QuantumBamboo

This will tickle you

I'm pretty sure we will! But then it's just new physics.

People are perfectly within their rights to be rubbed up the wrong way.

Find another way to try and bring people to your point of view

Thanks for your great example of condescension for clarity. A little unsolicited feedback though... other people, unaware of your virtuous intent, might view it as a petty attempt to belittle a stranger on the internet. Other than that, a solid comment. B+

... that's condescending.

No accusations intended. My point is if you're clued up enough to be comfortable making your own decisions then fill your boots. I'm not here to convince you. The "aggressive" advertising is the only way they are able generate revenue. And I'm fine with that compared to the alternatives. I find it far more disrespectful to have my data skimmed and monetised by a system of exploitative consumption.

Coal, I had my childhood home heated with a coal fire in winter. Crude oil I touched at an art exhibition. I also remember real creosote! Amazing smell.

And rightly so!

I would rather they make money from advertising their own pretty awesome services than from advertising unsustainable (environmentally, but also unsustainable for the fucking soul!) bullshit via blood sucking multinational tech companies that prey on the masses with whatever data they can automatically dig up on you. The revenue Proton makes from converting free customers to paid allows them to grow a freely available service that is a user-friendly and is a technical rival of the surveillance capitalists.

My take is:

• If you're the sort of person that is convinced your requirements need some custom covert ops pagan voodoo self hosted data center in an old cold war era bunker, don't let me stop you. You crack right on mate and good luck (sounds like you need it!).
• If you want the sorts of services Proton provides, but don't want to be fucked, then Proton are a good shout.
• If you can afford it, pay for it. It makes the experience smoother and keeps a relatively small but decent company going in an ocean of massive cunts.
• If you can't afford it and don't want to use the free version of Proton, I hear Google and Microsoft will happily buy your soul and sell your data.

If seeing a tiny squiggle makes OP think they've taken crazy pills... Genuinely had a moment where I thought I had gone completely insane.

I worked with Creo for years, and ProE before that. I still have nightmares about the cascading unresolved reference screens. I've never used NX, but my understanding is it is AAA, though not super user friendly by default. I've pretty much exclusively used Solidworks for over a decade now, and I have to say that it's generally pretty well behaved, and I've never really found I couldn't do what I wanted to in it. Thus it has become my crutch.

I would agree that FreeCAD is the best, but it's not slick and doesn't feel particularly robust. Don't get me wrong, I have no rose tinted glasses on when it comes to Solidworks, but it's generally very usable and very powerful.

Solidworks - A reliable FOSS 3D CAD package would be amazing... Parametric Blender? Photoshop/Illustrator - I know how to do 50% of what I need to in GIMP/Inkscape, but I lean on Adobe usually!

Not my wife