Followed by a lot of Jira.

It was clear that more use of Bugzilla would cure many of society’s ills.

Throughout his nine-year relationship with Sotomayor, Noem reportedly expressed a desire to leave his wife, who was recently fired from her job as the Secretary of Homeland Security,

While texting with Sotomayor, Noem reportedly said he can “see us leaving our spouses for each other” and expressed a desire to hook up with and be dominated by the type of large-breasted woman he dressed up as.

report on Noem given his wife’s long history of anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and action, including signing a Religious Freedom Restoration Act that allowed LGBTQ+ discrimination, banning trans girls from participating in women’s sports, and banning gender-affirming care for trans kids.

Whatever of Kristi Noem’s stuff was just politicking to appeal to her voters and what wasn’t, if the leaks are accurate, I kinda feel like this isn’t likely going to result in Kristi Noem being any more enthusiastic about transexuality.

EDIT: “Kristi and Crystal” doesn’t really roll off the tongue.

Yall know that ‘Fallout’ was originally turn-based?

And there’s still the Wasteland series, which is what the isometric Fallout games heavily derived from.

So, I don’t have a comment on specifically doing Zuckerberg, but a practice adopted by a number of companies that make a product that can reasonably be used by employees is to try to have employees actually use the thing, because that makes them aware of things that need to be changed or other issues or improvements and more-interested in doing so. That is, in general, as a company, you’re likely better-off in terms of filling user needs if employees actually use whatever they make, especially if they’re in a position to make decisions about how it works.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_your_own_dog_food

Eating your own dog food or “dogfooding” is the practice of using one’s own products or services.[1] This can be a way for an organization to test its products in real-world usage using product management techniques. Hence dogfooding can act as quality control, and eventually a kind of testimonial advertising. Once in the market, dogfooding can demonstrate developers’ confidence in their own products.[2][3]

Not everywhere I’ve worked has done that, but at places where it was applicable, they tried to do so, including one handing out free hardware if necessary to use the product, as well has having the company itself make use of the products if possible. I think that it’s generally a good idea; it makes people at the company in a position to improve things very aware of pain points.

If — and I have no idea if this is actually the case — Meta is trying to position AI models they make to act in a “contact the company” role, they might want to have their employees actually doing that themselves.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jo2BKNtKDI

This guy recommends Overload. I haven’t played it, but…

If someone can plant a camera somewhere that they can see your keyboard, they can probably obtain your password.

My main requirement was for the touchpad to actually have physical tactile buttons, fuck that whole solid slab of touch thing, I want 2 proper clicky buttons.

I’m in the same boat, except I want three for Linux, where the third button is more-useful than in Windows, and there are very, very few laptops that have that any more — a few Thinkpad models. I finally gave up on it, just accepted that I was going to have a laptop without same, though you can get USB touchpads with physical buttons if you want to haul one around (and I keep one in my car for just this reason — sometimes it’s worth hauling out).

But I want a Kenshi like game set in Morrowind.

Honestly, I’d like a Kenshi-like game set in damn near any setting.

Like, the Kenshi setting is interesting, but in terms of gameplay…it’s essentially unique from a gameplay standpoint. I’m still a bit amazed that nobody has made other games in the genre.

There is a sequel that is being worked on and will come out someday…

I think that part of the problem is that there aren’t that many settings where it makes sense. Descent worked because you were supposed to be on low-gravity asteroids to justify the zero-G environment. That also means that it has to be in space and in the future. It had to be in mines, to justify the scale — most human-created environments are going to be smaller.

I was playing Starfield and one of the moments there that I was impressed — most of the combat isn’t all that new — was in a zero-G gunfight on a space station (the Almagest or whatever the space casino is), where gunfire was sending objects flying around and riccocheting all over. I was thinking “it’s odd that more games haven’t done zero-G first-person shooters”. But…when you think about how limited the settings are where it really makes sense, I think it’s understandable.

I mean, I guess you could create a fantasy world and just throw up your hands and say, “it’s all magic” or something, but…

Some games that I like thematically, but don’t enjoy the gameplay on:

• Elden Ring. If it was more RPG-like, avoided respawning enemies and reliance on learning patterns, I think I’d like it more.

