tal
@tal@lemmy.today
- Comment on BT accused of ‘bullying’ customers by pausing broadband in digital landline push 10 hours ago:
>who worry about being able to call emergency services if there is a power cut.
I mean, that’s not a completely invalid concern, though I’d bet that the UK has pretty good cell coverage in general.
But you could stick a battery-backed inverter in place and put your router and VoIP to POTS adapter on it and keep using your phone.
- Comment on Inside McDonald’s push to have AI price your Big Mac 1 day ago:
This is going to make life complicated for The Economist’s Big Mac Index.
- Comment on Why so many Steam games have weirdly similar (and forgettable) names 3 days ago:
$ git clone -q https://github.com/karlforshaw/opengamedb.git $ cd opengamedb/ $ cut -d, -f1 names.csv |xargs -i% cat %.csv|cut -d, -f1|sort|uniq|sed 's/^"//'|sed 's/"$//'|grep -E '^(.*)\1+$'|uniq [snip] *** 1010 101010 222 999 Ape QuestApe Quest BeatBeat DingDingDing GUNGUNGUN JUJU KARAKARA MochiMochi MokMok niconico OlliOlli QbQbQb ROCKETSROCKETSROCKETS ROWROW RRRR RUNRUNRUN TripTrip VVVVV VVVVVV YamaYama zzzzz $
There do appear to be games like that (though “Ape QuestApe Quest” appears to be a typo).
- Comment on Why so many Steam games have weirdly similar (and forgettable) names 3 days ago:
I strongly suspect that the surname predates the automobile.
searches
www.familysearch.org/en/surname?surname=carless
Carless Name Meaning
English (Staffordshire): variant of Corliss .
- Comment on Why so many Steam games have weirdly similar (and forgettable) names 4 days ago:
I’d rather have numbered titles in the series so that I don’t have to memorize the order.
- Comment on Why so many Steam games have weirdly similar (and forgettable) names 4 days ago:
There was an earlier era, when <NOUN> hadn’t been already taken.
- Comment on Gene-edited bananas that don’t go brown could hit UK supermarkets 4 days ago:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zucchini#Culinary_uses
Raw grated zucchini can also be combined with flour and spices in a zucchini bread.[26][27]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumpkin_bread
Pumpkin bread is a type of moist quick bread made with pumpkin.[1]
- Comment on Far-right activist Daniel Thomas slashes dinghy in Channel with blade while rescue worker onboard 1 week ago:
The noise of escaping air was audible, and Thomas shouted: “This is England. This is not France any more.”
Thomas had presumably recently updated his slogan.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Tommo
In January 2026, Thomas was one of 10 British nationals banned from entering France for engaging in anti-migrant vigilantism with the group Raise the Colours.[13]
- Comment on Microsoft patent describes in-game advertising triggered by boss fights, loading screens, and cutscenes 1 week ago:
I generally don’t think F2P games are a very good deal for the player.
- Comment on Why are games priced in € (EUR) quoted the same as $ (USD)? 1 week ago:
I dunno. If someone sets the price at the same number…let’s see.
The current exchange rate is 1.1486 dollars per euro.
www.tradingview.com/symbols/EURUSD/
I’m pretty confident that VAT is higher than 14% in some countries in Europe.
searches
taxfoundation.org/…/value-added-tax-vat-rates-eur…
This says 19% in Germany to 27% in Hungary.
That assumes that whatever prices OP is looking at does indeed include VAT for the EU price (which would require knowing his location), and does not include sales tax in the US (which presumably is the case, if he’s not in the US, as there’d be no way to calculate sales tax anyway, since that would require a specific location in the US).
- Comment on Bristol becomes first British city to ban advertisements for fast fashion 2 weeks ago:
How does one identify fast fashion for this classification?
- Comment on Only slim chance target of 1.5m new homes in England will be met, Angela Rayner says 2 weeks ago:
I prefer using a suffix “M” and “B” over “m” and “b” for “million” and “billion” in text.
Apparently the convention for “million” in the finance industry is the even more unambiguous “MM”.
- Comment on Why was Concord DoA upon launch? 2 weeks ago:
I haven’t played it, but:
store.steampowered.com/app/2443720/Concord/
All Reviews: Mixed (849)
Generally, if it’s got a “Mixed” rating on Steam, it’s not going to do well.
