Thoroughly explained and well supported. I want to save this in case this topic ever comes up again so I can copy-pasta this.

I didn’t like summers or winters where I used to live, so I moved to somewhere where I like both seasons. Then moved again to somewhere that I love all four seasons.

But I get what you’re saying; you’re describing the summers of my childhood. Hot and humid so you feel like you need a cold shower within 5 minutes of walking outside. Sticky by day, swarmed by mosquitos at night.

But you lost me at the sand bit. I love the beach and ocean when it’s like 10-30°C out. Colder and hotter are okay, too, but not as nice.

Do videogame records count? A friend of mine from uni holds dozens of works records for a reasonably well known indie game. She’s showcased it on a Games Done Quick charity Steam, too.

I can’t say the game or it’ll doxx her, though. She has most of the records.

I’d just email the CEO, media relations, and legal (if you can get all their email addresses), inform them of their non-compliance with the GPL and ask them to resolve this swiftly before it needs to be escalated. Then if you don’t hear back in 2 business days, reply all again CCing someone they might care about: local media to their jurisdiction, the FSF, the EFF, etc.

I mean, sure… But a whole lot of people use Photoshop professionally without a license.

Krita is great, though. Their Android version is even fully featured, so you can use a tablet with a digitizer if you don’t have a drawing pad for your desktop.

I have a lot of devices, but I rarely use most of them.

1. My desktop is my main device for all my work from home. Work desktop for work at the office.
2. My work laptop only gets used for client visits.
3. My personal laptop only gets used when I need a second mobile device for work and Zooming with my family (to bring to where my kiddos are set up playing).
4. My wife’s work laptop is her main work machine and her personal laptop is our evening TV.
5. My Android phone is my ADHD dopamine machine most of the time. Some light work use.
6. My gaming is almost exclusively on my Steam Deck (but I’m working on getting a WiFi mesh network so I can stream from my desktop to my Deck). Used nightly in bed.
7. My 8 y.o. daughter’s tablet is an audiobook machine, some edutainment apps, and sleep sounds machine. Occasionally a screen for shows/art video tutorials.
8. My 6 y.o son’s tablet is mostly podcasts and sleep sounds.
9. My DSi is my wife’s Tetris machine.

TL;DR: I mostly use my desktop for work and Deck/phone for entertainment. My laptops see use a few times/month when I’m on the road for work or Zooming with family and basically never in between. But we have a lot of devices that have specific use cases for different members of my family.

When I use these services (when I’m given a gift card) I select $0 tip and tip with cash. I don’t trust the app makers to give them the tip. I hope parent poster does this, too. I thought tipping in cash was pretty common!

This was mine, but I’m assuming you weren’t referring to the BBC radio play, which is the best version of LotR ever made. The films had major distortions on the themes of the story and completely unbelievable characterization that destroyed all suspension of disbelief.

Sure, the CG was nice eye candy… but Gandalf getting into a shouting match with Elrond? Really? We’re okay with that?

Plus, skipping the correct ending of Frodo and Sam coming back to the Shire in industrialized dystopia missed key parts of their character growth and Tolkien’s anti-industrial themes.

And the massive over-focus on a love story that was barely relevant in the story? And a half hour epilogue of useless wide shots showing how amazing the wedding was and how everyone is doing so great now that they won? What a waste of time. They skipped one of the best parts of the book for that shit.

I could go on if I had watched the films more than twice and could recall all the other huge problems.

The books don’t hold up, either. Ain’t nobody got time to read 3-page info dumps of dense descriptive writing about plot-irrelevant details, or dense blocks of ancient history that demolishes any semblance of pacing left over.

He founded a lot of tropes of fantasy, so I know why he included all those descriptive details, but it just doesn’t hold up. Elf, big tree house, got it. You’ve got me for two paragraphs to fill in the descriptive details, but then let’s move on with the plot, tyvm.

If you’re a fan of LotR, give the 13-hour BBC radio play a listen. And of you’ve watched/listened to/read all three and disagree with me, I’d love to hear why (out of interest). Full disclosure: you probably won’t convince me, but I’m still waiting to hear someone who knows the source material justifying why the movies are so adored.

I always capitalize words that locally mean something specific and technical. Like the Group a Record is associated with in the Student table.

Do you mean things like that? Or just capitalizing all Nouns for no Reason or Something silly?