• Sunless Sea. Neat setting and writing. I don’t like the gameplay — simple combat, not very interesting choices, hunt-the-item stuff.

• Cyberpunk 2077. This isn’t bad, but I wanted something like a Bethesda game, and I got something like a Grand Theft Auto game. I think that it’d be much better as a Bethesda-like game. Oh, though I never really liked Johnny Silverhand as a character much.

• Fallout 76 — well, I don’t have a problem with the franchise — but on that particular game, I’d rather it wasn’t an online game, were a single-player open-world RPG. It’s more like that than when it launched, but…

• To expand on that: a whole slew of games that are really intended to be played multiplayer, but where I only want to play against the computer. I don’t like playing games multiplayer. I would buy an expansion for these that went back and put in some major single-player improvements and good game AI. Carrier Command 2 can be played single-player, but it’s kinda repetitive and not balanced well for single-player teams. Wargame: Red Dragon. I like the game and the setting, but the AI is very difficult to enjoy playing against; just too primitive. Steel Division 2, later in Eugen’s series, really improved on the AI. Defense of the Ancients 2; the whole MOBA genre is really oriented towards playing with real humans.

• Scanner Sombre. This is a mostly-psychological horror game, where the gimmick is that you can only see something that you’ve scanned with this LIDAR-type gizmo. You’re walking through a cave complex, and the mechanic of things slowly emerging and having to manage your visibility really works in a horror environment. But…the game isn’t really very replayable, and I like replayable games. I wish that someone would basically take the stumbling-around-in-a-cave-with-a-scanner thing and make a different sort of game out of it. (Note: If you play this, I played the Windows version in Proton. The Linux-native build was extremely unstable for me.)

And just for the hell of it, the opposite — some where I like the gameplay, but not the theme:

• The Binding of Isaac. I love the action roguelike gameplay. I don’t like the gore/fetus/abuse/scatological stuff all that much. I’ll deal with it, but I’d have liked the game more if it had a different theme.

I think that he’s wanting a physically-rotating-at-runtime mount. Like, where you can just swivel the monitor and use it in another orientation.

You can get VESA mounts that rotate, but there has to be some way to automatically tell the OS to change orientation.

Radius used to make monitors like this for the Mac.

Canda:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g2y7969gyo

Mark Carney’s Liberals have won Canada’s federal election - riding a backlash of anti-Trump sentiment to form the next government.

It is a stunning political turnaround for a party who were widely considered dead and buried just a few months ago.

1. Trump’s threats became the defining issue

There is no doubt the US president’s tariff threats and comments undermining Canada’s sovereignty played an outsized role in this election, suddenly making leadership and the country’s economic survival the defining issues of the campaign.

Mark Carney used it to his advantage, running as much against Trump as he did against his main opposition rival, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre.

Australia:

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/559852/trump-may-have-aided-australian-pm-s-election-victory-analysts-say

Donald Trump’s stinging trade tariffs may have helped Australia’s left-leaning prime minister snatch a resounding election victory on Saturday, analysts say.

Unlike Canada’s Trump-swayed vote three days earlier, the US president was far from the biggest concern for voters who backed Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, academics said.

But some said Trump nevertheless appeared to have a significant impact on the governing Labor Party’s late turnaround in the opinion polls, and the emphatic election result.

Then there’s the elevated fuel prices reducing carbon emissions…

Hope things work out better moving forward for Hungary than they had been.

Others are more sanguine. Paul Eckloff, a former Secret Service agent who served on Trump’s detail and previously on Barack Obama’s, argued that what has emerged in court so far does not amount to a ‘genuine security breach,’ saying operationally sensitive information remains classified.

He was more worried about the practical effect of having a giant dig site inside a secure perimeter. An open pit next to the Executive Residence, he said, inevitably alters the calculus for agents tasked with keeping intruders out and the president alive. ‘The longer this is an active construction site, the more concerning it is from a general security posture,’ Eckloff said.

