Had a horrible wait on election day a few years ago; a hateful bigot was polling really close to the (effective, thoughtful, visible-minority) incumbent leading up to the election, and people turned up in droves. Broke records for number of votes cast in a municipal election.
But waiting in line 3+ hours to vote, with 2 preschool kiddos with us? Never again. Never. Again.
Early voting, every time. It’s the way.
Published Oct 16, 2024
(In case anyone else was confused by the timing of this.)
The ultra-wealthy are terrified of reprisal from Trump. And they control the media (Bezos/WP) and social media (Zuck).
Democracy in America may fail next week. Terrifying to watch.
I worry that age verification will backfire spectacularly; users can just tunnel their traffic through a VPN and then once on a VPN, they would also miss all harmful content blocking. Middle schoolers can figure out how to get around school web filters, and they, and everyone else, will figure their way around age verification just as easily.
A friend of mine has (had?) most of the world records in Sayonara Wild Hearts; it’s not as relaxing if you’re going for high scores since you need to get close to collisions for bonus points, but if you just play to beat levels and chill, it’s great.
I just read the top review on Steam and it answered this question well: TL;DR it’s a shame this is a F2P game since the seasonal cosmetic FOMO is diametrically opposed to the message/spirit of the game, but if you can ignore the cosmetics, then it’s a fantastic experience that’s completely free.
I just wiped and set up a laptop as a favour… It forced updating Windows (to 11, possibly?) before booting. No option to skip, and no indication how much it was downloading.
Such a pain. I had to wait an hour for it when it already had a fully functional OS. What can’t it download in the background and update at 3am when idle? That’s what made me suspect it was as forced Windows 11 upgrade, since why else would they care to force it?
Interesting seeing Hotline Miami make the list since I just watched a short video essay the other day explaining how OTXO is just a better game in basically every way.
I’m still in the 80s working my way down the list, but I searched and OTXO doesn’t appear to be on the page.
Edit: Conversely, I’m pleased to see Portal included instead of Portal 2. The Portal 2 goo was unnecessary and led to more boring puzzle solutions. Portal is a more pure, timeless game. And it has a lot of amazing mods… I should probably look into how to install Portal mods on the Deck…
I wonder:
It’s a cesspool.
… Or pay them for it!
There’s a prolific open-source dev that makes many plugins and themes for a widely-used OSS platform. He’s quite open when asked for new features if it’s something he’s already planning on doing anyway (with no guaranteed timeline) or if it’s not. But if it’s a reasonable ask, he’ll always mention that he can prioritise its development if they fund it. He even posts his current contractor rate; it’s quite transparent.
I think more OSS devs should be more open like that. “Yes, I can do that feature request. Sounds like about 2-3 hours work. My hourly is $120 for contract work. Email me here if you’re interested and I’ll send a contract.”
Sure, but long-term climate risks definitely factored into my family’s most recent move to a new city.
Previously, we lived somewhere it was too cold to go out in winter (–50°C during a polar vortex) and too smoky to go out in the summer, from the constant bushfires and forest fires. And also had massive hail storm risks, drought/water insecurity, and if you lived closer to the river, flooding.
Now, we live somewhere where we only really face mild water insecurity from aquifer depletion. This close to the Pacific, we rarely get significant fire smoke, even. The Big One earthquake would suck if it happens in our lifetime, but that’s mostly unrelated to anthropogenic climate change (the tsunami would be higher from water levels rising.)
So, sure, yeah. We’re all affected by climate change. But the effects are definitely not equally dispersed.
I have a slightly different perspective as someone just starting Rise as my first ever experienced with this series.
Holy shit, the tutorials are terrible. Massive info dump walls of text explaining too many systems at once, cryptic warning messages to confirm you want to dismiss the tutorials are extra confusing… And despite the massive info dumping, they don’t even tell you everything you need to know to complete the tutorial missions as you complete them. When you go to trap your first monster, there’s no tooltip to teach you how to use items in the “how to trap” explanation or NPC dialogue. I need to google it.
And no ability to pause in a singleplayer game? I googled some explanation about pause being on one of the menus, but I couldn’t find it. Thankfully, suspending the game on a Steam Deck pauses it, so it’s playable.
Also, why was I given massively OP equipment and piles of loot just for logging in? The entire early game is now so easy that it’s not fun. I’m only 3 tutorials + 1 “real” mission into the game, so I’m going to try starting over without the EZ-mode loot and give it a second chance, but so far, I’m not impressed.
If I’d bought this through Steam, I’d have refunded it already before the 2-hour playtime window closed.
TL;DR: Terrible new-player onboarding has me questioning if I sound push through.
Downloading content is almost definitely legal in Canada, and non-commercial digital distribution has never gone to court, so its legality hasn’t been established.
I can’t find the source, but I recall reading speculation that sharing backup copies between owners of the media is likely legal in Canada but, again, it hasn’t been tried by courts, so its legality hasn’t been firmly established.
Anyway, with non-commercial digital distribution not having any legal teeth in Canada, it’s effectively legal and its literal legality is unknown.
Depends on your jurisdiction.
As far as I know, that’s never been tried in court in Canada, and there’s reason to suspect that may not be the case here. (Although I’m not a lawyer, so I may be mistaken.)
You can if you own the Mario game…
… but I just downloaded a 1TB Batocera Switch image to run from MicroSD.
Sentencing hasn’t happened yet; 48 years is the maximum, according to the article.
Whatever the sentence is will be ridiculous since it’s just copyright infringement, but hopefully the sentencing goes to a small fraction of the maximum.
I dunno. I think there are enough things named after men.
Maybe a nice neutral woman’s name… Like, Anna?
And it’s more about preservation and archival, so I think it should be called an Archive, not a library.
Yeah, Anna’s Archive. Great name. Let’s go with that one.
I’m a cis Canadian and I’m terrified for everyone in the US. Even the ignorant masses who viewed for him. Project 2025 is going to dismantle American democracy, and with a stuffed supreme court, there are no remaining impediments to reverse this for a generation, until it’s too entrenched to change. If the USA lasts that long.
Literally wondering if an American civil war, or breaking apart into smaller countries, will be coming.
Longer term, terrified what this will mean for anthropogenic climate change and the world my children will inherit. (A climate-science denier is going to be the PM of Canada this time next year, too, and many are already provincial premiers.)
I didn’t think this was possible, tbh. I don’t understand how 51% of Americans can think the “grab-her-by-the-pussy” con artist is the best choice for president. He’s literally told them, repeatedly, what he’s going to do and they don’t care, don’t pay attention, or don’t believe him. I can’t even.
I’m going to go bury my head in the sand. No more news for me for the next long while. This isn’t good for my health.