I appreciate your gratitude and I really do hope it does some good for others... Especially because I really hate needles but I have it done anyway for this reason. Lol 😬

Switching to Linux without prior experience will challenge even the most tech-savvy, but it's an investment worth making many times over.

I would normally agree with this but for reals, I've switched over "I just need a computer and don't care what's on it if it does what I need" types to Linux Mint, usually because they keep a perfectly good old laptop around that is getting Windows-crusted and nagged to updating to an even slower bloatier version...

...and I get very few help requests, and I hear "I'm getting used to it and I like it!" Especially now with how their Steam games will just work 98% of the time. I also hear that it's faster and more responsive.

It's truly awesome, and I think a lot of the fears come from past horror stories and turbo-nerd elitism haha.

There's still holdout issues, like VR or Adobe stuff, yeah, but it's going in such a lovely trajectory. :D

"Have you ever had a dream where like, where, where like um you could..."

"Hey early-days LLM, write me a 4chan greentext."

I laugh at the idea that this person is trying to finish the text whilst experiencing the results of booping something that did not appreciate it.

🎵Don't it always seem to go,

That ya don't know whatcha got,

Till it's gone,

They paved Paradise,

Put up a parking lot🎵

--Joni Mitchell, "Big Yellow Taxi" (1970)

(recorder clicks on) "It seems the diet consists...mainly of a waxy chunky substance...apparent preference towards bright primary colors."

Well they didn't want people getting the wrong idea.

Ahh another sophisticated LetsGameItOut enjoyer. Right on. :D

"Got it, got it, goooot it..." (DrKonqi coredump) "Perfect!" (Fanfare)

Man I get paranoid about synchronization programs for this very reason. There's usually some turnkey easy-mode enabled as soon as you first launch that's like:

"Hey you wanna back up your entire NAS to your phone?! That'll be fun, right?!"

And you're like "...No."

And then it wants to obliterate everything so it's all "synchronized", often it's not easy to find a "No, stop, don't do anything at all until I configure this." Option.

iTunes was SO BAD about this.

Syncthing is the least-bad sync software I've ever run. It's got some footguns but it's still brilliant.

I would imagine there's still ways to back up version controlled software right?

Android at least has this neat app named TagSpaces... but yeah I really hate how the entire filesystem is basically Windows' "Documents" folder: Various apps just dump things wherever the heck they please!

Edit: Thanks for mentioning those really cool Linux tools!!

I love Roller Coaster Tycoon. It's absolutely crazy how he managed to write a game in a way many wouldn't even attempt even in those days, but it's not just a technical feat, it's a creative masterpiece that's still an absolute blast to play.

It still blows my mind how smoothly it gives the illusion of 3D and physics, yet it can run on almost anything.

OpenRCT brings a lot of quality of life and is often the recommended way to play today, but the original RCT will always deserve a spot on any "Best Games of All Time" list.