I don't have an answer to your exact question but I want to emphasize...

NOTHING in the history of humankind has ever existed like computer data. A 100% identical copy of videos, pictures, and music can be made almost instantly at what is essentially zero cost to the original holder of the data. Any comparison to "stealing" or to a physical object (a car lol) just falls flat because the situation is just so different.

Practically speaking, the world we live in, with computers everywhere, cheap storage, and easy fast internet access for so much of the world, has only been around for about two decades, maybe three. NOTHING like this has ever existed before, and businesses, culture, and laws have been very slow to catch up.

I'm not saying pirating is right or wrong, just that the whole idea is still so new that society hasn't caught up to it yet.

This article is strange... The author uses "being able to open Microsoft Office documents" as a common example of what an OS that claims to be easy to use should be able to do. Then says...

When people download Ubuntu 23.04 they get an OS that can do everything Windows 95 did - with 23.10 they don’t

No default installation of Microsoft Windows EVER opened Microsoft Office documents. If this was a simple oversight in the write-up it'd be fine, but the point is hammered over and over again.

I don't have an opinion about Ubuntu including or not including more software in the default installation (my guess is it became too big to fit on a DVD?) but this article failed to make it's point to me by making a comparison to Windows that isn't true.

Also...

the world’s most popular desktop Linux operating system (that’s Ubuntu, for those of you playing dumb)

Is this supposed to be a cocky joke? I can't tell. What metric of "most popular" is the author using?

Oh man, I love Super Mario Bros 2! It's one of my favorite games of all time.

So, each character actually has very different stats.

Luigi and Princess have obvious special jumping abilities. I think Luigi can actually jump a little farther... But both of them have significantly shorter jumps and run more slowly when carrying a vegetable, and both pick up vegetables quite slowly (especially the princess). This can be extremely detrimental on sand stages that require a lot of fast digging to get away from enemies, or picking up a block to throw at a boss before he attacks.

Toad is the opposite. He can pick up vegetables and run with them blazingly fast, and can run and jump as high (higher?) while carrying them.

Mario is balanced all-around.

It's all explained in the instruction manual with some cute drawings. Each character is really quite balanced in my opinion.

To anyone reading this article, only the first quarter of it is about the beliefs and political stance of the developers. The rest of the article after that goes into more technical reasons.

That's so cool! Kinda like when proud Americans sing Born in the USA not realizing the actual meaning.

Ohhhhh I thought you meant the phrase was "growing up r*****". Took me five minutes to figure out what you meant. It's just the one word, not the whole phrase. 😆

For anyone else confused like me, it's the pejorative word for a person with a mental disability.

Is each instance like another person with a server?

I just wanted to add, any computer with an internet connection can host a web page! A desktop, a laptop, anything. That's how the internet all started, as a collection on interconnected computers sharing data. I think many people nowadays forget this or even never knew about it (including me), since we live in a world where people spend all their time at like only a dozen websites. (Google, Instagram, Wikipedia...)

I have a public "webserver" in my basement. It's just some random computer hosting some photos for family members. And it's all completely free, I don't pay anything to do it. I could easily pop an instance of Lemmy on it too.

The biggest hurdles in setting up a server from home are needing some technical knowledge, and a free domain name / URL usually looks a little silly (unless you pay for one), and getting hacked is a very real threat unless you pay close attention to security.

Lol!

I was wrong, there's THREE PAGES in the manual on the subject! 😅

https://www.digitpress.com/library/manuals/nes/Super%20Mario%20Bros%202.pdf

My channel is not very good 😅 but I make videos just because I love talking about old video games and want an excuse to talk about them more. New videos come out every Tuesday and Saturday because that's when my co-host is off of work and can watch them with her mom. 🙂

https://youtube.com/@drcouzelis

From what I understand, WhatsApp does have proper end to end encryption, which means messages can only be read by the sender and recipient. It's a very good thing, and SHOULD be promoted in my opinion.

