During my semester break in 1997, I wasn't as hard-working as I should have been. Instead of delving into "Wagner as a poet", I rather fought against the demon Diablo in the eponymous video game. Hour after hour I brought down grim foes, picked up better equipment, and kept leveling up my character. With a pixel sword in my hand, I merrily butchered my way through gloomy catacombs, and continued to stayed loyal to the franchise when parts 2 and 3 came out. This loyalty now came to an abrupt end with the release of Diablo Immortal, a game that easily takes a chunk out of your wallet the size of a compact car. Enough is enough!
When it comes to viewership, YouTube still rules the roost in the streaming world, far ahead of Netflix or Spotify–and still free. I had a strange feeling when advertising segments were starting to pile up in their videos last year. Who wants to view a four-minute video when they first have to go through two minutes of ads? Was this a deliberate attempt to annoy their users? Unless you were using ad blockers, you were literally flooded–and it felt like an obvious attempt to drive users towards a paid offer.
It was supposed to be a totally normal evening. Alan Parson's soothing "Tales of Mystery and Imagination" was purring from my speakers, a steaming cup of tea plus some reading material were ready and I had plans to watch a detective show. But then, I heard an almost forgotten sound: an SMS notification. Nowadays, this form of communication is mostly used by the authorities or companies for account verification. Sent by a friend, it read "WhatsApp is gone, Facebook is gone, people are already asking what's next! It's total chaos!" It sounded interesting so I went to have a look.
Recently, we sat together and reminisced about the wild past. When the internet was still young, pirated copies of current movies were everywhere. People usually brought hidden cameras to theaters and recorded the screens–background noise and poor image quality included! Who'd ever want to watch that? Then, streaming services appeared on the scene and illegal movie sharing sites became less frequented. For a fair price, users could instantly pick from a solid selection of movies and songs, good enough for most users. For some time though, illegal sites have been seeing an increase in visitors–and stream service providers may be partly to blame!
Even though we are a company with a clear focus on Windows, Linux certainly deserves flowers on its 30th birthday! After all, its influence on computer science in general and all of our lives in particular cannot be overstated. Whether you're enjoying the onboard computer in your car, your "smart" TV or this blog article on your Android device, Linux (or its derivatives) is running the show. Even Windows users frequently benefit from standards, features and ideas born in the multitudinous Linux community.
