Hideki and Computing
General Computing Environment
While I do not necessarily hate Microsoft as some of my friends may believe, I do have historical gripes with them. As a long time Linux user, I did observe their behavior when they were hostile toward non-Microsoft users in the past, and I had actually go through the pain of that myself. It is more of issues with principle they operates or have operated under. I do see they are changing. Microsoft is a big company, so I can see there are some departments operating different way than others, too.
While they are showing signs of improvement in their relatively recent management change, I still think they have a DNA for being anti-competitive.
I do have bit of frustration with their tendency of creating blackbox. Specifically, they do make their software pretty hard to diagnose.
Though that doesn't mean I disapprove everything they are doing. I actually really like their Visual Studio Code.
Generally the way I see is, they are going right direction on .NET, PowerShell and Azure.
And in fact, .NET Core and PowerShell are my most favorite development platform.
Somewhat neutral opinion toward most of Microsoft Office products.
While I haven't had experience with their cloud offering, it seems to be fine systems and I like to try it sometimes, too.
I hate when a company's a control freak
When I gripe the most about general computing, is when software takes freedom away from me for the sake of safety and user friendliness. I do not like to be told what I can/can't do from any software. This seems to be where Microsoft and Apple seems to be going these days.
This is the reason I stopped using and endorsing Firefox. (So much for taking away access to about:config on the Android version.)
I'm not necessarily all-in with Google, but at least they provide products and services that works across the platform, and do not have conflict of interest for expanding to multiple platforms. While Microsoft and Apple expands some of their products into competing platforms, it is more profitable for them to confine their customers to their own platform where possible. This is fundamentally different with Google, with their business model, it makes more sense for them to expand to broad range of platforms as possible.
Android works across the operating systems (actually really doesn't require computers, but their SDK's available on Linux, unlike Microsoft and Apple.)
They provide the one of two major browsers that works on Linux.
Their music and video services work on pretty much modern browsers. No need for software that only runs on selected platforms.5
Programming
Programs in several languages
C#
PowerShell. Not only interactive use, but I also use this for scripting and binary modules. on Windows and Linux.
C/C++ (though these days they are rare)
Most of web stuff (JavaScript, PHP, etc.)
I've played around with number of programming languages, namely Go, Dart, Rust...
I would say, I really don't like Go much. There are bit of design and vendoring issues, but for the fact it is opinionated enough to insist that it won't compile with unused variables and imports, this limits its usefulness in exploratory coding. (And it looks like developers won't listen to users...)
Also see ksimka/go-is-not-good...
I feel Rust offers a lot more reasonable and enjoyable programming experience (at least for me) for same type of programming language.
It's a shame Dart didn't take off. It's actually fairly decent language even when compared to TypeScript.
Some Python. With the release of TensorFlow, I want learn Python more.
I love Jupyter
Honestly, knowing C/C++, learning new programming languages are not too difficult for me. I even play around with LISP, mainly to customize Emacs.
I use JetBrains tools.
CAT Tools
I would say, I am knowledgable memoQ user, both from front-end and programmibility side of it.
Also a OmegaT user.
Mobile
Android
Not that I have problem with Apple, but it's just way too restrictive for me.
I think of my smartphone as more of general computing platform rather than specialized platform6 so the fact I can't sideload apps without approval from the platform owner (Apple) is very irritating to me.
Their "review process" is also laced with agendas
One simple example: You can't develop a browser on iOS that uses engine no other than the web components built into iOS that is slower than Safari browser.
And you can't even choose your default browser, really?
Oh, also something they did to Dark Sky?
VR
I use Quest 2, mostly on PC these days.
Not so much gaming, rather, communication and broadcasting.
Internet
I work for the Internet, which basically means I try to contribute as much as I can for the good of the Internet community.
For instance, I consciously avoid involvement in authoring Wikipedia contents pertaining items which I have close relationships.
Decentralized Systems
I am quite fascinated by decentralized systems
I feel there are potential in decentralized, beyond simple anonymity assurance, in the standpoint of highly reachable method of delivering information.
You don't even have to set up port forwarding to host hidden service on Tor!
World can be your audience; there are plenty of gateway that general public can use.
I actually use Tor hidden service fairly extensively for remote managements.
For instance, I can manage remote servers without worrying about IP forwarding. (SSH, etc.)
