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Biden team circulates poll showing no change in race after bad debate
  • Look, look guys, we're only slightly losing!

    Showing "no change" would be a great result, if Biden were already ahead in the polls. But, he's not. Right now, Democrats seem to be stuck in a Sunk Cost Fallacy. Sure the other option is unknown and scary. But, when the known situation is "you're fucked", the "unknown and scary" starts to look less scary.

  • Guess the intent
  • Personally, I'd look very closely at any records this returns and verify that they are normal. A previous developer could have left some sort of backdoor or other nasty surprise in the code/database such could only be tripped with a very specific condition.

    Alternatively, consider the context around this code. What is done with those records? Maybe there is a very specific bug elsewhere in the code or in a front end tied to this database. Sure, the right solution was to fix that other bug. But, that may not have been an option. So, this strange bit of code "solved" the problem and was then promptly forgotten.

  • Nate Silver: Joe Biden should drop out
  • Also never been a fan of Biden (but voted for him, and will again, if I have to). You're falling into a Sunk Cost Fallacy. Yes, anyone chosen to replace Biden would be a gamble. But, Biden is a losing horse. The right time to replace him was last year. But, just because we missed that opportunity doesn't mean we should throw good time after bad. He should be replaced before things get so late it literally cannot be done.

    This wasn't some otherwise strong candidate, who just had a bad day. Biden is already struggling in polling. While the economy hasn't been fantastic, it's good enough that he should be crushing Trump. Even in 2016, Clinton was polling ahead of Trump and still managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Biden isn't winning. He's maybe tied and maybe losing in current polling. Trump had already proven that he can be convicted in court and not lose support. There's just not much left to hurt Trump. And Biden doesn't seem to have anything left to gain support. Things are not going to get better for Biden.

    Biden is losing this race. It's time to follow the rats off the ship, before we're trying to escape a ship on the bottom of the ocean.

  • OneDrive automatically backups folders in Windows 11 without users' permissions
  • My apologies, I was not familiar with the difference. I'm going to have to test this when I am back at my system. Looking at the docs, it does seem to be experimental in Linux. But it seems odd that it would turn off automagically.

  • OneDrive automatically backups folders in Windows 11 without users' permissions
  • That's interesting. I've not had that sort of issue. On my phone (Android), my son's laptop (Windows) and my desktop (Arch Linux) the NextCloud clients all sync perfectly and run at start up. Granted, knowing that the Linux landscape is fractured, I wouldn't be overly surprised if the client had issues on some flavors of Linux.

  • OneDrive automatically backups folders in Windows 11 without users' permissions
  • If you are willing to self-host, I've found Nextcloud integrates well in Linux. I had been using it before I made the switch and it worked out just fine afterwards. I originally set it up to have a cloud-sync option for my phone, which didn't mean passing everything through Google first. But, it also proved to be a handy way to sync files on my desktop as well.
    It just shows up as another folder on my system and Libre Office is happy to work on files from there (with some permissions fiddling due to flatpak).

  • OneDrive automatically backups folders in Windows 11 without users' permissions
  • Every new "feature" I hear about in Windows Privacy Invasion Goes to 11, the happier I am that I switched to Linux. It's been mostly smooth and games have just worked. Though I know that much of that is because of Proton.

  • Embracer Group repays $300m to lenders. Repayment comes from net proceeds received from Take-Two's purchase of Gearbox Entertainment
  • Maybe, though if you think about it, the idea is basically:
    Hey, we borrowed all this money to buy up lots of companies. But rather than pay it back ourselves, we are going to put all of that debt on this one company we also bought (probably with some of that debt), because thay actually make money.

    It's a shell game to allow Embracer to walk away with all the profits and never have to pay their investors back. If Asmodee manages to pay off the debt, that's nice for them. Other than the fact that they will be hamstrung by servicing that debt, rather than re-investing in the company. If Asmodee folds and gets auctioned off in Chapter 7, that ends up having no material effect on the leadership of Embracer who made the decision to take on all that debt. Either way, Embracer is jettisoning all responsibility for the choices the management of Embrace made.

    This sort of leveraged debt buyout, loot the company, then jettison the debt tactic has been used over and over to destroy otherwise profitable companies in the name of short term profit for vulture capitalists.

  • Trump Melts Down Over ‘Trash’ Fox News Poll That Shows Biden Ahead
  • I may be wrong but I figure if it’s on Fox

    Oddly enough, polling is the one area where Fox News isn't a complete shit show. 538 has consistently rated them highly throughout the years. In this case, the poll was run by Beacon Research/Shaw & Co. 538's pollster ratings have them at #15, with a 2.8 rating out of 3.0. While it's proper to be skeptical of anything with the Fox name attached, this is one of those areas where you can accept the poll at face value. That said, it's still June and polls this far out are wildly bad at predicting the final outcome. They are better as a barometer of current sentiment and may help candidates to calibrate their messaging and campaigns as we get closer to the election. Also, a 1-2 point "lead" is almost certainly within the margin of error. So, this poll is really saying "it's a dead heat" and drawing anything more of a conclusion is more of a rorschach test than anything.

