Damn, why’d you have to bring up the sun again?

Our first TV remote was on a cable! This would have been in the early 80s I think.

Yeah fair point. Boeing has a degraded reputation these days but at the mo we don’t know why it broke up. Probably never will. I’m kinda going on Occam’s razor here.

Great, more bits of dangerous junk in orbit. The fuckers should have to clear up their mess before it fucks up other satellites.

Here in the UK there have been a few cases of people of people who scampered off to join Isis etc who have had their citizenship removed and are unable to return to the country. I’m not a law-knower but I think this is pretty legally iffy, it certainly happens though.

Yeah, same with me. But I knew the ball was pushed and rolled to the edge of the table and then fell, so I feel like I got the most relevant bit.

Tbh I’ve never been good at visualising faces, recognising people I know, retracing a route I’ve taken etc. This just feels like one of those things I’ve never really been great at.

They were already shitheads.

Interesting. . . I’d say Gemma 2B wasn’t actually wrong - it just didn’t answer the question you asked! I wonder if they have this problem with other letters - like maybe it’s something to do with how we say w as double-you . . . But maybe not, because they seem to be underestimating rather and overestimating. But yeah, I guess the fuckers just can’t count. You’d think a question using the phrase ‘How many . . .’ would be a giveaway that they might need to count something rather than rely on knowledge base.

Yeah, I’ve been avoiding this stuff the past few months by only letting my laptop online for quick essentials things. It’s windows, I can’t replace it with a mac so it’s gotta be linux. Most online stuff I can do on my phone. But I can’t put it off forever; I’m going to have to try the linux dual boot thing sooner or later. I’ve been putting it off because I’ve not used linux since the 90s and I really don’t have time to re-learn. Gotta be done tho.

Edit - your semicolon inspired me to try one of my own!

TBF I know only one militant vegan and she’s been outspoken about it for years. I eat meat, I either just tell her to fuck off or ask if all her cocaine is ethically sourced. She’s used to it.

But yeah, all the other vegans I’ve known are really chill.

historically humans aren’t usually burning down libraries on purpose.

Sometimes they are, Baghdad springs to mind, I’m sure there are other examples. And this library is online so there’s less chance of getting caught with a can of petrol and a box of matches.

Then there’s every authoritarian regime that tries to ban or burn specific types of books. What we’re seeing here could be more like that - an attempt to muddy the waters or introduce misinformation on certain topics.

This is actually how things used to be done before we had police, at least in England.

Yeah I get that. I don’t like foreign code on my machine. Trouble is, I dropped the ball with coding over twenty years ago and I kinda feel like the whole of windows is foreign code. I trust Linux more, but I don’t really understand it. I tend to assume that when I’m online my device is sending something I don’t want sent to some fucker I never even heard of. Insert shrug emoji

Yeah, I remember the days when you’d get computer magazines for the Sinclair spectrum (I had the 48k) or the BBC b (now that’s was a great machine, basic interpreter and assembly compiler). When you bought games back then they were on a cassette tape. Sometimes the magazines would have those cheats - like you said, a code or sequence of keys for more lives n stuff. Back when I was playing vice city on the PS2 I remember finding a cheat that would drop a tank. Loved that shit. I am just getting back into gaming after a long gap (just finished bioshock, wow!) and I’ve not really done any online stuff. I probably won’t for a while, I’m way too old and shit, I’d get slaughtered by kids! Last time I played stuff against other humans was unreal tournament on a kinda LAN thing we set up in a squat way back. But I dunno, I think if I was playing that shit and getting slaughtered by kiddies a quarter of my age - I’d just play something else. Anything we do in life, there’s always people who are gonna be better at it. I’m thinking the way to deal with that is to put the work in and get good or accept that we’re not, or just do something else. I hear there are cheats for call of duty type things that people pay subscriptions for. I don’t get it.

But I’m not pissing on anyone else’s choices, plus like I say I’m way out of the loop on this. Thanks for sharing your experiences mate.

Hmm thanks for the reply. Actually mate I kinda see your point. Like I said, I’m just getting into gaming after maybe a twenty year gap and I’ve not played much online stuff. Yeah I can see it would be frustrating to have all the cool shit behind a grind wall.

I guess when I heard cheating I was thinking of people who gain an unfair advantage and ruin the game for others. That’s the sort of cheating I don’t understand.

Back in the day, there were cheats in computer magazines, a sequence of key presses that would give you loads of lives or money or bullets or whatever. I used those an loved em.

As someone who is pretty old and is a crap gamer - well firstly I only play single player so I guess it wouldn’t effect me. But what’s the problem with anti cheat? Aside from it being code you don’t want on your machine. I dunno, I don’t get why people cheat. Isn’t it a better feeling when you just play and get good?

Edit - I’m not defending rockstar btw. Don’t know the politics here. In fact last game I enjoyed was vice city on the PS2. I’m trying to hey caught up on everything I missed. But yeah, what’s the problem with anti cheat?

Somebody gild this!

Yeah, I find having something to eat helps too.

Yeah. People need protection from big companies and the wealthy, which are constantly seeking to manipulate. It’s a fuckin shame, though, I was one of those people who was really optimistic about the internet when it first started becoming a thing. But money creeps in everywhere and its agenda is never altruistic.

Yeah, fair point. My first computer was a Tandy TRS80, followed by a ZX81. You pretty much had to learn BASIC to get them to do anything at all.