Rick & Morty's parallel episodes show myriad alternative versions. There's Fat Rick, Juggling Rick, et c. From the point of view of Fat Rick, all alternative Ricks have an easy tell - they are all skinny. And of course the Drama-Morty can instantly spot alternative-universe Morties because they don't have the same …

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My phone bings three times, and I really want to tell it 'listen, matey, if I haven't answered the first three bings, I won't answer the next'. I wander over and tell it to shut up. Of course if I forget to turn off silent mode, I could miss something important in a few hours. The entire approach here misunderstands …

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Ella the Cat posted up their i3-gaps configuration to help with Parkinson's, and it got me thinking a lot about how FOSS software typically views disability. Briefly, they have Parkinson's Disease, which causes tremors, which makes the mouse a pain to use. The i3-gaps desktop is keyboard based, so it doesn't require …

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The FOSS community have generally grown a kind of tacit acceptance of proprietary computer games. Everyone loves them, so nobody wants to make too much of a fuss, but I think we have good reasons to treat them differently. Computer games do not - by default - require environment interaction. They can (mostly) operate …

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I never had the money for serious gaming, and perhaps it did me well; I've focussed on other things. But when the pandemic hit, I decided that this was exactly the time to start playing again, so I bought Tomb Raider from 2013. Having not played anything much since Metal Gear Solid 3, I was blown away. The seamless way …

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We determine causes by Ethics, rather than any type of science. A man drinks some vodka, and soon after starts a fight in the pub, concerning a political point. If we investigate the cause of the fight, we'll find many differing answers. The man claims the vodka was the cause, and he should stop drinking vodka. The …

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Instead of looking up how to spell a word, I always look up the Etymology and find a link to another word I can spell. I don't know Latin or Greek, but just seeing the links between words often shows why people construct the spelling in this way or that. Defence or defense? It's 'defence', because it has the same root …

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I started the entire path to Linux due to a single Windows Error message. My little netbook couldn't handle the massive book I was writing (pictures every two pages, tables and formatting galore, et c.). I needed a real PC. A friend kindly gifted me her old computer parts. She handed me a plastic bad full of plastic …

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My friends had a spirited debate after too many drinks. I suggested bringing back the Greek-style symposium, and it lead to a far more interesting debate. First, we agreed on time - two minutes. Then someone kept the time, and motioned to indicate when only thirty second remained. Everyone felt heard, nobody …

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If you haven't heard of him, he could only have been described as a 'mad genius'. Looking at his work, I found myself astounded by the fact that if he hadn't existed, I would have sworn that what he did was impossible. He made a full operating system. At this point, before learning that he actually did this, I would …

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