My monitors are over a decade old and are still perfectly fine. I’ll upgrade to 1440p/144 Hz when I start seeing dead pixels or some other failure.

They have DVI ports and all my stuff is too new for DVI so I’m on the adapter diet lol

There was a promotion around at the time where if you bought a Windows 7 laptop within a certain time frame, you could get $25 off your Windows 8 Pro license, which cost $40 on launch day.

And so on launch day, I paid $15 for my retail copy of Windows 8 Pro and installed it on my new PC.

Everyone shits on Win 8, but I had some shell extension that brought back the Win 7 start menu so I have somewhat fond memories of Win 8. I almost never had to deal with the Metro Start Screen.

My thing is I’ve got years of experience in Linux. I began using Ubuntu in 2012 because my laptop’s hard disk failed, the sticker with my product key had worn away, and I wasn’t paying $100 for another copy of Windows 7.

I’ve only been noncommittal about it this this long because of my Steam library. But with the Steam Deck and Proton being so damn good, and all my games working just as well on Linux as they did in Windows (many times, better), I just stopped using Windows altogether.

So there I was, staring at GNOME Disks for a couple hours. Knowing that like a bad relationship that was doing something for me, but also hurting me, it was best to break things off. And then I nuked that bitch lol

I finally deleted Windows 10 on Sunday. Ubuntu too. Now Debian is my only OS. I realized that every time I log into my Windows partition, it’s got a trillion updates to install because it’d been weeks since I last logged in. So why bother?

If I really need it for something again, I’ll just virtualize.

I’m under no illusion Ubuntu is perfect. But I PAID for my Windows licenses. And if I paid, I don’t want to see ads. I don’t care about Win 8’s penetrative pricing model or the $25 coupon. I don’t care that I paid for my licenses 10+ years ago. Don’t sell me ads on a product I paid for. And Windows serves up ads all the god damned time now. If there’s anything good to be said about Windows 8, it’s that it didn’t take every opportunity to sell me an Office 365 subscription ever second breath I took. I don’t actually remember the last time I saw an ad in Ubuntu, and I’ve been using it to varying degrees since 2011. I think we can at least agree Canonical is better than Microsoft, yeah?

All that said, I’ve had thoughts of switching to plain old Debian, especially now that I’d consider myself much more experienced and comfortable in Linux. But if I were recommending a distro to a new user, I am one million percent telling them Ubuntu or Mint, depending on how they feel about the Windows UI.

Good thing I use Ubuntu for >90% of my computing now.

Undertale is the game I want to experience for the first time again. Can’t believe that game is already 8 years old. The music is brilliant. The characters are all compelling. The storytelling is stellar. The graphics…they get the job done lol

Napstablook was great. Especially once you find out who his neighbor was and a bit more about why he’s so depressed. I lied on the floor with him for a solid 20 minutes on my first playthrough. Probably one of the best minor characters ever.

ETA (four hours later lol): The Bioshock trilogy as well. Booker and Elizabeth are imo the best duo ever. Plus the twist in Infinite is a special kind of mind fuck.

I have a Homebrew Wii that I got set up about 10 or so years ago. Homebrew Wii can run lots of stuff. With emulation, it plays any 2D Nintendo game really well. I haven’t tried N64 emulation on it yet, but I imagine it’s pretty good.

Then it has hardware support for the entire GameCube library.

Basically Homebrew Wii can play every Nintendo game up to its own generation.

Well, it replaced an R9 290 so you might be waiting a while for me to get in touch lmao

I’ve got an RTX 4070 and a 4790K. I’m fully prepared for my CPU to have a really hard time keeping up. I think an upgrade will be coming early next year.

This is just a game I’m really really really excited about.

Hey man, I know it’s been 3 months and idk why I’m only just now seeing this, but you’re a lifesaver. Thanks for the tip. It worked!

I still have the copy I bought with some lawn mowing money in 2005. It’s aged very well. I’m excited for some of the younger folks to get to play this absolute masterpiece.

I wonder if they’ll be removing Danger Mario as a possible strat.

I have to respectfully disagree here. I would like to be able to choose what that color is. I HATE when I use a picture of my orange cat for a background and all my apps are brown.