But that doesn't mean WhatsApp respects your privacy. Even though the messages are encrypted, the actual app is still collecting and scraping every little piece of info about you possible. Think location, IP addresses, your contacts, what's in your clipboard, camera, mic... I don't know the details, but that's where the privacy concerns come from.

TIL there are mods for Sonic Mania. 🤯

And Pokémon, holy crap. The same games were the best sellers multiple years in a row??

I didn't see anyone mention SailfishOS.

I bought a Jolla Mobile with SailfishOS when they came out and I LOVED it. It's a fast smooth beautiful user interface, has Android app support, and truly is Linux. Like, it comes with a Terminal, full root access is easy to unlock, uses BtrFS, Wayland, the Linux standard hierarchy... It was wonderful.

The Jolla Mobile is pretty old now, but I think there are still phones you can get it on.

Waaaait a minute... isn't it called a variable because the contents are, you know, variable?

I'm really into retro video games. The channel I enjoy that the most that has the least number of subscribers is Jeremy Parish. He makes excellent little 10 minute retro game reviews. They are well thought out, include some interesting history, and no hyperbole.

https://youtube.com/@JeremyParish

Ummm... I also have a channel. 👀 In some videos I do longer reviews of Game Boy games.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4Q1VsUyrfslXlSSfgazSo9uRrbO9ImZA

And I post weekly videos where I play random retro games with my silly friend Samantha.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4Q1VsUyrfsnzhtRA3lUTmAlhbeVgsMUH

...I wouldn't say it's "amazing" but I do really enjoy watching the videos I make. 😅

OMG I'm on a technical Discord server where some brilliant people spend all day responding to technical questions on a niche subject and it makes me SO ANGRY that all that knowledge is tucked away inside Discord, non searchable, and going to disappear some day.

So now I use the Discord Chat Exporter CLI program every couple of months to save all of that knowledge into text files on my computer.

https://github.com/Tyrrrz/DiscordChatExporter

I'm working on writing a soundtrack to a video game! It's not finished yet but I'm extremely proud of the music so far. I also wrote this song recently just for fun. :) Made for the Gameboy using Carillon Editor.

https://youtu.be/vPVU6f2KhEA

It really does look cool. 🙂 But two things have me worried...

One, it's not an FPGA with "Atari hardware" inside (sorry, I don't fully understand these things...) which makes it less like the Analogue Pocket / Game Boy cartridges and more like an emulator.

Two, Atari has released the similar "Atari Flashback" console in recent history promising advanced features that turned out to be overpriced, half baked, and barely functional.

I hope that's not the case this time.

Doom, or, gzdoom! You can use it to play the original Doom 1 and 2 games with modern mouse and keyboard controls on HD displays. And there's an endless number of fan made level packs to try.

As for open source AND free / open resources, there's Freedoom 1 and 2. I occasionally play them, they're fun, but a little lacking in stage design.

I always find it fascinating when they have to make a trailer for an incredibly violent video game but still have it be approved for general audiences. It has to be edited to perfection, down to the frame, to show violence without any of the violence. 😅

I understand your point XD but want to emphasize, software is NOT like tangible items, and any analogy to them will fall flat.

Giving out the source code to an abandoned application does not mean the original owner doesn't still have their copy.

By just dumping the code online, the software has the potential to be worked on by other people. This can benefit everyone, including the original developer.

Even so, there's plenty of valid reasons to not do it. Licensing issues (did anyone else work on any part of the project using a different license?), pride (no longer being the "owner"), getting it online (choosing a license, getting it online, it all takes at least some time and effort), or just plain "I don't want to" are all valid reasons.

Oof. Sounds like it needs a huge back end with a ton of pre-processed data.

That's a great write-up. I've never seen an SG-1000 outside of the National Video Game museum in Texas.

I just looked up Girl's Garden and the article is correct, it does look incredible! Parallax scrolling backgrounds, big bright colorful graphics, and a REALLY fun stage win screen.

