The Overton Window has shifted to the right.
I'm sick of the regressive values of conservatism.
I'm running Win 10 Ameliorated on mine. Manual driver installs were the only big hiccup. Works well otherwise, but it's not my daily driver.
I can't really use Linux since my work is deeply embedded in Microsoft everything; I need OneDrive to work dependably.
It was offered as a free upgrade for anyone with Wishes 7/8. And you could get free upgrades to those from earlier editions of Windows, too.
Some people haven't paid for Windows in 2 decades-ish with a legit retail purchase.
Mood.
I'm not going to pay $45 for any game. If I'd known about the "never on sale, price only goes up" model they were using, I might have bought it back when it was $20, but I'll just never play it now and I'm okay with that. There are literally hundreds of amazing games I already own to play, and if I had 100+ hours to sink into a game like this (I don't, post-kiddos—for now, anyway), then I'd strike the earth for some Dwarf Fortress !!!FUN!!!, which I know I'll enjoy.
Or maybe finally get around to beating Baldur's Gate 1... (I never made it past the early game... BG3 I'll get to in the 2040s at this rate, ha ha!)
Aside from people who just want to play football/CoD/D4/whatever multilayer game, I don't understand why anyone pays full price for games. I'm glad they do, mind, since they're subsidizing the development costs mean games get made, and I get amazing games for cheap.
As a recent example, I nabbed MH Rise for cheap recently, and bounced off it. I might try again later, but it didn't grab me. So glad I didn't pay more than $15 CAD for it!
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.
Isn't it getting harder to find custom ROMs, now? Used to be basically everything was on XDA forums, but I've heard lots of custom ROMs are moving to they're own websites/Discord servers/whatever.
Meanwhile, Steam is raking it in by continuing to offer a better product than piracy. The Steam Deck is making that even more true; it's so much more convenient to have games in the Steam library than try to keep a repack updated with new patches/content.
Right, but pirating Disney-owned IP is more moral than paying for it. Disney is the number 1 company in the world for lobbying for copyright over-reach. Every dollar that goes to Disney pays for lobbyists who will continue to push for life-of-author + 90+ years, because life-of-author plus 70 years just isn't enough time to control our shared cultural heritage.
Similarly for Nintendo and software piracy.
Paying for Disney/Nintendo media is immoral.
Putting 2S at the front is part of Truth and Reconciliation, recognizing the intersectionality of being Indigenous and two-spirit and the importance of including Indigenous Knowledge across all systems of power.
With all due respect, decrying their inclusion is racist and continues the perpetuation of colonialist systems of oppression.
I say this coming from a position of immense privilege, as a white, cis male from fairly wealthy and educated non-immigrant parents.
Absolutely. STV is the dream system. Proportional representation but with fully local representatives.
My favourite feature is that it holds politicians directly accountable to their constituents. If you don't know much about politics, you can just vote by party, like regular ranked ballot. But if you know more, you can rank individual party members against each other in the same party. There are no "safe" seats party insiders can hold to assure being elected, keeping everyone accountable.
MMP either has party lists (and its potential for corruption from seeking higher list rank from the party), or systematically over-represents areas with more fractured political views. MMP also can lead to more fracturing of parties, since you only need a very small percentage of votes to get 1 seat, instead of 20%+ (locally) to qualify for a seat in STV. We don't need single-issue fringe parties holding the deciding vote(s) to get to a majority coalition government able to force a snap election at any time!
Should have used the title to figure out the reading order. Would have saved me a lot of wasted mental effort. Brilliant.
If you'd read the article, you'd know that the author isn't suggesting that.
"Family first" is unidirectional. Parents put their kids first. That's the job. I signed up for it, and I'm going to prioritize then as much as I can.
Nothing, as far as I can tell, but political opponents have been running attack ads and blaming him for everything that's gone wrong in the local (and global, for that matter) economy for the last decade.
I think he did amazingly well in the Trump presidency threading the needle of not giving in to Trump but also not antagonizing him, so Canada had limited personal vendettas and attacks from Trump.
He's very articulate and careful with his words, and his pauses to think carefully about wording are seen as a lack of confidence. And, granted, it does make him a less inspiring/exciting/dynamic speaker.