  • Embracer Group repays $300m to lenders. Repayment comes from net proceeds received from Take-Two's purchase of Gearbox Entertainment
  • They really buried the lede on this one. Sure, Embrace paid back a bunch of money using proceeds from the sale of Take-Two. That's pretty normal business. But:

    The company is also moving €900 million of its debt into tabletop publisher Asmodee as part of its plans to split into three separate entities.

    It sounds like they are about to jettison the rest of their debt using Asmodee. Embracer will walk away with whatever money they have made and Asmodee will end up being crushed under most of the debt Embrace used to make that money. Vulture capitalism at it's finest.

  • What is an underrated/forgotten video game that you think deserved a second chance?
  • I actually didn't know that about the game, I just linked to the articled to provide details. Given the time the game was written, I suspect it was to make the music a bit more complicated. Game "Music" at the time could leave something to be desired. I played a lot of games with just a PC Speaker, which means that all of the sounds were mostly just different beeps. However, we also didn't know any better at the time and just enjoyed it for what it was.

  • [Second Wind] Hi-Rez CEO Claims Valve Is Overpowered | Cold Take
  • While Chism may be a worthless leech, he isn't completely wrong. Valve's ownership of Steam does put it in a privileged position, which could be abused in a lot of anti-competitive ways. The fact that it isn't doing that is really only because GabeN isn't the same type of leech which Chism is. He's what a lot of people seem to want, a benevolent dictator. That said, when he finally kicks the bucket, or gets tired and sells the company, the future direction of Steam would be an open question. There may be a very good argument for Valve to be put under the microscope of the FTC for possible anti-trust breakup.

  • Is the Java ecossystem of languages and related stuff a thing, professionally?
  • Java is dying in the same way that Linux is winning the desktop war, it's always going to happen "next year" but never "this year". I spent a lot of years as a sysadmin and while I would have been quite happy to piss on the grave of Java, we always seemed to be installing some version of the JRE (though, usually not the latest version) on systems. There is just a lot of software which is built with it. This was especially true when dealing with US FedGov systems. Developers for the USG loved Java and we had both the JRE and JDK (because why not require the Development Kit for a user install?) sprinkled about our environment like pigeon droppings.

    That said, don't get too caught up focusing on one language. A lot of the underlying data structures and theory will transfer between languages. What you are learning now may not be what you end up working with in the future. Try to understand the logic, systems and why you are doing what you are doing, rather than getting too caught up on the specific implementation.

  • Do you prefer Gaming PCS or Gaming Laptops?
  • It's down to the expected use case.
    If you have some reason to want portability, like you travel for work or expect to want to game at a place other than you home, then a laptop is likely the right choice.
    If you only expect to game at home and don't have a need to constantly move your system around, a desktop is usually a better "bang for the buck".

    Personally, I don't travel and don't have a need to move my gaming rig around. I also like having the ability to upgrade in a piecemeal fashion. So, I have a desktop. This particular PC of Theseus has been going for a decade and a half now and shows no sign of stopping.

  • Firefox for Android Private Browsing and gmail

    I recently used Firefox Nightly on my Android device, in a private tab, to login to gmail. After I closed the browser, both via the "quit" menu icon and via swiping the Firefox away in the Overview, I had expected the session information to be deleted and the next time I came back to gmail via a private tab, to be required to login again. However, this was not the case. Despite closing out the browser, something seems to have survived and the I was immediately logged back into the gmail session.

    Is this some sort of expected behavior? Shouldn't closing out the browser delete all session information from a private tab? Is there something I missed that maybe I'm not actually "closing" the browser?

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    Horribly inefficient party favors

    My daughter wanted a "Gorilla Tag" birthday. And my wife wanted me to print some party favors for the guest kids. Not my model, but they are churning out ok-ish.

    13
    Display cabling choice

    I'm currently purchasing a new GPU and specifically settled on the MSI 4070 Super. I'm all set for everything except connecting the display to the card.

    Currently, the display I have (which isn't being upgraded for now) only has two input options: DVI and VGA. The new GPU only provides HDMI or Display Port. This isn't really a problem as adapters/cables exist to go from Display Port/HDMI to DVI-D.

    But, the question I have is, which is the better option, or does it make any difference? And, are there any "gotchas" I should watch out for when buying the cable?

    I realize that I am likely over-thinking this, but I would rather ask a stupid question than make a stupid mistake.

    4
    Controller aim speed

    Just got started with this game (PC - Steam version). It's fun so far. I had really wanted to use my controller. But, the aiming movement is so sluggish. I've tried pushing the "Aim Sensitivity" up to 10, but still felt like I was turning through molasses. Is there anything which can be done to speed that up, or is the controller just fundamentally slow on PC?

    Using an Xbox controller via Bluetooth. And the issue isn't lag, it's the rotation speed in game.

    5
    Live Stream of Virgin Galactic Launch: Galactic 01 (1500 UTC)

    Virgin Galactic will be launching their first commercial, sub-orbital space flight today. Link is to the Live Stream for the event.

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    InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)SY
    sylver_dragon @lemmy.world
    Posts 5
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