I've been using Linux as my main desktop for possibly a decade or more, using various versions of Ubuntu (LTS) and Mint (although my first dual-boot was Suse). Up to 2014 I used to dual-boot with Windows XP on my main desktop PC, but as soon as that went out-of-support, I went to Linux Boot only (Ubuntu 2014.04 if I remember rightly).

But then I don't play games, and have a VM with Windows (currently 10) for when I absolutely need to use Office rather than LibreOffice (normally if I've got to complete a Word document with Macros, or there are sites that absolutely must use IE on Windows (yes, they exist)). For my personal day-to-day stuff. LibreOffice is fine.

I do have work Laptops with Windows, but in order to use these as I'm used to I normally get a windows app that uses bash (Cygwin or Git Bash, for instance) so I can use the Bash command line tools I'm familiar with.

Linux at home meets my needs. I'm familiar with it, know how to build from source (./configure, make, make install) which is far superior to anything Windows has out-of-the-box. There is no personal use-case for me to go back to Windows for my main personal desktop.

My current desktop has Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. I'll upgrade to 22.04 LTS when this comes out.

In my (long and undistinguished) careen as a programmer / software developer / software engineer, I've come to the conclusion that programming is a craft skill. However, the industry doesn't encourage you to develop and refine your skill.

To some extent this is down to management expectation. Annual objectives (for instance) favour broadening one's skill-set (i.e. learn something new) rather than deepening one's skill-set (by getting better at what one a;ready knows). The reason is that the former is more measurable than the latter ("I've got x new certificates this year!).

To another extent it is down to career progression; the better you become at your job, the more likely you are to be promoted into a more managerial role where you no longer use the skill's you've acquired (so they atrophy). Those who take up the role you were promoted out of need themselves to deepen their skill.

Really, the industry should change to encourage a traditional craft approach, with apprentice, journeyman, and master craftsman.

Agreed. I think for a lot of us it isn't just much a matter of not wanting to go back to the office. It's also a matter of not wanting to have to lengthy commutes again.

He may be referring to the OpenJDK binaries provided by Eclipse Adoptium (was AdoptOpenJDK).

https://adoptium.net/

The binaries themselves are given the name Eclipse Temurin.

It seems that according to the faq, it will be available until a year after the release of the next LTS. If you regularly update your versions for every LTS, you're quids-in. Else, you'll then be looking at paying for it, eventually.

The BBC article referenced one of the models that are feeding in to the UK Government's decision. They even give a link to one of them. It is:

Autumn–winter scenarios 2021–2022

The report is produced by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). The article says that it is perhaps one of the more optimistic reports that feed into the government, but also mentions others as showing that some degree of decrease may being the most realistic scenario.

Whatever you think of the BBC, at least in this instance they give a link so those who may not consider the BBC trustworthy can at least go and read the source material themselves. Indeed, then you'll be able to compare the BBC summary against the report itself and see how unreliable (or not) the BBC are!

It's the court for the Council of Europe, which has 47 members (as opposed to the EU's 27). The UK is still a member. Indeed the only European country that is not a member (I believe) is Belarus.

The problem is that a lot of corporate entities now use Facebook and/or Twitter as a means of informing or interacting with their customers. If you've no Facebook / Twitter account, your avenues for getting informed have shrunk. As this can include state-owned corporations, boycotting them (for using Social Media) does become difficult.

That's easy to ensure; just don't go to a pub or restaurant. Sorted!

If you haven't got a phone to scan the Q code (scanning on both entering and leaving), then good old-fashioned pen and paper will be used to get your details. This will be used by track-and-trace if necessary.

England and Wales, not the UK (as I've noted in a reply to another post). As it says in the article; "Scotland has avoided this pitfall because it released a separate product - Check In Scotland - to share venue histories, rather than trying to build the functionality into its Protect Scotland contact-tracing app."

England and Wales, not the UK. As it says in the article; "Scotland has avoided this pitfall because it released a separate product - Check In Scotland - to share venue histories, rather than trying to build the functionality into its Protect Scotland contact-tracing app."

Indeed, I would have thought that you would determine whether a person was a child or an adult from their date of birth, not their title. I can't imagine that a date of birth isn't recorded for each passenger (as it's part of the Advanced Passenger Information).

For regular command line calls, I normally just open a shell and press the scroll-up button until I hit the last time I ran it. As long as I get it right the first time, I don't need to type it in again

Try https://adoptopenjdk.net/. It does seem to have installers for Windows and MacOS, although I've no idea if these work as you want (as my desktop is Ubuntu).