To add to what the other poster said:

I’m not an expert, but my understanding is that noise cancellation works by inverting sounds waves to deaden the sound. So, like, if you add sin(x) and –sin(x) you get 0.

This system is actively adding inverted sound waves to cancel most sounds. What makes this system unique is that it samples the voice and uses the unique “voice print” to selectively not invert the sound waves from the targeted voice.

Or that’s what I’m getting from reading this, as a layman.

The deleted scenes and commentary audio tracks were cool, but idk if I’d actually watch any of it now. I heard years ago that there’s a whole system for “MST3King” a movie manually with community commentary tracks that effectively do the same thing and I’ve never cared enough to figure out how to set it up and try one, so I don’t know if I’d ever actually watch a DVD commentary even if I had the option.

Maybe it would be cool for Taskmaster, since I’ve seen every episode so many times and continue to rewatch it? But I rarely re-watch anything anymore. And I don’t think TV shows got commentary tracks anyway.

And deleted scenes could probably just be found on YouTube, I assume? I don’t know because I haven’t cared enough to search, lol.

I mean, yeah. The point of collectibles like that is in owning the thing, not using the thing. Read the ebook instead.

Or the BBC radio play, which is the best version of LotR ever, including the original books and films, and I’ll die on that hill.

But, like, cats wear out by use, not time. (For the most part.)

A car is good for, say, 300,000 km. If you drive 300K in it, then you “fully used” the car.

That’s like saying a pad of paper isn’t used when it’s sitting on your shelf. Technically true, maybe, but the pad is used up when it’s out of sheets. It doesn’t make sense to measure the utilization time for a consumable, like paper or a car.

I’ve heard about this one before, but I’m downloading an episode now.

The one thing I hate about QI is that I’ve already seen it all and there aren’t any more episodes.

Edit: That was great. It totally scratched the QI itch. Among many other tidbits, I now know how leech treatments were discovered, that there’s a specific frequency that is arousing for badgers and sets off car alarms, and that in one year, over 700 American students were arrested for owning pagers.

Edit: Holy shit. The author of Goodnight Moon literally died from an overly-enthusiastic “can-can kick”. She did it to prove she was feeling fine… (ironically) but she dislodged a blood clot that instantly killed her.

JFC. Stand-up meetings with people dialed in to the speakerphone. Buzz-screech all meeting every meeting.

I think that’s a much better way to start. Martin is clearly a discovery writer, but he talks like he’s a plotter, and the intricacies of the political machinations imply he’s a plotter, too.

He’s written such a tangled mess that it’s impossible to untangle everything. Plus, he’s made his millions, so there’s not much incentive for him to finish.

I started reading when book 5 was about “due” based on his expected release date he had previously announced thinking that book 5 would likely be out by the time I read up to that point. Over four years later book 5 finally released and I knew in my soul the series would never be finished.

Eh, idk. Depends on the person. I’ve been going for a “scruff” look for a few years now. I trim close-ish 1-2 times/week, just before it starts to get itchy from hairs getting long enough. I always have at least 1-2mm facial hair.

If I go clean-shaven, I have baby face and I look 10 years younger. Not a good look. A bit of scruff makes me look closer to my age, but I don’t like the look of a full beard on me since I can’t grow a decent mustache. It looks like I’m trying too hard.

Yeah, this is where I’m at. O365, Teams, OneDrive, Azure, evening.

Except that my “personal” device is my work device. (I get a stipend to maintain my own tech.)

My Steam Deck runs Linux, at least?

You had me until only 1 chance to fail; instead, you should temporarily get your license reduced back to the level 2 learners license. Then another chance to fail and retest before you get bumped down to a level 1 learners license.

Also, every year for 70+ is excessive. Passing a cog screen should be sufficient. Retesting every 5 years is already pretty good.

Because interacting with streamers is a big part of Twitch?

I love popping into a nearly-empty Twitch stream and interacting with a streamer. It must be pretty discouraging to stream into the void with no viewers, and it’s cool to hear about why they like a game I’m considering, or getting help with learning a game, or (rarely for me, lol) sharing some of my knowledge about a game.

It’s also the only way I connect with two of my (married) friends from uni. I pop into their stream when I can and we chat a bit while they play.

Twitch with no chat might as well just be a YouTube video that I can speed up, pause, and seek.