I’m one of those complaining about the UI. Used the TabMixPlus extension to adjust the UI to my liking. FF killed it. So, I started customizing the UI CSS. Every few versions, Mozilla changed the browser enough to invalidate my changes. After a while, I got tired of thiz and switched to Vivaldi, which is Chromium based.

I used Classic Shell to make it look as much as WinXP Classic as possible, so I’m happy with how it looks. As for vulnerabilities, knock on wood, so far I didn’t have any issues (but I do run Bitdefender). I use it for gaming (GOG, newest game being older than my PC), photo editing (Gimp with Google Nik Collection), browsing, and office work. Nothing too demanding. But to be honest, I would have switched to Mint a long time ago if I found a Linux alternative for Smart Switch (my phone backup utility) and Garmin Connect for my watch. Those two are the only two pieces of software that keep me with Windows, and at this point I’m actually thinking of a cheap mini PC just for those two as a direct pass-through to my NAS backup.

I work in IT, run Mint on my travel laptop, and yet at home use the desktop I got 10 years ago, still with Win 8.1. And I use my current desktop quite extensively. There’s still a lot of perfectly fine hardware with outdated OS floating around, and I’d argue that a significant portion of it is used by people experienced enough that they know what they are doing. Much of that will shift towards Linux. Not most of it, I’ll grant you that, but more than people expect.

I quit Facebook because it stopped showing updates from my friends and groups I subscribed to. I couldn’t care less about Zuck’s political leanings as long as his product had any use for me.

It is also a pain in the arse for a normal user. When I search for a local plumber, instead of typing my query into the address bar, I need to go to maps.google.com first, and search there. These days, half of my searches are for businesses (the other half for spelling or correct usage of a difficult word), and all those searches now need to be made directly on the map page.

An e-mail platform doesn’t enjoy the same kind of network effect as social media, so there won’t be any social penalty for never joining or leaving it. Unless he comes with a compelling reason to keep an account there, I don’t see it taking off.

The killer is not as dangerous as the approval for his act. The government wants to prevent copycat vigilantes by making an example out of him. Regardless whether this guy is guilty or not, they’ll drag him through the deepest mud and then string him up with the harshest possible sentence, to discourage others from gunning down CEOs.

Civilisation, the original one. Got it in the 90s, and none of my computers was without it. Even now I sometimes launch it for a guick, half-day game.

I’m sure other Microprose games from that era, in particular UFO: Enemy Unknown, are on my top 10 most played games.

From modern games, I probably spent the most time playing Civ4 and Heroes of Might and Magic 3.

I’m not American, but even I heard about Trump tweeting like a maniac. Here in Europe, though, the media understand that politicians use social media to communicate with their supporters, and nothing else. So, traditional media usually ignores them (unless they say something clickbaity), and focuses what was said outside the social media. Perhaps the same could be applied in the US. Especially if Trump is indeed as narcissistic as he’s portrayed. When he realizes people don’t listen to him, he may change his methods of communication.

You can always quote without giving the source. “Politician XY said that …”, instead of “Politician XY tweeted that …”

Everyone who signed the petition should close their Twitter accounts. And write their newspapers that they would cancel their subscriptions if the articles quoted or embedded tweets. I didn’t sign any petition, and I’m already doing it. Well, sort of. I didn’t have any Twitter account ro close.

Similar in Ireland. Had my kids’ passport applications co-signed by their school receptionist.

This is a perfectly valid reason to like Ubuntu, and it mirrors my own reason for preferring Mint: familiarity with an OS UI. In my case, Mint Cinnamon is the closest I could find to the Win98 user interface. Back in the old days I also had Ubuntu, but then they switched to the Unity UI and I changed to Lubuntu. That went to the pits a few years ago, so I moved on to Mint. Just like you, I also have a preference for the UI, and I suspect that very many people choose a distro based on their UI preferences. That’s the beauty of Linux: plenty of options for everyone.

I’m probably one of the last people who use Win 8.1. The only thing I use there is Smart Switch to back up my phone. For everything else, there is Mint. I’ll keep up with that setup until my hardware fails.

HoMM is a turn-based strategy game, not RPG (with the notable exception of HoMM IV where you had real hero development). That said, there was a genre of RPG’s, which used to be very popular in the 80s and 90s, and which all but disappeared. Those were party-based first-person RPG’s with turn based (or close to it) combat. Popularized by Wizardry, and followed by Might and Magic, they inspired other series like the Ishar Trilogy. Other games employed real-time combat, but slow enough or pausable, to mimic turn-based. Popular series were Eye of the Beholder, Lands of Lore, Dungeon Master, and others. Nowadays, I occasionally see one of these games from independent projects, but it seems that the golden age of this sub-genre has passed.

Don’t know how the law is worded, but you won’t find plastic straws in physical shops or restaurants, and all juice boxes come with paper straws. I don’t have any issues buying plastic straws, both regular-size and for boxed juices, from Amazon.

Selling plastic straws is not permitted in the EU anymore, so I’m buying them on Amazon. Don’t know whether these regulations apply only to physical stores or Amazon doesn’t give a damn, but you can go around such laws quite easily.

I don’t play multiplayer games, so I can’t tell what kind of people the cheaters are. But speaking for myself, I did change my ratings from 5 stars to 1 and was very vocal whenever an upgrade to a game I purchased broke that game on my system, and there wasn’t a way to roll back. Given that those were single player games, DDoS wouldn’t hurt them, so I just kept spamming their support e-mails.

Without hard data it’s difficult to tell to what extent this is accurate, but there seems to be a substantial portion of Linux gamers (including Steam Deck users) who are pissed off that due to the anti-cheat they can’t play the game on their platform of choice anymore. Some of them may have joined the DDoS campaign, so there is a genuine venn diagram.

You know how many bike stands could be built for that money? Dozens!