Ugh, I had a Latitude 7210 2-in-1 and upgraded the 2230 SSD to a Western Digital SN530(?) one. Turns out after hours of troubleshooting Modern Standby, poring over Sleep Studies (“why is it draining 8% of battery an hour asleep?”) that the specific drive I put in didn’t “support” “Modern” Standby?
Anyways I have a ThinkPad with S3 sleep now and the fans actually turn off when I put it to sleep so that’s a win.
Mostly incorrect, entering the BIOS and having the toggle to switch between S0 and S3 (or, “Linux”) sleep does indeed exist but it is hard to identify what models have it (I hear Lenovo’s BIOS simulator helps) and it’s increasingly being removed in newer models or even removed in updates. Dell has no interest in putting it back and recommends hibernate or just powering off the machine when on-the-go.
I made sure the ThinkPad I own personally had the toggle but my work-issued one does not so it is now a Hibernate-only machine. No setting can help that.
When you say “couch” my first thought is a recent-ish Celeron or Pentium Silver fanless laptop. Performance akin to a Core 2 Duo but no fan to get blocked sitting on the couch. Like the Latitude 3210(?)
Laptops that appeal to me are often bottom breathers so it’s one thing I miss from my old MB Air.
ADACA and Signalis just came out last year so not far behind but they were fun. ADACA is billed as Half-Life meets Halo meets STALKER by reviewers and it’s a fun, light FPS. (although I couldn’t get into the more open Zone Patrol mode)
Signalis though, that oozes atmosphere, an excellent soundtrack, and offered feels in a neat fleshed out world. I enjoyed the gameplay quite a bit, a callback to top-down survival horror from an era I never really played. I really appreciate a lack of jump scares except one enemy’s presence when you enter a room making your screen/radio go haywire but hardly FNAF material which I will only watch.
You’d have to check, my personal X1 Extreme Gen 4 has the toggle but my new work T14 Gen 3 does not.
I’m sure you tried but the definitive option would be a BIOS switch to change it. Sometimes is says S3, sometimes it says Linux sleep (like my personal ThinkPad)
But if you don’t have that toggle at all, the firmware probably dumped S3 entirely - especially if it’s a relatively new machine and you’ll have to lean much more on Hibernate like my new work ThinkPad.
I would investigate whether an older BIOS version still has the S3 toggle since some BIOS updates have removed S3 I believe but a search of forums would probably turn up enough complaints to hit your radar.
Results may vary but you can always plug it back in after testing.
Toyota’s have no negative effects beyond obviously no cellular functions and the microphone ceasing to work.
I recommend figuring out what the opt-out procedure is too. If I ended up with a Toyota, calling in via the SOS button will start the process of disconnecting the system.
Also note that some may have 3G radios, etc. which are already defunct.
Edit: Fixed typo
Netflix’s crackdown affected me (I was the moocher) and I canned Hulu before some price hikes (I was the provider) and put the money towards a VPN.
I spend the computing power converting some media to play on my PS4 (plus finagling with subtitles) but once it’s done it’s done.
Toad on the 64, I like the Koopas on DD, I’m blanking on 8 right now - I like having the quick acceleration of lighter characters to compensate for my screwups!
I believe the iPhone uses a basic read-only protocol to access media. (MTP?) You can use iTunes to add files to the iPhone but that’s not FOSS. I personally use Photosync, you might like that for wireless photo transfers.
In recent memory the two that have stood out to me are Risk of Rain 2 and Halo 4. I thought some 3rd-person action in the former would be fun but I found the core loop and overall shooting boring after a couple run attempts so I guess it just didn’t click for me.
Now Halo 4… I think gameplay in that title is an exercise in tedium. Add on (what is in my opinion as:) poor AI, a bit too much melodrama, dumb retcons, “do X three times!” a bit much and I got a campaign that felt like a chore and haven’t touched it since I left off at the level with the Mammoth. The Prometheans are a pain to fight and I felt funneled into making do with Forerunner weapons to take ranged potshots at Watchers above all other targets and then rushing to kill the one Knight I was targeting before it regenerates, also above all other targets. Yuck. (Update: Coming back here since it occurred to me that I could sum it up as: my ability to make mid-combat decisions and play in the sandbox was kneecapped by poor enemy and maaaybe level design respectively.)
Good music though.
Really tough question since it’s been a while and I don’t have kids today (man that would suck in the age of TikTok and handing the kid an iPad for a reprieve) but what my parents did was limit computer time to 1 hour in a day until middle school ish so I had to make decisions.
Handhelds had to be downstairs and off at night, and (ideally) one hour before bedtime so no late night shenanigans.
I guess there’s also starting lower tech like flip phones, PDA’s but that’s because I’m more of a nerd and it’ll be my “uphill both ways” equivalent esp. since i’m not ready for unlimited web access and all that entails
I was coming in ready with a snarky comment about helicopters but I was wrong, that was pretty cool.
Not an exact answer but I use Photosync to upload to my PC when on a shared network. It supports a number of protocols so I would see if it can connect to your server.
Windows’s achilles heel is arguably its chief benefit - legacy compatibility and being the de facto platform for applications.
Back when I had a Surface RT, I thought it was awfully neat, ARM-compiled versions of Office, IE, Windows 8.x bits ran well and it was fanless with fine battery life. (although I surely sound weird, I had a Windows Phone back then too and the syncing with IE on both was a nice feature) It’s just they were pushing the Store then and if you jailbroke it, ARM applications were rare.
Apple is a pro at architecture transitions and can steer the whole ship, MS can put Windows on ARM all they want but OEM’s will be reluctant since it’ll be a relatively big risk to sell a “Windows, buuut…” computer and the popular closed-source applications probably won’t bother with ARM for a while
If your car gets stolen it’s probably preferable to not see it again and get insurance since no telling what’s been done to it/in it.
I remember shopping for a Bluetooth speaker and while I settled on a JBL one, I did consider the IKEA model that takes AAA’s but it wasn’t available to try nor buy - it would’ve been nice to be able to consider one that was externally powered but ah well.
Man, I remember buying a Linux Format(?) magazine once and breaking out the included 7.10 CD.
Later distros I messed with I remember waiting hours for those few hundred MB to download on my parent’s DSL connection, oh how times have changed!
Thanks for the list, very intrigued by Ctrl Alt Ego being an immersive sim fan
Some BIOS updates remove the S3 option so that’s possible. It’s also possible that Modern Standby was working before and something changed which broke sleep for you. You can run a Sleep Study (instructions on the web) to see how your computer has been sleeping but it sucks that you’d have to resort to that.