pxoe

4) The Bluetooth standard is just kinda bad. Technically there should be enough bandwidth for better quality audio, but the existing profiles like headset mode drop audio quality down to 8-16 kHz sampling rate in mono, not just for mic but for audio you're listening to as well. It's a huge flaw and it's been bad for decades with seemingly no improvement at all (at least certainly not in a way that could be widespread and commonly used).

It's so bad you'd almost wish for a brand new wireless connectivity or wireless audio standard, or even resort to some proprietary 2.4 GHz nonsense, because it's genuinely so horrid. You could have the best most expensive headphones in the world, but because of Bluetooth and its ancient profiles and mic support it's gonna have baseline absolute garbage mic quality no matter what.

>windows shit show

And yet on Windows 11, hit Win key, type display, it immediately shows display settings as the first result.

Why is it that some people are so hell bent on limiting how people communicate? Ironically, this is also seeking to control people.

Tech companies are involved in lobbying, so maybe it's not as irrelevant or unconnected as you might think. Fees are how they make the money that goes into it.

Fedora is the better example there. (i literally say that it's the glimmer of hope there lol.) It's an actual utility slash app that will do everything, and not just a file that's just thrown at you with no pointers.

(Though even fedora's download page could use a more clearer "How to install" link next to the iso links there. cause even clicking on Documentation there isn't gonna lead you to an installation tutorial or even let you easily find one there without digging. and even what's written where is either not that great or just doesn't exist lol. like, i would just straight up disagree on docs being friendly in regards to install process. though maybe that's not even necessary cause you're just gonna boot into the installer that'll take you through it. and again, it links out to github instead of actually downloading it right there, which only adds unnecessary confusion. how hard could it be to actually split links per platform? this is again the sort of thing where some people there might presume that 'users will just figure it out', that they will hunt out the correct file there on a page that looks nothing like previous one and is more geared towards devs, even though it could've been streamlined further. putting media writer higher up on the page is a nitpick, lack of a prominent installation guide is not, cause it's not linked to, and it also seemingly doesn't even exist. there's https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fedora/f36/install-guid... but not for a more recent version, i guess it just got lost in the shuffle.)

Some Linux distros aren't really doing as good as they could be at making things more accessible to a wider audience and less proficient users. And so the install base stays where it is. I don't think it's extremely nit picky to point out that just linking to an iso and expecting people to just figure it out without even clearly linking to a tutorial is not very accessible. And it really could be as simple as just actually having a link that says "How to install" or "Installation guide", and it's baffling when that stuff is buried. People could use trying to look at these things from a perspective of a new user who's not familiar with these things, and not just from someone who's in the know. Cause it's not actually intuitive or accessible having to dig around a website, trying to guess which of the links would take you there. (other downloads? documentation? support? none of these are an actual guide, and sometimes you won't even find a link to a guide there either.) There seems to be an assumption that just giving an iso file is enough, and that assumption is incorrect.

For example, Debian does kind of a bad job there cause it just throws an iso there and leaves you to poke at other links and guess, the installation guide there is buried under a bunch of clicks for some reason. Ubuntu is pretty good (though im still baffled why won't they feature their desktop version even more prominently on their front page. now that's an actual nitpick), and it actually outlines 'how to install' right there next to the download, and has an actual link to a more comprehensive tutorial too, that's laid out pretty nicely as well. (that's pretty much perfect really. though some other flavors of ubuntu might not be as great there.) Compare https://www.debian.org/releases/forky/amd64/ and https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/install-ubuntu-desktop (both also first results from google on 'distro name how to install'). Debian's idea of a guide is kind of diabolical in comparison. It looks intimidating, it's plainly a pain in the ass to navigate, it's not laid out well whether you a new user or even if you know what's up, it's easier to just give up on that page and look elsewhere for something better formatted. But hey, maybe Debian isn't even really meant to be all that accessible or to be for the kinds of users that ubuntu might cater to. Or rather, it just won't be, if it's gonna be like that.

Windows is quite easy to install. They have a media writer too and their installer is pretty straightforward. It'll even do an in place upgrade that will just work. They clearly have considered OS installation, and have a couple of different tools available for it. They also still sell usb sticks with an installer on it.

So it wouldn't be incorrect to refer to Arch and Arch based distros as 'well, if you want to have fun with a broken system, otherwise avoid', just so it could be mentioned in a succinct way when talking about what distros one could try.

Even if they pick a distro and decide to install it, more often than not the install process is still overly convoluted even in just making installation media.

