Free is good, of course. But I also have some gripes about how Band functions so I’m interested to see what else is out there. Thanks for the Campfire recommendation; I will check it out.

Microsoft’s store is broken. I have had a similar problem with Minecraft.

1. Want to buy DLC for my kid in Minecraft.

2. Get forwarded to the Microsoft Store to process the transaction.

3. For some reason the money goes into my Microsoft account balance rather than going toward the DLC I wanted to buy.

4. Cash balance in a Microsoft account cannot be used to buy Minecraft DLC, and cannot be transferred to a Minecraft account. (Why tf not? Minecraft is a Microsoft property.)

5. I now have money stuck in the Microsoft account that cannot be refunded, and I can’t get the DLC I wanted.

This sucks.

Looks like another case of private equity shenanigans.

Summarized from Wikipedia: A private equity firm bought the hospital chain in 2010 with borrowed money. They tried to flip the hospitals to a new buyer but failed. So instead they sold off the real estate and borrowed more money to pay dividends to stakeholders. Now the hospitals are deep in debt, plus they pay rent on land they used to own.

What a bunch of vultures.

TheDude did some server maintenance on the 9th, but other than that I’m not aware of any issues. Everything works fine on my machine, so obviously there aren’t any problems (j/k).

Did you have issues at a particular time? Maybe we can find something in the logs and trace down the issue.

Edit: you can also catch us on our Matrix channel for more timely tech support.

Give Alberta and Saskatchewan to the US.

Let the US keep the eastern third of Washington and Oregon. Canada doesn’t really want those people anyway.

What a sweet kid. I hope the parent has a sense of humor about it and tells the kid he was good for trying to do something nice for a neighbor even though there was a misunderstanding.

Apparently Ukraine has gay super soldiers. Does anyone know where I can find one? Asking for a friend.

Here’s a zoomed-out version:

Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/the-picture-show/2025/01/09/g-s1-41784/los-angeles-fire-photos

Joke’s on them, this whole thing was a clever ruse to get rid of LA and make it France’s fault. Operation Ænema is going exactly as planned!

You mean items that should be generic commodities, but which companies customize in order to lock you into their ecosystem, or otherwise restrict what you can do? Like printer ink cartridges or Keurig pods with ID chips, as you mentioned.

• DVD region codes

• Camera lenses back in the manual SLR days. I don’t think there’s any reason old manual-focus Nikon/Olympus/Pentax/etc. lenses needed to be brand-exclusive. The companies could have all used the same bayonet mount and all lenses would be interchangeable.

Yes, each generation dies off and passes its wealth to the next. But the boomers are an unusual case because they hold a lot more wealth relative to their size. Boomers and millennials each account for about 20% of the US population. But boomers hold 50% of the wealth in America, while millennials only hold 8%. The wealth transfer as the boomer generation dies off is going to be massive. And most of that Boomer wealth is tied up in real estate, which will have a big impact on the housing market when it becomes available.

https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/more-than-half-of-us-wealth-belongs-to-baby-boomers:-will-other-generations-catch-up

https://www.statista.com/statistics/296974/us-population-share-by-generation/

(Gen X is somewhere in the middle and I’m skipping over them, as is tradition. They wouldn’t want it any other way.)

Edit: meant Gen X, not Gen Z.

Thanks. Corrected. I want to give some excuse about my memory not being what it used to be, but I should have gotten that one right.

Very professionally, and with no emotion, Walter spoke: “Los Angeles Center, Aspen 20, can you give us a ground speed check?” There was no hesitation, and the replay came as if it was an everyday request. “Aspen 20, I show you at one thousand eight hundred and forty-two knots, across the ground.”

The idea emerged that the rich people were not contributing as they should, unless required or compelled to do so.

Humans haven’t changed a bit.

I wish you could send some of your snow over here. I love the stuff, and I usually have to drive to the mountains to get to it.

I thought this was a free country!

An article about Americans.

The picture shows a driver in the right seat.

🤦‍♂️

There are medical applications where ultrasound is used to ablate small areas of tissue (see High Intensity Focused Ultrasound). It only works if you focus all the energy in a very small area, though. Sound is not an efficient way to heat a large mass. I would be impressed if you could warm a kilogram of plastic more than a few degrees above ambient. The waste heat coming off of your driving electronics (the amplifier, and the speaker/transducer itself) would dwarf whatever heat is generated by the sound waves hitting a target.

Me, today, using the 3D printer at work to print knick-knacks for my kids.

According to the public library, the vendor that managed the reservations is “discontinuing their service on short notice.”

Seattle Public Library spokesperson Elisa Murray said Thursday the library will switch over to a new vendor and hopes to have the program reactivated by the end of January.

Good. I’m glad they’re working to keep the program going.