Oof. Thanks. I hate it.

For those that may need it:

1. Right click and select "inspect"
2. A new panel will open, and the text <img ... will be highlighted. Right click that.
3. Select "Delete Node."
4. Impress your friends with your new hacker skills.

imagine what an ex-KGB agent with unlimited resources can do.

Oh, there's no need to imagine: I'm on the internet right now. I'm probably staring at this kind of state-actor bullshit on a daily basis without even knowing it.

Put any distro in front of me and provided I don't need to master it, I'm good. Ubuntu is fine. Debian is fine. RedHat is fine. Fedora is fine. I even have a tiny low-end system that is using Bohdi. Whatever. We're all using mostly the same kernel anyway.

90% of what I do is in a container anyway so it almost doesn't matter; half the time that means Alpine, but not really. That includes both consuming products from upstream as well as software development. I also practically live in the terminal, so I couldn't care less what GUI subsystem is in play, even while I'm using it.

The only time I've encountered people that care a little too much about what distro is being used, is right after having transitioned to Linux; the sheer liberating potential of the thing can make you lose your head.

I've come across a lot of professional bias about Linux distros, but that's usually due to real-world experience with tough or bad projects. Some times, decisions are made that make a given distro the villain or even the hero of the story. In the end, you'll hear a lot of praise and hate, but context absolutely matters.

There's also the very natural tendency to seek external validation for your actions/decisions. But some people just can't self-actualize in a way that's healthy. Sprinkle a little personal insecurity into the mix and presto: "someone is getting on great with that other Linux I don't use, so Imma get big mad."

I agree with the post. It's coded derogatory speech while being technically correct. Personally, I would go as far to say it's a dog-whistle and is absolutely a flag, especially if it renders any speech clunky and labored, or side-steps a person's gender transition status.

Also, here's something I've observed that may be relevant.

IMO, most of the time people use gender when telling a story, it's not relevant information in the first place. In light of recent events, public awareness, and politics, non-gendered speech (in English at least) is automatically the most inclusive way to go and it's a good habit to develop. The exceptions here are where it's information that supports the story, disambiguates complicated situations (e.g. talking about a drag persona), or where it's gender affirming in some way (e.g. respecting pronoun preferences).

I see this happen a lot, especially where woman/female is used as extra information when expressing anger, frustration, and disgust. For example, I hear "this woman cut me off in traffic" far more than "this man cut me off in traffic", with "this person" or "a BMW driver" as a maybe-neutral-but-also-likely-male coded qualifier. To me, it suggests a kind of negative bias for gender, which may or may not be unconscious (depends on the person). It may seem like a small thing, but it's freaking everywhere and it's gotta stop.

For the rare occasion where sex or gender supports the story, "my teacher, who is a woman, ..." or "my teacher, (s)he..." does the job. Yeah, it's is a bit tougher on the tongue, but you should only need to say it once for the whole telling.

Eh, don't get twisted up about it. They took a crack at it, that's what counts. Some times you have to feel around for the right joke.

The thing that baffles me about Wing Commander is that Mark Hamill was right there and already had an established character in the game's canon. But even with a different story and cast, I don't understand how anyone could have screwed up a bog-standard space opera that badly.

Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat deserve their respective paydays. They're both stupid and fun. That's what the source material is after all. But Mortal Kombat might do well with a little love: just throw a few million at Corridor Digital and update the CGI effects and re-release it.

Good point.

Calling in sick:

Calling in, sick:

It's worse than that. They think that toeing the line and refusing to deviate is the strong position to take here. Always has been.

Honestly, Sony really sees itself as a premium(ish) brand that puts a heavy emphasis on novelty with a bit of sophistication thrown in. They also see Nintendo as a kid's toy company. So, the expense (and some of the scarcity) is entirely the point.

The current Republican platform is largely based on stupid easily disproven lies.

It's worth mentioning that this strategy is straight out of the trolling playbook. The overall idea is to get everyone to waste their time arguing nonsense, making it impossible to discuss anything of merit. While the following article applies to internet forums, it's not hard to see how any social media, TV, or radio, can spill over into our day-to-day discourse and have the same effect: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7573649/

In this case, the topic at hand meets multiple criteria for deliberate trolling. IMO, there's little room for doubt that we're being led by the nose and baited to waste valuable pre-election time:

• Digression - Luring others into off-topic discussions by spamming, partaking in cascades or introducing tangential topics (e.g., as in [16]).
• (Hypo)criticism - Excessive criticism of others, e.g. on their punctuation while possibly committing the same errors oneself.
• Antipathy - Creation of a sensitive or antagonistic context through purposeful provocation, in order to manipulate others to produce emotional responses.
• Endangering - Giving out poor advice under an innocent guise, and others are compelled to respond in order to protect others.
• Shocking - Posting about taboos or sensitive subjects, such as religion, death or human rights.
• Aggression - Deliberate and open aggressing of others into retaliating (e.g., by name-calling or foul language).

Well, we are talking about a pop star with absolutely staggering amount of influence and reach, specifically with a young demographic. If she were able to motivate her fan-base to vote, that would be a huge deal.

Edit: Holy shit.