Just this weekend I had the pleasure of installing Win 10 on a blank disk. The install went ok, but then it bothered me logging into the MS Account. After cursing for a while and since it wasn't my PC, I gave in. I know I can fight it, but it's not worth it here. Then it continued trying to get me to consent to all kinds of shit. NO, I DON'T WANT FUCKING OFFICE AND I DON'T WANT MY FILES IN ONEDRIVE you assholes!

Then it forces me to choose a PIN for "secure login". DUDE! That motherfucking PC is used for a bit of office work and gaming. Just let these poor people boot up the machine and use it! 0000? Too simple. 1234 too. Fuck you, MS. Ok, random PIN and a sticky note it is, asshats.

Anyway, after getting it to fuck off, I continue to the desktop. Oh wow, 10 updates and a ton of missing drivers? It's a fresh install! What the fuck did it install?! Of course the installation of all these updates takes an hour and countless restarts... AFTER A FRESH INSTALL! Not even my overblown super slow Ubuntu server takes that long for updates; and that runs on a HDD not a SSD like that PC I set up.

But wait. One update failed. Why? Ah, the rescue partition is too small.... THE ONE THAT DUMB SON-OF-BITCH CREATED ON ITS OWN AS PART OF THE INSTALL! How to fix? Ah, execute a bunch of commandline foo with diskpart and other tools. Wait, isn't that exactly the kind of shit that Windows fans laugh about when looking down on us Linux nerds?!

So ... ugh .... just one simple anecdote of why Windows can fuck off.

Uhhhh, people install shit like Vanguard just so that they can keep having their mother insulted in the ingame chat.

And many people put up with cascades of different lauchers (and accounts).

So I am glad that there was some push back this time, but it's not like there would be some sane baseline of PC players in that regard.

Being whistleblower and being involved in such legal proceedings sucks and I can imagine that one might give up (like Barnett in March) or that it takes a huge toll on your body (like Dean now). But then again ... two such incidents around the same company ... reminds me a bit too much of russian windows.

I am not a marketing expert, but when headlines pile up implicating that Microsoft doesn't fully stand behind XBox anymore, no wonder the number for new customers tank. I wouldn't "invest" in something that seems to be on the way out either.

As much as I like to shit on Epic, but UE 5.x is pretty much innovative with each minor release. Watching the release videos of what the engine can do in realtime is always impressive. They are used as realtime backgrounds for movie sets.

I am a game collector. I don't play them, I just collect them.

As long as GOG doesn't invest in Wine/Proton, Valve has still the upper hand in Linux support and therefore deserve my money more.

So they have full Control now.

And if you couldn't reconstruct, you still had backups, right? ..... right?!

My own server? YOLO

At work? Grafana, KOBS, Victoria Metrics, Jaeger, OpsGenie, ...

If only companies wouldn't be patronizing ass hats about it. A few sites deny storing passkeys in software wallets because of "security". So what, keep using my password is safer now? Fucktards.

I would also like a great camera, a non-locked-down bootloader and a non-customized OS with updates for at least 5 years. I can't vote with my wallet aside from "not buying any phone", which isn't a vote.

Oh I would also like small smartphones back. But there are simply no good ones on the market; nothing I could vote for.

"Vote with your wallet" only works if there is a good enough set of choices on the market.