If anyone like getting their hands dirty with tinkering, then you can get inspiration from Zac’s YouTube video about modernising an iPod.

This is the origin of the phrase “where there’s a will, there’s a way”.

They’re desperate to get data about human activity. They wanted data about what people do online and they’ve got all of that. Now they need to move into the human world as much as possible. It used to be just for selling to advertisers, but now they also need to feed it into AI.

They already try to force these into every area of our lives… all phone data, all online content, dating apps, phone keyboards, browser fingerprinting, internet connected fridges, cars, door bells, home cameras, etc etc. Now they will try to find new and novel ways to put more data collection devices (camera, mic, GPS, gryo and movement trackers, any physical parameter they can think of, etc etc) into more insane devices.

They will push “smart” clothes, wearable AI devices, furniture, toilet, etc etc. They will say these are absolutely essential and add value to our lives. People will eat this up immediately and fall over themselves to incorporate these into their lives and celebrate how amazing this is.

It started with the initial days of Facebook when I didn’t want to be on Facebook, but people I know would still upload my pictures and tag them with my name. They need more and more ways to get information on people not in their ecosystem. This shit will only get more and more invasive.

Vocals. Mainly in the shower, but sometimes in the car. I’d say I’m close to being the best vovalist in the world, if not the best.

I shall check out all those suggestions. Thanks. Already got GTA2 though.

The amazing price and performance of emulation consoles blows my mind and I would recommend them to anyone who hasn’t discovered them yet.

One of the modern slavery support charities say that there is more slavery currently than there has ever been in history. But I don’t remember where I read this and can’t find the source now.

Thunderbird for desktop. Thunderbird for mobile.

Here’s my opinion on the matter.

When I discovered emulation, I started playing some real old stuff again. I’ve got Atari games like Frogger. That’s probably the oldest game I’ve played again most recently, but I don’t play that regularly.

I intermittently fire up Micromachines 2 (Mega Drive), which is just as much fun as it has always been.

If we’re taking about the oldest game I still play regularly and seriously (that I did start playing back in the day) and still play now, that would be some PSP and PS2 games. I’m currently playing Wipeout Pulse and Gran Turismo 4 and progressing (even got the same save files from the PSP). I also regularly play Tony Hawk’s Underground, Lumines, Grand Theft Auto China Town Wars and Everybody’s Golf… But these have fallen out of the current game rotation.

Overall if we’re going to crown an undisputible winner, I think that will be the original Tetris.

Edit: also reminds me of Sim City 3000 and X-wing Alliance, which I will remember and play again once a decade. I still mourn the loss of the playerbase of Quake 3 Arena and Quake Live, otherwise I would still happily play those now.

Frankly, this has been quite a significant barrier to my Linux adoption previously. Its really unfortunate that people are like this. I wish there were set tags or communities for noob problems so people could post questions safely. Anyone who doesn’t want to engage with noobs can then stay away.

I don’t think anti-AI communities realise what the common public perception of AI is.

Tech Bros sell it as if it is artificial general intelligence. People treat it like it is artificial general intelligence. No one accepts that this is a “next word guessing machine”. There are super harmful things in society that no one questions and people will literally fight to defend (most social media, loss of all online privacy/security, etc).

We can bang on about it all we want, but there aren’t enough voices to push back against AI and most either don’t have an opinion about it, or are fully invested and love it. My organisation is really struggling financially, but they’re jumping into AI with both feet. Everyone is expected to use it (and take personal responsibility for its errors) and they’re paying a lot for Copilot subscription. Large scale redundancies are happening with the expectation that AI will take up all those jobs. My manager (not in IT) is doing a degree in AI implementation in our industry. It is insane and people don’t care.

White helmet: riding with the good guys

Black helmet: riding for evil

The lie makes its way around the world before the truth has even put its shoes on. Lies are easy to make up. It takes ages to do studies and data reviews to gather evidence. It’s sad that this needed to be done to counter bullshit. The MMR vaccine lies still won’t go away after decades of disproving.

I’m fine with plenty of sex on TV. Game of Thrones seems to have broken the barrier in people’s mind for gratuitous sex and nudity in the mainstream and streaming services have capitalised on not having the same restrictions as terrestrial TV. Sex is an important part of human existence and it’s fine to have it feature heavily in our media. The same rules apply as for anything else in story writing… It must make a point, fit into a narrative and be done well.

A few media review sources have had good video essays and articles about the fact that:

1. The most recent generations are really objecting to sex in their media. So tastes are changing. Objectively there is less and less sex in our movies and TV shows.
2. It is very important to show normal sex as part of a normal story. If this is not maintained, then the only way to see any depiction of sex will be porn, and porn is so warped and far from reality that it really should not be our main depiction of sex.

If stories are going to be written, then there will inevitably be bad stories and poor implementation too, and we just have to put up with that. I haven’t seen the media you mention… Maybe it was bad, or maybe it wasn’t for you. Either one is fine. If you want to find good shows, you risk watching some bad ones.

This works for peas and you don’t need a recipe. Put boiled peas in an air-fryer to crisp them up a bit. Then sprinkle on whatever spices you like. Can add lemon, or sauces or whatever you like. Experiment as you like. Just be careful not to make it unhealthy by drowning it in sauce.

You could do the same with cutting aubergine into thin slices and making them crisp in an airfryer or oven and making “chips” out of them.

Guys, what’s the best Linux distro to install on my PC?

The community:

There’s a good podcast called Your Parenting Mojo. She also does a parenting workshop called Taming Your Triggers. I’ve never taken the workshop, but the podcast has helped me a lot.

Essentially, the problem comes when parents have their own unresolved issues that make parents get triggered by children. Also, many times children are seen as an inconvenience to be controlled and silenced. If a parent can see a child as a person whose feelings and needs are valid, then it really changes the perspective and has certainly changed how I parent. The number of times I get annoyed by my children has gone way down (once I’ve actually reflected to deal with getting to the bottom of my own internal issues) and the solutions are now geared towards getting everyone’s needs met.

(open?) world.

No thank you

Tell us your distro of choice… and then watch the group turn to cannibalism.

Man, that game did so many things right. Really miss the experience and really looking forward to the next.