I’m glad that I live in the EU. I don’t even remember when I got my last spam call, that was many years ago.

Luckily, I was not ingrained by my first programming language like that, or my coworkers would strangle me.

I started with BASIC, which allowed only two letters for variable names…

Just remove Windows. One problem less on the list.

Nothing special. It was a natural progression to move from UNIX, Solaris, SunOS, and VMS to Linux.

Yes, but those were only two distict flavors, and both had a lot of pull. And those special instructions were only needed in special applications and drivers. With RISC-V we are talking about a dozen different flavors, all by small and mostly insignificant players and the commands that extend the basic command set are commands for quite common operations. Which is a totally different scenarion than the SSE/3DNow issue back then.

Actually, I think RISC-V is even worse than ARM. With ARM, at least you have a quite reliable instruction set on the CPU. With RISC-V, most vendors have their own extensions of the instruction set, which opens a big can of worms: Either you compile all your stuff for your own CPU, or you have a set of executables for each and every vendors flavor of RISC-V commands, or you exclusively use the RISC-V core commands. The first would be only for hardcore geeks, the second would be a nightmare to maintain, and the third would be not really efficient. Either way, it sucks.

While I have to maintain an old Windows 7 box to run some ancient software on it, I do most of my development work on a Linux machine. I use LibreOffice to read and write documents, use Inkscape for drawings in my documntation, but first and foremost, my main IDE is Linux native (although a Windows port does exist).

Last year, about this time or even earlier, a supermarket in a major city here suddenly had a wealth of Chrismas products (mostly sweets) on offer. Of course, people wondered, and it turned out that the supermarket chain had been shooting pictures for their Christmas campaign near that location, and instead of throwing the stuff away, they simply sold them off.

Same here. I was totally busy writing software in a new language and a new framework, and had a gazillion tabs on Google and stackexchange open. I didn’t notice any network issues until I was on my way home, and the windows f-up was the one big thing in the radio news. Looks like Windows admins will have a busy weekend.

I’m using IONOS for more than a decade now, and it works fine. I’m not into too much of web design, though, the personal web site is just a storage facility to move files around. I think they have quite some tools to develop professional web sites. Also allows for SSH access, which was helpful when I could not delete some files with filezilla.

Mail is good, too (Domain + 10 email accounts + catchall).

That, and the point that ad blasters want to know the gory details of your private life in order to make their ads that one or two percent “more effective”.

Does the Firefox really believe that sites will stop throwing a gazillion cookies and trackers just because they now also have PPA?

I, for my part, opt to block both the cookies and trackers as much as I can and the PPA, too.

This is not a bandaid, this is the solution. What you try is, at least for this scenario, the band aid.

Multiple fucking books? Like “Lady Chatterley” or “Joy of Sex”?

Because I have to use this shitshow of a software at work because some companies use “license managers” that don’t work under Wine.

Poor idiots.

Who is watching YT videos through this app? I occasionally run into it when clicking on a link on my phone, but I close it before the ads are through. Because it has become nearly as much ads as content, and is completely unbearable. If the video seem important or interesting, I may forward the link to my PC, where I can watch the video without ads.

Part of the problem is that some seller cram loads of words into the article that have no real connection to the article as such.

Try purchasing wires or electronic components from Amazon. Same shit, only worse.

Get used to it. It is not your machine, its Microsofts.

You don’t own anything that is not on your own system and/or without any DRM.