And frustratingly, it’s different in each car. Sometimes it’s in the center console, sometimes it’s behind the infotainment system, and sometimes it’s buried under the dash somewhere. Sometimes you’ll get lucky and it’ll have its own fuse, and other times it’ll cause issues depending on which part you disconnect (SIM vs antenna).

It really sucks.

And probably won’t be one. If you want it, use Proton.

I use their paid tier mostly for custom domains. Tuta gives me 3 custom domains and Proton only offers 1 on their respective base paid plans, so Tuta gets my business.

I don’t think the encryption difference matters all that much, what matters to me is:

• FOSS clients
• custom domains (so I can easily switch providers or self-host); I need at least two
• local decryption

Tuta provides those, Proton doesn’t, and I don’t need the extra features Proton provides, so Tuta gets my money. I just wish Tuta had a few minor more features, like:

• labels - allegedly in development
• better calendar sharing - I’d love to sync NextCloud and Tuta calendar automatically
• reply as Gmail/etc - makes it much easier to switch from other providers, probably nothing they can do though
• features to make it easier to leave - auto forwards and whatnot

It meets my needs though.

Can’t confirm, I love the Yakuza series largely because of their incredible cutscenes. They have an incredible trifecta:

• challenging boss fights
• fun side content
• top tier cutscenes

And I honestly don’t think USB-A is that bad, especially on a laptop where I can look at the cable and put the solid part on the bottom. It’s really annoying on desktops with vertical ports on the back that I can’t see while plugging in a cable.

USB-C costs more and is totally overkill for most peripherals where speed really isn’t a concern. I really don’t care if my keyboard is USB-A or USB-C, I plug it in once and I’m done (on my laptop, it’s to a USB-C hub). Likewise for a mouse. I do care for external SSDs, so mine is USB-C. I don’t care for charging my headphones or other small wearables, I just leave the charging cable in the hub/desktop. I do care about my monitor, and that’s either USB-C (work) or DisplayPort (home desktop).

Both ports are fine. USB-A is a lot cheaper, so I’d rather pay less than force everything to be USB-C for reasons.

• I like USB-A
• RJ45 is important to me
• the only USB-C I use are my hub, work monitor, and power adapter

USB-A and RJ45 have far more value to me than a third USB-C. I’ve only ever used 2x USB-C at the same time, whereas my USB-C hub is crammed with non-USB-C ports.

There are USB-C peripherals though. I just did a quick check for “USB-C <thing>” (tried mouse, keyboard, and drive) and found plenty of options. The USB-A devices are frequently cheaper, probably because USB-A compliance is a lot easier than USB-C compliance, which translates to cheaper products.

If the market doesn’t jump to support USB-C, it’s probably because it’s either too expensive or customers don’t care. If neither is the case, the companies that make USB-C devices would make a killing and everyone else would rush to catch up.

I personally slightly prefer USB-C, but I don’t need everything to be USB-C. USB-A still works fine, and they work especially well w/ my older devices. What benefits do I get by switching to USB-C? Having everything the same is nice, but how much is that actually worth when it comes to extra costs?

I honestly don’t really see that as a problem. If customers really want USB-C, they’ll buy USB-C peripherals and USB-A will drop off naturally. But if USB-A peripherals are more attractive (i.e. cheaper), then I see no problem with both continuing to exist. Let the people decide, don’t force USB-C down their throats…

Good point. Does the same hold for popular VPS services? I’m behind CGNAT so I need a VPS regardless, but others may prefer to have it at a VPS if they want to mitigate extended service disruption (i.e. equipment dies while they’re on vacation).

Yup. My SO speaks another language, so we absolutely feel this.

What’s wrong with having the option?

The E14 and T14 still have them as well, and that’s what I’m interested in. I used to buy T-series, but they started soldering the RAM, so I switched to E-series for my last one. I don’t know if they solder RAM on the E14 though, they probably do.

I really miss my T440, which had a fantastic keyboard, but my E495 is still better than my Macbook Pro (hate that keyboard) and pretty much every other laptop I’ve used. Not sure how the newer Thinkpads are, but I definitely don’t want those ultra-thin keyboards so many vendors are going with.

And yeah, I’ll probably go AMD again, I want the APU perf and don’t want a dGPU.

Exactly! What are you going to do if your router dies (or you mess something up fiddling w/ things)? I may only need it once/year or so, but when I do, it’s really important and I most likely can’t find the dongle.

An RJ-45 port could totally fit on there if they used one of those flip-down things that Dell has on their professional line.

You have options.

I don’t. We have standardized on Macbook Pros at work because otherwise we’d have to use the company-issued image, which really sucks for development work (multi-day turnaround to get anything approved).

I’m interested in replacing my current laptop (E495 Thinkpad), and it’s really hard to find anything sensible w/ an RJ-45 port, especially one w/ decent Linux support. I want something in a similar form factor (14", or 16" if the bezels are really thin), but with updated internals (nothing fancy, but the 3500U is getting a bit slow for casual gaming).

I’ve been thinking of a Framework laptop, but the RJ-45 port is wack, only having 4 ports kind of sucks (they could have better density with those ports), and it doesn’t have the Trackpoint that I like so much about my Thinkpad. We’ll see what I end up with when I actually buy one though, but maybe I’ll have to take another look at Dell’s professional line.

How about this:

• 4x USB-C (can’t see why I’d need 4 though, 3 is plenty)
• 2x USB-A
• HDMI
• RJ-45
• headphone jack
• microsd

That should still fit just fine on the chassis if they didn’t do the stupid curve thing, and it certainly wouldn’t make it thicker.

It’s nuts. Framework marks up their RAM, and it’s still way cheaper through them than through Apple, and you can buy aftermarket RAM too.

My next personal laptop will probably be Framework, especially since nearly everything else is going soldered RAM.

My problem is what happens if my internet goes down when there’s an important email or something. I suppose I could run it on a VPS just in case, but that’s still not as reliable as an email service, nor is it necessarily cheaper.

So I pay for Tuta email. It’s €3/month, supports my custom domains, and generally works pretty well. My VPS costs €4.5/month, and I may get rid of it once my city finishes rolling out fiber because I only need it due to CGNAT. Neither is particularly expensive, but Tuta is really good value for what I get. If my family members want to join, costs will go up (€3/user), so I may consider switching if that happens.

Eh, my phone is reasonably unlikely to spy on me. I use GrapheneOS with location off, no Google Play services most of the time (I have a separate profile for that BS), and the only app with location access is Organic Maps. My carrier could rat on me, but I don’t think Google could.

But I have a smart watch (Pixel 2), but at least it’s WiFi only so it can only rat on me when I get home. So I guess there’s that.

What pisses me off even more is many games bind to the letter instead of physical key position (e.g. key code), so alternative layouts get a big middle finger. I use Dvorak, and I’ve quit fighting and just switch to QWERTY for games.

I don’t have a problem with hitting control (I guess I have big hands), but I totally agree that default key binds largely suck. I wish games came with a handful of popular ones, and bound to key codes so hs Dvorak users (or international users) didn’t have to keep switching to QWERTY.

Nah, USB-A was the best since it replaced serial ports (esp PS/2, which was much harder to plug in) and outlived/outclassed FireWire. USB-C is the best thing since HDM (screw you VGA amd DVI), which was the best since USB-A.