Broken

Well no, the intent is not to inconvenience others, but to not inconvenience yourself.

I love animals. Dogs, cats, rabbits, whatever. Love them all. I'm highly allergic to most of them though.

As a customer of an establishment, why do I need to deal with the animal that belongs to another customer of the establishment? And I'm not being a jerk. I'm not complaining or making a fuss, but if I'm trying to buy toilet paper I shouldn't need to worry about hair, dander, or if somebody's dog is well behaved or not. I am the one being inconvenienced, and there doesn't seem to be a good reason for it.

That goes to the point of the comment you replied to. And to your point, if nobody else is being bothered... Are they checking if others are being bothered? Usually not. That's a generalization but I can say in my experience it's true more often than not (and I notice when it is). I'm not saying to ban pets in stores, but it should not be the norm and expect others to just deal with it.

I take the stance that I'm privacy minded and while I think everybody should be I don't force my opinion on them. I do express myself and usually my "odd" behavior makes people I know question me, which I then give an answer for.

Most people don't understand why they should strive for privacy. I usually start soft with ads because it's a universal that nobody likes ads and they've experienced all the listening and tracking stuff but not connected the dots.

If they are responsive then in later conversations I can go more into deeper thoughts regarding it all. If I rake them down the rabbit hole right away their head will explode and run away.

I recently swapped to Mint and have been enjoying it. I still have Windows as my daily driver and I have a handful of things that I still need windows for, but I have a media center and a gaming PC set up both on mint. There was an odd quirk with Steam where it didn't launch after some update, and it was a bit asinine to be honest. But after a few hours of research online I found the issue and modified a file so it loaded properly. Stuff like that sucks, but it gives me experience navigating the OS and understanding how it works.

To your point though, it overall just works. My wife uses it no problem and is getting use to where things are. I maintain the system though, ensuring updates are applied and searching for solutions when needed (for instance, we use caffeine to stop the monitor from going to sleep when playing games with a controller)

Have you checked out Affinity? They support Mac and iPad, and are comparable with the core Adobe suite. Its a buy once scenario (per major version release). My only problem is they don't support Linux.

Of note, they were purchased last year by Canva, but it has been stated they will keep the Affinity products separate for purchase.

Don't kid. I did that with a folder in my testing just to eliminate the variables. Of course I put it back.

My issue was that my initial setup was accessing it from a different machine, and windows at that. I had to simplify in order to make it all mentally make sense.

Thank you for this. I appreciate the write up, learning a few things, and just the general let's all get along heart behind it.

Just as a tip, set up and use a spare machine if you have one to make the transition easier. I've been running Mint now for a few months.

I have a test machine that I am learning and getting familiar with, setting up a virtual machine to learn that (I have some windows apps I will not escape from so running in a VM is my solution), etc... And all of this is with the freedom that if I break something I can wipe it and not care. I have since set up a media center and a gaming machine as well.

That experience is getting me feeling better about he whole thing. Honestly learning little idiosyncrasies like folder permissions not being inherited (I say as I set up my media center) are the things you juat need to learn through practice. Just my two cents as I am only a step ahead of you in a similar journey.

I don't actually agree that your analogy applies, because it ignores my point.

Neither "side" (as if there were only a binary choice but that's how they want you to think) wants you to have privacy. Be united with those who want to fight for those rights instead of divided on other policies which are political smokescreens.

Maybe a better analogy is that we are drowning in water that is not cold, maybe it's tepid and maybe its boiling. But arguing over which is worse really doesn't matter because we'll be dead in a minute anyway.

Neither did he last administration and neither will the next. They want us polarized and fighting each other so we don't fight them.

I'm assuming the windows machine is a work PC and the Linux is yours right?

Because what you describe doesn't sound like a "windows" issue but rather an IT management issue.

You can put off updates and reboots a very long time. And always be able yo postpone them.

Applying updates on boot daily sounds dumb to me. But I'm also figuring your IT dept has poor (or no) sense in managing their inventory well. Most updates can be applied silently at a scheduled time.

Also, your machine sounds old and/or poorly maintained the way you describe it. If its more than 5 years old your company is just cheap.

I'm all for griping about Windows but this seems off to me.

I use two domains.

One is my name for people that actually know me.

The other is something random (it has meaning to me but nobody else would think that). I use that for all my "private" emails, creating aliases that forward to me.

The most important thing is to pick something easy to understand so its easy to convey. My domain is actually quite long, which normally is a bad thing but its distinct words so people understand it when I give it to them verbally.

Skype is dead. Introducing: CoPilot Calls

Seriously though, Skype is a good example of how MS butchers products. I mean, I never loved Skype but it worked and was the defacto video calling platform of the masses. If they had their shit together, even a little bit, then Zoom would never have taken the market. I don't really like zoom either, but its better than Skype.