haverholm
I used to make comics. I know that because strangers would look at my work and immediately share their most excruciatingly banal experiences with me:
— that time a motorised wheelchair cut in front of them in the line at the supermarket;
— when the dentist pulled the wrong tooth and they tried to get a discount;
— eating off an apple and finding half a worm in it;
every anecdote rounded of with a triumphant “You should make a comic about that!”
Then I would take my 300 pages graphic novel out of their hands, both of us knowing full well they weren’t going to buy it, and I’d smile politely, “Yeah, sure. Someday.”
“Don’t try to cheat me out of my royalties when you publish it,” they would guffaw and walk away to grant comics creator status onto their next victim.
Nowadays I make work that feels even more truly like comics to me than that almost twenty years old graphic novel. Collage-y, abstract stuff that breaks all the rules just begging to be broken. Linear narrative is ashes settling in my trails, montage stretched thin and warping in new, interesting directions.
I teach comics techniques at a university level based in my current work. I even make an infrequent podcast talking to other avantgarde artists about their work in the same field.
Still, sometimes at night my subconscious whispers the truth in my ear: Nobody ever insists I turn their inane bullshit nonevents into comics these days, and while I am a happier, more balanced person as a result of that, I guess that means I don’t make comics any longer after all.
I agree that the tone of their articles helps push the quality above some other tech blogs. At the very least they’re sincere!
Windows is no longer an option for me either — I had made a conscious effort to use FLOSS apps even before switching, so there wasn’t much holding me back. And, as you say, once I’d started modifying system settings to disable Microsoft telemetry, I was already at Linux tinkerer levels…
Thanks for this, and the repost of postmarket OSes for Android phones! One reddit community that I used to frequent was r/androidafterlife, and I’ve tried to find similar here. I’m glad that !zerowaste@slrpnk.net offers some of the same advice 👍
Technologies like Electron make it easier for app availability: Controversial opinion but True
I do agree, but currently Electron is great for apps the way Flash was considered great for the web. It solves one problem, but creates a bunch more.
In itself, Electron is pretty bloated*, but I don’t dare check how many versions I have installed because different apps have stuck with older ones. I’d really like to see a less resource consuming, backward compatible alternative to Electron.
* From my thrifty perspective of keeping older hardware alive with Linux, that is. On your high grade, best-of-class gaming rig, mileage will definitely vary.
Like most articles on itsfoss, this one is only a notch over clickbait — a kernel of an idea not fully developed, written with the last minute energy of a student who pushed off the assignment until right before deadline — but I’ll be damned if that title isn’t beautifully turned.
I haven’t had to have Windows installed for more than a decade, but on recent occasion I’ve borrowed Windows and Mac computers for work. Those revisits didn’t give me reason to switch back, only to long for my lean Arch install.
As the next major version of Windows approaches like a Santa down the chimney with all sorts of “AI”-infested gadgets in his sack, I do hope more will make the more often mentioned switch to a Linux distro from the advertising platform OS that came with their computer.
But this headline deliciously reminds us that there is already a good chunk of users who made the jump, or are sitting on the dual booting fence, one boot (sorry!) on either side. This article is for them, yes, but also a gentle nudge for those still gathering courage.
At this stage, it is time to seriously change the perspective of that switch. The single reason for switching from Windows to Linux is … the utter state of Windows. Only the most blinkered of tech journos can continue to pretend that all is well on Windows, and not at all a sophisticated malware infection.
So bravo itsfoss for the clever barb, less so for the depth of the article itself.
I’m interested in this, too. I’m not a developer but, seeing how well NewPipe works without Google sign-in on Android, I’d think a Kodi add-on using the same technique would be preferable to mucking about with API keys?