I absolutely love the VSC way of doing things, it means you can backup all your settings in a single JSON file. The UI they've built on top of it seems to work well enough too and is quickly searchable.

Strongly disagree. I don't want to have to think about structured data or syntactic validity, or trust a magical autocomplete to show me what options are available (and if it doesn't, does that mean it's a freetext preference? Or the autocomplete is broken? Or I invalidated the syntax somewhere else in the file and it no longer knows what I'm trying to do?) when I'm trying to configure software.

Configuration is not like building things. Unless I'm truly tinkering for fun, I usually have a goal in mind. Like, sure, I have to mess around with program code and structured data formats all the time. I'm pretty good at it. But when I want to [re]configure something about my IDE or terminal, I want to be in and out as fast as possible and basically not have to think about it; configuration is a brief diversion not an end in itself.

I'd be less entitled and ranty if these were CLI/unix internal tools we're talking about. The convention with that ecosystem is config files and manpages to learn how to use them. Given that convention and the resources of the OSS community it would be silly to insist on GUIs there (though some do exist!). But Windows Terminal and VS are graphical programs that are made by a GUI-first software company with basically unlimited resources. Come on.

Also, re: backup and restore, "export" or "store configuration at so-and-so path" are far better options--see iTerm2's config export/sync-via-dropbox-or-whatever option; coupled with that terminal's excellent preference UI, it makes config management a breeze, and that software was mostly developed by one person!

/rant

You should check out VS Code. They take the JSON config files and create a GUI from them. It's far from ideal, but I wouldn't be surprised if they're working it out before adding it to VS.

> coupled with that terminal's excellent preference UI

I love iTerm and use it daily, but I would never call their checkbox soup "excellent".

I've been using a Samsung digital signage screen as a 'TV' for years because I don't want to have to deal with all of this smart TV nonsense.

As someone from the UK I'd love to have trains like the ones in Germany.

I live a 40 minute drive from London but it costs £45 for a day ticket on decades old, cramped trains.

Not anymore, most store bought laptops will have bitlocker enabled and all enterprise laptops will probably be using bitlocker too.

Bitlocker isn't even an option for Home versions of Windows... Which most store-bought laptops use.

Before Spotify and streaming, artists were already getting their pants pulled down by record distributors. At least now many artists can distribute their own music and keep more of the cut.