The tools I love are made by awful people

Because computers are complex, and there are many computers with many different hardware configurations nobody can answer if it solves the issues for you.

Supporting arbitrary hardware is hard for an open-source project.

Sticking to solid brands with well-tested models has other benefits.

(I think the design of the webcam is to blame)

Some countries they don't export to.

Other countries the VAT + import tax just adds up.

Back in the day, Apple laptops used to cook and kill themselves with poor GPU heat management.

Several versions of macbooks shortened a display cable such that it would degrade over time because it simply wasn't up to task, and eventually your screen would be borked and have absolutely ungoogleable issues (this happened to me)

They had an entire run of macbooks with flawed batteries.

The entire keyboard fiasco, all in an effort to bikeshed computer thinness FFS. Meanwhile even before the butterfly tech, macbook keyboards have always been trash. They have un-ergonomic keys and no travel and just seem to prioritize aesthetics over usage.

Internal connectors have 50v backlight pins right next to logic level pins which means instead of a drop of water just killing the backlight power supply, it routes 50v through everything and kills half your mainboard components.

Pre M series macbooks hard thermal throttling issues if you charged them from the ports on one side, but not the other.

Apple laptops have NEVER had good thermal management.

Soldered SSDs that are stupidly tiny, especially in the early M1 machines that had 8gb RAM and bad swap behavior that was actively killing people's SSDs

Apple buys good screens to put in their machines, and the frame is pretty rigid, and THAT'S IT. Nothing else about their machines is a step above other laptop manufacturers hardware wise

For what it’s worth, my wife is now using the one I just retired…so it ain’t dead or unusable yet.

I suspect the main thing I'm missing is Schedule I. And I think even that can be had if I go enable proton or something? Haven't really looked into it yet.

That wasn't much of a leap you were planning it a mouse got in your way, especially given you seem to have planned this "leap" in the 90's - solidly within Windows 9X territory which was infamous for its instability and reboot-tendency:

   You moved your mouse pointer,
   your PC needs to be restarted
   for this change to be implemented.
   .
              [OK] [Ignore] [Cancel]

I have used Windows on the desktop since 1994, I have used Linux on desktops since 1998 (work machines being 50% or exclusively Linux since 2010ish) and I got my first mac last autumn. (Planned Linux but some unimportant things stood in the way, so I gave it a shot).

Working on Windows is pure pain for me. I use it as my gaming/browsing machine and every time I have to touch code I hate it.

Linux is 100% fine for work, but I noticed I am having problems with games with my usual setup with tiling window managers (i.e lots of fullscreen usage and non-easily-resizable windows, also getting my Logitech's G keys recognized).

macos is... 90% fine actually. I hate some small things but otherwise it just works, the windows key as cmd is actually in a nicer position than ctrl, but that might be my weird hands.

So if I wasn't playing certain games with certain keybinds, switching to Linux fulltime would have happened like 10y ago for me.

That’s rare, and is a very difficult motivation to understand. Such projects are also usually a mess.

* It's a heck of a lot of money to send to any company, so it makes more sense to pause and consider what you're funding. I can't put that much effort into every <$100 purchase without going crazy.

* Tesla is far more about Musk than Microsoft is about... whoever runs Microsoft these days. There's a very specific person tied to it.

* Driving a Tesla is seen by the world as a statement of some kind in a way that running Windows simply isn't. It's worth considering if that's a statement you want to be making.

Also consider: There are thousands of employees at Tesla and thousands of shareholders. Do you also need to individually vet every one of their opinions before you enrich them by buying a Tesla? What if they don't all have the same opinion? Are you supposed to take a poll and go with the majority? This is silly.

Just to honour the Godwin law, take the Eduard Pernkopf anatomy manual as an example, a fascinating example of this discussion.

There is always a tipping point where practicality beats purity, and I think it's ok trying to stretch it, respecting other's choices in the way of course. No need to judge.

(And if you’re going to jump in the comments about them being evil, check your privilege. None of these tech companies operate literal death squads as several non-tech companies did as recent as a few decades ago, and probably still now.)

If that's not happening, then we need to fix the government so it does happen. Expecting each individual person to be their own EPA and research how every single item they consume is produced idiotic and doomed to failure.

you should shop at "walmart" or where-ever your dollar is the most effective. and that gives you the most stability and and position to challenge whether the current Walton regime's love of China is a good thing or not. but cutting your nose off to spite your face does nothing useful.

The bus boycotts in the US Civil Rights movement are a good example. "Hey bus company, we're going to stop riding your buses until you end your racist seating policies". It's clear what they wanted to happen, and it was in the power of the boycotted company to make that happen.

This new thing is something else. Just a general "don't buy from this company because ... uh ... vague noises about evil". Like, what is it exactly you want this company to do? How will you not buying from them force them to do that? Do they even know what you're asking for?

This is not about trying to effect any sort of change. It is just plain virtue signalling so you can appear righteous to others. There is zero chance of anything happening in the world because of this.

It is a form of trained helplessness to fixate perpetually on consumption.

If someone wants to do good in the world, go out and do it. help someone for real. I think it is lack of real connection that leads people to navel gaze about the third order consequences of their clothes or software.

I think this substack [1] summed it up perfectly:

>I was 16 when I realized I had to kill myself. I was in a Denny’s with my friends, looking at an empty glass of Diet Coke. The glass was produced by taking the raw resources of a foreign country, exploiting its workers in horrible factories, and sent to me to drink out of. And I didn’t really have any other option for getting liquid from a nearby water source into my body, it had to travel through moral atrocity along the way. It wasn’t just one glass, of course. It was everything. It was the shoes I was wearing (shoes were a big deal in those days) and the flooring I walked on and the food I ate. The only moral act was to kill oneself, and failure to do that meant you accept your role as a vicious monster. (The depression helped, but maybe the depression/guilt causality was reversed.)

https://deathisbad.substack.com/p/does-the-omelas-kid-have-a...

Right now in your community are tons of organizations looking for people to actually help.

I've restored nesting habitat for endangered birds. And I just happened to be able the beach when volunteers came around. That did more than stressing over what I bought ever did, and it was just hanging out at the beach. There are orgs for driving people to medical appointments. That can be an amazing impact on someone's life and on yourself (more than buying the right ketchup).

Make yourself financially strong so that you can help others. Sacrificing your money to make a point is wasted virtue signaling.

I mainly see people who shop correct/rescue animals as the most minimal helpers who want to feel they are helping. There is an old woman dieing crying in your town right now because she's overwhelmed and doesn't know how to get to an appointment she needs. An no one cares. But if I buy the right ketchup, that matters? If I drive 2 hours to save a dog (while the old woman dies crying and alone, unable to get to the doctor, a 15 minute trip) I'm a good person?

Don't play that game. You aren't a consumer you are a human being. Today you can impact for the positive. Choose your shopping based on savings/health, and invest that money into your local foodbank or helping someone at something like Kiva.org (I don't keep up, is Kiva bad now?) or other local charities where you can actually have an impact.

It's crazy how people have been convinced to give up and do the most barely needle moving things to feel moral.