Sorry I can’t hear anything you’re saying with how loud and distracting this eye contact is right now.

You’re probably right, it’s been years since I read it, and I was simply piggy backing off other criticisms I’ve read about the book by others saying similar things online.

Yeah. It’s full of really common pop-fiction tropes. But the writing is so beautiful you don’t notice it.

It really jumped the shark when in the second book the guy who is a virgin and can’t talk to girls suddenly became the god of sex and literally out-sexed the sex nymph who had been sexing men to death for years.

An eReader’s literally only job is to format, reflow, render and display ePubs. If you have one that can’t do that, then it is a fancy coaster at best.

I like the books, superficially they are a treat, the prose is brilliant, the words feel nice on my brain.

But reading just a little bit deeper than that, you start to realise the story is pretty empty. The characters are hollow. The first two books are pretty much the same story loop over and over again. The characters making the same mistakes and learning the same lessons over and over again.

The way the author writes female characters makes you seriously worry about the authors relationship with women, and if he even knows any women.

Surprised I haven’t seen someone yet mention Magician by Raymond E Feist. That whole first riftwar trilogy is great. Also the spin off Empire trilogy with Janny Wurts.

Seconding those who mentioned the R.A. Salvatore books including the Dark Elf series and the Icewind Dale series.

There’s not really any advantage of using txt files over open standard drm-free epubs. You can still generate them yourself using txt editors or publishing software, you can still load them over USB. But epubs give you quality of life features on eReaders like title pages, table of contents, chapter headers, formatting markers like bold and italics.

She has huge tracts of personalities.

Yeah true, I’ve got to regularly remind myself that for most professionals working in IT, the only thing they know about Linux is it’s that esoteric free OS that you get preinstalled on a cheap VPS, used for hosting WordPress sites by people who are too cheap to pay for a windows licence. At least, that’s the view that my colleagues at the last two places In worked at had.

Sounds like you’d like a power launcher style workflow like KRunner or Rofi. Instead of hitting the meta key to bring up the start menu and search for the app you need, bind a key to KRunner or Rofi and invoke the app you want directly. These solutions also natively integrate file search, web search, quickly toggling settings, do in-place calculations etc.

We call it the “meta” key. And no, not related to the company formerly known as Facebook.

As someone who has been dealing with exactly this issue with my new employer’s enterprise ICT department, I have some insight to share.

When you have thousands and thousands of laptops that you need to manage, it becomes a burden for the in-house IT department, so they often farm it out to a Managed Service Provider (MSP). This is particularly common for organisations like schools and hospitals that often don’t even have an in-house IT department. The MSP will install policies and management software on the laptops to ensure the OS is up to date, the antivirus is not disabled, the VPN is configured correctly, passwords are changed regularly, etc.

Yes of course there are linux-native solutions for each of these things, but the MSP doesn’t support it, doesn’t offer that service. To keep their service prices affordable for enterprise organisations, MSPs usually hire the lowest cost technicians and support staff. These poor underpaid staff probably have never even heard of Linux. The MSP can increase their marketable value by advertising the certifications they’ve attained. The certifications are provided by Microsoft and are related to Microsoft software and systems.

If you have a small fleet of devices and an in-house IT team that has a bunch of Linux enthusiasts, and a user base who drives demand, then it is possible to support Linux. But it requires a lot of effort and dedication. My old employer did that. They had a fleet of around 5,500 devices (a mix of desktops and laptops), mostly Windows, approx 500 of them were macbooks, and about 50 were Linux. Some of these were users who needed to use software that is available only on Linux, some were like me who are simply more productive and efficient using a linux-based OS. But maintaining, administering and supporting those 50 Linux devices took around 20% of the time of the IT department. That’s massively disproportionate to the number of Linux users.

Not long after I left there, the new CTO put an end to that, they saw and easy cost saving by simply refusing to allow users to have any OS other than Windows.

Nice, never heard of it, sounds like I’d like it.

One of my favourite DOS games back in the day was A-10 Tank Killer. It was a surprisingly good flight sim for its day and relatively accessible for a kid playing on a keyboard and mouse. I played that game so much, I’ve got a soft spot for the old A-10.

Yeah, LMDE is pretty good. I used it for a couple of years during my rage-against-Ubuntu phase.

I’ve been trying to convince my kids that bunnies lay eggs for years now, they don’t believe me.

Oh yes, that’s a good one too. I do notice that myself too.

This one might not be weird to some, but it’s my “one weird trick”.

I put my shoes on.

I normally work from home, so usually don’t even wear shoes most of the day. And when I need to go outside for a minute or two, I don’t wear my shoes either.

But on the days that I get up and put my socks and shoes on in the morning, I feel extra motivated for the whole day. I definitely get more things done.

I’m definitely going to use this one on my wife. It’s a good one.

Pretty sure it’s “a finer location”.