They actually already do that. Many schools will have dedicated exam rooms setup (some are even certified by Pearson) where you empty your pockets before entering, cameras are trained on you while you take the test, recorded for future review if needed, the computer is configured to be locked down to only the test site and there’s a test proctor actively monitoring as well.

Honestly just give me a printed packet in a classroom with a teacher watching the test takers any day

Except it has gotten that bad and worse I’ve seen other articles detailing similar ransoms and physical beatings to steal folks cryptocurrencies

What happened to all of your 'th’s? Something with a localized keyboard?

The funkiest part here is a lot of big tech keeps acting more and more like an abusive partner.

Gaslights you regarding your desires and choices, tries to get you to stop using any other service so you only use theirs, demands increasing amounts of ad views/dollars in exchange for decreasing quality of service, makes it intentionally difficult to leave etc.

So while comparing the choice to not install a new OS on your computer to an abusive relationship is weird, there’s also some parralels that are getting even weirder

From my MSP and corporate experience it definitely depends on the organization for how viable migrating some users to Linux might be.

I’ve seen some organizations that could be migrated tomorrow if the political will was there, and I’ve seen some organizations where all but 5 of the computer users are running CAD software and interfacing with architectural plotters.

Realistically it all relies on the political will to try something new. With the digital sovereignty push in Europe there’s suddenly a ton of political will to try something new and not just buy whatever Microsoft is selling like many orgs have done for the last nearly 3 decades. It’s also convenient that Microsoft is trying to say tons of perfectly capable machines are ewaste so there’s significant cost savings available to these orgs by switching if they have enough older machines in use still

Who’s holding a gun to your head and forcing you to play games with anticheat?!

Now you’re expecting both an operating system and lifestyle change of people. Are you hearing yourself?

Depends on the organization. During my time at an MSP I saw plenty of orgs that could be switched to Linux tomorrow if the desire arose because everything happens in a web browser, but I also saw orgs where virtually every computer user was using different verieties of CAD so compatibility with both CAD and their fancy architectural plotters was business critical

The important part in business is to not alienate that one power user who does insane Excel magic and singlehandedly keeps the entire company afloat. There’s always one or two of them in any company over a given size

The web version of MS Office is similar enough that for 95% of users it’s no different, but for the other 5% they rely on functionality that hasn’t been ported yet

That said I do think more corporations should be considering Linux as an option for some of their systems. Too many admins insist on installing Windows on everything, refuse to learn Linux and then in the next breath bitch and moan about Microsoft making their lives miserable

They’re out and about. Whereas there’s an undeniable mass of socially inept users that streaming specifically caters to.

Funnily enough this goes both ways. At the first streamer awards there were a lot of jokes about how many of the streamers attending needed a shower and a good number of them showed up in the same clothing they stream in, which is not really appropriate for a publicly broadcast award ceremony

Hey that’s me! I’m one of those 5k new installs!

I ran a mix of Xubuntu and Linux Mint full time for a few years but switched back to Windows just a few weeks before Valve started releasing the crazy updates to proton in the lead up to the Steam Deck launch. I have one laptop which still has the same Linux Mint install that I did a few years ago too! But I ultimately switched back because a couple of games I enjoy were either a royal pain on Linux or did not work at all, plus I’d tinkered with my installs to death so they all had some wild issues that I never could pin down.

Decided with the Windows 10 EOL date that I’d try out Bazzite and see if I liked it, and honestly I expected to have found a blocker by now but everything I keep trying keeps working flawlessly, and I even got a couple of 25 year old games that don’t even work on Windows working flawlessly on Linux with just a couple of toggle switches in Proton

start taking apart things that are no longer necessary to build the things that are

Hey finally a good use for all of those cars, grab the alternators out for small generators (since bicycles are the ultimate apocalypse vehicle: simple, small, easy to maintain and don’t require complex fuels)

Nah I think Ubuntu is more Mormon than anything. It’s heavily influenced by other branches like Protestant and Catholic but also spends a bunch of time going and doing it’s own thing that everyone else agrees is weird and different and probably wrong

Since I started actually doing system administration and actually interacting directly with SystemD all of the hate for it I’d soaked up from enthusiast forums melted away. I’ve never used any of the other init systems so maybe I’m missing out, but I do appreciate SystemD for what it does

I was a “socks at all times” person but then I learned my constant sock wearing was causing some minor foot problems and found love for the feeling of my feet being free of socks so now I’m strictly “socks exactly half of the time” kinda person. My family isn’t sure what to make of actually seeing my bare feet from time to time now since neither they nor I ever did see my feet before very recently

This is true, but most software that could does not yet interface with the TPM, so in real world usage it’s basically only the Microsoft account authentication token and bitlocker keys

Another note related to the TPM being a silly requirement, across a fleet of about 1000 windows 11 PCS, in a six month period I saw about 5 had TPMs corrupt themselves and require a reset and one otherwise perfectly functioning laptop have it’s TPM entirely die. Which isn’t a horrendous infant mortality rate, but for the thing that stores your bitlocker keys you’d hope for better reliability, and it’s sad to see perfectly functioning hardware get replaced due to such an unnecessary component failing

While idle RAM usage can be an indicator of background load, RAM that’s not in use is RAM wasted. Best is for idle memory to cache files, libraries and programs for faster load times than to sit unused

The TPM is mostly used to store bitlocker keys and Microsoft account tokens. If you’re not using bitlocker nor a Microsoft account, the TPM is basically just sitting there doing nothing. The security afforded by the TPM is not needed by most users. The only users whose threat model would be improved by a TPM are users who are at risk of their locked PC being acquired by an advanced threat actor desperate enough for the information stored on it to attempt a cold boot or similar attack. Basically only executives and government officials who travel with their work laptops need TPM and the full secure boot chain. For 99.99% of Windows users it’s just additional hassle and expense for no added benefit

I just want to know why I can only click on the date on the main monitor to view the calendar. Why? It’s such a workflow killer when I’m scheduling something and trying to check what day of the week it’s happening on. Takes multiple clicks on the non-main monitor before I realize what’s happening every time

So super short version is a conservative dude or three tried to create /c/conservative and were immediately drowned out and made fun of, then they transferred moderation to others who now use it to make fun of republicans

I don’t work in healthcare and I have not needed gender affirming care myself so I can only rely on what I hear from the trans folks I know, and none of them had an easy time getting the healthcare they need. Everything I’ve heard indicates that it takes multiple years to begin receiving any kind of gender affirming healthcare outside of psychological so it’s not something people are going to go through on a whim. They have to be feeling a fairly significant amount of dysphoria to go through that much medical gaslighting and reach the first actually medical step of a prescription for HRT. But transgender, just like gender and sexuality is a spectrum. Some folks don’t want to do more than socially transition, some folks want to go all in but some will skip some procedures, and some are absolutely 100% and need to completely transition

There have however been actual pushes to try to create discorse exactly matching what you said “I’m not against trans people, I just think it’s too easy for kids to permanently modify their bodies for a fad!” And of course the more extreme version “you send you kid to school and they home fully transitioned! And if you try to do anything about it they tell you you’re endangering your child!” So definitely don’t trust anyone trying to spread this discourse