Some links you might like 10
I wish I had a better process for doing these link roundups. I usually have to scrounge for my links in the moment instead of slowly building this throughout the week, and I don't leave my thoughts as I'm reading them, so I end up needing to reread the articles to share them. I don't know what I should do about this. My hotly anticipated[citation needed] reblog feature might mean that the move is to share interesting posts as I find them, but I'll have to experiment.
For now, here's some links.
Thom Holwerda: Dark patterns killed my wife's Windows 11 installation
I'm seething with rage towards Microsoft and its utter incompetence and maliciousness. Let me, for once, not mince words here: Windows 11 is a travesty, a loose collection of dark patterns and incompetence, run by people who have zero interest in lovingly crafting an operating system they can be proud of. Windows has become a vessel for subscriptions and ads, and cannot reasonably be considered anything other than a massive pile of user-hostile dark patterns designed to extract data, ad time, and subscription money from its users.
A quote I have heard from somewhere--I do not remember the source--is "While 2026 will not be the year of the Linux desktop, the 2020s will be the decade of the Linux desktop." Linux has slowly been getting more and more "okay" and Windows has become more and more dogshit. One day we can only hope that the world will reach a point where there is a viable alternative to being treated like total garbage available for most people.
Grayson Davis: Underwater Basket Weaving
"The bride is a graduate of Prairie Dog Tech, where she received her degree in underwater basket weaving. Her other pursuits of study were familiar bird calls, Egyptian folk dancing and men."
--1952 April Fools' Day article announcing "Chlorophyll I.S. Green Marries Ima Violet Cloud in April 1 Rites" (The Rock Island Argus, 4/1/1952)
Davis' new blog "I Might as Well Explain the Joke" is truly great. An all-timer blog worth following. Add it to your RSS feed!
Chris Person: I'm Tired Of These Useless Jackasses Making The Computer Expensive
I was planning on doing this as an Aftermath piece, but then I looked at the prices of spinning disk drives, which are now twice what I paid for them--just like SSDs, and just like RAM, just like GPUs before them.
I'm sharing this because, like the author, I love the computer but hate the environment around the computer.
Bruno Dias: Against 'Metroidbrania': a Landscape of Knowledge Games
I'd put it forth that the term doesn't just sound dorky, and it's not just hard to explain (given that first you have to explain what a metroidvania is -- itself a fraught bit of terminology). I'd say it's all but useless, too.
This is possibly one of my favorite blog posts of 2025 and I cannot believe I haven't shared it yet.
Clyde Mandelin: The Many Translations of the "Lost Woods"
If you recognize this name, it's because he translated Mother 3. He's got a whole
bunch of blog posts that talk about video game translation, an this one just so happened to be the most recent one.