Played 8 hours last night so this is a very early impression

HOLY CRAP it takes like 25 minutes to play through DuckTales on the NES, I guess I'm not used to modern games. 😆

Anyway, thanks for the great write-up!

Yes! I use the Buran app (open source on Android) to browse it. :)

I assume you mean the Japanese thick blanket futon and not the American fold out bed futon?

I slept on a futon in Japan for two years. It was a couple of months before my body got used to it, but I was still turning throughout the night due to sore shoulders.

I can't imagine sleeping on one without a true tatami flooring, since in essence it's part of the bed.

In The Phantom Menace, the entire podrace scene. Yes, it's goofy as heck, but man does George Lucas know how to make some pure campy exciting fun.

In A New Hope, the trench runs. God, they're just SO COOL, especially on a big screen.

In The Force Awakens, Han being rescued by the Resistance, from the time Han Solo is captured to the time Leia shows up, is a masterclass example of editing and music.

I was really worried about not looking cute and looking too "tough" since I started buzzing off all my hair due to baldness. But I think it's been ok. I wear dark thick framed glasses, and a lot of light or pastel colored clothes. I keep a VERY short beard, just to give me some fuzz and distract away from my head. And I smile a lot.

I've also started shopping for cute hats. It's been tricky to find hat styles that I really like, but I've found some cute ones.

Pokemon Blue

FYI the internal cartridge battery that's used to save your game is probably either dead or nearly dead!

A multimeter should show the battery at 3.25v. Anything less and it could die any day. Changing the battery isn't too difficult, but it requires soldering.

This is my favorite tool set used to take the one screw out to open the cartridge, to check the battery.

https://www.retromodding.com/collections/tools/products/repair-tools-set

I LIKE SHORTS. THEY'RE COMFY AND EASY TO WEAR.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy

Today I learned! :)

Any amount is fine. :) $5, $20, $100... I recently received a gift card for Ebay for $25 and happily spent in on buying $80 headphones that I wouldn't have normally got.

Sort of... Check this out.

Last year I made a (VERY tiny) Game Boy game written in Assembly language from scratch, because I wanted it do it like they did it back in the 80s and 90s.

https://github.com/drcouzelis/icecreamcastle-gb/

BUT, then I saw this interview with Mr. Sakurai about how he developed the game Kirby's Dream Land and, the way he describes it, he basically used the old-timey version of GB Studio! Like, draw the art, place characters on screen, and move them around! It blew my mind. XD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUY2AtBD6Sk

(REALLY cool interview)

Even so, you're still correct, Assembly language was used, but I was surprised to learn that game development wasn't exactly what I thought it was. :D

It's so strange... I've heard that Japan culture in general likes games of random chance (like gashapon vending machines...) but this just seems cruel. 😅

At least I can finally stop stressing about the timing of my button presses.

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

Huh. Today I learned. :D

Thanks for the write up. :) Does GrapheneOS provide root / su access in the default installation? (no magisk required)

I'm in a similar situation. I never played FF7 when it came out but started working my way through it recently.

The game is enormous, almost intimidatingly big. But I think the hardest thing preventing me from really getting into it was the Materia system for weapons and items. I just can't seem to wrap my head around it! XD

Nokia N900, 2023 edition. 🥲

Does RSC have end to end encryption? Is it on by default?

I migrated to ProtonMail out of curiosity after more than a decade, but when they turned over the IP address of a fucking CLIMATE ACTIVIST to police, I decided to halt that process

Are you referring to this?

Notable cases involving Swiss court orders include a case involving death threats made against well-known immunologist Anthony Fauci and a case against French climate activists. After these cases, in October 2021, Proton Mail won an important Swiss court victory that confirmed that email services cannot be considered telecommunications providers, and consequently are not subject to the data retention requirements imposed on telecommunications providers.

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

It sounds like they followed Swiss law and then worked to update the laws to prevent it from happening again, all while never sharing the contents of any emails (which they can't because they're encrypted).