Fuckin’ Zuck. Seriously. Bezos too. Musk. They’re all bootlicking, ass-kissing, apple-polishing, brown-nosed toadies.

And they get away with crimes on an hourly basis.

I am leery.

Every single thing I’ve learned about it or experienced has strengthened that point of view.

I took comparative religion as a class at uni, it opened my eyes. I remain tolerant because most religious people I’ve met are not, no matter how much they preach it.

I feel like most religious teaching is for people who want to be told what to do, like a child. They want those simplistic explanations, and they want a reason to be intolerant and discriminate.

Still, I try to be tolerant.

It all seems like a cult, no matter how organized or recognized the religion is: Protestant, Catholic, or Muslim (sorry, I don’t know any Jewish folks).

I came to the same conclusion as Gene Roddenberry about 4 or 5 years ago.

In the battle of KPI vs Mixed Methods, objective vs subjective, some prefer objective…

I’m not a PC gamer, perhaps the people who play PC games invested a lot in their rig and expect a studio experience. So they review it and other people realize they are not getting the best experience.

Nintendo Switch users with NSO might not realize that the software emulation used to run those games suffers from latency, and they will enjoy themselves until someone they trust brings it up and sends them down the rabbit hole.

I’m currently grinding a game that looks like it was made in 2015 and had a few bugs. I don’t care because it is what I want to play.

I get what you mean, though.

I think this is the easiest. But, -to can’t do negative times. You need to nest a different comment inside the FFmpeg command to to the math.

I think this might work to remove 2 seconds from the end of a video

ffmpeg -ss 0 -i in.mp4 -t $(( $(ffprobe -v error -show_entries format=duration -of default=noprint_wrappers=1:nokey=1 in.mp4 |cut -d\. -f1) - 2 )) -c copy out.mp4

I spent a few hours yesterday formatting an exam to send to the exam centre of my school.

Everything was set up just right. It only took 5 minutes. Clearly, I was wrong. Because the exam thing doesn’t accept PDF! Only Word files.

No problem. Turns out I already had multiple ways to convert the file (the ebook-convert tool from calibre worked really well).

There. That was another 2 minutes. So, I went back to upload.

There is a size limit. Of course there is a size limit!

Now I have to go through the exam and “compress” the images I spent the last week preparing to get the file size down to 2.5 MB. That took a few minutes.

Then I had to manually enter every corrector and the number of groups they correct. There are 23 correctors with different numbers of groups.

Then I needed to manually enter the address of these people.

You see how this is adding up?

It is the slowest thing in the world too.

It was all set up when I got a message, at 8PM, telling me the exam would be on our online test thing and not printed!

Back to the starting block.

…

Finally got it done after 4 hours!

And now we get to do it again for a different exam!

Last week I handed over too much money for a game that I’m now determined to grind until there is nothing left to grind.

Raiden NOVA

I might even write a review for it.

It’s essentially Geometry Wars set in the Raiden universe with a roguelite aspect (other users say it is like Vampire Survivors, but I haven’t played that game). Graphics are (very) dated, but gameplay is satisfying. Main arcade can be beat in about 1.5 hours but if you want all the ships and buffs and achievements you need to commit yourself to grinding over 80 hours.

Either way, it is one of the few physical Switch games (other than all the flagship Mario games my son loves) that I own and plus it is an import which is neat.

Work email inbox went from 0 to 60 unread messages 45 minutes after waking up. Spent the first 3 hours replying to emails and putting out small fires.

A third of the emails were from students essentially demanding we change the rules for them because their cases are exceptional (no, they didn’t read the instructions and did something wrong and it cost them… literally, they didn’t show up to a paid exam so there are at least 22 students who lost 260 euro).

Tomorrow there is a strike at my son’s school, and I find out if the person I am replacing comes back. I will update here. If they do, I’ll be passing the baton back to them with a big smile.

I think this is right, I have succeeded in at two of these evolutions using this logic. There is literally no tool tip or guide as far as I can tell. When you first play they say something about carefully choosing your upgrades. So, now I do.

Haha

I file all of this under “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

• Qwant has claimed since 2016 that they have an index. That lie has earned them investments and funding. They do not have an index and they’ve said so after the fact. They also give data to Bing. They are not private but they say they are because the data they share is anonymized.

• Ecosia is just a Bing frontend like DDG. Caron offsets never work. In order for Ecosia to work you need to see and click on some ads, so anybody using adblockers will not be helping. Their servers aren’t green either.

• This is because Bing is going to raise their prices and now these companies need to lure in new investors to keep the lights on. It isn’t about sovereignty or data privacy; it’s just about money.

I only have a Switch but I’ll add it to my Deku Deals list

https://www.dekudeals.com/items/rite-switch

Platformers are amazing. I think I like most of the big series that I’ve played—Mario, Sonic, DKC, Crash, Mega Man, etc.—and I really enjoy indie platformers.

Recent indie games that have taken the tried and true formula of unforgiving precision platforming to the extreme are also amazing. Celeste is a gorgeous games, Kaze kicks ass and retro throwback games like Byte the Bullet and Bzzzt are soooo satisfying.

I like a good pick up and play game, platformers fit the bill.

Once muscle memory kicks in, you’re golden. As long as the learning curve is right.

Going back and playing the first levels with the skill gained by completing the game is such a good feeling.

For me, SMB Wonder is a 10/10 platformer if we’re looking at recent 2D only. I don’t know many 3D platformers, but Crash 4 is a must play (I think that’s the most recent 3D platformer I’ve played).

You gotta try Mega Man. And if that doesn’t do anything for you, try Mega Man X or Zero. I love all of them, but X7 and X8 were my leas favourite.

Personally, I like them because of the art style, the music, and the challenge.

Late 80s

Shmupdate:

GreyLancer (oldie but a goodie, too tempting to play on easy mode with rewinds so replay value is lowish, but was still very enjoyable.)

Crisis Wing (love the graphics, good difficulty levels for near-beginner.)

Radiant Silvergun (what the hell were they smokin at Treasure!? Even on very easy this is going to take me at least 25 hours to beat using every life/ship I can get. Probably double that! In the first hour of play I went from “well this is garbage” to "oh, I see, you just need to put in the time and effort and then it’s awesome.)

Still haven’t finished the boss rush on Andro Dunos II so those extra levels will be a mystery to me…

R-Type Dimensions EX is on sale right now, so I’ll probably buy that tomorrow.

Accelerated Mobile Pages

Main issue, for me at least, is about locking publishers into a Google-built version of the Web that generates less revenue for the publisher and sometimes uses more data for the end user.

I found Iconoclasts to be pretty uplifting to play. The ending is marvellously satisfying.

The Shantae games are good.

Disney Illusion Island fits in here too.

Excellent game. Still never quite finished it. I think have 3 screens left.

Handbrake is the tool that comes to mind. You’ve already mentioned FFmpeg which is what I always try to use.

I’ve always liked FF. We had FF1 on the NES back when but the battery in it was dead so we had to the leave the console on. My brother got through it after a good number of afternoons.

I never got into it though. I like watching it. I remember the obsession around FFVII.

Then I picked up one of those SNES Mini things that came with… FFIV. That one got me. I wasn’t surprised to find out that loads of people love that one in particular.