Contrast that with Pierre Poilievre, the leader of the Cons, who's not at all worried about offending minorities and is constantly telling people how Trudeau has ruined everything, is ruining everything, and will ruin everything, for exemple by letting in immigrants, allowing schools to support trans kids (provincially controlled, not in Trudeau's jurisdiction), and for long medical waiting times (also provincial), etc. Literally everything.
... he claims there is no point producing proof because they wouldn't be believed.
He also dismisses any evidence created by others as untrustworthy.
What a load of shit. It's up to the person making the claim to provide evidence. People have claimed the opposite, and backed it up with "low-quality" evidence. Refusing it would be pretty easy, if it were true; get someone independent to verify in a pre-funded, blind trial.
The only reason not to do this is because they know their product reduces framerate frequently enough to be a problem.
ikr? By buying online, it's saving them money on staffing, and they want to charge for it? Bullshit.
If anything, they should raise prices and give a discount for buying online to cut down on box-office staffing needs. Customers prefer discounts to fees; everyone knows that. And it lines up with customer expectations that paying more to get more "service" (staff time) is reasonable.
What a stupid plot to alienate your customers.
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.
Pierre Poilievre is going to do the same in Canada, too. He's been threatening to defund the CBC (Canada BBC, basically). And our current PM, Trudeau, is reviled by so many Canadians that he's unelectable, so the Cons are going to cruise to an easy majority next year.
It sucks knowing that the country is going to be in a worse place 5 years from now but being unable to do anything about it. At least the US has a 50-50 shot of coming out okay, if the polls are to be believed. (I'm more optimistic about the actual election results, personally, but very concerned about a coup/civil unrest of some sort.)
Attacks on the press are attacks on democracy, and the Canadian press is crumbling.
Fanatical is running a Steam Deck games bundle right now. Are any of these games worth the time?
I feel like I've heard good things about Arise, but I'm out of the loop. I don't recognize many of the others by name.
Prices are reasonable, so it's less a question about if it's worth the money, more if its worth the time. (3 for CA$6.79, 5 for CA$9.59, or 8 for CA$13.69)
Terror of Hemasaurus Jack Move Garden Story Castle on the Coast The Tarnishing of Juxtia Arise: A Simple Story Zombie Army Trilogy Beyond the Long Night ATONE: Heart of the Elder Tree The Smurfs - Mission Vileaf Röki Home Sweet Home EP2 Hero's Hour Moonlighter Pathologic 2
I'm just curious if anyone else tried to get one of the Limited Edition Steam Decks before they sold out. I tried for it (on 3 devices) but kept getting error messages until it sold out. I just ordered the 1 TB edition instead.
This will be my first portable gaming device since the DSi, so I'm really excited for it. Getting the clear LE one would have been cool, but I'm probably better off not spending the extra $40 CAD, lol.
So, what's your Steam Deck situation? Did you try for/get the LE? Do you already have one? Getting one? Don't want one?
All over Twitch, about half the streamers I usually watch playing turn-based strategy games are all suddenly playing the same new game. I watched a few streams, and it looked interesting. Normally, I never buy games when they just come out because I have such a backlog and can wait for a sale, but I figured if everyone (figuratively) is playing it, it must be amazing.
Turns out, they're giving the full game away for free during their "early access" phase as a "demo". But it's the full game, just with only 2 class choices.
I had a blast! And now I'm probably going to buy it on release.
The last time I remember doing this was for Minecraft. I see lots of games doing free weekends on Steam, which is very similar; doesn't work well for me since I only have a few hours for gaming each week, but I imagine that must be successful for a lot of games, too.
What do you think of that business model? And/or, what do you think of Backpack Battles, if you've played it?
Alberta Teachers’ Association says it is ‘taking steps’ to protect staff
There's a big protest being organized across Canada to protest SOGI being taught in schools, and I'm fed up with it. There are so many vulnerable students who need to know that what they're experiencing is normal, and right-wing extremists are politicizing human rights and spreading manufactured controversy about children being shown pornography in schools.
The linked article is just one of many anti-SOGI protests happening across Canada on Wednesday.
Anyway, the reason I bring it up here is that some of these right-wing anti-SOGI [redacted; unkind] are parents of kids in our kids' classes, and a couple of them are close friends with my kids.
How do you handle that? Kids shouldn't be held accountable for their parents' beliefs. But what about playdates and birthday parties and such? Should we discuss the friendship? It feels wrong to ostracize the child. They deserve to feel safe and have friends.