- Comment on Burnham must understand Wales is ‘not a region in England’, says first minister 2 weeks ago:
Burnham must understand Wales is ‘not a region in England’, says first minister
It’s a noble and important region located in Not-Greater-Manchester.
- Comment on FFVII Revelation Director Insists S-E Had No Choice but to Require a Download to Play the Physical Disc Version 3 weeks ago:
I would guess that most of that is textures.
They could probably reasonably just ship half-resolution textures on disc and make higher-res textures be a downloadable option. Bethesda did that with their games, later on added free, downloadable higher-res textures. Shouldn’t require a lot of technical work. Maybe reducing texture resolution could trip some existing bug, a race condition somewhere, but it should be pretty mechanical, as changes go.
I don’t really have a dog in this race—I wouldn’t get the game either way. So I’m not pushing for that as an option. Just saying that I think that it’s an option from a technical standpoint, if one wanted to provide a compact, on-disc version of the game.
- Comment on FFVII Revelation Director Insists S-E Had No Choice but to Require a Download to Play the Physical Disc Version 3 weeks ago:
It might let you download less than would be the case if it were purely digital.
- Comment on Miami wants to turn parts of the city into a real-life GTA Vice City, but sheriff opposes the plan 3 weeks ago:
There are legitimately locations that have gotten a tourism bump from being present in media.
vegasspecialtytours.com/goodsprings-fallout-tour/
Step into the world of Fallout: New Vegas on our Goodsprings Fallout Tour. This immersive tour takes you to the historic town of Goodsprings, Nevada, the real-life inspiration behind the beloved video game. Experience the rich history and unique charm of this iconic location as you explore its fascinating past and connection to the Fallout universe.
I think that the idea of Miami doing it is pretty nuts, though, content aside. Miami isn’t some kind of obscure backwater from a tourism standpoint.
…yahoo.com/…/greater-miami-convention-visitors-bu…
The numbers are in and Greater Miami and Miami Beach continues to deliver by charting new records in visitation. At the GMCVB’s annual State of the Travel & Tourism Industry event, tourism leaders gathered to herald a milestone 2025: 28.3 million visitors, $32.2 billion in total economic impact and a globally competitive destination that continues to bolster employment, drives commerce to local businesses and delivers quality-of-life benefits for every Miami-Dade County resident.
- Comment on no comment (fandom.com) 3 weeks ago:
If the issue is the sidebar:
- Comment on Do analog triggers matter all that much? (In general and aside from racing games) 4 weeks ago:
github.com/xemu-project/xemu/issues/2609
This guy apparently was making a list of XBox games that use analog triggers for an issue on an emulator. Each entry lists what function the game uses the analog trigger for.
- Comment on Sony Implements New Customer Harassment Policy Following Backlash Toward Its Plans to Stop Making Physical Game Discs 4 weeks ago:
searches
en.wikipedia.org/…/Finger_pinching_conspiracy_the…
The finger pinching conspiracy theory[b] is an antifeminist conspiracy theory that originated in South Korea. It claims that there is a deliberate plot to spread and promote misandry through symbolic hand gestures, and that radical feminist groups have propagated these hidden messages to humiliate men with small penises.
The conspiracy theory first gained prominence in May 2021 when convenience store chain GS25 published an advertisement with a hand gesture, which faced accusations of allegedly disparaging penises and aggrandizing the defunct fringe group Megalia. The company retracted it and issued an apology. Since then, numerous organizations were met with similar protests from theorists and announced apologies.
Despite contradictory claims and a general lack of evidence, the theory persists; notably in the video game industry, where Nexon led a public allegation against its collaborators. It is viewed as an online harassment tactic employed by antifeminist backlash movements. The theory has been a source of misinformation circulated by internet-based communities and news media.
- Comment on Birmingham 20mph limit: 'Life saver' or 'war on cars'? 4 weeks ago:
I think that there’s a fair point that a lot of the road layout in a lot of cities was designed before cars. There are properties without setbacks, with doors that open right onto the street. Blind corners. No sidewalks. Unless one is expensively going to raze a huge amount of property, one can’t rebuild that road network any time soon. And if people drive on that kind of infrastructure at optimal-for-cars speeds on it, it creates costs.
But I also think that there’s a fair point that people need to get around, and that slow transport imposes a lot of costs on society.
I think that if one is to slow traffic in an area, it should be coupled with efforts to build out higher speed alternate routes, like bypasses that route through traffic around villages, rather than straight through their old city center.
