Linux gamer, retired aviator, profanity enthusiast

  • 7 Posts
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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: June 20th, 2023

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  • 7 was about the last time that it felt like Microsoft was trying to make a good product that was useful for its customers. They’ve always been anticompetitive sniveling greedy little shits that would buy out or otherwise kill competition, but used to be they’d try to sell new versions of Windows or Office on features they could reasonably expect customers to want. “It does spell check in real time now! We’ve included USB plug-and-play! Your PC with a modem is also a fax machine now! We made a 3D graphics library for gaming enthusiasts! We ship or OS with a media player that can play DVDs and MP3s out of the box! Here’s a free video editor!”

    I…don’t remember that happening after Windows 7. Windows 8 was an attempt to cash in on the mobile craze, they’re gonna make Windows a tablet product now! Except a lot of computers didn’t have tablet controls, and a lot of desktop PC software doesn’t work with tablet controls. They made a confusing annoying buggy hell mess. Win 10…I remember people hating it when it came out, they REALLY preferred 7, I was on Linux by that time and didn’t care that much, and Win 10 was almost a rolling release; it changed a lot over its lifetime. They’d go all in on something, pack Win 10 full of features, and then the fad would fade and they’d pull it back out. 3D, AR, a couple other things. And now we’ve got the openly user hostile Windows 11. “It Harms Your Family!®




  • My grandmother’s house. I have two sewing machines, a 6-place dining set, fine china to serve 8, two sewing machines, several rickety old pillar tables and candle stands, a cabinet full of random glassware, a drawer full of ratty, yellowed old doilies my father “remembers from when I was a kid.” At least three unassworthy antique rocking chairs that are too delicate to serve a purpose…So much shit my father wants, but won’t move into his own heavily cluttered house.


  • Shape shifting tables are actually quite common! There are quite a few types:

    • Tilt Top Chair-tables. Hinged closed, it’s a table about the size of a poker table. Hinged open, it’s an armchair, with the tabletop forming the back.
    • Drop-leaf tables. I’ve seen these in several shapes but the typical pattern is a long, thin rectangular table with hinged panels that can be folded up to extend the top. They can be folded to as little as 18 inches wide and stowed against a wall, you can open the free side with it still against the wall to seat a few people, or you can slide it away from the wall, open both leaves and have a full size table. Stowage of side chairs is a separate issue. The shakers were fond of drop-leaf tables, and made some truly huge ones that could seat a dozen people or more when unfolded, but would stow very efficiently.
    • Extending tables. My dining room table is one of MANY examples, you’ll find them all over the United States because it’s objectively the worst of the lot: The long apron rails aren’t continuous but attached by a slide mechanism. The tabletop is split in half, so you get two table halves that can slide relative to each other. A gap can be opened wide enough to admit one or two lift-out sections to make the table longer. My dining room table can collapse to seat 4 around a (mostly) round table or extended to seat 6. All the additional hardware plus the two extra apron rails necessary make the table heavier than it should be, the slides never work right and if you prefer to have it collapsed, where do you stow the leaves? I guess with the two side chairs you nearly never use.