If there’s some way to override it and choose your own color, I haven’t found it.

Tablet computers. My thoughts on the first iPad were that it does everything a laptop, an iPod, and a Kindle all do, but worse. Next thing I knew, they were everywhere. I think traditional laptops are making something of a comeback, though.

My wife has an iPad and after using it for a bit, yeah I get it.

Cities Skylines II

I first played Infinite in college and the game took me about 15 hours to complete on PC. That game is a work of frickin art. One of the prettiest ever made.

I actually only just played BioShock 1 & 2 for the first time recently because the whole series was on sale in the Nintendo store for dirt cheap. So I ended up playing the whole series on our Switch while my wife watched. She’s more of a watcher than a player. I’ve been loving her watching me play the new Zelda. It’s cute.

In my experience, Jerboa is like 85% there. It is buggy sometimes, but it’s much easier for me to use. It also has a true dark mode which looks fantastic on an OLED.

Need for Speed Most Wanted was my JAM in 2005 or so. That game was just so damn cool. It made me want an E46 M3 GTR for basically all of my childhood.

I grew up basically worshipping the N64. Mario Kart, Ocarina, Majora, both Pokemon Stadiums, Mario 64, Paper Mario, GoldenEye, Wave Race, Perfect Dark, Mario Party…Not a whole lot of games, but the good ones are some of the best of the time.

Using a custom launcher is still one of Android’s best features.

I also love having the app drawer. I keep the ten apps I use most frequently on my home screen. Firefox, Maps, PowerAmp, Phone, Messages, YouTube, Amazon Music, my bank… And everything else lives in the app drawer. I worked hard on getting a good wallpaper. I want to see it. That’s what I liked least about my old iPod Touch. Once you have a fair few apps, you can’t see the wallpaper anymore. If it’s not important enough to go on my home screen, I don’t mind grabbing it from my app drawer. Plus, I use Nova + Sesame to search. So just pulling up search and typing the first two letters gets me what I want 99.9% of the time.

I can’t find shit on my wife’s iPhone. I pull up Spotlight by default. I also do this on her MacBook because at least half the time I’m using it, I’m playing around in Terminal.

The 8, 9, and 10 just aren’t exciting phones to me. A battery is some $11 and the back is $31 for parts. I figure once labor goes in, we’re probably sitting at 125-150. Maybe 200. I don’t know how their repair program works exactly, but I’ve been curious to give it a spin.

Besides, replacing the battery will make it feel like new again. If I buy a used phone, I’m getting a used battery. And once the parts are replaced, I’m getting the same device back. No migrating libraries or reinstalling apps. Just back it up and mail it off. I have a spare phone I can use for a few weeks in the meantime.

OnePlus 7T

I love this phone. I thought it’d take longer than it actually did to get used to not having a home button anymore, but I adapted in less than an hour. Love how OxygenOS is very close to stock Android. The glass on the back is super slick. Everything is super slick to me. My hands are chronically dry. So I hate all these glass-backed phones.

I’ve previously used a OnePlus 3, OnePlus One, Samsung Galaxy S4, Motorola Photon 4G, and a Motorola RAZR ve20. I loved my Galaxy. It was my first OLED experience. My OnePlus One felt like kind of a downgrade, but it also allowed me to stop having to sign contracts to get an affordable phone in 2015. Plus, back then, it felt like being a part of something new and exciting. Man I miss Cyanogenmod.

I upgrade basically whenever I need to. The phone I have now is ~3½ years old. The back glass is busted and the battery is starting to lose its life. They will repair it and so I’m thinking of sending it in. I can picture myself using this phone on another 3-4 years barring some kind of carrier stupidity.

No other Android devices. I’m an otherwise Windows/Ubuntu person. Started trying Mint recently. I do have a Fitbit.

I used to have a 4th gen iPod Touch circa 2011 before I got my Photon 4G. iOS 6 ran like crap on it and I was around the corner from building my first PC. I had started using my Android phone for my games and music and such so I just didn’t have a use for it anymore. Sold it off and I haven’t owned an Apple product since.