I don’t think it matters much from a national security standpoint, specifically because of this:

Judge Leon has not hidden his scepticism. At an earlier hearing, he dismissed the idea that Trump’s safety required the ballroom to go ahead, describing the ‘large hole’ next to the White House as a ‘problem of the President’s own making.’

We don’t protect the President because the President is some sort of exceptional, irreplaceable figure. The President is just some guy. If Trump gets shot, then Vance gets dropped into the slot and things keep on trucking. Hell, personally I think that the US would very probably be better-off with just about any other major politician at the wheel.

We protect the President because we don’t want it to be viable to coerce the President via physical threat. We don’t want a country to say “do X on Policy Y or maybe we kill you” and have that be something that can affect the President’s policy-making.

In this case, Trump decided that he was going to go right ahead and create the security risk, so he’s probably not especially concerned about it. If he wanted it to stop, which presumably he would if he were worried about being killed, he could stop it. Ergo, cocercion isn’t a factor.

If Trump decides tomorrow that he wants to go wingsuit BASE jumping or something, I mean, okay, sure, whatever. The Secret Service can just sit around and munch popcorn and watch him face-plant into a hillside, as far as I’m concerned. The problem isn’t the President dying, but him being affected by threats of him being killed.

That’s also why we have lifetime Secret Service protection for the President after he leaves office. It’s not like he’s being President then, not like we’d lose whatever he’s bringing to the table. But you don’t want other parties to be able to threaten the guy in office with retribution after he leaves office.

For example: Wine tasters were clear that French wine just tasted better than Californian wine. They were extremely convinced. Then they tried a blind test and hoo boy did everyone get pissed when they couldn’t tell the French wine was better without knowing it was French first. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judgment_of_Paris_(wine)

Two Buck Chuck (an inexpensive blend of wines sold by Trader Joe’s) also has scored well among California wines. So it’s not like expensive California wines are obliterating more-pedestrian counterparts, either.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Shaw_wine

Charles Shaw is an American brand of bargain-priced wine.[1] Largely made from California grapes, Charles Shaw wines include Cabernet Sauvignon, White Zinfandel, Merlot, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Shiraz, Valdiguié in the style of Beaujolais nouveau, and limited quantities of Pinot Grigio.

The cost of the wine is about 30 to 40 percent of the price, with the bottle, cork and distribution the larger part.

Charles Shaw wines were introduced at Trader Joe’s grocery stores in California in 2002 at a price of USD$1.99 per bottle, earning the wines the nickname “Two Buck Chuck”, and eventually sold 800 million bottles between 2002 and 2013.[2]

At the 28th Annual International Eastern Wine Competition, Shaw’s 2002 Shiraz received the double gold medal, beating approximately 2,300 other wines in the competition.[13]

I’d add that the same sort of thing goes for “audiophile” gear. Things should be blind-tested. It’s very easy to have a perceptually different experience when you know what it is that you’re using.

I remember a point where Joshua Bell was busking in the New York subway.

https://www.classicfm.com/artists/joshua-bell/violin-busking-washington-subway/

He’s one of the finest talents in the classical music world, and in 2007 violinist Joshua Bell went busking as an experiment. Would the public realise just what was happening, alongside their daily bustle?

Music director of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, worldwide star soloist, and former child prodigy. His instrument is a Stradivarius from 1713 and his hair is an icon of classical music in itself…

Joshua Bell is one of the world’s great virtuosos, and one of the biggest names in classical music.

And in 2007 he did some anonymous busking, as a little social experiment to see what might happen.

Over a period of 43 minutes, the violinist performed six classical pieces, two from Bach pieces, one Massenet, and one each from Schubert and Ponce.

Out of 1,097 people that passed by Bell, 27 gave money, and only seven actually stopped and listened for any length of time.

In total, Bell made $52.17 (£42.18). And this includes a $20 note from someone who recognised him.

The overall fertility rate decline in the U.S. extends beyond just teenagers, Siegel noted.

“Dana, people are having kids in their 30s now, not their 20s,” he told the anchor. “And again, that’s leading to one thing I want to point out. The replacement rate is down to 1.56, meaning every couple is having, on average, 1.56 children in the United States. We need two or above to keep the population at the same amount.”

