The only consistent think about Skype is the way it continues to break in new unfun ways.

I did try out hipchat when looking for a Slack replacement and… it did not get chosen for a reason heh. Crazy as it is, we still use Skype for meetings because our CEO and his also-a-CEO brother refuse switch as they just barely understand Skype.

Obviously there is only a single Slack app, it was a common sarcastic phrase. What it implied is that your experience differs so wildly to mine and many others that there must be some other secret Slack app that one of us got :)

And it wasn’t just “more useless features” that happened after the buyout, though that definitely happened. It was things like the forcing of the free pro trial to try to push people into using said new useless features (we had been saving the trial to be able to export the full chat history when we left) and all the new fun bugs related to all the new features. Also, they loved moving around the UI, adding and removing things, etc. It got bad enough that I had to stop using the native client and use a web browser and use extensions to modify the page payout to get it back to how I liked it.

I guess I was very aware of these issues because I use a lot of different chat applications and I see all the places that they should have been doing better. I had already trialed several other options (hipchat, mattermost, google chat, ms teams, matrix/element, whatever zoho’s chat was called), but was sticking with it because moving your company to a new platform is a huge hassle and I knew would likely not get another chance to do it if I chose poorly. In case you’re wondering, we eventually went with Matrix/Element because it was finally good enough and was the most private as long as you have the infrastructure to host.

Also, Discord is the most vile POS chat service I have ever used and I refuse to ever use it again. It is disappointing how popular it is and how many of my friends use it.

You must have used a different Slack than I did. It was much heavier than a simply chat app should be and it always had annoying, but rarely game breaking, issues. When Salesforce bought them the enshittification began in earnest and it quickly went further downhill. Luckily, due to said downhill turn I was able to get my company to stop using Slack altogether.

Sadly true, but if you’re already stuck with one of these TVs like me, you should know that you can get flawless knockoff remotes online in two packs super cheap.

I’d at Mate to the list as well.

I have used mini PCs as a servers for years with file serving being a major duty of them. Granted my storage needs aren’t excessive, but most NUCs or Nuc-likes can hold two drives, some can have a third if you include 2.5" drives. My AsRock A300 can hold 4 drives (two of each), but its m.2 support sucks so that’s not as much of a boon as it sounds. If you need significant storage, there is no replacement for something that can hold 3.5" drives though since those can now reach 20+ GB a drive.

I go with scenario 1 because it radically reduces the ways I can screw things up for myself.

I’ve used a bunch of different solutions over the years, but currently I just run Gerbera and it streams my local library to my TVs because of the sheer ease. It’s not perfect, fast forward and rewind can be iffy to get working with some configurations, but otherwise it has been a smooth experience.

This is nonsense, you don’t just need an “adapter” to convert a 3.5mm to USB-C. What you talking about is a DAC or external soundcard. Just because they can make them small doesn’t make it an adapter and since the laptop clearly already has a DAC and amplifier since it has working speakers, it is silly to make me buy another, especially since the majority of external tiny DACs sounds like crap and are underpowered.

Except none of the GOOD nice are bluetooth.

Looks cool and is particularly suited to my needs. Thanks for sharing!

Fine, let’s go with BotW was a bad Zelda game and I strongly disliked it. I tried to like it and played all the way through because I was stubborn, but in the end I think it sucked as did my friends (they all quit long before I did). I wish I hadn’t bought it or spent time in it.

Also, I disagree that it changed the open world landscape. H:ZD released before BoTW did, did the open world stuff better (IMO), and still doesn’t seem like it was radically novel at the time other than the story/setting. The only truly novel thing about BotW was that it was open world in a Zelda game.

Your list of games would definitely rank higher for me as well (assuming Divinity 2 means Divinity: Original Sin 2). I’m sure there are a ton of games in there I’ve forgotten that would also quality.

I’m shocked that BoTW was considered the top game of the 2010s. I felt BoTW was mediocre over all on top of not feeling like a Zelda game at all. As far as open world games, I felt that Horizon: Zero Dawn was more compelling in both gameplay and story and I’m still not sure I’d rank it as a top game of the decade.

The Dead Cells team definitely has the chop to make a great game, even if I feel it won’t be exactly like an Iga game. That being said, they are likely better off not letting Konami swallow them based on how they have treated their previous star developers. (I’m still pissed about how they treated Kojima).

Also thanks for reminding me about their pachinko obsession. I don’t know why it feel so bizarrely amusing to me, but it does. I just hope they can finally get SOTN ported to PC before they go full pachinko.

It was nice to see the “Dominus Collection” get released on PC at least, but I’m not sure Konami is capable of making a new and actually good -vania game without Iga.

I am right there with you. My Pixel 4a is still going, but there doesn’t appear to much anything on the market to replace it that doesn’t have a boatload of caveats.

Good luck! I am about the same place in my career and I also wanted to actually release a game (not just make 80% of a game in secret!).

Super annoying because all the earlier smart phones did have all that, even early Android. The OSes just keep getting more dumbed down and locked down to the point that I went from a phone enthusiast to despising all smart phones.