Yeah, there’s something about the physicality of a record player and records that changes the experience. At least for me it encourages more focus on the listening. Even if you just put something on while you do something else, you’re going to be interacting with again before super long.

The record, the part you interact with, has size and weight. It’s definitively a “thing”. And choosing a record is a choice. You can’t just press some buttons on a remote and change to whatever else (unless it’s a full music system setup).

Plus the beautiful art on the sleeves, and the time it takes to get the record out forces you to spend at least a little time with that art.

With a CRT TV, you’re using a remote and there’s a lot more abstraction and layers between the physical object holding the content and your actual consumption of it.

VHS tapes are physical, but the moving parts that make it all work are hidden away in the VCR and the magnetic tape isn’t really touchable. Playing one on most TVs required another device plugged into the TV and pressing some buttons on one or two remotes that could just as easily bring you other content without ever leaving your seat.

There is art on the VHS case, but it’s not like it takes time to get the tape in and out, so you’re not as likely to look at it for long.

Most importantly, people are still making new record players and records. There was a long while where it was a very niche thing, and there weren’t a lot of new records coming out, but there were still new players coming out. And the technology is simple enough that the average person could at least keep a player in working order or fix the most common issues themselves. Enthusiasts could even “fix” an old machine with modern parts that are readily available, as long as they function the same. It’s not like people are going to stop making electric motors anytime in the next century.

CRTs simply aren’t manufactured anymore. Depending on the issue they aren’t end user servicable for the average person, or even most enthusiasts. Maintenance is potentially dangerous to the person doing the work. The parts have limited lifespans with no replacements available for the main bits. If the electron guns start to go, you can potentially rejuvanate them with special equipment, or you can end up breaking a damaged one entirely (see 10:32 of this video about restoring an old arcade cabinet).

It’s the same (sans danger to the person doing the repair) for VCRs. No new stock, specialized parts that can’t be swapped for more readily availble modern components, you get the picture.

And that’s also not considering the fucking weight of a good size CRT compared to a record player.

Don’t get me wrong. I love CRTs. Pretty sure I still have my childhood one in my basement, complete with some discoloration from when my 8 year old self had some fun with magnets.

I was legitimately distraught when my wife talked me into only keeping one of the three CRT TVs we had gathering dust, and I think I still have one or two CRT monitors stashed away somewhere.

I spent multiple weekends years ago looking up and configuring the best CRT shader for emulators so it looked like an idealized version of that childhood TV.

But I entirely get why records and record players are such strong and well thought of “nostalgia bait” and CRTs and VHS tapes are not.

My cheapo one has a short gap where it will start spinning before the speakers catch up and I can listen that way guilt free. You can also just turn the volume of the speakers all the way down, but that’s not nearly as disorienting as hearing a half second of the audio all small and tiny and not coming from the right place.

I’ve been thinking for years now about picking up one again that can run RockBox. Used to live out of an iPod nano with that, and didn’t have to carry flash drives. Just plug the usb cable into a computer and use it as one. A lot of modern music apps still aren’t as fully featured when it comes to on the fly playlist creation.

I once binged IT Crowd using an old CRT monitor as my second screen. Definitely a vibe.

Similarly, Jerboa tries to make @indie-ver.se in the post body into a link to a user profile and also stops at the hyphen.

What are you talking about? It wasn’t mandatory for any console. They packaged it in with some, so you’d get it in the same box, but you never had to plug it in.

And all the voice functionality worked with headsets as well. Definitely watched old roommates do Skyrim shouts that way for around 10 minutes until the novelty wore off.

As evidence: How the fuck is a company as big as Microsoft letting their CEO keep making such embarassing public statements? How the fuck has he not been forced into more public speaking training by the board?

This is like the 4th “gaffe” of his since the start of the year!

You don’t usually need “social permission” to do something good. Mentioning that is at best, publicly stating that you think you know what’s best for society (and they don’t). I think the more direct interpretation is that you’re openly admitting you’re doing the type of thing that you should have asked permission for, but didn’t.

