Agreed that a monthly data cap is stupid for a VPN, because to your point, bandwidth and number of simultaneous connections are the real constraints for a VPN service, which is why most VPNs limit connections and bandwidth. Limiting these does effectively set a monthly data cap, though, and you won’t be torrenting a petabyte a month for $5 no matter what. “Unlimited” is bullshit either way and it’s best to understand what the limits are and how they’re enforced.
“Unlimited” isn’t a promise any provider can reasonably keep anyway. It’s bullshit—there’s always a limit. Always read the fine print and find out what the limit is to make sure it works for you before buying. If the limit isn’t stated now, it will be as soon as somebody really puts it to the test. Either that, or the company will go out of business, which will permanently limit your use of their services.
I haven’t used Maya since the early 2000s when they had the Personal Learning Edition. I remember being put off by the 3 mouse button requirement and the weirdness of the UI at the time, but found C4D drastically more intuitive. Maybe the Maya UX has improved a lot since then, but I found Blender 2.8 slightly less intuitive than C4d when I first started, but not bad overall, compared to being completely put off by earlier versions of Blender’s UI as I had been with Maya. The expensive subscriptions for both Maya and C4D are definitely more off-putting than anything else, though.
I was contemplating switching from Cinema 4D to Blender for a long time, but the UX of C4d was so nice and Blender’s frankly sucked. Then 2.8 came out with a UI overhaul that changed all that and now I’d never dream of switching to another 3d package when Blender is so easy to use, extensible with Python, and has a huge community around it. Blender’s popularity soared after the UX changes. Sometimes, a UI overhaul can make all the difference.
Even where Blender falls short, there’s usually an addon that fills the gap, often paid, but still open source, which is 1000x better than competing options that almost always involve a subscription.
The benefit of a community of open source software around it also can’t be overstated. For instance, MakeHuman kicks ass, Auto-Rig Pro makes it usable for mocap and character animation, etc. Blender Studio’s projects like Flamenco render farm and automated Blender Studio pipeline built around the also open source Kitsu that I self-host are also amazing. Collectively, it all blows Autodesk out of the water and should be a shining example to all other open source projects.
I’m also quite happy with the LCD model myself. Most games are running on medium settings on a low-res screen without RTX, so the eye candy is at a minimum anyway and I never imagined a better screen would make much difference.
The beauty of the Deck is how easy it is to pick it up and play an hour here and there wherever you are, so I’ve played a lot of games I’ve been meaning to play for years that I frankly would’ve not have gotten to play otherwise. Better with less eye candy than not at all.
I got the LED 64GB model last year for like $280 and added a $80 1TB SSD myself, which is an easy 20 minute job. For such a low powered machine, mid 300s is about what it’s worth to me, or otherwise might as well get a gaming laptop. I have a MSI laptop with a RTX 4060, 32GB of RAM that was around $800 on sale, which I mainly use for Blender, so I can’t see paying anything close to that for a handheld.
I currently use rclone with encryption to iDrive e2. I’m considering switching to Backrest, though.
I originally tried Backblaze b2, but exceeded their API quotas in their free tier and iDrive has “free” API calls, so I recently bought a year’s worth. I still have a 2 year Proton subscription and tried rclone with Proton drive, but it was too slow.
Sounds like an all “you can eat” buffet with king crab legs that you never get because assholes keep taking them all whenever a new batch is put out. If it hasn’t devolved to that yet, then enjoy it while you can.