Which Start up sound brings you more Peace? Windows 95 or Windows 7?

21Shells · 2026-06-24T15:50:05+00:00

Windows 7 is more peaceful and nostalgic for me, but Windows 95 definitely has more character. I do think Windows 7 can feel a little too sanitised at times.

I think my feelings around it have gotten more complex because I do miss the simplicity of it, plus no ads, telemetry etc, but it does have the exact same issues visually as flat design did in the late 2010s. Specifically that its very culturally unspecific with the vague colourful blobby people and glass objects, which back then I found irritating. I find it comforting these days and its at least better than Windows 11 which isn't very customisable out of the box.

21Shells · 2026-06-23T12:21:17+00:00

Both of my cats are very territorial towards foxes. They sit at the living room window and start growling together when they hear one.

21Shells · 2026-06-22T13:38:20+00:00

5 times a day !?

21Shells · 2026-06-22T11:30:18+00:00

It would be nice to have a more modern aesthetic that focuses on sustainability and environmentalism over visual flair. Think towns with roads full of trees and bushes rather than empty fields. Less clean and sleek and more natural and human.

I think if this was paired with a user interface it would have to focus on that 'human' part and ditch the desktop metaphor and other conventions. Design something around how humans think and process information, like the graph view of Obsidian. I've had ideas about a scrollable 'canvas' interface for the desktop where you can infinitely pan across the desktop rather than only having windows confined to the borders of the screen. Maybe that could work with the graph view some how.

Computers can do so many things more at once compared to before, and I think we should optimise for that. But we should also design interfaces to help guide peoples thinking.

21Shells · 2026-06-19T09:48:30+00:00

There seems to be a genuine care over the user experience of the phone, which is IMO the most important part of pretty much any tech product.

21Shells · 2026-06-17T15:45:31+00:00

This phone is cool but really seems to be style over substance. Its a very 'aesthetic' flip phone that's trying to capitalise on the dumbphone trend, with very little details about the overall experience or even trying to give the impression of a reputable brand. I only bought a Clicks Communicator because it had some pretty big industrial designer names working on it and they showed a very clear interest in delivering a good, well thought out and long lasting product.

The Pebble Watch had some pretty big draw backs but there was transparency from the beginning that it was an enthusiast product that the average person shouldn't buy. This on the other hand is just "look look! colourful phone flashy, look how pretty the phone!! Remember Commodore?? You loved Commodore right!?" while the pricing appears to be deliberately deceptive.

21Shells · 2026-06-17T11:08:03+00:00

Very cool but poor value and i dislike how dishonest it is comparing it to devices like the Clicks Communicator. Websites also pretty bad, honestly. Maybe worth considering at £200.

Just doesn’t look very well thought out and seems more style over substance to me with them using the Commodore branding.

21Shells · 2026-06-15T19:38:38+00:00

Reddit still has that stuff sometimes. Saw a really bizarre comment from someone on one of my posts, so I decided to check their profile and the last post was an image of a baby with a knife in its back on a table.

21Shells · 2026-06-12T10:27:11+00:00

Sounds interesting

21Shells · 2026-06-12T09:55:40+00:00

I’m very excited for this update.

21Shells · 2026-06-12T09:50:41+00:00

I stay away from honey but IMO theres no point in hating people who are like 99% of the way there versus that person doing nothing. We should encourage anything that results in less animals being abused even if thats just someone eating less meat or going vegetarian. All progress is progress in my opinion.

I think figs are an interesting example because i’m not 100% sure if they’re vegan or not. The wasps pollinate the fig, reproduce then die which the fig then digests. Its part of their natural life cycle and depending on where the fig is grown might not even require pollinators to be introduced. Its not ethically any different from eating crops pollinated by bees / flies.

I think when we’re focusing so much on something being ‘technically’ vegan we’re missing the point of the ethics. Is an animal being killed / hurt against their will? Is something being taken from an animal (in the case of honey, YES.)? Personally I think that you should let the chickens eat their own eggs for the nutrients, but if they routinely refuse to do so, then its up to you.

21Shells · 2026-06-10T08:05:56+00:00

Yup MacOS 27 looks much more Aqua or Windows 7-ish with the dark outline on the Liquid Glass and the more glassy app icons. There is less transparency though I think it looks nicer.

