It took me an embarrassing number of decades before I realized they were called (silicon) chips after American snack chips. I always thought it was a weird thing to call something that was plainly a carefully sliced thin sliver and not a piece chipped off anything.
As I did with potato chips too, but that was an established term in American English and it took me a very long time to realize one was named after the other.
I've used ThinkPads for ages and it's very true they have become more and more ordinary as the years go by, but I recently got given a high spec Dell for a new job and it's been very disappointing. In particular the keyboard is terrible to the point that on business trips I bring an external keyboard with me. I also sorely miss a trackpoint, but to many people that is not an issue.
I was also surprised that I miss the ThinkPad ability to open up 180°.
Last time I was in Manhattan, walking to Penn station, I passed an ambulance with lights and sirens trying to get through. 6 blocks later I looked back and saw I was now 2 blocks ahead of it.
Though if you're good with using Ubuntu then new ThinkPads and Dells and some others generally work well as you get the enablement patches before they've rippled through to the mainline kennel. However you still often have a happier time waiting for others to iron out the kinks, not to mention better hardware prices by getting clear out deals for outgoing generations.
After years of ThinkPads I joined a company that gave me a Dell Inspiron and I am unimpressed in various minor ways. Crap keyboard is the big one.
Yes it's trivial to host a repo, and then you have achieved approximately 2% of a forge.
Gnome's was very inferior last I looked. No brightness factor and it was sunset or fixed time.
Sharing your work without cost to people who need it is pretty solidly left. But it certainly isn't red vs blue, not least because party political colors vary by country and in the US, neither refers to a left-wing party, and in most countries red aligns with left.
If I went back to the vi interface for some reason I'd at least use ctrl-[. I dislike lifting my hand more than I dislike using modifiers.
I used vi for a few years so have the muscle memory and the sole advantage in my perception was that everything is simple typing with hands remaining in the home keys position (except Escape, ironically).
So it's more relaxed if you find using modifiers onerous, but I don't find Ctrl or Alt significantly worse than Shift, and I don't find it any worthwhile advantage.
Pretty bizarre if people do this. I've never heard it to mean anything but linoleum.
But a lot of people in the US use the word "turf" to specify not turf (i.e. artificial turf), so there's no reason for words to mean things.
What? One of linoleum's benefits is not off gassing and not being made from fossil fuels. Are you thinking of vinyl?
In Cambridge, MA, USA, and nearby communities, bike advocates have made real progress with lanes and paths and general infrastructure. Also the city requires that new builds have a proper bike room. This building was recently gutted and fitted out and this is the bike room today - overloaded, and the building is barely half full... Looks like they will need to find more efficient bike racks!
Meanwhile in a recent commute I was in a queue of 30 bicycles at a light at which about 6-8 cars get through at a time. 10-15 years ago I was one of the few bikes on the roads at any time.
Hats off to the advocates and representatives of the local cities that have made this happen through continuous pressure and work over decades...
Chips every day!