The “language” that the n64 used was basically in a totally different language family than what PCs and later Nintendo consoles use.

Think of it as if the N64 spoke Japanese, while PCs speak Spanish. There’s a lot of things that don’t translate cleanly from one language to the other, you can’t just feed it into google translate and expect what comes out the other end to make sense, you’re going to need someone who understands both languages to go over it, rewrite some of it to make sure all of the nuance is coming through, add some asterisks and translation notes to explain some concepts that don’t really have a direct equivalent in the other language, etc.

Later Nintendo consoles spoke something more like Portuguese or maybe even Mexican Spanish instead of PC’s Castilian Spanish. They’re much more similar languages that translate more directly and some things may not even really need translation as long as both parties slow down, speak clearly, and maybe throw in some hand gestures here and there, and google translate will get you like 99% of the way there, without the translator needing to add as many explanatory notes.

All those translation notes are what the emulator is doing, and the N64 to PC emulator has to do a lot more interpreting than the Switch to PC emulator.

It kind of sounds like that article is about the “hey Siri” feature getting activated accidentally, like if it picks up something that sounds similar to the trigger phrase and starts recording

Which is still a big security/privacy issue, but not exactly the same as if they’re just turning the microphone on whenever they want to listen to you and serve you ads

Overall, I tend to just be happy to be watching anything star wars. None of the movies are that deep, I’m just in it to watch space wizards with laser swords flying around in space ships with robot sidekicks battling evil. As long as most of those boxes get checked, I’m pretty happy with any star wars media, and in my mind I’m right back to being a little kid watching Star wars for the first time. Anything more is just icing on the cake.

Now I can absolutely rank them and admit that some of them are better movies than others, and the sequels and prequels definitely drop the ball on that in a lot of ways

And while on the whole, the sequels and prequels aren’t great movies (arguably the OT aren’t even great movies if we’re being totally objective) I think that in a lot of ways they do a better job at universe building by dropping hints at other parts of the galaxy that we don’t get to explore right then and there, they just do a shitty job of following through on them and tying them together into a coherent narrative.

I think that just about any part of episode 8 for example could have been expanded out into a pretty cool movie or show, there was a lot to work with there, they just didn’t work together as the same movie

The force dyad thing between Rey and Kylo is pretty fucking cool

Casino heist or spycraft movies are a pretty tried and true movie formula, I probably would have saved it for something like a Solo movie, or maybe Andor. The stuff about the military industrial complex profiting off of selling weapons to both sides could work for either of them. Han is from Cornelia, where the arms dealers are building a lot of these battleships and such, and it’s also established that he’s a gambler so a casino makes sense for him, or Andor could work well with the gritty political side of things.

Fucking broom kid! Let’s get more non-jedi non-sith force sensitives

Finn was just criminally underutilized all-around

The Holdo maneuver was pretty fucking badass

You can argue about how the bombing run doesn’t make sense from a physics perspective, or was tactically stupid, but it was a cool scene nonetheless

I could go on, I think you could build out a pretty decent movie, show, or at least an episode or two of a show from any of those ideas if they just committed to the idea

I don’t think that most of the big tech companies are listening to your microphone (I’m not ruling it out entirely, and I’m certainly there are some smaller sketchier companies that are doing it)

But I think most of the time most of the time they don’t need to

They know what ads you’ve seen on your phone/computer, what you’ve been googling, the websites you’ve visited, where you’ve used your credit card, what shows and movies you watch, and where you’ve been (from gps locations, or from what wifi networks and Bluetooth devices you’ve been near or connected to) and what ads, playlists, stores, products, etc. you were exposed to while you were there, and of course who you talk to and all of that same information about those people.

That’s all going to influence the things you think and talk about, they probably have a pretty good idea what kind of conversations you’re going to have well before you do.

And don’t get me wrong, that’s creepy as fuck.

I think most of it comes down to people not even realizing how much data about ourselves we put out there and all of the ways it can be collected and used to build a profile about you.

And honestly I think they can probably get better data from that most of the time than from trying to filter out background noise and make sense of what you’re talking about through your microphone.

Couple different kinds of notes, but I think this covers most of my use cases

I use google keep for small reminders, things I want to look up later, grocery lists to share with my wife, etc.

I keep a couple field notes notebooks around in my car and bag for things I want to make a physical note of, especially things I need to sketch out (I am no artist by any stretch of the imagination but I’m a capable DIYer and I sometimes need to sketch out the thing I’m building/fixing) while I’m out and about before I forget about them. I like the size of them, and the dot grid lends itself well to the kind of notes and sketches I use them for.

I also have some sketches of the rooms in my house in those books, list of some furniture dimensions, so when I’m out shopping with my wife and she asks “do you think this will fit in our dining room?” I can tell her definitively yes or no.

It also has a list of the bulbs, tires, wiper blades, air filters, etc. that our cars use, so I can reference them quickly while out shopping, it’s quicker to just flip to the back page of my little notebook than to try to look it up on my phone from the aisle at AutoZone or Walmart.

