ProtonBadger

GuildWars 2, small scale stuff on the borderlands with my WvW guild.

When Covid came to town I started learning French to do something constructive. I started with 1 hour+ Duolingo a day, then after a year I added comic books (Tintin/Asterix/Spirou/Natacha/etc.). Now I am reading the Maigret novels.

I finished the Duolingo course after ~3 years but they added more content so now I do ~15min a day just for fun, while most of my learning is through reading interesting novels, like Maigret.

I also took the ANUx's Astrophysics XSeries Program on EdX, it's spectacular and I learned so much from it. So I keep better up with new discoveries and understand what's going on.

For sure, I use a computer all day, the only time I touch my phone is to answer the door. I don't have access to iMessage on the PC but I only use Signal and WhatsApp for messaging anyway and they work nicely on my Linux desktop. Never need to fiddle with my phone.

Yeah, homemade is best. It takes a bit of practice though because there's so many things one can use. A good burger doesn't have too much stuff and not too little and it needs balanced flavours and textures.

and there is a very useful Dyson refurbished factory store on EBay, at least here in Canada. I bought a stick vac there 12 years ago, only had to replace battery and air filter since.

Yeah, I had a friend throwing away his Dyson stick vac because it was "pulsating" on and off, well, a quick look in the manual (there's also an online troubleshooter) told me that pulsating like that is a signal to the user meaning there is a blockage, it took 30 sec to fix that.

Yes, everyone knows it already, they're just another company, profit is the main and first objective. Their stuff is generally good but priced high tier. But they do some virtue signalling when/where it doesn't hurt them too much, so that's why sometimes we can hope they put down their foot sometimes.

No one stopped buying apple when the forced labour of foxconn was revealed decades ago. (well, not enough to offset the savings to apple by using foxconn)

I think people know that almost everything in their homes (everything from kitchen utensils to speakers, even my mop) is made in the same type of factories or use components that are, except my furniture maybe, that's from Vietnam and clothing often from India/Pakistan/Bangladesh (still sweatshops, just different countries).

At least Apple had to improve conditions somewhat for their production lines which all the other companies supplying the west with cheap products didn't. They also audit it, which works somewhat though there's also evidence manufacturers tries to "hide" problems so nothing is perfect. One brand that tries harder is Fairphone and they are saying it's currently impossible to be 100% "Fair". But I guess if one wants to make a statement with their purchase they'll have to buy Fairphone.

Another company that had to do something was Nike, but I wouldn't be surprised they've reverted to closing their eyes to pure sweatshop suppliers now everyone have forgotten the scandal. Nobody's forgetting Apple's scandal because they're the most in the spotlight.

Same, because it's a good browser and because of their commitment to an open internet.

I keep telemetry enabled (it can be perused openly on telemetry.mozilla.org if interested).

I found Steam wouldn't accept my drive unless I gave it the 'exec' option in fstab.

NVIDIA is shit

I would call that an exaggeration. It's not perfect sure, but it has finally improved a lot in the last year and it works for some. I had to get a new gaming laptop earlier this year and the only good option I could afford had an NV card. It was a great deal from Bestbuy certified open box, $500 off (I love those open box deals with 30day return).

It works well, I play Guildwars2 and BG3 flawlessly through XWayland+proton with great performance. Maybe it works well because I put it into Dedicated Nvidia mode, instead of using Optimus? (I never liked Optimus)

Sure it's not perfect, I get graphics glitches in KDE if bringing the laptop out of sleep, funny colors and a mouse with a funny trail, but I don't need to use sleep, I boot it in the morning and shut it down in the evening, it's no biggie for my use-case.