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InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)P
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1
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290
Joined
3 yr. ago

  • Jesus, my son wanted to add a classmate as a friend on Xbox Live last night. It should have been a two step process from a parent perspective: Authenticate, then authorise (though the lad was delegated the task of the latter technically).

    When he tried to add the friend, I had to:

    1. Enter my parental code (fair enough);
    2. Enter my Microsoft Account password because it was apparently a transaction involving personal data;
    3. Scan the QR code to do this on another device (admittedly optional);
    4. Enter the email address of my MS account;
    5. Enter the 2FA code emailed to me;
    6. Stop the passkey creation process;
    7. Confirm that I didn't want a passkey;
    8. Skip the age verification;
    9. Turn off the personalised ads

    Just so he could get to the point where he could select "add as a friend", what the actual fuck

  • Yes... and no.

    Microsoft's operating systems have been very hit or miss - certainly their consumer operating systems - with the classic rule being "every other one is decent":

    • Windows ✅
    • Windows 2.0 ❌
    • Windows 3.11 ✅
    • Windows 95 ❌ (but in fairness it was a good crack, OSR2 was decent)
    • Windows 98 ✅
    • Windows Me ❌ (unless it was a clean install, the upgrade was horrific)
    • Windows XP ✅
    • Windows Vista ❌
    • Windows 7 ✅
    • Windows 8 ❌
    • Windows 10 ✅
    • Windows 11❌

    The more business focussed OS's like Windows for Workgroups, NT4, and 2000 were rock solid in fairness.

    Their business practices have always been shady as fuck too. Embrace, extend, extinguish is firmly burned into computer hobbyists minds.

  • gobble up deez micronuts

  • The Passport was actually a really decent phone but the jokes did get old.

    "When are you going to wall-mount your phone?"

    "fucking hell that will kill someone if you drop it"

    "you don't need to send that text, that person can fucking read it from here!"

    etc etc etc

  • I'm glad you mentioned the bugs. I was slowly leaning towards it but I've done my fair bit of... "unpaid beta testing" for one lifetime.

    I miss my BlackBerry phones. The Titan range was cool but buggy as well. If they could just do a Nothing phone with a QWERTY keyboard, I would literally buy one overnight.

  • no no, no no no no, no no no no, no no there's no lyrics

  • I'm rather hoping to box off my degree this year and I'm the wrong side of 40.

    That said I'm fortunate to have been able to choose to do a degree programme alongside my line of work, for no other real reason than "I fancied it".

  • Chatting to a friend or a group is nice, but sitting alone is amazing.

    On my days off I quite enjoy going into town and getting a corner table; either reading; studying; catching up on text messages or group chats; or generally just staring out the window thinking about sweet fuck all.

    My other half thinks it's a waste of money - and whereas it's true that coffee at a retailer is ludicrously expensive for what it is; I'm paying for the chance to sit somewhere else and just do my own thing. The caffeine juice is just a nice bonus.

    One of my guilty pleasures is going into the local city centre in the week running up to Christmas; sitting in a coffee shop in a shopping centre atrium or near a window overlooking a concourse or walkway; and just peoplewatch. It's interesting to watch someone walk for thirty or forty seconds and try to figure out their life story leading up to that moment.

    I suppose in that moment, I'm not alone at all, I'm in company with everyone.

  • Never commit code you can’t explain.

  • I've found some absolute bangers through that comm.

    I've got a tab group of about seven or eight games to play whenever I reach a natural break in my workflow and want to tune out for a few minutes every day.

    Bandle is probably my favourite.

  • My pattern recognition is out of wack. I misread the subject as "Mormons" and wondered wtf was about to happen, like it was a manifesto of some sort.

    Moment over. Back to normality.

  • Out of curiosity, what is the second level upgrade or evolution?

    asking for a friend

  • Doesn't matter what version it is, the drop at 1:50 is an absolute banger

  • Sorry friend.

    If your data was occupationally-sensitive or renders you vulnerable to financial ruination, it's time to move to a recovery phase and see if modern data recovery specialists can work their voodoo.

    Remember: never run experimental commands (you or a GenAI) in a live environment. See how it breaks things in a test environment first - if it shits itself, you may even get to learn how to fix it before running the instruction on live data.

    Anecdote time! A good friend of mine drove his car to a mutual colleague's place once because the wipers were about as much use as two chicken breasts on metal poles. He says to our colleague "Hey Foxy, I hear you're good with cars, can you fix these wipers for me? The rubber seems to be in good nick but it's not clearing anything".

    "Sure thing," Foxy proudly announces, "I'll get to work".

    Foxy strips the wipers down, one component at a time, before dusting his hands off and walking away.

    "What's going on, Foxy? The thing's still in bits!" my pal says.

    "No idea," says Foxy, "not a fucking Scooby mate" and goes back inside, leaving his wipers and actuating motor in about fourteen pieces on the roadside.

    So much for being good with cars.

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    Permanently Deleted

    Jump
  • It also sounds like the sorts of character names Sandy would use in their games - looks like an endless pool of NPC names for the future!

  • It was mostly black, to be fair!

    ...I'll get my coat

  • I remember getting my Nokia N95 nearly twenty years ago, and it was fucking awesome being able to reveal the four media control buttons, and blindly control music in my headphones from my pocket while walking to work or on the bus or train.

    As other commenters have said - I look at my old Ixus camera or LG Soul MP3 player or Nokia 3330 with fond nostalgia memories... but thank fuck I'm not lugging all that about now.

  • I've lucky enough to be able to fund my study while I'm in middle age.

    I took up my degree course because I enjoyed computing and the theory behind it. I enjoy it for the most part, it's engaging and intriguing. I'm getting some personal and academic development out of it even though it's got fuck all to do with my "real" career.

    I can see people stressed off their tits with it though - people who have a career pinned on success with the degree; people who went to uni because they felt it was just the next natural step; and people who did it because they were told to.

    I feel genuinely gutted for them that a topic that brings so much learning and satisfaction can bring another so much stress and anxiety.

    Shame.