…Gridiron football as opposed to association football? Do people not know the difference and confuse them? Or just him?

I’m glad they’re remastering the original versions for those who want that.

As someone who saw the movies when they were relatively new (I mean Star Wars was before my time and I was a baby when Empire came out), I don’t mind the changes. I think it’s cool that George Lucas was able to add the stuff he always wanted to do but didn’t have the budget for at the time. I think if I were someone who watched these movies yearly or more, I’d appreciate the “de-mastered” edition or whatever, but as a more casual enjoyer of the original trilogy… I don’t really care.

The one thing I’m a bit iffy on is Greedo shooting first. In the original, Greedo didn’t shoot. He just pointed the gun at Han. Han shoots Greedo under the table. And the two of them have history that’s never stated. Greedo is a more honest lowlife than Han is. Han is basically trash, but Luke inspires him to be a hero and come back at the end after the Rebellion has paid him. (Also, he’s fallen for Leia.) I think it’s important he goes from a cold-blooded killer to a hero. The change makes him a bit less bad. And I guess that’s because Vader is evil and Luke is good, and Luke can’t be hanging around with guys who exist in shades of grey. I don’t like that change. But I don’t hate Lucas for doing it. I’m also tired of explaining it, how they changed Han’s character essentially. Or explaining how “Han shot first” is wrong. Han was the only shooter in the original scene. Yes, Greedo was going to turn him over to Jabba the Hutt, who was most likely going to kill him. Drop him in the pit with the Rancor.

Ah, yes, I have it (on macOS, I use it for downloading when YouTube blocks jd2 from downloading, I can get the video in any res with no audio, and the video in like 160p with good audio. Throw both into mkvtoolnix, ditch the low-res video stream, and it’s all good. A bit of extra work, but if I want the video I can get it). I know it’s similar.

That’s awesome. Linux should absolutely be pushing for Android app compatibility in much the same way macOS does with iOS/iPadOS apps.

And by pushing, I mean it should be an optional project people could install if they want, not forced on everyone like a commercial OS feature. I just mean it should be a thing.

I’ve seen handles in kanji — I assume Japanese, could be Chinese. Some browsers will translate that if they can. At least to something you can say (if you don’t know how to say those symbols, that is). For example, people whose first language is English can say “konnichiwa” — the Japanese word for “hello” or “good day” written in Romaji, which is Japanese using the Roman alphabet — but they wouldn’t know how to pronounce こんにちは — it’s the same word. So you can look at that in my message and say “konnichiwa” out loud, but if you happened upon it in a week and you’ve forgotten I said this, you probably won’t recognise it. But, you can highlight it, long press/right click and search your favourite search engine to find out what it is.

(Side note: I do recognise は which is pronounced “wa.” It’s part of the title of my favourite film, 君の名は。 (Kimi no Na wa., or “your name.”) I also recognise の when I see it. This was the first one I learned — because it looks like a fortune cookie!)

Not necessarily.

You’re kind of talking about two different things that are somewhat interchangeable. First you have a username which is used to log into a network or system. Second you have a forum/chat handle which is used to identify an anonymous or semi-anonymous user (e.g. CerebralHawks for me). I don’t think it’s strictly necessary for a forum handle to be pronounceable, but it’s easy to read mine and call me that, or just “Hawks” or “Hawk.” If it’s not, the mind isn’t going to retain it as long (this could be a good thing) and it’s hard to say, so it’s hard to address.

Usernames absolutely don’t have to be. Forum/chat handles should be, but it isn’t necessary.

I don’t think you could call it Jesusland, taking the LORD’s name in vain and all that.

Christchurch though? Totally acceptable. Pretty sure that’s a city in Texas. Or, take the Aramaic (language Christ spoke) word(s) for “promised land” and Anglify it.

Anyway, which would your capitols be? I’m thinking maybe Dallas for “Jesusland” — it’s in Texas, and it’s far enough inland to miss a lot of hurricane damage that gets Houston right on the coast — and maybe keep Ottawa for USC. Except it’s not very centrally located… still might be their best bet since it exists. I sure wouldn’t put it in California (too many wildfires/earthquakes). I was kinda thinking British Columbia though (north of Washington State, bordering the Pacific). Like Vancouver maybe. Lovely area.

I feel like NewPipe would be awesome if it weren’t just for Android. Like if you could run it on PC/Mac/Linux. iOS wouldn’t be entirely out either, since you can sideload up to 3 apps with a free developer account. If you have an iPhone or iPad, you already have an Apple account, so you can just make it a developer account, and all that really does is add you to the developer mailing list, which isn’t that annoying.