I also have a rite in the rain notebook I keep with my tools, it’s fairly rugged and waterproof, mostly ends up getting used for scribbling down a list of stuff I need to get from the hardware store in the middle of a project. Went with that one because I’m pretty likely to be using it when I’m wet or dirty, outside in the mud, under a leaking sink, etc. while I’m halfway through a project.

I keep another one of those with my camping supplies.

I have a pad of graph paper at my workbench, I like it for sketching things out, same as I like the dot grid in the field notes books, but this one doesn’t have to travel around with me or pull double duty for written notes, so I could go bigger and cheaper

We also did our kitchen cabinets in blackboard paint, so my wife and I can leave notes to each other on there, mostly reminders to empty the dishwasher and such.

Also worth noting another key issue with car exhaust in a confined space is carbon monoxide, you’ll feel the CO2 build up and make it difficult to breath in your environment before it does any damage, the CO on the other hand will kill you quietly. CO breaks down relatively quickly in the environment by reacting with other substances in the air, so it’s not really a long term pollutant concern.

There’s also other chemicals and particulates, but they’re mostly going to be at lower concentrations that aren’t going to kill you in a hurry, but may contribute to longer term cancer risks and such, but that’s a little harder for people to wrap their heads around. You won’t immediately die of cancer in your garage from breathing exhaust but it might give you cancer years or decades down the line.

Did you miss where I addressed that by pointing out how generators, batteries, solar panels, and vehicle mounted radios exist?

You realize that if you call Texas you can also reach someone locally.

A lot of ham equipment can be run off of batteries, generators, solar power, vehicles, etc. for some hams, that’s even a big part of what interests them- going out into the woods or other remote areas to see who they can make contact with from there.

There are official policies in place for ham radio operators to work with local emergency services. ARES & RACES, for example. I know that my $20 baofeng can even be used directly on some emergency frequencies (depending on what sort of radio system they’re using)

As an example of how it might work

If cell and landline phones are inoperable, you might instead have volunteer ham operators posted at various places around the community- probably schools, government buildings, hospitals, recreation centers, etc. places where people might gather, where aide is being distributed, that might have backup generators, etc.

And you also have them or professional radio operators at police/fire/ambulance stations, 911 dispatch centers.

Someone having an emergency would let the local ham operator know and have them relay the info to the station or dispatch center so they could send help

Less efficient than just calling 911 of course, but better than nothing.

I work in a 911 dispatch center, we have a small room full of ham equipment that we can send out or use for these sorts of situations (luckily we’re not in an area prone to major natural disasters, so it’s rare that we ever have to use it if ever, but we’re prepared if it ever happens)

In general, I have no problem with AI in and of itself.

I just don’t trust any human person or organization to make one, and do it safely or use it responsibly.

2007 Toyota 4runner

I have a lot of outdoorsy hobbies and am an avid DIYer, so I need something with room for gear/lumber/etc. a roof rack to strap on my kayak or other bulky gear, a trailer hitch to tow small trailers or put a bike rack or basket on to carry a cooler and such when there’s no more room in my trunk, and some space for friends and/or my dog. Some ground clearance is nice for when I find myself on shitty deeply rutted dirt roads, and 4wd for when I drive onto the beach to go fishing. I’m also an essential worker (911 dispatch) who has to be able to get to work in the snow, and I work a weird shift that sometimes has me commuting before plows have been through.

I don’t really go “off roading,” I’m not going out looking for mud and Rocks to go driving over for it’s own sake, but I do sometimes, in the course of whatever else I’m doing, have to drive off the road.

I also sometimes camp in my car, and it’s nice to be able to fit an air mattress in the back, it’s a bit tight but it works.

It’s also the used car I could afford when my previous one got totaled on me.

My previous cars have been roughly the same sort of midsized SUVs- 2000 Isuzu Trooper (I really loved that car) and 2006 Chevy Trailblazer (it did everything I needed to but I was less of a fan, nothing in that car was quite where I thought it should be) so I’ve kind of dialed in that that’s the right size vehicle for me.

Ideally I’d like to have a small EV for most of my daily commuting and errands, and then a (small) 4x4 pickup truck for when I need it. Something like the old ford rangers (the new ones are bigger than I need) with an extended cab (not a full crew cab, just some back jump seats) and a 6 or 7ft bed. The maverick shows some promise, I’m hoping they add a midgate when they refresh it in a couple years.

But I don’t have the parking space or budget for 2 cars, so the midsize suv is kind of the compromise I’m stuck with.

My family has always had good luck with Toyotas, and I like my 4runner well enough, if I had the budget to be picky and needed a car, there’s a good chance I’d be looking at 4runners, though unless my financial and parking situations get better my next car will probably be whatever 10+ year old midsized SUV comes my way when this one goes (still going strong though, slowly inching up on 200k miles and still no major issues)

I listen to some metal among a lot of other music, wouldn’t really call myself a metalhead but I have a lot of friends who are

I’m in my 30s, been a lot of metalheads in my friend group since middle or high school, don’t really see that changing any time soon. Overall I like metalheads, under the gruff-looking exteriors most of them are big marshmallows, and overall pretty intelligent people.

