I'm Hiding 🇦🇺

I would argue modern MacOS is not “bad software” per se, it’s just nothing to write home about. Back in the heyday you describe, it was innovative and quite spectacular compared to the competition. Nowadays it’s rivals are better featured in many respects, but it still does everything it needs to.

They acquired K-9 Mail a year ago or so, but it’s still K-9 Mail. There’s plans and a roadmap, but not much has happened that the end user can see, yet.

It’s alright. Personal preference has me sticking with Linux, and I’ll never touch Windows with a ten foot pole if I can avoid it, but MacOS is certainly commendable.

Before I went Linux, I daily drove hackintoshes for a decade or so - back when the hardware was bad and the software was first class. Now it’s the other way around!

If Asahi ever get their kernel perfect, I’m definitely buying a modern MacBook Pro. No doubt about it.

It really does just sort of “work”.

“Sorry, there was a problem. (Error code 0x0000fkn69)”

Nothing Microsoft makes ever works.

And one of the last major holdouts from web 1.0 :(

As an Australian I had a heart attack before I read the title.

You don’t just pick up a handful of redbacks, you fool! You kill them with fire and sleep with one eye open for the next month!

Pixel 5 and Zenphone come to mind, too.

Yet the most popular new cars sold are V8s that weigh 2.5 tonnes and are the size and shape of a brick shithouse. In this country, you can’t even buy a small, economical hatchback new anymore, even if you had the money.

Fuel costs in the 1970s were never anymore than 40¢/Litre, yet that was the “fuel crisis” and the driving force behind econo-boxes. Now at $2.20/Litre, Ford of Australia only sell two whopping big utes, a van, and three ugly SUVs.

My car is old enough to have kids my age, but at least I’ll never have to take it to a mechanic. No computers means I can do everything from valve timing to gearbox rebuilds myself, and parts are dirt cheap because they’re being thrown out all the time.

Of course, I’m on Linux, so I actually can do that

On an unrelated note, meet my daily driver!

(Complete with sounds, boot screen and login screen.)

Remember, people complained Windows XP was a Fisher-Price OS. I don’t think this redesign will affect Reddit long-term, unfortunately.

Waze and Magic Earth both work, are both free, and both support speed display while driving.

It’s crazy to think that a little over two decades ago, Microsoft was almost broken up for selling an operating system and a web browser. How monopolistic!

But there’s nothing else out there! It’s a complete void!

You can either bring in a 25 year old one, or rebody a local Chevy SS or Pontiac G8 with a ute shell.

Can you get away with MirrorLink? Truthfully I’ve never tried it, and I’m pretty sure it’s dead if not dying, but it was always going to be my fallback if I found a way to leave Google (or potentially Android entirely).

Especially when they’re in one of those God-ugly American Pickup Trucks with headlights that are right at eye level for anyone in a normal car. Even being followed by a forty year old Mack semi isn’t nearly as bad, because they’ve at least got sealed beam headlights.

I’m actually quite pleased with what I’ve ended up with now. One of the features of the Postfix / Dovecot server I’m running now is that I have recipient delimiters - for example, if my email is hiding@aussie.zone, I can sign up for Mastodon with hiding+mastodon@aussie.zone, and everything they send me will be automatically filed into the Mastodon folder in my account. Additionally, I know exactly who is selling my data this way. It’s a great system and avoids the unfortunate predicament you currently find yourself in!

They did kill it for me. I was grandfathered into the G Suite software because I signed up back when it was free. Last year they turned around and said “we know we told you that, as an early adopter, you could have this forever; but now we’re kicking you out unless you start paying.”

And then they killed IMAP access (without oauth) moments later. Fortunately I was fast enough to set up my own mail server and copy my family’s emails, photos, documents, etc. out of Google. I haven’t trusted them since.