Going to a distro website and trying to find where to get it (ubuntu has a habit of leading with literally anything else other than regular desktop distro on their front page). Finding a download page, and having it just spit out an iso file, with no explanation on what to do with it, or 'how to install' link in sight (debian, it's very nice that there's a big download button, but like...then what. where's the explanation link. it's buried under other downloads, but that's not very intuitive). Getting to a 'how to install' page and having it be intimidatingly long, perhaps even needlessly. Sites, pages and explainers being laid out in confounding ways, and install process sometimes laid out in a bit of an overcomplicated way. (debian has an installation guide that's presented perhaps in the most intimidating way possible to a new unwitting user, and also buried under click on a click on a click. somehow writing the iso is not even among the first dozen of pages there. ubuntu mate gives you links to iso downloads, and yet the installation process is buried under 'faq' (again, not very intuitive or straightforward), that faq only has a bunch of oddly laid out 'making installation media' pages, and the rest of actual installation process is just somewhere else.)

That's before someone even gets to the actual install process. Somehow all of that stuff hasn't gotten more streamlined or user friendly. If you try to see how one would go about getting and installing any distro, you'd quickly see that it's very confusing and convoluted, way more than it has to be, or needs to be to appeal and be simple for new users.

There's glimmers of hope, like fedora which has its media writer, which is gonna hold your hand through the whole thing. Even that links out to github for a download, despite clicking on a seemingly specific 'windows/mac or linux' button. It's a little buried too, below iso downloads, when it really should be brought up more forward, and explain a little bit better on how it's gonna guide you thru the whole thing.

It really should be an app that's gonna guide you thru it, or a dead simple 1-2-3 step tutorial that's gonna guide you thru writing an image (download writer, download iso, write an image - laying it out more than that is just overcomplicating it really, at least in the initial quick install guide), with a clear, visible link to it - and yet somehow even this is too high of a bar for many distros to clear.

What has done a number on the ease of installing linux is how compact discs have just went away, because having a compact disc, burning it, or having it be just sent to users was making that step of the process simpler. Sure, writing to a USB is easy, but the expectation that everyone's just gonna have a spare usb is naive (and you're never gonna hear that you actually need to buy a usb stick in any of those guides lol), and there's just a little more opportunity to fuck up there (overwriting other disks, unless the writer app is laid out nicely and fail-proof). Distros might as well start selling usb sticks with installers on them. If someone's gonna be brand new to the whole thing and they're gonna have to buy a usb stick anyway, they might as well buy it from the distro with the distro on it already.

Some distros may want to get real about how a new user would even navigate their websites in order to get the thing. Like just trying to go thru that process themselves and see what's that experience like.

If the expected way and the attitude is to just break user installs, then that's no better than Windows, perhaps even worse.

What does notepad have to do with web based apps? case in what point?

New Notepad in 11, with tabs and autosave (and dark mode), is so much better and more practical to use over old one, it just stays open all the time and become my main notetaking pick. It may take a beat to open a big file (1+ mb) with line wrapping, but it's pretty much just as fast as anything (and may be even faster than some other editors). It's just very easy to reach for and quite snappy.

There are some apps on Windows with actual gripes, but Notepad, Paint, Snipping tool, they're quite solid and have become everyday tools that eliminated the need to reach for some other third party apps.

Well yeah, US healthcare system is already pretty close to just being an AI kill chain as is. Maybe they could make some cool ads about how they're ruthlessly optimizing that as well, with a little more of a mask off kind of sociopathic approach that they do.

It doesn't matter whether they do or not, the desire to keep separate things separate could be there as is. It might as well not be any of that but just about the kinds of things some companies are involved in.

Again, kind of amusing how that immediately devolves into "are you making an accusation".

Perhaps it would be preferable at least to not mix civilian health data or regular business data, with mass surveillance data, and with military industrial complex and kill chain data. It would make sense to have an interest in keeping different kinds of personal data in separate places and not have it thrown around companies with quite different interests or collected together within some company that's involved in quite different industries. So why does it not make sense to apologists of this company?

Wonder if they'll also have an AI kill chain for healthcare. Would be a neat little trick to reduce costs.

It still starts very fast, even with quite large files and line wrapping. (pretty much on par with lite-xl, though lite-xl did get much faster with some recent version. prior to it though, it was easier and faster to launch notepad)

> there's probably a chance

It's this completely unfounded barrage of making shit up about energy consumption without any tether to reality that makes the whole thing with complaining about energy use seem just like a competition on who makes up the most ridiculous most hand-wringing analogy.

I almost believed that they just did, they aren't without their share of quirky and unusual projects and sponsorships.

Apple Pencil compatibility chart, for comparison https://f.nooncdn.com/cms/pages/20250530/31608d4ea3ae92b5bbe...

This "but it's too hard to implement" excuse never made sense to me. So it's doable to make a system like this, to have smart people working on it, hire and poach other smart people, to have payments systems, tracking systems, personal data collection, request filtering and content awareness, all that jazz, but somehow all of that grinds to a halt the moment a question like this arises? and it's been a problem for years, yet some of the smartest people are just unable to approach it, let alone solve it? Does it not seem idiotic to see them serve 'most advanced' products over and over, and then pretend like this question is "too complex" for them to solve? Shouldn't they be smart enough to rise up to that level of "complexity" anyway?