There’s a handful of assholes, racists, some people whose main interest in metal is that they like to be too rough in the mosh pit, etc. but the majority of metalheads I’ve met hate their guts. And like with all subcultures, fandoms, etc. there are some who are annoying pretentious pricks about it but are essentially harmless.

I’d like to skip Christmas, I get nothing out of it but headaches. I don’t enjoy the family get togethers (individually or in small groups my family is mostly fine, but all of them at once is too much) I don’t want anything that can reasonably be asked for or given as a present, and I don’t have any space for the useless junk I’ll inevitably receive.

What I need/want is money. I’m not struggling, but I have projects and things I’m saving up for and whatever they’d spend on gifts if they feel like they need to give me something I’d much rather them just give me the cash or Venmo me. They’re not going to gift me a new heater, deck, washer/dryer, paint for my living room, etc. the best I can hope for is some gift cards to Lowes, home Depot, etc. and inevitably the cards will all be to different places so I can’t even use them all on what they’re intended to go towards, and there’s a good chance that once I’ve saved up enough I’ll get the best price at a store I don’t even have any gift cards for, so they’re going to sit around collecting dust because I’ll never remember to grab them when I need to go buy a box of screws or something.

Just give me cash.

I think it’s also worth having frank discussions with your kids about their inheritance and encouraging them to work things out themselves ahead of time.

My family has maybe a bit unusual but I think very healthy relationship with death. It comes for us all eventually, no sense dancing around it.

There’s no complicated inheritance situations in my family, if you have kids everything gets divided up evenly among them. If they don’t have kids it gets divided up evenly among their nieces/nephews.

So for example my parents estate gets split between my sister and myself, my uncle who doesn’t have kids gets split between us and my cousin, my cousin gets his parents’ all to himself.

We’ve already got things divvied up amongst ourselves pretty well. As long as my sister signs over her claim to our parent’s house, I’ll sign over my third of our uncle’s house to her, and she’s happy to buy our cousin out of his third or trade him for her current house (which would also have the benefit of getting all 3 of us in the same town, cousin has some disabilities and it would be nice to have us all nearby in case of emergencies, or the payout from my sister or money from sale of her house plus his own inheritance from his parents would set him up pretty well)

We also occasionally call dibs on some other desirable belongings, like my uncles skillsaw

My dude, what the actual fuck are you on about?

“Know your enemy” isn’t a saying about peaceful turn-the-other-cheek, love-thy-neighbor, forgiveness bullshit

It’s about knowing how and why they fight so you know how to defeat them.

You can’t and won’t win over every individual Nazi or klansman and make them see the light, but each one you do is one less enemy on their side and one more ally on yours, and my talking to them you get a better understanding on how to beat them.

If you didn’t think people can change, you probably wouldn’t spend as much time arguing with people on the internet as you do. Not really much point in doing that since you’re not going to change their minds after all.

But even if you genuinely don’t think people are capable of improvement, I think it would still be worthwhile in a “know your enemy” sort of way.

I have a friend who worked at a convenience store in an area where the KKK still has a decent presence. The local grand wizard or dragon or whatever ridiculous rank he had took a liking to my friend (it should maybe be noted that my friend is practically a caricature of blond, blue-eyed whiteness.) I wouldn’t say they were friends, it was more than he was on the clock and couldn’t really afford to lose his job by telling some racist fuck to pound sand, they didn’t keep in contact outside of work, neither of them changed each other’s minds about anything (my friend is now engaged to a black woman) but they did have some fairly in depth and civil conversations about race and society and such.

I can’t say for what Mr Pointy Hat’s takeaway was from their talks, but my friend’s overall impression is that the klan guy was kind of stuck. He kind of seemed to know that the world had changed around him, and that maybe he was in the wrong and there was no place for someone like him anymore, but he was unable and/or unwilling to change himself to adapt to the new world and to different ways of thinking than he’d been brought up with, so the kkk was kind of his way of carving a safe space for himself out of the world where he knew how things worked and where he had some sort of value. And his hatred towards black people and other people different from himself wasn’t really that they should be killed or enslaved or treated poorly, but that he didn’t get why they needed to be part of the same society as him, sort of like if they could just all go off and live in their own countries he’d wish them the best in their endeavors.

I’m not saying that’s at all a good philosophy, I find it absolutely abhorrent, but it’s also more nuanced than I would have otherwise thought a klansman would be capable of.

I also won’t say that my friend necessarily had a perfect read on this guy, it could very well be that he totally took the wrong things away from what the guy said. And even if he did hit the nail on the head, with a sample size of 1, you can’t exactly extrapolate that to say that the rest of the klan or other racist shitbags feel the same way.

But I do think there can be some value in talking to some of these types of people, maybe not befriending them exactly, but building some sort of mutual understanding might help get some of them onto the right path before they end up too old and stuck in their ways like that guy.