Historical Chinese drama, especially the palace intreague ones. The better ones are high budget productions with the most beautiful aestethics and well thought out stories. Instead of seasons with set episodes they just have shows of 4 to 100 episodes. Due to that each issue can take the time it needs to be told, without the need of season finals and such, making the pacing very natural. The better ones are also not always predictable and keep you hooked. Most western dramas can’t compare, exceptions like Julian Fellowes’ shows asside.

I would suggest watching 延禧攻略/Story of Yanxi Palace (not the spin-off on Netflix!) if you want to give it a try. It’s not too old, has a good story, and is quite fast-paced despite it’s length, making it a great one for starters. It’s also easily available with good subtitles, you can find it on Viki for example.

For context, I’m not someone who makes music or uses voicebanks. I just listen to a lot of music (both synthesized and not).

I’m a bit typical I guess, because my all time favourite would be Hatsune Miku. She may not be the best from a technical perspective, but she has a charm to her voice and she has a lot of good songs (which may give me some bias). And the append design is great, I love that type of cyber look.

Otherwise, I also quite like VY1, Eleanor Forte (SynthV), Ruby, Lily, Cyber Diva/Songman, Mo Qingxian, SeeU, and Megurine Luka. I like Gumi’s voice but somehow just can’t stand her design. I remember I was quite fond of Ring Suzune’s first demos, but they completely changed her sound before release and I kinda forgot about her after that. I also liked Sachiko, especially when used classically like in the demo. Tonio was also quite interesting (altrough I only remember the original version).

Sinsy is probably the most uncommon one to hear nowadays that’s on my list, but the voice is just damn impressive. Even now some of those old songs sound more realistic than those from newer engines. Just listen to Magnolia for example.

Utau I never liked to be honest. The output quality is just too low for me, even on well made voicebanks. I rather go all-in bad like using Microsoft Sam, or have more fluency. Utau is too much in between for me. But then, that’s just personal taste really.

But to be honest, within certain limits production matters more to me than voicebanks itself. I rather have a meh voice in a well produced song that’s my taste than my favourite voicebank in a meh produced song. Perhaps that’s also why I can’t pin down to 1 voicebank that easily.

I preffer proffesional productions, and am not very fond of things that sound too hobby-istic. In terms of songs I tend to like the classics (like Miku Miku Ni Shite Ageru), or very electronic upbeat songs (with that I mean songs like Hibikase, 39 Music!, Sweet Devil, and Party Junky, and Cosmonauts).

It also doesn’t help that I stopped following releases somewhere during Vocaloid4 (maybe early Vocaloid5, it’s been a while) and the very beginning of SynthV.

Average Joe wants an easy all-in-one solution. That’s what Google, Apple and Microsoft offer. An ecosystem. If you want to fight that, you need to be able to offer that. So that’s what Proton is doing.

Of course it’s better to have it seperated. And the security and privacy nerds will likely keep doing that anyways. But Average Joe doesn’t want to take a hassle and rather looses privacy than do that.

Issue is, things are only as secure as the least secure point. Average Joe using Google and Microsoft means your data also goes there when interacting. When Average Joe is swayed by a place that is privacy-friendly ánd convinient, it makes your weakest link also stronger.

Meanwhile, Average Joe is also more save then when he was using Google or Microsoft services. Even when he would be less save than if he had his stuff seperated.

It helps everyone.

With that in mind, I applaud it. But I won’t use it. I use Proton for mail, Joplin for notes (encrypting them in Joplin and syncing with NextCloud), and my passwords are also elsewhere than ProtonPass.

Good leaves on the right temperature. Nothing added. Tasty, healthy, and calorie free.

Unless making very specific a milk tea, then add milk. Don’t do it too often, it ruins the last 2 points mentioned before.

For one, USA isn’t actually much better than China when it comes to tracking and privacy. They just have better PR about it. But in reality they equally suck.

That asside. There isn’t some secret tracking chip, but any kind of wireless network will be used to track you by different parties. Cellulair, Wi-Fi (including Wi-Fi signaling when it’s “off”), Bluetooth, etc. This is a fact regardless of OS or where the phone is made, as tracking often already starts to occur by catching the signals you send out.

As such, just degoogling won’t resolve tracking issues in and off itself, it’s just one of many steps to get less tracking.

Phones physically in China, regardless off where it’s made, tend to get tracking software installed. Just take a burner if you ever go there. But that’s not hardware. And most “USA” phones are also made in China anyways…

Wijko saté sauce. It goes with almost anything. I’ll have no shame in it. My Asian partner does.

TPM on my motherboard is forever disabled

If that’s just to stop W11 that’s stupid. TPM chips are security related. Disabling them has some serious drawbacks.

Now there are discussion on if you’d even want a TPM chip or not, and if you choose not to use it for such reasons it may be a well thought out decision. Then you won’t hear me complain. But to trow out security components just to prevent an update, without looking at the possible consequences, is stupid. There are better ways to prevent that anyways.

Funny. My grandpa has been using Thunderbird and Libre Office for years, and he never realised it until recently (and he uses it a lot). He recently had an issue for the first time and asked me as he was trying to fix it with Microsoft but didn’t get anywhere, and I had to break the news to him it wasn’t their product.

I’m not the one who set it up for him btw. But whoever did so made it look as much as to make it easier for him to switch. Which worked as he had no clue and thought he got some free version or so.

I do also use it, but my setup isn’t Microsoft-like per se. I’m rather happy with it tho.

No and no. It’s not too late, and just watching sitcons won’t teach you enough to start speaking. But if you just start actual studying and practicing you can learn it just fine. Watching TV can be used to practice listening, but on it’s own it’s not enough unless you’re a wonderkid.

I think ActivityPup isn’t even integrated into Threads yet? On release they said soon, a week later they said it was long-time planning. Haven’t heard about it since.

Fcitx5 for Android has decent Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese. I don’t think it has handwriting tho. Otherwise you have Trime, which is Rime for Android but I’ve never got it to work properly (unlike Rime on Linux which works fine).

I mainly use simplified, so don’t pin me on traditional options. I use Florisboard for English.

Article says:

We’re also beginning the beta for our upcoming macOS desktop app for Proton Drive. […] Once the macOS app is released, we’ll also work on our planned Linux version.

Based on Proton’s trackrecord in development times I’ld say a far future, but I must admit they’ve been making meters lately when it comes to releasing stuff. It may be sooner than expected (or it might take years, we’d have to wait and see).