palordrolap @ palordrolap @fedia.io

Some middle-aged guy on the Internet. Seen a lot of it, occasionally regurg

---

Read more

Posts

1

Comments

1,391

Joined

1 yr. ago

Tea. Specifically, what's known in other parts of the world as "English Breakfast (Black) Tea". Because I'm British and grew up with it.

Although I vary quite a bit from average. Mine's usually decaffeinated with sweetener and soy milk for health reasons.

All forms of ampersand are based on "Et", Latin for "and", so cheat and use the backwards 3 (for E) forms.

The simplest puts a vertical bar through the backwards 3 like a relative of the dollar sign, and the other adds a t to it so that the middle point and the bottom line of the backwards 3 join up with the crossbar and base of the t. Bonus points for drawing that latter one without lifting your pen, but you're doing well if you still have to extend the t's crossbar after the fact.

Or really cheat and use the plus sign. That's just the t from "Et", but in the right context, most people instinctively understand it + will know what you mean.

It's also my experience that KPatience doesn't skip unwinnable games. It also occasionally generates one where it can't determine whether the game is solvable or not, which is probably due to search space limitations. I've won a couple of those, but they're risky to start in the first place!

I can see the logic for not skipping unsolvable games.

KPat uses a seed system (called "Numbered Deals") to "shuffle" the cards before a game. The seed can be generated (pseudo-)randomly, which is the default, or entered manually. In theory, a manually-entered seed could be unsolvable, and there would then need to be completely different logic flow for random and manual seeds after the shuffle and deal.

It's way simpler to just generate a new game seed randomly as necessary and then have the rest of the program be clueless as to whether it was typed in or not.

This is one of those things that's going to depend heavily on the sort of people the parents are, and to some extent the (adult) children.

I remember the first Christmas I woke in my own home rather than my bedroom at my parents' house and I was simultaneously devastated and glad that my parents hadn't broken into my home (I lived across town) to leave gifts in a pillowcase. The tradition was that it was put at the foot of the bed (or outside the door as I got older).

I was well into my 20s before I moved out, so I have no idea how long that would have continued if I'd never left. It might have required me to ask them explicitly to not do that any more.

Now I go over at some point over Christmas and we exchange gifts during the main day, or as close as possible to it.

You do not want to see an old-school greybeard dressing like this.

You might think you do when you first imagine the concept, but no, you really don't.

Source: Am at the very least greybeard adjacent.

This. Anything that's recognisably from a previous era, even if it's just a hairstyle or a fashion trend, can be a re-enactment of that era if someone knowingly and willingly chooses to style themselves that way.

There's a version of the game out there that someone made after the fact (well after; we're talking 2020), but I couldn't get it to accept my commands. Not even the ones it suggests in the intro screen. I'd post a link, but it might be someone's idea of a sick joke.

If I had spare cash I'd definitely be donating to Archive.org (The Internet Archive), so instead, I try to mention them when topics like this come up.

I'd probably also donate to Linux Mint, who I assume are also non-profit, because I've been using their offerings for a long while at this point.

This makes me think you're doxxing someone else by pretending to be them. All we need now is one resourceful idiot and that person's life is going to be hell.

This was surprisingly kind to all users mentioned.

The GPL doesn't control how guilty I'll feel if I don't.

Most of my stuff is badly hacked together "runs on my machine" code. If I released any of it onto a public repository, I'd then be on the hook for maintaining it and making it run on more than just my machine, or else examining, deconflicting, and merging pull requests where other people have done the work. I really don't have what it takes for all that.

man locate

How common it is across distros I couldn't tell you, but it's been a staple on Mint for a good long while and ought to be available everywhere. Basically wherever I'd use find I try locate first, unless it's for a file that's expected to be very new and hasn't been indexed by the daemon yet.

Yeah, you're right, the downvote was a bit harsh considering that I didn't do a deep dive on the matter.

I can't undo the bandwagon, but I can undo mine.

Well, there was a period in the 90s through to the early 2000s where we had a centre-left party (New Labour) running the show and mostly improving things, but then 9/11 and the Iraq war happened and the country went scurrying back to the Conservatives again.

The conspiracy nut that lives in my brain is convinced Putin's taking control of Russia in 2000 has everything to do with every single bit of the above after "but then".

We currently have New Labour (now just "Labour") in charge again, but politically they smell an awful lot like the pre-Thatcherite Conservatives.

Well for whatever it's worth, you're welcome.

That "feeling adrift" sounds a little bit how depersonalisation and/or derealisation were described to me when I was trying to get diagnoses. I didn't feel like they fit my experience of mental illness at all (everything feels real enough (maybe too much), and I've never felt adrift), and I'm not a doctor so I'd be the last person to try to diagnose either in someone else, but they might be things for you to look into.

The universes where each and every would-be hero is terminally stomped for merely thinking about going on a quest are uncountable.

There are countable subsets where something other than that happens, and one of those subsets is where the universe rules provide enough wiggle room for a hero to win.

It is all but certain we live in one of the former. Stories about the latter give us hope that we might not be.

Compare: Why do the Power Rangers not simply create the Megazord in the first place and stomp the bad guy before its inevitable enlargement?

They'll find a way to launch it. They'll go back into the old Soviet mindset of throwing blini at a wall until something sticks sending cosmonaut after cosmonaut until they have a success and then pretend the others didn't exist.

And they'll fill the minds of young would-be cosmonauts full of propaganda and tell them that there was definitely no-one before them who died up there, especially not in pain or terror. Those were unmanned test missions. Strap yourself in, you're going to space!

Is there a name for the trope of something topical but not strictly necessary happening incidental to a punchline like the microwave in the last panel?

I know I've seen it in other places, but the only other instance I can think of is the people saying "I am a consumer whore!" "And how!" in the Rejected cartoon, and I'm not even sure that qualifies.

Maybe a few things that happen in the asdfmovies too, but they often introduce a recurring gag or a different joke entirely.

I don't think this is sexuality, it's politics. Wario is clearly a UKIP supporter and Waluigi is UKIP / Tory coded.

(all in jest of course. Or is it?)