Interestingly your link doesn’t mention use of color or lack there of. It does say elsewhere that you shouldn’t do it for decoration, though.

That said, things like this are more dictated by the journal you publish to and a thesis has to imitate that. Solution? Graduate and start a journal that requires beautiful color tables, lol

I teach, so trying to adjust old ppts for lecture got a little weird because it turned the bulletpoints into mailboxes, and equation formulas are done completely differently so libre just makes them uneditable (a picture?).

When things got wonky in lecture though I managed just fine. My students are much worse, they open shit in non-MS apps all the time (.notes for takehome exams, or like, keynote, whatever) and fuck up formatting all the time, often without even realizing it. (I do provide PDF alternatives at least). Explaining I use libre really easy in that case, lol.

The emulators have always been in a gray area, since they can play illegal copies of games with illegally sourced bios, etc. The emulator itself is simply the tool, which on its own isn’t proof of piracy much like owning a bong isn’t definite proof you smoke weed… just very suggestive (it can be used for tobacco I guess?)

As for current vs retro gen piracy, they’re equally illegal but obviously criminalized differently. And the ethics are obviously complex, you have people who pirate who otherwise wouldn’t be able to pay, you have people who pirate for a convenient copy of something they already own, and maybe people who could pay but simply don’t want to (although research has suggested this isn’t a huge group). And since it’s digital, there isn’t a loss in the same way as actual theft.

Personally, I just like taking control of the hardware and tweaking shit. I belong mostly to the folks who download copies of things I’ve already “bought” (which is a licence in many cases, as they don’t sell physical copies). A good example is Pokemon Scarlet, which ran like dogshit on the original hardware. I’ve been meaning to try it in an emulator to see if it works better, although I haven’t bothered yet. Would that be considered immoral, given I own the game and several switches?

NPR yesterday mentioned quite clearly in an interview with John Bolton that economic sanctions are the biggest factor in Iran, and very much on purpose. It is a US strategy, even pre-Trump.

He acknowledged the cultural upheaval that’s been going on years ago, too, and also that negotiations with their regime is a “waste of oxygen.” But sanctions were definitely central.

Though I suppose NPR isn’t really sensationalized… you wouldn’t interview John Bolton if you wanted sensational news.

Yeah… That’s a violation of FERPA and is reportable offense that’ll get ya fired or sued. Lol

Interesting, although the Japanese one was originally justified in that they weren’t allowed to have a military after WW2 and the US wasn’t quite as threatening so the bases were a pretty good deterrent to invasion.

Even more interesting is they’re looking to build up their military, even prior to Trump 2.0 (and there’s been an effort for a while). It’s weirdly good timing, although I’m married to an Okinawan and can say a majority of them haven’t wanted bases for decades because of the rape and abuse soldiers cause.

Now I want a shirt with that pattern to really screw with people. Then again, where I live (the US) that’s probably not a good idea.

That’s what I figured and I appreciate the confirmation. Since I work in education it’s probably a “better safe than sorry” approach since the laws on student privacy are actually enforced, unlike in corporate. (Obviously it’s security theater, though, as web apps and Windows integration make emails and files easy to steal anyway).

Yeah, I think if it’s web apps it’s fine, just aren’t ideal. I was mostly frustrated I couldn’t use a third party email app or OneDrive integration app. It’s more a grievance with the university I work for, though.

I’ll be trying to contribute to that!

Already hit a difficulty since my workplace uses Microsoft for everything and the admins lock out third party stuff. I guess I can access files on outlook and OneDrive via browser based options but God they’re awful.

Nice when it’s official. Best I’ve seen is a mod that reverts changes.

So many… I like the details, too. I remember when some of these happened, like when Telltale went out of business (and then upon coming back haven’t relisted).

Quite a few just have remastered versions, which I have mixed feelings about. I feel like they should allow both from a preservation perspective, but I also wouldn’t want someone downloading the older version out of confusion.

Him 20-30 years ago probably would have. This is a man who, when I was a kid, made a custom UI for msdos so my brother and I could play games easier. He wouldn’t just tinker, he’d probably be contributing.

Old age and alcoholism has kind of robbed him of that, though. At this point he’ll probably just ask me to fix it if it goes wrong, lol

It’s unfortunate that years as a tech guy at his job has made him less software curious, so probably bazzite then. Rather, I guess when it’s your job to fix things, tinkering isn’t fun anymore.

I ended up with CachyOS over Bazzite but I’m looking into the latter for my dad since I’m guessing it’s more stable and easier.

I just… Idk, I like Arch over Fedora. I blame the little pacman eating my progress whenever I install stuff in konsole. Desktop mode to desktop mode it’s the same KDE Plasma I’d be using, though. Are there any other striking differences between Cachy and Bazzite?

Edit: it was good to bring it up here, y’all are very knowledgeable on these things. It sounds to me that I need to get bazzite for my dad mostly because he won’t want to fuss or work on it and that I made the right call for myself since Cachy (and Arch in general) gives more flexibility. Frankly I might not even give him desktop mode default, he strictly wants something to play from bed in full on retirement mode.

It’s not a coincidence they start playing Xmas music in October now… Only a matter of time until it’s year round. Blasted climate change!

Y’all don’t get it. Santa is a hive mind parasite that embeds itself in people and takes over at the later months of the year. It tends to hibernate the rest of the year although much like pollen, it seems to be waking earlier and earlier.

I love the idea of someone trying this stupid question irl only to realize it wasn’t even plugged in. That’s … well fuck, that’s most IT work. The convoluted approach is definitely the wrong one. Lol

Not a crime podcast, but I’ve baked Christmas cookies for a fairly religious family while listening to atheist podcasts before.

However, it’s not as ironic as it sounds. The main podcaster is super into Christmas and turns out you can just celebrate it secularly. After all it’s technically a knockoff of a pagan holiday anyway.

Santa already extrapolates data for children without lists but with generative AI, we’re going to see new and exciting ways to disappoint children this Christmas!