Well…that sent me down a rabbit hole. Thanks!

https://www.prepperdisk.com/pages/how-does-it-work

Would be nice if they’d offer downloads for the disk image. Or at least sell the disk image since I don’t need yet another Pi lol.

Minitel was ahead of its time in so many ways.

I don’t see what people’s problem with this is. It’s not like it’s anyone can just buy a blue check (unlike X). It’s just confirming that the account belongs to who it claims to be (like old Twitter verified users). I don’t know if that requires any payment, but it’s definitely not “Here’s $5 – okay, here’s your blue check”.

• During this initial phase, Bluesky is not accepting direct applications for verification," the company said.
• “As this feature stabilizes, we’ll launch a request form for notable and authentic accounts interested in becoming verified or becoming trusted verifiers.”

If I remember correctly, that’s pretty much exactly how old Twitter rolled out its original user verification.

From a de-centralized perspective, I’m not sure how that would work. I guess each instance would be in charge of verification and setting the “verified” flag for the account? The alternative would be some kind of central authority. Granted, I know little of Bluesky (microblogging is not my cup of tea), so I may be way off on my guesses there.

Lol, you know society screwed up when there’s a “Student Parking” section at your local elementary schools.

Black Mirror. Should. Not. Be. A. Roadmap.

Cunk on Earth also did a similar bit with Beethoven.

Does Charlie Brooker have some kind of enchanted typewriter that can influence the world or something?

Yeah, I don’t think the lack of a free ethernet port is their biggest obstacle here.

I do that already and have for years…? .doc and .docx work just fine.

Edit: The only issue I’ve had is one place requiring a specific font of all things. Was able to just install a free version of that, and was all set.

My understanding from the articles I read is that the whole platform ran on PHP 5.5, and porting from a version that old to current is no small task.

If they do, hopefully they flock to a single instance which is easily blockable

A deadly blow?

I hope so.

Will a copycat spring up?

History says yes, but if a loving god truly exists, one won’t.

Where are the users going in the meantime?

Hopefully outside.

Does any of this really matter?

Only if they bring their bullshit to the fediverse.

I know managers who swore by MS Project (2007 I think?), and I didn’t totally hate it myself. Haven’t really looked for an alternative, but also, haven’t needed to for the most part.

I wonder if it’s just that project management has changed since then, and everything is all Jira/Kanban boards now? I think most of our projects have been laid out in Trello-like software and Git issues/tasks for probably the last 8 or 9 years.

I think Windows 2000 was the last Windows version I actually liked. It went downhill from there until 8 when I finally jumped ship for good. If I recall, Office 2003 was pretty close to Office 2000, just not as “flat”. I’m just more familiar with 2003 since I had it on my own PC and only used Office 2000 in the labs at school (so I could be mistaken).

Gradient support on shapes was massively improved (more than 2 points on custom gradients), 3D bevels and rotation support was added

Can’t say that’s a feature I’ve ever really needed in an office suite, so am unable to confirm or deny LibreOffice can’t do it.

better effects on photos were introduced and you can remove backgrounds

That’s kind of outside the scope of a word processor / office suite. I just use GIMP and import it into the document.

In office 2019, you can also import and export Drawing objects to SVG

LibreOffice Draw (part of the suite) can create, edit, import, and export SVGs. LibreOffice writer can import and use them.

It sounds like you’re just complaining that other office suites don’t have a bunch of out-of-scope, unnecessary features bolted on. Definitely not worthy of condemning them over that.

A big one for me is Microsoft office (desktop), Libreoffice and other FOSS alternatives just simply don’t come close,

What, exactly, is missing? MS Office pretty much peaked, feature-wise, in like 2003 (or, arguably, 2007), and LibreOffice is ahead of that. I also find the workflow to be closer to “classic” Office and, to a slightly lesser extent, WordPerfect, which I appreciate.

You can even give LibreOffice the ribbon menu if you want (it’s in preferences somewhere). The default button icons may be rough (though recent versions have improve), but you can even customize those.

Yep. One of Cave’s recordings to the “astronauts, Olympians, and/or war heroes” in the old test tracks.

That’s the saddest, most pathetic idea I’ve ever heard.