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Title: Trendy Thoughts

Published: 2021-05-10 14:30

Author: Rev. Fr. Robert Bower

Tag:

layout: blog

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It is Monday, May 10th, and I am finally getting around to listening to this past weekend's Trendy Talk.

I type this up as I listen so lets hold on for a wild ride.

Trendy Talk Team, which one is high, is a study of Venn Diagrams.

XFCE I don't use the desktop but it XFCE-4-Terminal is my default terminal.

My reply to the Gnome discussion.

Gnome is the Borg of the Desktops. It will assimilate your machine. If you do not login to the Gnome Desktop it should not control your settings. But it does. I remember when I had Gnome on my machine it would control settings in other desktop managers so to actually change some settings in XFCE you had to change it in XFCE and in Gnome for the setting to actually to change. Its because Gnome would have some daemon running controlling that particular setting even though you were not in Gnome.

Convergence

I have a slightly different take on convergence. If we divide users into two groups electronic consumers and technical users. Technical users will also use the PC, the mobile devices will be used by the technical users but they will never replace the PC. The electronics consumer is an appliance user. They bought stereos to play music, TVs to watch visual presentations, VCRs, DVD players to watch movies. They want to know how to do the task they want and nothing more. The electronics consumer became a PC user in to 90s and beyond because the PC was a multiple faceted appliance that could do many of the recreational, leisure, and some work activities they wanted to participate in, the Internet became a way to talk to others, the family encyclopedia, a way to consume entertainment, to type a paper for work or school. There was a time when the PC was the only appliance that could do some or all of those things. Now the smart phone and the tablet compete with the PC for the electronics consumer. The tablet and the smart phone have become simple and easy to care for appliances to do the tasks the electronics consumer wants. With the drop in PC sales you can see how smart phones and tablets have taken the electronics consumer away from the PC. One can easily see how the smart phone could become an extendable appliance for the electronics consumer taking the place of the tablet, book reader, smart TV. Two things will cause this to happen. First price point, will an extendable smartphone with all it attachments be a better deal than separate devices. The second is compatibility. The PC was and is so successful because of compatibility of components. Any brand of an IDE drive would fit in any brand of PC that had an IDE port. The PC platform allowed the mixing and matching of hardware. That is why the PC format took the market share over competitors like Apple and Commodore. While tablets and phones use either Android or IOS. There is not that compatibility with external hardware within a OS Family. You can buy dongles for tablets and phones that provide wired Ethernet, HDMI ports, USB ports, and charging ports. You are rolling the dice if it will work with your phone or tablet. Most manufacturers openly state that there is no guarantee the device may work with your phone. Too many phones customize their devices so there is no way to know for sure if an external device will work with your phone. Granted some of the compatibility can be dealt with through wireless protocols. The other compatibility issue is the compatibility within Android. Google and Android devices try to lock the consumer into their ecosystem. While you can certainly have the Amazon store, Google Play, and F-Droid on the same device, it is not a job that can be done by the electronics consumer. Until the compatibility issue is addressed with a set of standards I don't see a convergence of consumer devices.

EnduraPro

I watched Hex's review of the EnduraPro and this sounds like a great keyboard. I remember the days of IBM Keyboard and those keyboards were great. The only thing I see as a downside of this keyboard is there is no way to negative tilt this keyboard. I found as an one handed typist and being a bit long in the tooth a negative tilt is much more comfortable.

Pleroma

I have never done Fediverse, so Pleroma is outside my sphere.

Right now I am happy with Lace and currently I am also over at Station, gemini://station.martinrue.com/frrobert giving it a spin. If Lace is Twitter for Gemini, Station is Facebook for Gemini.

I will have to check out Drew's instance of Pleroma.

Owncast

Owncast sounds like a great way to self host your videos. Since I have a face for radio and a voice for silent movies I think I will stick to my Gemini capsule.

Trendy Talk Live

I may have to get up early to watch a Trendy Talk live stream.

Twitch

I tried to watch it and I just couldn't do it. The site is like trying to listen to a discussion in a carnival.

Debian

I have been a full time Linux user since 2006 and always have used Debian based distros. Check the previous log entry for my thought on Debian based distros.

AppImage

I am still mostly a "use the repos" or "compile from source" kind of guy but if I am going to use a prepack I like AppImage. One single file that you mark executable and off you go. No need for any other helper software. If you want to sandbox it I use Firejail.

Gemini

I think I may have as much content as Hex on my Gemini site minus config files. I definitely have more scripts that run on the site. I use Molly Brown as my Gemini server.

Full Titles

You don't need to use a priest's full most of the time. When a priest signs a letter he may use his full title and when you send a letter to a priest you would use his full title. Ninety-nine percent you will just call him Father (Name), for example, I would be just Father Robert.

KFC

The only People that eat KFC are people than cannot find a Popeye's.

McDonald's

I am so old, I remember when McDonald's tag was you could get a burger, fries, and a drink and still get change back from your dollar.

GitHub

My usage predates MS and I too lazy to leave.

Languages

Fortran!!!!!! The language I learned after basic.

Computer Games

I don't play games really but the very first computer game I played was Star Trek by Mike Mayfield. I played the BASIC port on a Digital Mini connected to five teletype machines. If you hunt online you can still find it.

Zettelkasten ID **trendythoughts-2021-05-10-1430**