Seems more like selective, intentional ignoring of the problem to me. It's just because if they start to pay up, everyone will want to get paid, and paying other people is something that companies like this systematically try to avoid as much as possible.

Normalizing effective abolishment of consent for imagery, or just consent in general for just about anything, when it can portray anyone doing anything.

This just sounds like two different sets of standards, although for two different platforms, but one is getting goalposts shifted to 'but flashing is scary and nobody does it and also what if other phone makers spy on people' (just spreading FUD, really), while the other gets a pass pretty much on every one of those things while blindly buying into privacy marketing. Kinda reminds me of those lawsuits about app stores on ios and android that were running in parallel, where ios also kinda got a pass pretty much just because it's more locked down.

While regular people probably aren't going to mess with custom roms on android and it's kind of self-selecting situation there, they very much might pick a Samsung phone, or Motorola phone, or some other phone, that will have different flavors of android, and may have some meaningful differences and will have some amount of control over them that phone makers have be spread out between their manufacturer and not just google.

Some people also aren't really gonna be any less susceptible to scams that aren't tied to app stores or apps at all. Might as well lock down the browser and phone app then as well.

Well, like with "national politics" (what nation?), even if there may be only two options functionally, it's also just pretending that there are only two options there at all. (while almost actively ignoring any other options)

Like, while it may sound annoying and nitpicky, android is not just "one option of the two", it has a bunch of versions/flavors/forks/whatever you wanna call it, that vary between manufacturers, and also alternative distributions that can be installed on devices, situations that iphone just does not have, at all or to that extent. (quite linuxy in that way if you squint real hard.) I'm struggling to worry about this whole debacle with google floating about whatever they're floating about (currently it's that vague) all that much, when android is that malleable.

There are also actual Linux phones and distributions, postmarketOS, environments like Phosh and Plasma Mobile, Ubuntu Touch, Sailfish, and so on. These can also end up being treated as a "third option" when it's a bunch of different options, or even treated as non-existent, but these options are out there, available, modern, with phones you could just buy. The only case where "one option" is actually just one option is with iPhones.

Insane and unreasonable standards sounds right, but I'm not sure about privacy and security all that much. It's just naive to assume something is totally malware free, and they're not actually disincentivized from just keeping some more subtle scammy apps around if they just generate them 30% fee revenue anyway. There's a bit of magical thinking that goes into assuming just how "good" they are at it, when they literally just don't even do some of those vaguely insinuated things.

(to me, if some os is unable to have both freedom of installing apps/sideloading and security (with help of malware checking and other measures that keep bad stuff away), and only able to achieve that "security" only by completely locking down what apps can be run and how apps are obtained, it seems like either a failure to accomplish actual security there, or rather just a pretense to keep a platform locked down.)

Would you even find out if an app has been sold to another company on iOS app store? It's confusing to see all of that diatribe when it doesn't even do much (if anything it almost lulls you into a false sense of security), and you just have less options to choose from to get around being locked out of using your device for apps you want.

They are the main show if you're browsing as a guest/not signed in or signed up.

Where does Ubiquity, of all things, slot into this?

Even Windows 11 is more refined and consistent in its design. (well, in the parts that are modern, which...shouldn't it be damning that even with those legacy parts it's still better designed?)

Looking at a screenshot from KDE home page, it really does not seem like anything has changed with it in terms of design polish that much. It doesn't even seem like it's moving in a direction that's any different. https://kde.org/announcements/plasma/6/6.4.0/fullscreen_with... The most significant change for the whole look they could make is changing the system font, because that's the biggest and most visible thing, and the one they have looks amateurish and makes it feel slapdash, like it was an afterthought, just picking whatever default font there was and going "whatever", which kind of ends up being the vibe of the whole thing.

They already seem to vaguely echo gnome 3 look in macos. Huge titlebars with buttons, sidebar layouts in apps, transparent title bar, control center, etc., there's just a bunch of things that make you go 'huh'.

All of these "desktop search bars for everything" look way too generic for there to be really anything "stolen" either way. Credit for what?

It may seem like it's "convenient", but whatsapp is truly a nightmare when you try to move it literally anywhere in any way. Huge backups, needing to transfer phone numbers, having to restore from backups, having and moving those backups in the first place, the way it's designed in that regard is the most inconvenient for a platform that doesn't even necessarily provide more security or anything for that to be worth it at all, particularly for people who don't even seek that kind of security or even know about it and just use it for "texting and stuff". Not to defend that or say that it isn't just a convenient excuse (it can be for sure), but just to say that whatsapp is possibly the most annoying app in that regard. It's such a pain in the ass I'd rather store all of that in the cloud. (Which ironically whatsapp pretty much just does anyway if it backs up to google drive, it just makes it the most inconvenient it could be)