For smaller tasks, it can be used in lieu of VPN.
Freenet even doesn't require keeping a server after information is "pushed" to collective storage. Now that's what I call cloud.
My site index: USK@d305vFuUFCQ9py4tUcN8V~IjFGbUffAS0uYdJKAurTY,9ExSLC4l-KtQnXnqvCSVDhrt0b9jmf3Nv6EA509qG7g,AQACAAE/Hideki%27s%20Voice%20Node%20List/-1/
Text Editor
Used to be a heavy Emacs user. Not so much of preferences these days. I often resort to Visual Studio Code.
I've tried to like editors like Atom but shortcomings here and there keep coming back to Emacs.
Things like lack of Byte Order Mark (BOM) support
Its Markdown support is not very robust, particularly when used with Japanese characters.
3D Production
I support Blender.
What revolutionary about Blender is that it enables everyone access to fully featured 3D production, video editing, and compositing environment.
Blender Institute's open movies are used to improve the software as well as generating high-quality, freely usable assets to the world.
Blender is a free software, however, it turns out I am actually paying more than any 3D software to date, personally.
Their Blender Cloud is becoming awesome (image, project sharing, and settings sync along with a lot of videos) -- highly recommended.
Vocaloids
See the relevant section under Music.
Authoring
I prefer scripting over office suite
I find TeX more pleasing to write.
Sure, it's more work to get things right first time, but once it's set up, it gets a lot of things out of the way, and output is generally superior.
I also like Org-mode
What makes Org-mode great is that it offers generous set of export options. (TeX, ODT, HTML, etc.)
Only problem is that its syntax has bit of problem when using Japanese text.
When I have to use Office suite, I mostly use LibreOffice.
Free Software / Open Source
Where I have choice, I tend to use OSS.
It's mainly matter of convenience for me. I use multiple machines, and I prefer to have same software accessible across devices, and licensing cost alone can be very expensive with proprietary system.
So I would approve commercial software as long as they make sense to me; licenses that are easy to maintain -- for instance, if the software only allows single seat installation, then it's a deal breaker for me. In any case, for the better or worse, commercial software availability is less common in Linux anyways...
Naturally, I am very cautious about vendor lock-in problem.
Obviously, I'm not really strict like Richard Stallman.
I admire him for the fact he is living up to the cause what he believes in, and he actually does have a point.
Things he said in the past, that a lot of people found ridiculous or extreme in the past is now becoming legitimate concerns.
DRM
This is quite sensitive one as I work in a video game industry.
I do believe DRM is very counterproductive, and unnecessary, too.
Let's face it, it's defective by design.
If I had an opportunity (and I am a stakeholder) I would have shift things toward non-DRM.
So far I haven't worked on any PC titles. If I see something beyond Steam in terms of severity, I wouldn't certainly support it in my personal time.
Video game consoles do employ some form of DRM, not much I can do, unfortunately.
If someone say he/she won't play certain game because of that, I won't blame them.
In the ideal world, yes, everything will be DRM free, and feel strongly about it. But at same time, I have to eat and pay my bills, too.
If someone's willing to pay me for risking my line of work to be vicious against DRM, I am more than happy to be that way.
Encryption
I own and maintain the one of the oldest GnuPG information sites in a Japanese language.
Encryption matters. Use GnuPG, Signal and other properly secured systems!
Surveillance Self-Defense contains useful information about how to communicate securely.
WhatsApp now implements same protocol as Signal called, the Signal Protocol, however noone outside can audit the code, so you will be trusting their statement. But if you are inclined to use something more popular, then WhatsApp can be good compromise.
Facebook Messenger now implements encryption (apparently using Signal Protocol and WhatsApp, but I don't think it's that effective as you have to specifically start conversation in that mode.
Google Allo does seem to implement encryption (Signal Protocol), but only in "incognito" conversations.
LINE implements "letter sealing" their decision to make this option default is a right direction (and it works for group chat, too) but it does not encrypt media messages, including images, video, etc. as of November 2019, so it gives users false sense of security if they are displaying a keypad symbol while some of users' communications are not encrypted, and they need to improve it. (It's very misleading the way currently is -- if they can't assume all aspect of their communication is encrypted, it shouldn't display the key like that.)