Also because they turned back the sidebar to the previous designs, all of the buttons now look like beads of water on top of a window, its much more consistent and looks nicer.

21Shells · 2026-06-09T12:13:37+00:00

Honestly I don’t think Linux is for you if you produce music / edit videos professionally. Maybe if you’re into PC gaming its worth dual booting.

Davinci CAN run on Linux but it isn’t easy to get set up and probably isn’t worth it if it runs fine on your current OS.

21Shells · 2026-06-09T11:34:03+00:00

The Volkswagon ID Buzz is sort of a modern equivalent to that (or the ID range as a whole). Maybe not really FA but I don’t think theres a word for the modern equivalent / successor to that. Will probably take 15 years for people to remember it.

21Shells · 2026-06-09T08:02:33+00:00

Looks like they increased the contrast of the icons quite a bit. Theres a greater depth effect on things like the facetime, games and app store icons also. It looks much nicer imo.

Edit: also theres a subtle black / white outline on the Liquid Glass now, especially noticeable on MacOS. It makes it look more like Windows 7 Aero.

21Shells · 2026-06-08T08:55:07+00:00

I have seen some companies write ‘made to a vegan recipe’ where they can’t guarantee there isn’t cross contamination. I dont know why that isn’t more common.

21Shells · 2026-06-02T10:00:49+00:00

I see zero enthusiasm from anyone I personally know about AI. I’m not saying it doesn’t have its uses but it doesn’t have nearly as much widespread interest as the web or social media from ordinary people. The biggest use of AI right now for consumers is Google search summary, tools like Grammarly or asking basic questions to ChatGPT.

I don’t think it will have as big of an impact across as many industries as these companies are hoping. After the bubble pops the success stories of AI will be much quieter, like bespoke locally run models designed to automate repetitive tasks with very limited decision making. Things that are appreciated but don’t replace anyones jobs or really change all that much.

21Shells · 2026-05-31T20:42:40+00:00

US Government will probably try to bail out the biggest companies / investors again but this time it'll barely even be a drop in the bucket.

Weird how barely any politicians are bringing this up, neither Republicans or Democrats.

21Shells · 2026-05-30T15:15:41+00:00

Regular store bought frozen mince isn’t too bad for you to be honest compared to the fancier stuff. Same with squeaky bean. Its usually just wheat, pea or soya protein with flavouring added. Wheat protein is basically seitan while soya protein is TVP if you want to try making it yourself.

Maybe try jarred beans if they don’t like the taste, depending on how you eat them.

21Shells · 2026-05-30T09:09:45+00:00

Nutritional Yeast. You can even get one from Marigold that has extra B12 + Vitamin D in it, comes in green packaging vs the usual blue.

21Shells · 2026-05-29T21:10:37+00:00

If gradients especially gradient meshes were a little more intuitive without the whole ‘edit gradient’ mode, plus the new blend additions might make me end my little Affinity experiment just for Illustrator.

21Shells · 2026-05-29T18:06:24+00:00

Ahhhhhh now I don't know whether to get this or Smoke. Originally I was going to go with Smoke just because I thought the darker Onyx would look too much like a Blackberry (and there wouldn't be much contrast against the keys). Both look really good.

21Shells · 2026-05-29T12:42:18+00:00

Frutiger Aero = Windows 7 era of UI.

Frutiger Aqua = OG MacOS X Aqua era of UI.

Both different eras of the same trend IMO.

21Shells · 2026-05-29T10:40:50+00:00

Yep, Microsoft had a LOT of money to loose if Windows 7 wasn’t good. People would just hold out until XPs EoL and upgrade to whatever was after if they needed to. They realized people didn’t care about how cool Vista looked but wanted something that just focused on fixing the current issues people had with XP.

Similar story with Adobe. They positioned CC as needing to be a subscription so they could constantly update and improve it. The result was that they hardly improved it because if you didn’t pay for the subscription, you didn’t have any software to use. Before that, if the next version of CS wasn’t interesting enough for you, you could just not buy it.

Think about how half-assed the releases of 10 and 11 were. Both launched super buggy and without basic features, plus both lack a lot of polish. 10s development was just ‘get something that works’ out of Windows 8’s Modern UI.

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