It took me a few hours to make the start menu looks like this: https://i.ibb.co/R4pgrwBx/start-menu.png

Now it's clean, doesn't show any web results when I start typing there: https://i.ibb.co/KpNptJTq/start-menu2.png

It also starts instantly every time (that requires removing Edge and web results from there). I use it as an app launcher only. The only missing touch is a fuzzy search but I can live without it.

I've spent too much time on it. There are tools that do it for you if you trust them (like Windhawk).

>>I haven't used Win11 enough to discover how they have managed to further degrade the experience, but at least it looks nicer.

It's an anti-pattern over anti-pattern over anti-pattern. There is a trap waiting for you at every corner. At this point it's hard to imagine them not losing the whole consumer PC market to Apple and maybe some gaming friendly Linux distros. It will take a decade or so but once the snowball starts it will not turn back. I don't think it's only about power users only. They forced S0 sleep but didn't are about making sure it doesn't crash the system because of some misbehaving driver or failed Windows update. Normal users don't like seeing everything gone and the computer restarting when they open the lid. That doesn't happen on Macs. It won't happen on Valve sponsored Linux distro either.

I've spent several days trying to get Pro version to usable state. By usable I mean that it doesn't kill my work session because some random app I've never installed, used or asked for fails its auto-update in the middle of the day and kills the WSL process. It still has magically resetting settings so if you are not careful telemetry/ads/spying will be back on the menu. It still has hostile settings to keep your computer connected when it sleeps which are very hard to turn off.

There are multiple settings in Windows that are hidden which only appear in the menu when you add a registry entry. There are so many anti-patterns in Windows it feels like defending against a determined hacker who tries to make your life worse and is hunting for a slight misstep to turn the shit back on.

Group Policy Edit is the way to restrict many things. Disabling automatic updates helps. I have had forced reboots very rarely, I believe that were severe vulnerability fixes.

But my use case is never 24/7, I hibernate it overnight and every time I leave for longer than going to a grocery shop, and I have several Proxmox boxes with proper OSes for hosting stuff. Windows + WSL is my dev/media/web/files/OneDrive machine, a compact silent SFF box that is powerful enough for 90+% of my daily tasks. Lately I try Linux Desktop on Fedora/Ubuntu with every major version, however RDP server and secure boot that I can trust to work and not break myself - these things remain unsatisfactory.

I disabled auto updates by pinning the target version in group policy and then finding some hacks on the web to make it always ask before download. I've run many other random scripts and then found Windhawk to remove more annoyances (taskbar and sections of start menu).

I then shut down more things and disabled Bluetooth on lock. It is now usable and doesn't crash but feels very fragile. I will soon face dilemma of allowing "feature" updates or be out of security ones.

Why are OTAs entitled to sell Ryanair tickets in the first place?

They can't do it having access to the code but somehow people without access to the code [1] can still hack the solution and actually not only move it but also personalize it, change its size, use small/big icons or, my personal preference, hide it so it never appears by moving the mouse alone (only if you ask for it pressing Windows key).

[1] - https://windhawk.net/

Utility is no longer a core design principle in Silicon Valley these days.

Other than changing my mouse cursor to a circle that just makes it unintuitive to use can someone explain the point of a circle in the right upper corner that expands automatically into two icons: search and a hamburger menu? The "saved" space is not used for anything anyway. Isn't it just a bad design that makes navigation harder for no reason?

Clickable elements seem to be underlined with the exception of one: the Google Design logo in the left upper corner. It seems inconsistent and confusing.

Are those new principles of designing things - making it more confusing and more difficult to find (and then click) for 0 gain?

EDIT: also scrolling all the way down is difficult because random stuff block the page, gets loaded. There is "Privacy & Terms" link at the bottom that is impossible to reach because of it. The design is just terrible, wtf Google?

I am asking the models to generate an image where fictional characters play chess or Texas Holdem. None of them can make a realistic chess position or poker game. Always something is off like too many pawns or too may cards, or some cards being ace-up when they shouldn't be.

We are comparing it to WhatsApp that lags (very significantly) on keyboard input and doesn't even have a way to paste code.

If you apply automatic tax on bonds people will just not buy them unless you also increase their returns. It's a pointless exercise. Same goes for stocks, it's just a bit bigger circle in this case. Capital gain tax is just a bad tax that distorts decisions and make things less efficient for no reason. It's much better to tax resources (mainly land but also infrastructure usage) and charge for enforcement of IP/patents.

WSL2, Neovim, LSPs, Brave Browser, fzf, yt-dlp - just the ones I've used today.

>>makefiles

They are hard to debug and I never could make the compilation as fast as with CMake (which sucks for many other reasons). Hopefully Zig build system will make both obsolete in the near future.