Also, I'm thinking of taking time off work to counter protest, and making a sign like this one: !
Not really related to parenting, but I think it's important kids feel supported and bigots are told their archaic world views are unwelcome. It'll be super awkward if a parent I know is standing on the other side of the protest.
Saskatchewan is fairly conservative leaning, from a Canadian perspective, so perhaps this isn't surprising, but it's a shame that drug use continues to be viewed through a criminal lens instead of a healthcare and mental health crisis.
My understanding is that even suicide is generally covered by life insurance policies after a two-year vetting period; I would have thought that drug overdoses would at least get the same treatment. It doesn't say in the article how long this policy existed, but the context implies it was longer than two years and I would have thought it would have been a relevant detail to include in the article if it was a newly opened policy, so the omission of that detail further supports it being an older policy.
I have great sympathy for his family, especially because of the long legal battle that I'm sure has retraumatized them over the intervening years.
My context / use case
I got Fire 7 tablets for my kiddos a few years ago and they're dreadfully slow and can't really run many apps at all. With my daughter needing some educational support at home, I was looking for a cheap replacement that actually had enough power to manage recent education apps, and hopefully be future proof for a while.
Alternatives
The cheapest tablet at Costco.ca, the Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Lite, is $500 CAD, has a weak processor, only 4GB RAM, and 64GB storage.
I'll never touch Apple products for a zillion reasons, but cost was completely prohibitive for a device my child could drop any day. Even used ones are insanely priced. And the app ecosystem for education on iOS is almost entirely paid apps, increasingly using a subscription model. (Or so it seems.)
Newer Amazon Fire "HD" tablets suck, too, but at least they're cheap. And they might be powerful enough to run some things? idk. I wasn't enthused.
Then, I thought to check AliExpress and found an 8GB tablet with 128GB storage, a processor better than the S6, and a 2K (1440p) display. After reading reviews to check if it's legit, I ordered one.
Informal Review
The great:
Price/value for the specs. I paid ~$240CAD for a bundle that includes a nice case, screen protector, charging block and cable, and a child-size Bluetooth keyboard. (It doesn't have a digitizer, so I skipped the stylus.)
The good:
The tablet is snappy. The battery lasts a long time. The screen has plenty enough resolution to render everything crisply on a 10.4" display.
It's a perfect tablet for my kids use as an educational tablet. It's great for PDF ebook reading (mostly picture books and early reader chapter books to date, lol!) and has handled all the education/edutainment apps without any slowdowns.
3.5mm jack. 18W fast charging. Build quality feels solid. Well positioned hardware buttons and 3.5mm jack make it easy to use in either orientation. The included case works as an angled stand. SD card slot for expansion. SIM compatible for phone/data.
The bad:
The viewing angle is pretty terrible. It's completely fine for solo use or for applications where colour accuracy isn't important, but it's very noticeable.
The speakers suck. I'm not a sound geek, so I don't know the correct terms, but the sound is muddy and distorted. They also have a fairly low maximum volume, and become increasingly distorted at higher volume. They work well enough, but it's not enjoyable for music. I would definitely use headphones for music/video/games.
I haven't tried the camera at all, but I've heard it's not great. Can't comment on that.
The purchase
The vendor I ordered from (ALLDOCUBE Direct Store) swapped the EU plug for a US plug at no extra cost. It arrived quickly (3 weeks?) from China.
The package arrived with the retail box crushed, so the included screen protector broke. After using it for a day, I decided to buy a second one for my other child, and asked them to include a replacement. Not only did they include a replacement, but they pre-installed the screen protector on tablet #2 so it couldn't break, without my asking them to.
I would recommend the seller, but ask them to pre-install the screen protector (if you plan to use one) so there's less risk of damage in transit.
Discussion
Anyway, not sure if this is the kind of content people want here, but I thought I'd do my part to add something!
Has anyone else experimented with cheap AliExpress/Chinese Android devices?
Based on my success with these, I'm considering getting a phone for my wife there. I'm a bit more worried about data vulnerabilities and software support longevity on a daily driver phone, but it's really hard to find a small quality phone for a reasonable price. Also, it needs to have a good camera or it's a nonstarter.
Do you have any experience or thoughts on this?