It’s actually a bit more than 2. About 2.07, IIRC.

EDIT: Though you’ll often see it rounded to 2.1.

EDIT2: Basically, at about the Great Recession (~2007), it took a major wallop and didn’t recover, and then kept declining through the COVID-19 era. My understanding from past reading is that it had been expected that the Great Recession would send it down — economic uncertainty causes fertility rates to drop — but the problem is that it didn’t rebound afterwards.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?locations=US

US car manufacturers were incentivized to do that and to push for policy and marketing that encourages pickup ownership because pickups have had a protective tariff, making them more profitable than other types of vehicles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax

The Chicken Tax is a 25 percent tariff on light trucks (and originally on potato starch, dextrin, and brandy) imposed in 1964 by the United States under President Lyndon B. Johnson in response to tariffs placed by France and West Germany on importation of U.S. chicken.[1] The period from 1961 to 1964[2] of tensions and negotiations surrounding the issue was known as the “Chicken War”, taking place at the height of Cold War politics.[3]

Eventually, the tariffs on potato starch, dextrin, and brandy were lifted,[4] but since 1964 this form of protectionism has remained in place to give US domestic automakers an advantage over imported competitors.[5] Though concern remains about its repeal,[6][7] a 2003 Cato Institute study called the tariff “a policy in search of a rationale.”[4]

https://www.slashgear.com/1809287/chicken-tax-explained-history-current-impact/

If you’re an automaker, you want to market those protected vehicles to consumers, because it’s more-profitable. You don’t really have to compete with foreign-made autos in that particular class.

And you want to lobby for policy that encourages consumers to buy them. So, for example, the US has more-stringent towing standards than does Europe. You need a bigger vehicle to tow a given amount of weight…which encourages buying pickups. And the US has emissions standards that give special preference to large vehicles.

https://newrepublic.com/article/180263/epa-tailpipe-emissions-loophole

While the new emissions rules have been praised in most coverage for tightening standards and thus speeding the transition to electric vehicles, they also preserve long-standing special treatment for big trucks and SUVs, which exempt larger cars from more stringent emissions standards. The EPA has made a little-noticed attempt in the rule to keep companies from exploiting the sorts of loopholes they have in the past, but industry giveaways that were added into the final rule could undermine their ability to reduce emissions. When the rules take effect, for instance, starting with cars in the 2027 model year, Ford Super Duty pickups will reportedly be able to emit more than three times as much carbon dioxide as light-duty pickups like the still very large Ford F-150, and nearly four times as much as a passenger car.

“The biggest pickup trucks are allowed very gentle treatment. If you create a loophole, that’s what they will drive through,” Dan Becker, director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s Safe Climate Transport campaign, says of the new rules. “Vehicles are getting larger and larger because the larger the vehicle, the weaker the standard.”

It’s going to be emitting less carbon dioxide, at any rate.

I don’t really think that I’d want to be hauling around $330k in duffel bags. I don’t know how hard it’d be to open a bank account in South Korea, but I can’t imagine that it’d be that difficult.

Then deal with having the banks transfer it.

so I figured that using pipewire to co-ordinate this would be the easiest way forward, except it turns out that it’s a (GUI) user space process, which doesn’t make sense on a server with no GUI users.

I’m not entirely sure what you mean by “(GUI) user space process”, but if it’s that it’s a systemd user process (e.g. it shows up when you run $ systemctl --user status pipewire rather than $ systemctl status pipewire, which appears to be the case on my system, where there’s one instance running per user session), then you probably can run it as a systemwide process, where there’s just one always-running process for the whole system. IIRC, PulseAudio could run in both modes. I don’t know if you have concerns about security on access to your mic or something, but that could be something to look into.

searches

Sounds like it’s doable. Not endorsing this particular project, which I’ve never seen before, but it looks like it’s possible:

https://github.com/iddo/pipewire-system

PipeWire System-wide Daemon Package (Arch Linux)

This package configures PipeWire, WirePlumber, and PipeWire-Pulse to run as a single system-wide daemon as the root user. This setup is optimized for headless media servers, HTPCs, or multi-user audio environments.