Technology

Alright then MS, (this is hypothetical as I haven't ran Windows as my main OS in years and don't plan on going back) since you want me to trade in my hardware, how 'bout I trade in your OS instead? :p

Ah, the old Ben Shapiro logic. If you don't want your house that's at risk of flooding, don't worry, simply sell it! Someone's bound to give you a good price for it!

Bring on the cheap non windows 11 computers. I've already told everyone i know if they didn't want to have to buy another computer for years they just had to start using linux. Then I show them what that looks like if they are interested. I show them that they can put menu/start button at the bottom left if thats what they want. That they can have a the same browser they use and many of the same applications. I've had two people willing to try. Most insist that they don't want to learn anything new. Its depressing but its a boon for me when people start getting rid of their perfectly usable gear.

Hot take from an IT guy: save your important data, make a plain vanilla W11 boot USB (nothing fancy, no Rufus tricks), wipe your hard drive to zeroes, and install W11 like normal. I've reimaged a ton of older PCs and literally never seen it not work. My 10 year old Optiplex, supposedly ineligible for W11, runs W11 just fine.

Microsoft might someday break it, sure. That's not new. Microsoft products were always, in practice, available to us at Microsoft's pleasure. This is the same company that allows massgrave to exist on github because they'd rather we pirate MS Office than allow LibreOffice any oxygen. We'll probably be fine.

I switched to Linux on my laptops years ago. Recently, I retired and started playing video games like Skyrim. I play on a Nintendo Switch. I considered playing Skyrim on a laptop so I could use/build mods. I bought a laptop with Windows 11 and spent forty minutes removing the bloat, ads, spyware, ai nonsense, and other dross, fixing it so it did not 'update' to restore everything I deleted, and installing my preferred alternatives (browser, search, email etc). It reminded me why I hate Windows almost as much as Mac OS (which is even more controlling). Microsoft have hundreds of engineers 'enshitifying' everything. It is more than a full-time job trying to stop them and block their 'improvements'. I am retired. I have better things to do.

I did not enjoy playing games with a laptop (hurts my arthritis, I prefer using a console and an easy chair) and resented having to reverse engineer everything I installed to keep it running but without sacrificing my privacy so the laptop now just sits in a drawer. It amazes me that anyone still tolerates Microsoft products, or any of the monopolists stuff. Why is anyone still using google search or chrome browser, why bing or any of it? Why is anyone still seeing adverts? Why is everyone still being fed by algorithms? You must chose this - but why? I always sought out better and if it did not exist, I built it, and if I could not build it, I did without. There is a lot of dumbing-down around technology. Back in C20th, we used to build our own hardware, write our own software. We were skilled hobbyists (later I got an M.Sc. to reinforce my hobby skills with theory and even ran a business for a while as an engineer). Around 2000 +/- five years, the monopolists offered 'help' in the form of WYSIWYG editors to write code for us or 'click buttons to register your account' platforms to host content for us instead of us running our own websites (blogger, wordpress, facebook, twitter etc). They dumbed us all down, farmed us like animals for data and used clickbait to get ad revenue and undermined our politics, culture, even changed our sense of being human. Now old folk can build resources but younger people can only consume. We have to re-skill and resist the seduction of the easy and free-to-use. There's no such thing as a free lunch. Never trust a tech bro, whether USA or any nationality.

Personally, I want to 'jail break' my Switch and make mods for my console version of Skyrim. I can't do that now as it is illegal but when they bring out the Switch 2 and the old console is 'obsolete' and they stop trying to get money for Skyrim, I reckon we tinkerers will get a chance to re-purpose the old console to play the old games in our own way. I reckon some exciting engineering is happening amongst the recyclers and re-purposers rather than amongst the corporates. I only buy second-hand for ethical reasons and to save money. I always install my own software based on AOSP or use a more ethical distro or alternative to the commercial options. I always debloat or degoogle or remove unwanted stuff. I wish that kind of personalisation were more common. There is a zero sum relationship with tech: either the technology controls you, or you control it. I urge you to control your own tech. Don't be enslaved by it. I feel I am in a minority in wanting sovereignty over my damn phone. It makes me sad.