This is past the point of open desperation.

There have also been a rash recently of newly created accounts making 3-10 posts to comics comms and then bouncing (deleting the account or just not doing anything else).

Last.fm is probably the closest thing functionality-wise to what you’re looking for as far as reccomendations go.

You can “scrobble” or log what you’ve listened to or enjoyed from a metric ton of sources, and reccomendations are based off the user community and tagging. Covers popular to underground and everything in between.

Not sure what the whole “federated” part of this adds to anything.

Just run the Windows device using wired internet on a different (and isolated) subnet from everything else of yours and turn off wifi and bluetooth on it. Use a wired headset or a dedicated dongle like Jabra has for their headsets. That would prevent it from identifying other devices nearby.

Beyond that, just don’t do any personal shit on your work device. If you’re providing your own Windows work device, then do it in a VM as already said.

If your workplace allows WSL, then the main benefit is you could use more familiar software/tools through it. Your workplace is likely to be doing a hell of a lot more data collection than Microsoft anyway.

That’s the neat part, you don’t!

You just get to feel marginally safer that there is at least the opportunity for someone out there to do it.

Not sure the exact age, but it’s xkcd 1288, they’re up to 3195 now, and they’re usually posted every Monday Wednesday and Friday.

Napkin math says roughly 12 and a quarter years ago. (3195 - 1288 for total comics since, / 3 for number of weeks since, / 52 for number of years since, gets you 12.22 ish)

There’s some slightly more recent ones that are still many years old:

1625:

And 1697:

Lord, Channing Tatum. The Big Bang Theory. Truly from a different time.

I don’t get why these lazy one-off text replacement extensions keep making “tech news”. You can do this shit easily with a short userscript, and there are plenty of extensions for practically every browser that let you set your own text replacement settings. No need for individual extensions for each.

• slams -> literally disintegrates the bloodline of
• keyboard -> leopard
• cloud -> butt
• microsoft -> microslop
• 

At least at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe they bred and raised the cow to want to be eaten and to want to sell itself to customers.

Wait. No. That’s just absolutely fucked in a different way.

For anyone who hasn’t read the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy “trilogy” (of 5 or 6 books), the humor and social commentary still hold up. “Restaurant […]” is book two.

Lol, Palantir doesn’t care remotely enough to make an excuse like that. They’re openly proud of what they do.

Go ask the magic productivity fairy to magic you up some free productivity. Come on. All the business magazines swear the magic productivity fairy just hands out free productivity, so you must be doing something wrong.

Did you remember to add a drop of your blood to the milk saucer so you could bind it to your will? What about making a salt circle so it couldn’t run away? Did you do your chant in transliterated fae or in enochian?

How about “it’s entirely possible to automatically delay updates by a month and have the computer give you a one week warning before they install where you can push things back by up to a week every time it pops up indefinitely, so you have the time to set whatever settings you need to not get the suck?”

It’s not ideal, but the reality of a properly configured Windows system is significantly less harrowing than everyone online would have you believe.

Come on, you know the big businesses wouldn’t put up with this shit, so just look up how Windows and these things are managed in Enterprise environments.

Windows sucks. It’s a corporate product made by people with incentives to make it suck. But they also have incentives to give businesses ways around the suck so they don’t lose their market position. So use those tools. If you can manage Linux you absolutely can manage Group Policy and a few lines of PowerShell.

Then use Pro or Enterprise edition and GPO to disable those features, like every business environment should be doing.

If you can navigate Linux you can handle Group Policy, I promise.

I just effectively removed the limiter for the master bedroom shower. Wife enjoys being a lobster.

3/32" allen wrench, screwdriver, needlenose pliers, and about 10 minutes.

You can’t seriously be suggesting that lying to people about the sitaution is in any way helpful.

Fuck off and sow FUD elsewhere.