Now that you say that, I did set up another RSS reader to display a Lemmy RSS. Thunderbird sports RSS, therefore…

Wait, Thunderbird queue with Activity Pub or Lemmy?

And it’s not like Putin is going to the front, or will be impoverished.

So many great songs! Glad to see my man Boy Golden making it through to the International Lemmyvision!

The real treasure was the friends we made along the way! new music we were exposed to along the way! I had never heard of Angine de Poitrine before this years Lemmyvision nominations, thank you for the nominations, and the discussion!

Came for the tunes, stayed for the discussion on normalized vs inverted Borda Count.

Putin still has minions in the EU post-Orban, but no doubt the Russian position keeps getting worse and worse.

The US no longer sends any aid to Ukraine I understand, they simply are delivering equipment that EU countries have bought on behalf of Ukraine. This was a big win for Putin, but nowhere big enough. Add in EU shell manufacturing capacity growing so fast, along with just the general revitalization of EU arms manufacturing, I think the US’ support is becoming less and less critical. Given the broad support Ukraine enjoys in the US, I would expect this to reverse in a few years, so there is another clock ticking for Russia.

Honestly, putting myself in Putin’s shoes, it’s one of two things. First, he has so successfully insulated himself, he has no idea how things are going. Second, he’s just continuing to attack because to stop would mean his ouster and likely execution.

So long as Russia continues the war, Putin has an easier time of fending off potential internal enemies. Thousands of ordinary Russians will suffer and many die, but that’s a sacrifice he’s willing to make to keep holding on to power.

The longer he can hold on, the more chances subverting can change for him.

Soft-paywalled, archive.today link.

I think it’s more of an “ESH” (everyone sucks here) situation. Falun Gong is a cult, and their Epoch Times “newspaper” is pretty much trash, but China has engaged in an extensive transnational repression campaign, and one of their targets is Falun Gong.

This BBC article from 2023 focuses on an incident in New York, but touches on others.

Glad fellow Dan Mangan fans are on top of this!

Did you play 1st edition, circa 1989? The original decking rules are pretty well represented in the recent Sega Shadowrun game from 1994, just a few years ago.

It’s an entire solo dungeon sort of experience, while the rest of the group watches the decker and GM play a one on one game.

It was radically streamlined for 2nd edition on, but it took me a while to notice, since Deckers were always NPCs and decking was just exposition for years.

Forgive the formatting, I’m feeling fragile, probably from my advanced age.

I’ve got lots of time, I’m only… oh sh1t.

Okay, technically late, but I’m surprised no one nominated The Beaches - Last Girls At The Party (English). It’s probably a little mainstream for Lemmy? Seems to be getting lots of radio play, and fairly popular (or at least Canadian popular).

I’ll nominate them, if an exception can be made, even though I already nominated a couple of other songs. Otherwise, add them to the playlist and jam out. The real prize is the music we listened to along the way.

The “3PMS” (3 Peak Mountain Snowflake) is a performance certification. The tire line will have been tested and passed a certification. It doesn’t matter whether it’s sold as a winter tire or all-weather, it’s purely test based.

Among tires with the 3PMS, they might exceed the test standard by various amounts, but that’s going to need individual tire reviews and Consumer Reports or something. Any 3PMS endorsed tire should be good in poor winter conditions, but some will be better than others.

As an aside, I usually just get All-Seasons M+S or whatever All Weather tires are on sale nowadays. My secret is I don’t drive on the Malahat or the Coquihalla in winter conditions, and I’m not passing anyone in a snowstorm. Plus I don’t live in northern BC or Alberta. I used to carry tire chains in case I got caught out by a sudden storm or freezing rain, but I haven’t done that for a few years. I should get new chains. I will also say that when I was in northern BC, AWD or 4WD made a big difference, on top of tire selection. I don’t have AWD or 4WD now, so I double drive more cautiously in winter.

A final caution, even the best winter tire will perform worse than a bald tire in summer, and even 4WD is simply reducing the performance hit. My impression from seeing cars in the ditch up north is that there were just as many 4WD and AWD vehicles in the ditch. You can do 90 kph along a clear stretch but then hit a small snow drift on a corner or patch of ice. Just because people are passing you doesn’t mean they are driving to the conditions.

Ha! I agree, the extra level of extraction helps. I don’t know why, it feels bad to be mean to animals and NPCs in a game, but it’s okay if it’s a game within that game? Feelings aren’t rational I guess.

Besides the only animal companions I have are my treasured walking towers/bastions!

Steam, GoG, Humble Bundle, and Itch are the platforms I regularly buy PC games on. By far and away, Steam is #1. It’s got the games, it’s well integrated into everything, easy to use (especially on Linux). GoG is good, although I set up Heroic to use with GoG. It’s close, but not as many games that I want, and Heroic+GoG is a little less polished than Steam. Humble Bundle and Itch are generally too niche, although so much of my Steam library has come from Humble.

GoG was my second digital store, I resisted Steam for so long, but over the years, Steam has become my #1 source for games. It’s just so easy, plus they are relatively consumer friendly. With the revamp of Steam Families, it’s just so so much easier to have everyone playing on Steam. Plus I have a Steam Deck.

I try and buy games on GoG, set them up with Heroic, and it works great, better than EA, Epic and other storefronts, but just not quite as slick as Steam.

One day St. Gabe will be martyred, and Steam will undergo the unavoidable descent into enshittification, as to will GoG. I do not pledge undying loyalty to any platform, but Steam and GoG have been awesome for so long.

Besides, other than Itch and Humble Bundle, who even comes close in being good to use?

Just so long as they aren’t pre-paying with IOU’s. There is lots of cases with pension funds having a bunch of company bonds or other debt instruments that become worthless when the company folds (Nortel comes to mind).

Cribbing has a less negative connotation than that definition implies. Back in grade school in the eighties, you would crib your friends notes from a class you missed or something. Closer to sharing information. I guess you could crib from a friend for an essay, but the implication would be that although your essay might share the same information, you would not literally copy theirs word for word, that would be plagiarism and risk getting your friend in trouble.

In this context. I would read it as taking inspiration from, or in the style of. It’s not like you are trying to cheat Psygnosis out of sales by selling knock-off games. Rather you are creating a retro style logo in the style of a much beloved eighties icon.

I should’ve included Bandcamp links, it’s a good way to support the artists. Thanks!

Suffer - Boy Golden (English)

Never heard of Boy Golden, and only heard this song on the radio while driving a month or so ago. Thank goodness for our modern high tech radios, I noted the song info, and it is now in my regular offline backup MP3 collection.