The other thing too are the shareholders. It’s not enough to just make a profit, there has to be quarterly growth or it’s seen like a failure. Because the PC market is saturated, they have to switch from expanding user base to extracting more value from each user. This is where you get things like upsells for subscription-based services which continuously generate revenue from each user instead of just once (no more one-time license purchase), data harvesting, and ads that are carefully tuned for each user to maximize engagement and conversion rate.

I also suspect this is part of why Microsoft lets you use Windows without activating, even though they want you to (and will nag you to do so). Even if you never buy a license, there’s still ecosystem lock-in, data collection, ads, and future upsell potential. That’s just my thinking though. I haven’t personally used modern Windows (10/11) in over five years so I don’t know if it’s changed since.

They go for quarterly growth regardless of the, uh… tradeoffs it actually creates. There is no way Microsoft isn’t aware of the growing irritation from users, the backlash, and resistance to frivolous and aggressively added AI features, which makes the fact that they keep doubling down all the more baffling to us. While I know this is a broad oversimplification and I’m not hitting every point involved, I’m fairly sure the user base is not who they’re serving, they’re more interested in meeting market and shareholder expectations.

Keep in mind that I’m not an expert on the matter (not even close), I’ve just watched a few videos and articles to give me some sense of this sort of thing, so I am just speculating and thinking out loud. I am in no way defending what Microsoft is doing, and I’m glad I did that little lockdown-based experiment in 2020 to see if Linux really could replace Windows for me (it was a resounding success!!).

Actually, my local Value Village stores have those. At two of them, you’ll hear it going off quite frequently in the store. I wonder if it’s a just a thing they do.

I remember wanting to use Linux at that time. I thought it was so interesting, but my technical expertise just wasn’t there. None of the games I liked playing would run on Linux, and I wasn’t ready to let go of the pans of glass inside a frame that my PC was still running at the time. I’d play around with it in virtual machines and on live USB devices, but that was it. I was always thrilled when I could get an old computer for free that was powerful enough to run a modern Linux distribution.

Well, fast forward to 2020, and I discovered that Linux gaming had quietly made leaps and bounds, and so I thought I’d just install it on my PC exclusively and see how it worked out. Well, it stuck, and I’m never going back.

My cat’s name is Spooky, but he gets called Spucky, Sporky, and Scoopy, all originally mispronunciations of his name that we found amusing. We also call him Cat, Mr. Cat, Kitty, Mr. Kitty, and occasionally Feline.

Huh. That’s a good idea. You could use it for that. It leaves the rear cameras open too, if you wanted to prop it up that way. It was mostly just so that I could keep my phone propped up for easy access when I was playing music off of it. It’s literally just a stand that you put your MagSafe charger into. Not expensive.

Ayy!!

He’s half Siamese. He kind of has the face, but we don’t know what the other half is. His mother, the Siamese cat, got of her owners’ house one day, and some time after she returned… multiplication had occurred.

About half the kittens looked like this kitty. Floofy, black fur (he actually had stripes as a kitten), there are a few possibilities. His father may have been a mix himself - some ragdoll, maybe a little bit of tabby, perhaps some Maine coon somewhere in there.

Yep, grape Zevia. It’s a brand of pop sweetened with stevia. Not the most delicious thing out there if I’m being honest, it’s got a bit of an aftertaste. It’s just not as miserably bad for you as other pop.

You know, I’ve never actually thought to do this. I’ve only grabbed items to stage for period-correct photos, but not candid “wtf is that” stuff in photos. That’s… really, really funny, actually!

He definitely is quite the floofer. He is actually part Siamese, as that’s what his mother was. We don’t know what his father was, but we can see what he might have been.

I will! (He said thank you)

Such a pretty kitty! Reminds me a lot of my sister-in-law’s dad’s cat named Merp (yes, that was her name). She’s no longer around sadly, but she looked just like that, and was super loveable!

Oh but he did get the pets! I just needed to make sure that I had a picture before he moved! Usually he prefers to be on my lap, but sometimes he’ll make himself the centre of attention this way!

Why, thank you! The kitty doesn’t seem to concern himself with the events of computer software, he may only be interested in the cursor for a few seconds. I’ve personally not run Windows on a main PC since 2020, and I think it was Garuda at the time of this photo.

That’s a magnetic charger for a phone attached to a rotatable stand.

That you did!

Nah, it’s a grape drink I happened to have in the photo, and happened to be turned to show the French side. I didn’t even realize this until it was pointed out in the comments!

Almost - it’s grape. Grape in French is raisin. Products in Canada have both English and French on them.

This comment made my night! (I hope that doesn’t sound sarcastic - I don’t mean it to be! I genuinely loved it and thought it was funny!)

This is correct.

He’s definitely not frail, that’s for sure! I watch his weight quite closely, since he’s up there now. Still well-fed! So far so good. Still quite healthy, and he’s super mellow.