palordrolap @ palordrolap @fedia.io

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

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Most comic superheroes derive the energy for their powers from some external dimension, or in the case of Superman, the Sun.

This pushes the questions onto how things work rather than where the energy comes from. And good luck getting answers there. Writers often contradict themselves.

And I seem to remember there being a story (possibly non-canon?) where Superman is forced to turn a handle forever to generate "free" energy to power the planet.

As soon as it begins, I'll put on that one rubber horse mask that's been a meme on and off for the last 20 or more years.

That in itself might be enough.

If not I may be forced to make horse noises. There's actually a sound that's called "blowing" I think is perfect for the situation, so I could technically "blow" the interview and still get the job if they're sufficiently unhinged.

Were it not for the potential for criminal damage, I would also stand abruptly before making the noise and then, with suitable timing, violently kick the chair backwards.

I think that could all fit nicely within 30 seconds.

Or, you know, I could just tell them the truth that my mental state is incredibly fragile and the tiniest amount of work stress or office politics is going to be detrimental to both myself and the company in very short order and that I should not have been sent there in the first place... but where's the fun in that?

The brief was to fail the interview, not also get yourself a criminal record, but I suppose you could float this as a hypothetical in the interview itself and not actually carry it out for more interesting (and less destructive) results.

You're confusing two things.

The aboriginal peoples of North and South America (the continents) are descendents of Asiatic people who crossed the Bering Strait from Asia during the last ice age. That was over 10,000 years ago.

These include, but aren't limited to, the Canadian First Nations - both inland and Inuit, many nations of Native Americans in North America, and in South America, the peoples of the Amazon, the Maya (who still exist), the Incas, Aztecs and so on.

Then, from roughly 500 years ago and then for a century or three, there was a significant amount of admixture both genetically and culturally with Hispanic colonists that came over the Atlantic from Europe.

Yeah. I think I have a preference for a three tier system that's Y.R.P (e.g. 25.0.2; "Year", Release within year, Patch number), so yes, I could imagine the third level being incremented the following year in an emergency.

And if two-tier is paramount, tricks like (R+1)*100+P will work provided there aren't going to be 100 patches per release. (e.g. 25.102)

I've seen this story.

We get comfortable. Complacent even. People forget the old ways.

Then the machines go wrong and we'll have no idea how to stop them.

Not necessarily a Skynet scenario, but something else that overrides the biosphere worse than we're already doing on our own.

Not sure how this plays into human politics though. There's a strong chance we'll still find a way to launch nukes at each other and end it that way instead.

It should be a plug-in, or add-on as they're called these days. And it should be something people have to go find and install rather than it being there by default. Make the opt-in as deliberate as possible.

Then see how popular it is.

That's not how you floss.

squeaky squeaky squeaky

This is one of the scientific plot holes in The Fly. Or at least the 1980s version. The head-swap version has other problems.

I wouldn't want to keep the 11 in there. The entire reason for (hypothetically) making this change is to get away from the old version number and any potential confusion it might cause.

I also prefer smaller version numbers, so "subtract 2000 from year" works better for me (and there's no better time to take advantage of the fact this produces sensible numbers), but I can see why the full year might be preferable for someone else.

Odd question: What would be the fallout from changing the version numbering to be more like the change recently made by LibreOffice? That is, making it be related to the year number rather than the current system.

The reason I ask is that Linux has been and will be getting refugees from Windows 10 and 11, and the timing of the current version numbers is somewhat unfortunate and potentially confusing in that regard.

I'm aware I may be imagining a problem that won't actually exist in any meaningful amount.

There's also the potential problem of Microsoft following suit with whatever follows Windows 11 being "Windows 2029" or something, but it wouldn't be too hard to deliberately throw in another jump if that were to happen at the loss of some synchronicity.

Wine 49 certainly has a ring to it!

IIRC Thatcher claimed to sleep for four hours, and she only did that because she thought it was necessary to be able to do the job properly. The job of, you know, running a country.

Sleeping for two, and then expecting a regular salaryman / career woman to get on the same level and then do that for a lifetime is an entirely new level of ludicrous.

I recently (re?)learned that "you" was the plural form and only became a formal form under the influence of French.

Basically, "you" was "ye"/"y'all"/"youse"/"yins" before any of those existed, and the others only came into existence when "you" became formal and stopped filling that niche.

And some dialects, including some very populous ones like standard British English, still don't have a plural "you" as a result of that change of usage. The subsequent shift to being generic only cemented the problem.

"You" regains its plurality in things like "all of you", "you all", "you lot" (not really for the politest of company) and "you

<number>

Once upon a time, my computer's hostname was 1x4x9. The case was a black tower, the first non-beige PC case I'd ever owned, so the name seemed to fit. Unfortunately, that hostname went out of use in 2010, long before I switched to Linux at home.

To qualify for a state pension, you have to have paid a certain amount to the tax office over the course of a lifetime. As someone whose mental state isn't up to being employed and hasn't been for quite a while, I'm certain to have a shortfall in that regard, so I'd probably deliberately give it to the taxman so that I might be better looked after in 20-25 years.

Lots of ifs, ands, buts and maybes have been missed out here, but in my case it might well be the best use of the money.

"sixpence ha'penny" would also be acceptable, if not preferable.

Source: My parents also remember pre-decimal money and I've heard plenty of tales.

One good story is how, on decimal day, a lot of prices went up to 240% of the original because shopkeepers simply changed the d to a p on their price labels. One old penny was 1/240 of a pound and a new penny was 1/100.

Don't complain people have stopped loving you when you're the one who built a wall around your heart.

They don't need a third Trump term. There are other ways to keep him in the White House that don't mean changing the Constitution, so you're probably right about that.

If they decide to at least pretend to be legitimate and go through the motions, they're almost certain to nominate Vance as their candidate. Trump nominated as VP would be a declaration of intent, but not proof of the same.

What happens after that comes down to the result of the next election and where loyalties lie within the Republican party.

If the Democrats somehow win next time, there's a good chance the Republicans will declare a state of emergency to remain in power. Trump would almost certainly remain president during that emergency, and they could spin that out indefinitely.

If the Republicans win, it will come down to how many people in the Republican party are behind Vance and want rid of Trump.

I used to have one right in the middle of my bald spot. I couldn't see it even with a clever arrangement of mirrors, but I could feel it. I think it must have been fair because it didn't stand out even amongst the apparent lack of hair, but the root would sometimes feel like it was digging through my scalp.

Some days I'd spend longer than I'd like to mention trying to grab it blind with tweezers. On and off for years. Often got other fine hairs, but not that one.

One day I finally got it. It didn't look remarkable at all, at least not that I remember, but the feeling when it came out was something special.

Never been bothered by it since, so either I killed the root or set it right.

If you get real close, it's actually kind of fuzzy, but for most intents and purposes there's nothing there.

Facial expressions say everything.

"This is my powerful friend who I am just like and we both rule large landmasses and he will help me with my special military exercises."

"There's a good chance I'll get my hands on Taiwan if I keep pretending to be friends with this clown."