That reminds me, I should really invent a language called "browns" so that Microsoft can put a # at the start.

So according to the article, I'm a superstar employee.

Never went back to the office after Covid. Have no plans of ever doing that again.

Yes, my books.

Maybe not better by literary standards, but better for me. I would have never published anything if word processing didn't exist. I know that for a fact, because my very first manuscript, which I wrote by hand in three notebooks, is still unpublished. 25 years after I wrote it.

It's not the writing per se that's easier, but the editing. And a book takes a lot of editing before it's done.

No, we don't. Some of us still know that the purpose of communication is to convey information, not force the other party into a guessing game.

As I said: Windows (any version) is a shabby desktop that people suffer through so they can get to their applications.

If Mickeysoft had less of an ego, they'd replace the whole thing with an app launcher and people would shower them with praise.

There is absolutely nothing good about windows. It is full of inconsistencies, outright user hostility and half-finished leftovers from abandoned sub-projects. Try sitting a person who has never used a computer in front of it and just watch. Don't help them, no matter how much they ask, then plead, then offer their firstborn. You don't see those anymore because you're used to it.

Let me stop you right there.

You presuppose that we know what a good desktop is. I don't think we do. I think trying many different variations to find out is exactly how we some day will.

In which parallel universe? Windows has shown what a barely passable desktop needs, one that is just about good enough to stop people from escaping from the lock-in.

We agree.

But it is not a problem the Linux crowd can solve. Because it's not a technical question.

On the other hand, Microsoft trying to write an OS in Rust will reveal absolutely every defect present in the language.

Unless they write their own, which is quite likely as they'd rather have defects they can ignore.

We had this discussion in 2023. And in 2021. 2020, 2019, 2017, 2015, 2013, 2011, 2009, 2008, 2007 and I think 2005. Or so.

Oh dear, poor users don't know where to start. I'm sure that is the one and only thing that stops the entire world from switching to Linux. Certainly not the lack of games, business applications or compelling reasons to switch from the shit that they currently run and know is shit but at least they know that shit.

Linux has won the server OS wars. When's the last time anyone had a serious discussion of using whatever the last windows server OS version is for anything critical? When's the last time you logged into a Solaris machine?

The desktop is a different game, always has been, always will be. It's a game run not by technical excellent. I mean, exhibit A: DOS and Windows, who were never, ever, the best OS - just the most popular one. But on the desktop, what matters is if the users can use it (it's right there in the word) and that hinges on two things: a) familiarity and b) availability of applications.

a) is a lot more serious than most of us nerds realize. Think about any random corporation. Let's say 5000 office employees currently using Windows. Re-training them to use Linux instead might take just a few hours for the tech-savvy ones, and let's say a day for the less so. Add twice that as a period where productivity is at least somewhat hampered by them having to look up again or ask a colleague how to do X. Suddenly you're looking at something like 30-50 thousand hours of lost productivity. And these are not minimum-wage people. So your bill is what, half a million?

b) this is the applications the business actually uses, not some Open Source alternative. If the graphics designers use Photoshop, they need that, not Gimp. Tons and tons of enterprise software is windows-only. And there we are with the chicken-and-egg problem.

Seriously, "the Linux desktop is too fragmented" is bullshit. All things considered, that's the least worry of anyone. And one of the greatest strengths. I know that I would've given up completely on Linux a lot sooner than I actually did if there had only been KDE and Gnome, and not Enlightenment and other interesting options pushing the boundary of the possible. Heck, E would still run circles around almost all UIs today.

Your guilt will be determined solely by the company. You are guilty until proven innocent, *IF* they feel like looking at your evidence at all. If you ARE proven innocent they will either graciously allow you to use what you already paid for again or they will alter the deal until you are no longer innocent, depending on mood and if the representative's corn flakes got soggy that morning.

Wanna complain about it? The hold time is approximately 45 minutes. The person who answers MIGHT sound sympathetic or not but in any case has no power to do anything but read the script. They might or might not "accidentally" hang up on you.

Free software hasn't altered the deal. Perhaps it's time for more people to hop off the treadmill and vote by withholding their wallet.

Abandon hope, all ye who press enter here.

Now, yes, there are predictions that you could get a supermassive black hole launched into space, especially during a galaxy merger if the velocity of the smaller black hole exceeds the escape velocity of the combined galaxy.

But I'd be wary of assuming that it's a launched black hole, unless we can find the merger it comes from. There may be ways for such a black hole to form that cause the stars to be launched away rather than the black hole being flung, and if a galaxy isn't rotating fast enough to be stable, one could imagine that a sufficiently small galaxy was simply consumed by its central black hole. Both of these would seem to produce exactly the same outcome, if all we have is the black hole itself and a velocity.

I'm not going to say either of these is likely in this case, or that astronomers haven't examine them (they almost certainly have), but rather that we should be cautious until we've a clearer idea of what the astronomers have actually been able to determine or rule out.

It's not that much of a change, though. The USA has only ever paid lip-service to its "allies" and always seen Europe as competitors. It's not a shift from "friend" to "enemy", just from "competitor" to "enemy".

You dont make multiplayer games for a living. Please stop talking, it's embarassing ... for you.

No, the executive tells the civil service what it needs to do, but the civil service is wholly independent.