arquebus_x

NPR is not free; it’s paid for by taxes, which means that every U.S. citizen is in fact paying for news whether they like it or not. And “not for profit” is not the same as “no cost to the consumer.” In addition, most of the outlets for NPR are local public radio stations that are - you guessed it - funded by taxes (as well as fund drives).

It also has a 1v1 mode (player vs computer or PvP) that is just fantastic. I actually spent most of my time playing the 1v1 mode way back in the day.

“I lost a brother once. I was lucky. I got him back.”

“I thought you said men like us don’t have families.”

“I was wrong.”

I’m sure there are some “data harvesting” reasons, but honestly, the simplest is likely the truest:

Most people aren’t computer-savvy, and having an app is much easier for most users than going to a website (either directly or through a bookmark that they probably won’t ever be able to find again).

One must remember, always and forever: most people aren’t us/you. Just because something is easy for you to do doesn’t mean it’s easy for everyone else.

Is it dumb for me that T-Mobile has an app that just goes to a webview that I could get through my phone browser? Yes. Is it dumb for my parents? Absolutely ten thousand percent no.

The value (in terms of money made/saved/protected) that a company gets from having an app instead of a website only is probably ranked in this order:

1 - ease of use for the majority of customers, reducing tech and customer support calls, angry customers, lost goodwill, bad reputation
2-99 - same as #1
100 - data harvesting

Even if risks are under-reported (plausible, but unlikely, given the amount of scrutiny), it’s definitely the case that the risks from getting COVID are still not fully understood. Long COVID is a major issue that is still under investigation. So by your own metric - “highly reluctant to try the new possibly risky thing” - the vaccine is important. Because “the new possibly risky thing” in this case is getting COVID. You definitely don’t want to “try” that.

It’s about the same as everywhere else. The most fun I have on any social media platform these days is blocking assholes.

Ever try a hot cola?

I once drank a Coke that had been sitting in my car console for a day during the summer.

It was a revelation.

It makes sense why a Starbucks would be across the street from a Starbucks (coffee buyers are not, as a rule, brand-loyal, so they will go to the nearest/most easily accessible spot - so Starbucks grows like a weed to prevent other shops from taking the business of fickle customers). But two Apple Stores cheek to jowl… that’s weird.

Do you mean early human development biologically, or early human development overall (including culturally)? Because if the latter, humans using fire to cook meat was probably significantly less important than humans using fire for heat and light.

If Kbin defederates from Threads, I’ll just leave Kbin, and stay with Threads. Defederating over vibes is not how the fediverse is supposed to operate. And for everyone advocating for this dumb idea, I’m just using this thread as a honey pot.

What it comes down to there is whether the act of selection is an act of art. If there is no skill other than picking, I’m not sure I’d consider it an artistic act. (For similar reasons I’m very much on the fence about a lot of modern art.)

Star Wars, drive-in, 1977. I was 4.

If you’re young and it was done, it was for specific reasons (not all of which are valid).

But if you’re older, say around 40+, it was done because that’s what was done.

I’m curious: is this still a thriving community? Intel-based Macs are on the verge of being fully deprecated by Apple, so Hackintoshes will (within a year or two) be little more than “vintage computers.” Sure, you might manage to make one more cheaply or more powerful than an Intel Mac, but at some point there isn’t much that’s going to run. Already they’re stuck with older OS releases.

Ireland has been supporting civilian Palestinians from the beginning. The only Western nation to do so vocally.

Ireland has a lot of history resisting an occupying force.

These far-right Israeli politicians are basically saying, “You love them so much, you take them.”

I can’t imagine there’s any way to make optical drives that much faster. The spin rate is already very high and the media size has been standardized. (You’d get a lot more data throughput with a laserdisc-sized drive spinning at the same speed as a CD/DVD.)

It’s exactly the sort of thing that gets me to block the poster and never have to think about their diaper brain ever again.

Small being the operative word. Gunshot explosions don’t have enough energy to break glass in most circumstances.

You probably already know this, but there’s a free open source version of all three original games, plus others:

https://alephone.lhowon.org/

I’m much more interested in the original games, which are now available for free as Aleph One.

https://alephone.lhowon.org/