Of course, on the computer I just use Firefox + uBlock Origin, but I can do that on Android, too. I’ve never tried watching YouTube on my Android phone (my iPhone has a bigger screen, but I’d just rather use a computer) but I bet I can block the ads in the browser. I think the app comes with it. My iPhone doesn’t even have the YouTube app. I never see ads in Safari using uBlock Lite, which is a DNS filter, which is exactly what Android users without root are doing, AFAIK (or VPN-based blocking e.g. PiHole that’s platform independent).

(So basically I prefer a solution that works on all my devices from various vendors. But a good option for Android, especially since Google backed down on canceling sideloading!)

I use this on my Macs — I think it works on all platforms? My use case is quite interesting. I have two Nintendo Switch emulators, one on a Mac and one on a MacBook. Due to the way Nintendo handles save files, it’s not the same folder name from machine to machine. You’d think it would be something dumb like \saves{serial-of-game} but no, it’s weird, it’s dumb, and it makes syncing a challenge.

SyncThing isn’t easy to set up, but it’s doable. I had to find the folder on both systems (different names, of course) and I have ST set up to where if it detects a change in one, it updates the other.

For the test, I set up Animal Crossing on the Mac, played until I could generate a save (roughly 10-15 minutes, I think: you do character creation, then a tutorial, before you’re allowed to go to sleep, and wake up with real-time enabled), then I booted it up on the MacBook and expected the save to load. I got a screen (within the game) I had never seen before, something about transferring my data to a new Switch (I’m guessing there’s a hardware ID in there), but then, it worked. I might have to face that screen every time, but I did what Ninten-don’t — I have an Animal Crossing save that lives on two machines at once. (And I never play it. I really just did it to see if I could. I play the game on my actual Switch, the actual game I paid for, because I wasn’t trying to rip off Nintendo, really, just see if I could do it. And, ST was the tool I used to accomplish it.)

Just going from the article.

The article said he was exonerated because the bite matching science was bunk. But she wasn’t killed by biting, she was killed by drowning, so I’m not sure where the bite even came into play.

They never said he didn’t rape or kill that baby. Just that he didn’t bite her.

The girl’s mother wasn’t there. She left her baby alone with this guy. She doesn’t think he’d do that because, as is commonly the situation (and thus, this becomes speculation), she lacked the self-confidence to meet a man who wasn’t a child predator. That’s one thing child predators do. They seek out poor women with low self esteem who have children who are a burden to them. “Oh yeah I’ll stay at home with your child while you go to work,” they say. They don’t have to work, and they have free access to the child? Win-win in their book. Of course the guy treats them well, they give him all he wants. Many of them even excuse the abuse, they’ll say their child seduced their man, their child was jealous, or the abuse isn’t that bad, or whatever. Happens all the time. Again, speculation here but it is pretty common.

That’s my thought as well, that it will just source IGN and other sites and scrape the data.

Also, people calling EA the worst company in the world seem to forget that EA published the Mass Effect trilogy. I just noticed that yesterday, their copyright is at the bottom but the EA logo isn’t shown when it (the Mass Effect Legendary Trilogy remaster) boots up. Just the Mass Effect-themed Bioware animation.

EA also published the Rockband games, trying to save the rhythm gaming industry from Activision, which tried to kill it after the developer (Harmonix) left. They got Neversoft (of Tony Hawk games fame) to repackage Guitar Hero 2 with more songs and limp along after it, but once Rockband came out and they added vocals and drums, Guitar Hero was basically done… so Activision flooded the market with slop. I’m not saying EA did anything heroic, they just gave the rhythm game developer a platform to publish on. I don’t think Rockband was ever profitable, but they all damn sure tried. Rockband 3 is also one of the reasons you have mods on console at all. It was part of the pilot program for Microsoft’s XNA, which brought user content to Xbox users. Games too, but most sucked. The real kicker was that anybody could put songs in Rockband, and some indie bands converted their entire catalogue. PC game modding had been a thing long before, but console users getting fan-made content in a game was simply not a thing before then. Even today, people make custom songs for the modded Rockband 3 Deluxe (which requires a modded console, adds a bunch of quality of life features) or computer ports like YARG (Yet Another Rhythm Game).

When I was a kid, EA published a paint program, Deluxe Paint, on the Amiga. Not really gaming related, but it was an awesome paint program and did stuff you still don’t see in drawing/paint programs in 2025, paid or free (DPaint was paid; my father bought it on floppy disk in a cardboard sleeve with a manual and everything).

So yeah. Way worse companies out there. But I’m not gonna excuse the shit EA got into. I do think Microsoft is worse, between Copilot stuff, Activision, and Bethesda.

Copilot has been in Notepad, though. It can be disabled in Settings. I also disabled Markdown — I don’t need it. I just use Notepad as like a scratch pad, it’s a bit more versatile than Sticky Notes (which I also use).