- Comment on It’s OK to fight for a foreign army (as long as they’re our friends) 4 weeks ago:
It’s been quite a while since the UK was in a sticky situation and on the receiving end of volunteers, but:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eagle_Squadrons
The Eagle Squadrons were three fighter squadrons of the Royal Air Force (RAF) formed with volunteer pilots from the United States during the early days of World War II (1940), prior to the United States’ entry into the war in December 1941.
My assumption is that the author doesn’t object to this.
- Comment on Olive Branch MS mayor refusing to lower flag for Dolly 5 weeks ago:
If I flew a flag, I wouldn’t personally lower it for Dolly Parton.
But I also wouldn’t be upset if someone else did (or if someone else chose not to do so).
I also wouldn’t lower such a personal flag for Donald Trump’s death, and US Flag Code does specify it on the death of people who have served as president. I don’t feel that he’s earned a salute of respect from me. That being said, I understand and would expect federal institutions and such that do follow US Flag Code to do so.
- Comment on When every candidate you supported loses the election 5 weeks ago:
The older stickers should also have more wear and tear, I’d think.
- Comment on A fine dining restaurant served a quadriplegic woman a desert that read "happy birthday wheelchair" 5 weeks ago:
There’s an infamous incident in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, near the end of World War II.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_world_wonders
The world wonders" is a phrase which rose to notoriety following[a] its use during World War II when it appeared as part of a decoded message sent by Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, Commander in Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet, to Admiral William Halsey Jr. at the height of the Battle of Leyte Gulf on October 25, 1944.[2] The words, intended to be without meaning, were added as security padding in an encrypted message to hinder Japanese attempts at cryptanalysis, but were mistakenly included in the decoded text given to Halsey. Halsey interpreted the phrase as a harsh and sarcastic rebuke, and as a consequence dropped his futile pursuit of a decoy Japanese carrier task force, and, belatedly, reversed some of his ships in a fruitless effort to aid United States forces in the Battle off Samar.[3]
When Nimitz, at CINCPAC headquarters in Hawaii, saw Kinkaid’s plea for help he sent a message to Halsey, simply asking for the current location of Task Force 34, which due to a previous misunderstanding, was unclear:[7]
Where is, repeat, where is Task Force Thirty Four?
With the addition of metadata including routing and classification information, as well as the padding at the head and tail, the entire plaintext message to be encoded and transmitted to Halsey was:
TURKEY TROTS TO WATER GG FROM CINCPAC ACTION COM THIRD FLEET INFO COMINCH CTF SEVENTY-SEVEN X WHERE IS RPT WHERE IS TASK FORCE THIRTY FOUR RR THE WORLD WONDERS[9]
U.S. Navy procedure called for the padding to be added to the start and end of the message, which were vulnerable to cryptanalysis due to the use of common phrases and words (such as “Yours sincerely”) in those sections.[10] The words chosen for padding should have been obviously irrelevant to the actual message, but Nimitz’s enciphering clerk used a phrase that “[just] popped into my head”.[11] Historians note similarity to Lord Tennyson’s poem “The Charge of the Light Brigade” about the eponymous battle, which was also fought on October 25[12] (of 1854), as the poem twice contains the phrase “All the world wonder’d”.
While decrypting and transcribing the message, Halsey’s radio officer properly removed the leading phrase, but the trailing phrase looked appropriate and he seems to have thought it was intended and so left it in before passing it on to Halsey,[2] who read it as:
Where is, repeat, where is Task Force Thirty Four? The world wonders.
