by

A few random reflections and personal biases:

Things that I like about Android as my getting it done OS:

  1. Appliance like: it stays out of my way.
  2. I can have my terminal, e-mail, browser, and notes client software all on the same machine.
  3. Aqua Mail beats the crap out of every GUI mail client I’ve used.

The main negatives of using Android over the years has been that terminal apps don’t make copying text to the Android clipboard a decent experience and Chrome for Android sucks ass compared to a desktop. Would also be nice if the support for an external monitor was more like PCs than simply screen mirroring but hey, can’t have it all. By in large a very nice experience but I’m weird and you can’t stop people from sending hypertext ladden emails 8-).

Things that I like about Chrome OS as my getting it done OS:

  1. Appliance like: it stays out of my way.
  2. Good support for Android apps.
  3. Excellent web browsing experience.

The main negatives of using Chrome OS over the years has been the shift into speed over quality. Releases come pretty frequent to the stable channel but you’ll find yourself living with minor grumbles for long periods of time. Be that bull like having to re-open the notification menu before being able to close other notifications, glitchy handling of application windows, or other things. It’s cheap, simple, and disposable but you’ll have plenty of papercuts if you move past the browser window. If it wasn’t for how far NT has come, I’d probably buy a higher end Chromebook for the performance boost.

At this point most people are probably best off with a Chromebook unless they’ve got a real reason to do otherwise.

Things that I like about Debian as my getting it done OS:

  1. Easily loaded on beefcake hardware.
  2. Debian is largely stable and easily maintained.
  3. My work is off a Linux box anyway.
The main negatives of using Debian over the years has been the sore spots I hate about desktop centric PCs to begin with. Crappy notifications, shitty mail and calendaring clients outside of terminal land, donating most of my memory to a web browser, etc. Considering that most of the fucks I have to give about the PC as a platform revolve around an X-Terminal and unix command line environment, I find it a fair price to pay.

Things that I like about Windows 10 as my getting it done OS:

  1. Desktop experience sucks less than W7.
  2. Android style mail/calendar sync built in.
  3. Userspace ABI has been pretty stable for decades.
The main negatives of using Windows 10 over the years tend to cross paths with many of the grumbles I desktop centric PCs but a few unique to NT are traits that have always been there. W10 has made the experience of the desktop suck a lot less when it comes to window and notification management, a process that arguably began in Vista and has kept growing. But the fastest way to make me groan at NT remains talking to things. I can load programs on my NT machine that are several times older than the hardware and expect them to just run but once device drivers enter the picture my anger likely will as well, whether they were written for the current OS or not. Somethings just piss me off less in Linux.
Personally, W10 is the first iteration of NT to not piss me off as a standard. But much as Debian gives me that groans at the evolution from tube terminals to X, NT has loads of its own baggage. I’m just glad it feels less archaic and evolves more rapidly than once a lustrum or decade.
General disclaimer: I’m weird :P.
by

The Verge: Google and Dell team up to take on Microsoft with Chromebook Enterprise laptops.

As someone fond both of Android tablets and of Dell’s Latitudes, I’d be a lot more tempted by this if it wasn’t for two problems:

  1. My Chromebook is a lot more buggy than my Android, Linux, and NT devices.
  2. Chrome’s “Stable” channel prefers rapidly pushing versions over Q/A.
Or as I like to think of it: there’s really two reasons I’ve been using my Latitude running Debian ore than my Chromebook the past few reasons. A Core i5 smokes a Celeron, and I’m tired of OS upgrades that leaves me grumbling over quality, both at the Android support and native Chrome OS.
In practice these days I’ll usually have Stark and Scarlett at my sides during the work day; with my Chromebook relegated to a spare machine. That’s after using the Chromebook as my main workstation for a year and after a lot of years using an Android tablet as a workstation replacement.
by

Operation taco was a bit simple: given the lack of fresh lettuce or leftover sour cream.

Willow and myself, both agreed that they were still a good plan 😊.

by

Things that could only happen in an RPG game, I’m sure:

Quest x: get a nice leather armour.

Quest y: get a +1 defense rated “revealing” armour.

As if you started with the kind that would be just perfect for an adventure wondering the countryside. Then cut it down until it was basically a leather bra and suspenders.

Aptly by the time the sets were completed, my Miqo’te gladiator went from looking like a knight napping under a tree to a bandit slut in need a whirp.

That said, FF14 in the course of hasa hard day’s questing and several suits of armor: the game has generally shown equipment that looks like something you would want to wear on a battlefield instead of going down the boobplate route; it’s just that I find it amusing that the leather version of boobplate was a +1 to the more conventional armour.

by

Never given that much mind to such characters but after playing through Y’jhimei‘s Adventurer From Another World quest in FFXV, there’s probably a fair chance someday I’ll be making a character in some MMO and my mind will flash to the Miqo’te from FFIV.

And here I thought, my next character inspiration would probably be inspired by the likes of Naotsugu from Log Horizon.
by

Being irked by how many of the “Nicer” USB Micro-B cables I have left only only make my Xbox One controller vibrate, not connect to my desktop, is somehow weighted by the troublesome fact that it is 2019 and I still carry a null modem cable in my work bag.

On the flipside the plastic cap on my Bluetooh adapter breaking seems to make connectivity with my shit much more “Go fsck yourself” than trying to save 1 cm of cable distance for the short ass cable I use for my controller was worth. This is probably what I get for how many times I had to pull the damned thing out in order to get Microshaft’s operating system to cooperate with something as new fandangled as Bluetooth in the first place 8-).

by

It’s probably sad how much I would like seemless integration between apps on my PC with the ones on my tablet.

Prime example of lazyness:
  1. PC is being used as a canvas to view videos.
  2. I am learning back in my chair.
  3. Using my tablet at the same time.
  4. “Damn, would be nice to just browse and fling to my monitor.”
Often it tends to take this form more than openning files from the same file stores or dropping files between them. Probably because my desktop is more often my secondary or ‘slave’ device and my tablet is typically my main computer if no X Terminals are involved.
by

Android’s iconic dessert names are going away, starting with Android 10

Part of me is a little sad and disappointed at this news. I had kinda hoped they would make it to Zebra Cake or something like that. But really I’m surprised they’ve made it this far.

Of course, this doesn’t mean the build numbers and the version numbers will converts. Just that you’ll be less likely to wonder if the folks behind Android are less likely to develop diabetes….

by

The way a box full of crap in the closet works:

  1. Didn’t I have Zeonic Front for the PlayStation 2?
  2. Gah, to much crap to check huge box without taking the shit off the lid.
  3. Take all the stuff out of closet.
  4. Drag box out to living room.
  5. Sneeze. A few times.
  6. Rummage through everything three times.
  7. Huh, not here!? Where else would I have kept it.
  8. You know what? Screw this.
  9. Find somewhere less troublesome to store this crap.
And if I had just went with the emulator approach I’d probably be done by now, versus trying to find the actual disc for my PlayStation 2.
On the flip side my overflow area for books has enough room to hold the remains of my PC floppy and ‘D-ROM, PlayStation, and PlayStation 2 game collections.