrating working with people that struggle with these things, and I definitely see differences between home work and office work in some. I actually work in an office because its much easier to maintain balance. I tend to work too much from home and it causes burnout but I also have kids/family that come home early and dont really understand that just because im home doesnt mean i can sit down and talk at their convenience. What I mean is that work/life balanace is harder. So i choose to commute 99% of the time and can WFH when needed.
But i have one guy that had had this issue chronically for years where he often struggles to communicate, is easily distracted, often needed to be micro managed or have his tasks organized, prioritized and in some cases, even steps spelled out. He does well enough to mostly be of help (so hes not gonna get fired), but he complains about lack of upward mobility or lack of raises, but when the SHTF, hes always got excuses locked and loaded about why hes behind or cant complete a project/task.
Conversely I have a guy thats AMAZING from wherever. Never has issues and is always way ahead of the curve. Hes also full time remote but excels at it.
It just depends on the person in a lot of cases and frankly, in my very small use cases, many/most arent the type that are capable of the self discipline needed for the task. Now that said Im not at google or one of those places that hires rockstars in buckets, so they reasons they are RTO are likely different from my orgs.
Of my team, i would say at least a cool 60% are just much less…themselves from home and easily distracted. Either because they segment their life (which is fine and awesome, i do that too), or because they dont have a good setup at home, or because they are just too easily distracted at home.
Some games you dont even need a crack or anything, just access to the files.
For example with KSP, you can just clone the game directory anywhere and run it from there. Doesnt even need steam. Heck i copied it over to an M1 macbook once just to test the Macbooks performance…
Thats also how the mod managers like CKAN work with the game.
Any company that I have to give my username and password for a third party service (and especially one as important as icloud/imessage) ill take a hard pass.
I have a guy that does this. He puts so much effort in weird mobility solutions (ie: Dual monitors on a rolling table so he can work outside sometimes) or having a setup like this with TV’s, monitors etc all cobbled together.
Would you be surprised to hear hes not the most organized or efficient.
I have a mini-pc running a plex vm. And all the TVs are Rokus. So can watch anything, including live broadcast tv. And the roku is so simple kids can operate it, and do.