I don’t care as a gamer. Fortnite is a free game and you can have all the fun anyone can have for free. Yes, they sell virtual currency, it’s used to buy cosmetic items of pop culture references. Like I seriously thought about dropping ~$45 for the Kpop Demon Hunters pack. But I didn’t. I like KPDH but I really don’t play Fortnite much. Enough to keep it on my Xbox, but not nearly enough to spend real money on it.

I do care as a game industry watcher/commentator (of no real note; I’m not some blogger you’ve heard of, just some random asshole on forums/Lemmy) because Fortnite is, from this point of view, a demo of the Unreal Engine. And if they’re using AI slop in it, it just makes Unreal look bad and that sucks, because it’s a great engine, from a gamer perspective at least. I don’t like Fortnite because of the memes and the pop culture references (though they are fun), I like it because I played Unreal Tournament (the first one) when it was new, and playing Fortnite, it’s a lot of the same motions. The game moves exactly how I expect it to, and I value that. No, it’s not like Unreal Tournament or Deus Ex, but it’s the same feel. I love how it plays, and it’s absolutely gorgeous to look at.

I use Apple Music so artists get paid a little more (and not alt-right conspiracy theorists), and they do have Replay, but it doesn’t have as user-friendly a page that shows everything in one place.

So top 5 artists and songs? Here’s the raw data:

Artists:

1. ONE OK ROCK, 3,539 minutes
2. THE SIXTH LIE, 1,707 minutes
3. ReoNa, 1,500 minutes
4. Enya, 1,438 minutes
5. AmaLee, 1,234 minutes

Songs:

1. Virtual Sky (THE SIXTH LIE), 97 plays
2. Watashitachi no uta (ReoNa), 79 plays
3. +Matter (ONE OK ROCK), 74 plays
4. Yofukashino Uta (Creepy Nuts), 73 plays
5. Make it Out Alive (ONE OK ROCK), 73 plays

ONE OK ROCK and THE SIXTH LIE are Japanese rock bands. ReoNa is a Japanese musician who does everything from pop/dance to rock/hard rock. Enya is an Irish singer in a genre of her own making, but most often classified as New Age (a label she rejects). AmaLee is a YouTuber who covers Japanese songs in English. She sings, and the music is performed by other people. AFAIK she doesn’t have a consistent band. And Creepy Nuts is a Japanese hip-hop/rap duo. I like Japanese music, and I like weird stuff (like Creepy Nuts and Enya).

So, you would give the death penalty to a prosecutor who has sought justice but condemned an innocent man to death?

That seems somewhat reasonable, actually.

…But not someone who raped and drowned a 23-month-old girl in his care? Assuming he actually did that, of course.

I’ve always believed in death penalty for sex abuse of minors (and especially preteen/younger kids). I won’t debate it because I understand the arguments that capital punishment has no place in civilised society and all that.

In what country? In the country he lives in, he’s more likely to be elected president!

Facebook itself actually has a body count. I don’t mean sex — Facebook has literally gotten people killed. “Child endangerment” can get in line.

Correct. While a chargeback is a last resort, if the consumer is not lying, then Best Buy advertised a GeForce RTX 5080, but instead gave worthless rocks while taking the consumer’s money. That is fraud and the consumer is well within his rights to seek a chargeback. Then the credit card company can seek the damages from the retailer, which they will almost certainly pay because they don’t want an outside fraud investigation which could find them criminally liable. Of course when it is on them to investigate, they will find for themselves, take the money, and keep the product, and hope the consumer just goes away. A credit card company with its own lawyers will not, so at that point it’s just good business sense to refund the money. It puts them at net zero anyway, as opposed to being up $1200. They were never at risk of being down $1200, which isn’t that much for a company the size of Best Buy to fight for stealing from a consumer. They’ll do it if they can get away with it, but if they can’t, they’ll cave.

That graph doesn’t tell us anything, though. 100% of what? People who were the most against homosexuality? In those countries? Likely, but why are they afraid to say so?

It’s an AI assistant in your game that will help you, tell you where to go and whatnot by using Copilot to help by analysing your game.

Doesn’t sound too bad, I mean who cares if they see what you’re playing or how (bad) you’re playing? It’s just weird. Like the generations after mine used GameFAQs, or asked on Reddit, or watched YouTube videos. My generation read Nintendo Power, and shared tips on the playground or at school, whether we read it in a magazine or discovered it on our own. There were 1-900 numbers you could call, but no one I know called them. Maybe the rich kids did? I was forbidden from doing so (by my parents) and I never did. But that was actually another option. Like, Nintendo operated one. I think some of the third-party gaming magazines may have, as well. You could also write in, and maybe they’d publish your letter and a response, but that would take months.

Take your time, Apple. If I wanted good AI, I’d have gone with Pixel or Galaxy. I’m fine with my AI being dumb.