yeah, I appreciate the push towards more privacy-centric search engines but as a result searches that are relevant to me geographically on places like startpage are next to useless. I understand why but I wish that local results were a bit better on the alternatives.

Typing this from an 11th gen intel framework right now --

I've upgraded a few things (namely the CNC shell, the hinges, and the speaker) and it's pretty painless. I have some experience repairing electronics though -- but not a ton -- and it's been generally pleasant. I had some issues with my batch that required more work than I think it probably should have, including an RMA at one point, but that was a few years ago and it seems most of the problems have been ironed out. You can swap out any parts you want and the compatability has been really good, both for hardware and software. You can upgrade any model with any of their components, it's a whole ecosystem, so buy a config that's accessible to you and upgrade it then. Everything you asked about being able to do you should be able to do no problem, there's nothing unique to the framework computers that would stop that from being the case. If gaming is your usecase though, get an AMD machine (or get one of the new 16 inch notebooks, I have a 13 inch one which doesn't have the space for a dedicated graphics card, so gaming performance has taken a hit accordingly). Hopefully that helps!

Oh I bet, and fwiw I think that's a pretty good estimate of that bell curve -- I'm just on the tail end of it, so I got to see an actual decline in tech literacy in the people literally in my immediate orbit. It was an interesting experience, for sure

I was born in 98, my brother was born in 2000. The level of computer literacy just between the two of us is astounding. While a lot of my aptitude with computers stems from a personal interest, even growing up many of my peers were relatively tech savvy -- as far as laypeople go. But people in my brother's grade in school, people just two years younger than me, i noticed a meaningful difference in how they interact with computers vs how people I spent the formative years of my life around do. It's insane.

Cis men have hormonal cycles too, it's just not accompanied by your body contracting rapidly or you bleeding out of your privates so men get to pretend they don't have cycles

As someone that's put a lot of time into platform fighters and grew up on Nickelodeon, the character designs in that game are so void of personality and it makes me sad. Aang barely moves like the avatar, he just kind of generically slings around elemental attacks. It's really frustrating how much potential they let languish

Multiversus has that overproduction stank all over it, so it being this void of sauce as it were isn't surprising, but NASB is the one I feel actively kind of betrayed by

Lemmy is better, but the communities I care the most about and want to give the most to aren't on lemmy, so I don't really have the luxury of using it quite as much as I'd like. I do like it here, though

The sad thing is like, it's an INCREDIBLY mature piece of software. It's well regarded for a reason. But if a piece of software requires that I fight with it to get it to behave how I want, that maturity has zero value at all. It kind of feels like a microcosm of Linux itself like 10-15 years ago, when I was tinkering with it in middle and high school. It's functional, but it asks you as a user to change how you think about using something like it in the first place while also forcing you to make concessions that seldom seem worthwhile.

And if Linux at large can get there, with things like proton and flatpak and Wayland and mature desktop environments and whatever else, gimp can too. But it seems like it's got a contributor base of people that like it's weird eccentricities, and take the UX development companies like Adobe and affinity (now canva) have invested and just shirked it on principal. And like, I get having an aversion to those sorts of companies/projects/developments, there's a lot of dark patterns there that are concerning. But I also feel like the kind of Linux user that defends and possibly enjoys GIMP in its current state is content fighting with their machine and the software on it, and forgets that there's value in taking joy in interacting with your computer. Good UI and good UX are implicitly valuable (not to mention the accessibility benefits, but that's a whole different conversation), and I feel the FOSS space forgets all of that completely. It's a shame.

The demographics are stratifying, more than anything. I work in child education and kids do not understand computers nowadays. They understand how to interface with their phones, but kids see any electronic that behaves outside the "app" paradigm -- landlines, desktop computers, what have you, and immediately don't understand. I do think that linux usership is going to go up, but there also needs to be an investment in increasing literacy in kids to make sure usership of linux stays up, otherwise the pendulum will swing back hard

the UI for GIMP is so horrifically bad that I basically refuse to use it. Not like, on principal or anything, if it improves i'd be happy to give it a shot, but because every experience I've had with it has been pretty immediately negative, and finding solutions to problems I have seems more effort than its worth. I want gimp to be good, it's a mature piece of software with a lot going for it, but it also feels like its design is kind of up its own ass, in a sense? It's weird.

This is literally the only reason I've kept using reddit. I hate reddit, but I love the communities I'm involved in and I want to give back to them. As someone that's at least a little recognizable, I can't do that on the fediverse, and that sucks. I'm doing my best to encourage people to move over to this side of the fediverse, as well as continuing to use it myself (granted, more mastodon than lemmy, given more of the communities I'm a part of congregate there -- anime fans, namely) but it sucks that the exodus wasn't as big as I'd hope. But i'm doing my best to contribute to the trickle of users over to a part of the internet that does actively feel more joyful than the wastelands of other services. It's a slow process, I just wish it wasn't so slow-going

More pokemon makes the game objectively better, especially if you care about newer generations for any reason at all

and even if the game hasn't evolved much, a cute game that encourages me and my partner to go on more walks together is a net positive in my life lol

that makes sense. bit of a bummer, engagement is the fun part for me, but also it makes sense that'd be a huge undertaking to mirror that

what's the extent of the lemmit mirror? like, how much can i interact with content mirrored to lemmit?

Please don't come for my throat like this without my consent

I really love my framework laptop, even if I spend a majority of my computing time on my desktop. It's just a nice piece of hardware and there's like a genuine mental ease I get out of knowing I can fix my shit without needing to rma it if something small and dumb goes wrong. Also, as someone who got the version with the shitty hinge weight and bad speakers, being able to upgrade them was nice. It's cool being able to upgrade components like that.

But with all that praise, God the firmware is a mess. After hearing reports of how bad the battery life gets on Linux I've been basically restricted into using windows. And I use windows on my main desktop, I don't hate windows 11 like many others, but I'd like the option to use Linux on my laptop and with their software/firmware as it is, I basically just don't have that luxury. I hope they talk the talk with making these changes, but it seems like framework has done that so far so I'm genuinely hopeful. Just hope it's on a reasonable time table, too

do chinese players keep their accounts on these servers from before the wipe? I'm a hearthstone player and I remember feeling so bad for the players that had invested all that time to build all those decks and collect all those cards and then suddenly they just poofed out of existence.

I don't expect that data to have been preserved, but it'd be nice for the CN playerbase of blizz games to actually get their account back

honest to god if I wasn't a valorant player or looking forward to 2XKO as a fighting game enjoyer I'd likely have made the switch to linux a long time ago, linux stocks are way up (metaphorically speaking) and windows is just like. Fine? I don't mind windows 11 but I just feel increasingly like I have less reason to be on it.

thank you! do you have any resources for someone new to using i2p?

it happens, they're super close :) i know I've made worse mistakes lol