The structure tagging (the 'RR’s) should have made clear that the phrase was in fact padding. In all the ships and stations that received the message, only the decoder on Halsey’s flagship, USS New Jersey, failed to delete both padding phrases.[13]
The message (and its trailing padding) became infamous, and created some ill feeling, since it appeared to be a harsh criticism by Nimitz of Halsey’s decision to pursue the decoy carriers and leave the landings uncovered. “I was stunned as if I had been struck in the face”, Halsey later recalled. “The paper rattled in my hands, I snatched off my cap, threw it on the deck, and shouted something I am ashamed to remember”, letting out an anguished sob.[14] Rear Admiral Robert Carney, Halsey’s chief of staff (who had argued strongly in favor of pursuing the carriers), witnessed Halsey’s emotional outburst and reportedly grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him, shouting, “Stop it! What the hell’s the matter with you? Pull yourself together!” In Halsey’s recollection, he called it an “infernally plausible” message, saying “I was so mad I couldn’t talk. It was utterly impossible for me to believe that Chester Nimitz had sent me such an insult. He hadn’t, of course, but I didn’t know the truth for several weeks.”[15] Recognizing his failure, Halsey ordered his fleet south, however the chase north had exhausted the fuel of his light escorts and more time was wasted refueling while Taffy 3 (Task Unit 77.4.3, commanded by Rear Admiral Clifton Sprague) was fighting for its life. Halsey returned to Samar with his two fastest battleships, three light cruisers and eight destroyers, but he arrived too late to have any impact on the battle.[16]
- Comment on Digital tags have to go. 5 weeks ago:
Honestly, the real problem is that ragebait works. Like, if that’s what people decide to engage with on social media, then that’s what’s going to show up, whether it’s skimmed highly-scoring Reddit content or not.
You could try to produce “no-ragebait” communities.
You could try to introduce a recommendation algorithm that uses heuristics to try to identify ragebait and let users who don’t want it filter it out or simply recommend based on their scoring.
- Comment on ASDA can fuck right off 5 weeks ago:
Halfway to the point of being able to just leave them up year-round!
- Comment on A fine dining restaurant served a quadriplegic woman a desert that read "happy birthday wheelchair" 5 weeks ago:
Hmm. Could be.
searches
www.msn.com/en-us/…/ar-AA2aMzua
A spokesperson for Blu On The Hudson sent CBS News New York the following statement:
"We at Blu on the Hudson are aware of the recent video circulating on social media, and we are deeply saddened by what occurred. We sincerely apologize to the guest and to everyone who was hurt or offended by this incident which took place on June 20, 2026. Treating every guest with dignity, respect, and care is fundamental to who we are as a company.
"We want to provide some context regarding what happened, not as an excuse, but to explain how this unfortunate mistake occurred.
"Our standard operating procedure is to use table and seat numbers on tickets to identify where each dish should be delivered. In this instance, the word “wheelchair” was used as a reference to identify where a birthday dessert with a candle should be delivered. Unfortunately, that notation was misunderstood and was written on the plate itself. There was absolutely no malicious or disrespectful intent behind the notation. However, we fully understand how seeing that word written on a plate could be deeply hurtful and upsetting.
"Since the incident, we have reinforced with our team the importance of following proper ticketing and communication procedures and have taken steps to ensure that something like this does not happen again. We have also made an attempt to reach the guest directly to personally apologize, although we have not yet been able to connect with them.
"We understand that an apology cannot undo the hurt or frustration caused by this incident, but we sincerely hope it conveys how deeply sorry we are. Blu on the Hudson is proud to be a part of the Hudson County community, and we are committed to being a place where every guest feels welcomed, respected, and valued.
“We are deeply sorry for this occurrence, have learned from it, and are committed to doing better moving forward.”
- Comment on A fine dining restaurant served a quadriplegic woman a desert that read "happy birthday wheelchair" 5 weeks ago:
If I had to make a bet, there’s some note about what dish is supposed to go to whom and the waiter let it merge into the note about what text was supposed to be there.
- Comment on New Delhi - during lockdown vs now 5 weeks ago:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_pollution_in_Delhi
Air pollution in Delhi, the capital of India, was found to be one of the most lethal of any city in the world in an August 2022 study of 7,000 world cities by the US-based Health Effects Institute.[2] Air pollution in India is estimated to kill about 2 million people every year. India has the world’s highest death rate from chronic respiratory diseases and asthma according to the World Health Organization.[3] In Delhi, poor air quality has irreversibly damaged the lungs of 2.2 million children.
On 25 November 2019, the Supreme Court of India expressed their sentiments on the pollution in Delhi, saying “Delhi has become worse than narak (hell)”.[4] Supreme Court Justice Arun Mishra remarked that it is “better to get explosives, (and) kill everyone.”[5]
During the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in India, the air quality in Delhi significantly improved.[6][7]
India’s Ministry of Earth Sciences published a research paper in October 2018 attributing almost 41% of air pollution to vehicular emissions, 21.5% to dust and 18% to industrial emissions.[8]
If it’s mostly vehicle emissions, I wonder how far people there typically go. Like, if it’s people who are only driving around the city, that might be a good candidate for EV use.
