Work: Windows + Rider/WebStorm/etc (I used the IdeaVim plugin before but found there were too many rough edges)

Home: Debian or OpenBSD + vi or Pluma. I deliberately keep it simple. A terminal, an editor Ctrl+Z, make, fg, that kind of thing. I’m tired of fighting IDEs to get out of my way. Let me type!

Definitely the Windows Internals books, I don’t think there’s anything else quite like it (wrt. Windows). I was also pleasantly surprised by de depth of Windows Via C/C++, which I expected to be one of those beginner tutorials distracted by language basics, but instead it’s the opposite, just a really in depth dive into low level Windows APIs.

I tried John Carmack’s “program something with just the OpenBSD base system” experiment and after some adjustment I got to like vi (not vim), ksh and bmake. For a long time this stayed my go-to happy place for hobby coding. Fun thing: on a hacker camp they had a PDP/11 running 2BSD and it was just immediately familiar. Same tools, same vi -> Ctrl-Z -> make -> fg workflow.

Very different but similar in a way: I still consider the general Windows 95 - 2000 peak UI design in many ways and I still regularly use Visual C++ 6 to play around with some Win32 programming.

Web search gives you pages of slop results too, now

deleted by creator

I’m scared of starting this game. Zachtronics games are bad enough on my sanity!

Those are just the packaging makefiles etc though, not the actual software sources (with some notable exceptions for bootstrapping, at least in NetBSD). Still it’s comparing a kernel with an OS

Before a 4 month stay in Vienna, I tried upping my German game: consumed lots of German-language media (news, books, videos), attended a language course, really tried immersing myself as well as I could. It was enough to get by okay, but I felt frustrated not being to follow along always or express myself precisely. Since coming back I haven’t been able to pick it up and in fact have come to associate the language with the sad realization that it’s behind me.

Edit: just a positive note, I can now easily follow along with German-language talks, musicals, articles etc which feels like a superpower!

To relive anew, Ico on the PS2. I could boot it up right now but it wouldn’t be like that first playthrough, my first foray outside of PC and Nintendo.

No one who ever had anything to do with OpenBSD or NetBSD would venture such a “best guess”

Danger Dan, “Oktober in Europa”. I can’t listen to any of his stuff any more because it makes me remember this one

Ghost of Tsushima (PS5), still taking it slowly! Cleared out the act 1 side content, took a break before the final quest. Loving the moment-to-moment gameplay, very satisfying and with some skill upgrades they make you feel super powerful!

God of War: Chains of Olympus (PSP), more of the same as GoW 1 and 2 which is a good thing. Those gaze enemies though, annoying as ever. In Hades now.

deleted by creator

Another Mine listener! 😍

I also like me some ok.danke.tschüss

You know what surprised me most about this process, aside from how frustrating and obtuse it was? How at every turn, MS articles and advocates just go “and if this doesn’t work just buy a new license”. Wat!

Fixed! I converted my PC’s account to a local account and then back to a Microsoft account, which must’ve re-added my PC to that list because after that it appeared, I could select it, and transfer the license!

Reinstalled Windows 11 just to see if that would change anything, and now I get to the screen where I can remove old devices but the PC is not listed there, even though it’s linked to my MS account :(

I believe you need to uninstall the key from the old device. https://www.tomshardware.com/how-to/transfer-windows-license-to-new-pc

Tried this, but the activation troubleshooter gives a generic (unstyled!) error message, see my comment here…

Set up the same Microsoft Account in Windows 11 and run the activation troubleshooter, choose “I changed hardware on this device recently”, and you should be presented with another device to migrate the license from.

This is where I’m at now. My Windows 10 PC reports it’s activated with a digital license connected to my MS account. Then on the Windows 11 laptop I run the troubleshooter, click the “changed hardware” link, then it spins for a bit before giving a generic error message saying that Windows can’t be re-activated (?) because the license server can’t be reached. Internet is otherwise working fine.

If I use the “ask help” feature, I’m led through a series of steps resulting in a “contact support” section, for which I have to log in with my MS account. Which I do, but then I get error “AADSTS500200: User … is a personal Microsoft account. Personal Microsoft accounts are not supported for this application unless explicitly invited to an organisation”.

Quite at a loss here!

The Windows 10 key is returned is the generic Windows 10 Home key. Windows 10 itself reports there’s a digital license attached to my Microsoft account.