It’s extra funny because DDG is (mostly) Bing.

I actually think AI development is going to close a lot of these gaps faster than people think.

And I think the options for audio and office are pretty decent, LibreOffice definitely does all that I need and there’s a healthy community of musicians and audio enthusiasts building things in Linux.

Hardware design and CAD have the additional blockers that they require physical manufacturing and open source hardware has a long, long ways to go. Without an ability to actually produce the physical goods, open source software doesn’t go anywhere. Kind of a bootstrapping problem.

Portals aren’t real and so work however you want them to, but people rarely consistently apply their models.

I’d say A given how they work in the games though. Only the object’s momentum is conserved. The portal doesn’t transfer momentum. There may be a slight breeze coming out of the blue end as the column of air in front of the portal-plate is pushed in, but the cube is just going to flop out.

I believe this is a meme, an old tweet from dril, a user popular for surreal and absurdist humor.

Looks like a School House Rock minor character.

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How’d you learn the name of my “grindr for limp biscuits” app idea?

Ah man, yeah it sucks! I took the Amtrak up to Chicago one time, which was a neat trip but wow is it depressing the towns the train rolls through. I haven’t tried the once a day line out to ATL. At least the NOLA station is actually downtown, even if it’s buried under the interstate and a pain to get to.

Wear a nice wrist watch. Not a smart watch, something classy. I have one as a gift and I get compliments from other (arguably straight) men all the time. I have never had a woman mention it (I have had women compliment my shoes, shirts, glasses, etc, so this isn’t a " zero sample size" issue either.)

Yes and no.

GOG games run just fine on Linux, some native and some under Wine\Proton (almost entirely on the game’s devs, but GOG does have their support program to get Wine working on older unsupported games).

GOG Galaxy, their launcher app, does not have a Linux version. You have to download games off their website directly or use Lutris, Heroic, or some other third party management platform to manage them. The advantage of using a game manager–aside from easier monitored game downloads, automatic updates, and community features–is that they’re usually set up Wine for you as well, which can be annoying to set up and use correctly.

Long winded ramble that loops on itself a few times but ultimately doesn’t understand how brains or LLMs work and so it just comes across like making metaphors fight each other.

It’s some ugly slop no matter how it was made. Lot of speculation they took several screenshots or renders and asked AI to cartoonify and upscale.

I have, in the US, never seen a person “randomly selected” for a grocery rescan. I imagine the first store to try it would get sued for discrimination within short order. I have seen many kinds of shoplifting done multiple times though:

• scan a different UPC
• lie about which kind of fruit it is
• scan one, bag 2 (for light items)
• scan one cheap thing multiple times while bagging other stuff
• just straight up “forget” to scan a big item and walk out with it
• walk in with old receipt, skip checkout entirely

Some stores do a receipt check but they almost always just do a count and don’t have time for detailed looks. Supposedly several US stores (Amazon-owned Whole Foods is notorious for it) will save up security footage of chronic shoplifters to wait until they’ve stolen enough to bring federal charges.

There are cameras all over self-checkout but it’s easy enough to palm things or slip expensive items into your bags without it being obvious. Maybe with AI they can start scanning every video for signals but it seems to me that only the really bold and overt thieves get caught.

Wikipedia covers the island itself well enough https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Saint_James

Who is Stephen Deckoff and what’s he doing with both islands now? No one knows. He says he’s turning it into a world class resort and that he never met or knew Epstein. His big public renovations so far seem to be adding a new fire pit and repainting a building.

https://www.primetimer.com/news/who-is-stephen-deckoff-networth-and-more-about-epstein-island-s-new-owner-as-he-renovates-notorious-estate

Update:

Just wanted to add a recent local news source I found that confirms Deckoff has only done weird, shady things on the islands like building a big warehouse.

https://archive.ph/20260210042600/https://www.virginislandsdailynews.com/news/still-no-resort-plans-for-epsteins-islands-purchased-by-deckoff/article_84d776de-8427-4080-a1b5-6cf81418e23d.html

Epstein had a bigger island, and ships never stopped coming and going from it. They literally just moved the whole operation next door and put someone else in charge of it that no one’s heard of.

Heh, happy cake day! Would you like…

…a Twinkie?

Fuuuuck, I forgot how much I like that song and how I knew all that already. Damn. There’s been several bands and singers over the years I’ve had to forget. I’m not very good at separating art and artist.

I’m catching up on my Moomin backlog and…

Aww… I retract my updoot, I thought they meant the good one.

Fable 3 was so good and bad at the same time. Well, so were Fable 1 and 2 for that matter, but at least they all had vision!