Not calling you out personally, Lauchs and I do apologize if it seems that way. Just that reading in your question the usage of “your side” and “the other side” brought to mind once again the fact that many people I know have come to view politics a team sport. Didn’t decide anything about your beliefs.

In this study, were the terms “conservative” and “liberal” self-applied by the subjects? People do adopt those labels for themselves, but I would urge careful consideration before doing so. Where they can be useful in describing one’s position on a specific issue, when applied directly to the person they are needlessly reductive. Exactly the sort of thing that facilitates the mental assignment of oneself or others into an imaginary camp on one side of a false dichotomy.

The essence of what you are saying makes sense to me, and I do understand those terms are routinely applied to people both by themselves and by others. But your post, though well-meaning also serves to perpetuate the “conservatives vs. liberals” view of political discourse. I realize I may be Sisyphus under the boulder here, but it’s my challenge to the United States political duopoly.

Do you consider yourself a partisan? The pervasive notion that there are “two sides” and you must be on one of them, it results in ordinary citizens viewing one another with suspicion and fear. It’s a useful lie that serves the interests of those who would foster division in order to maintain the cultural status quo.

Not calling you out in particular. Just that I think about this every time something is posted that perpetuates this false “our team, their team” narrative because it’s a powerful, insipid tool of oppression against the common person. True, people differ on contentious issues, sometimes irreconcilably. But if we are made to view one another as dyed-in-the-wool adversaries over that, we will fail to discover our common interests much less promote them through solidarity.

Not denying that the two major political parties in the United States do hold seemingly unassailable dominance in major elections like the one we’re entering, largely due to determining winner by first-past-the-post. And yes, sadly it’s very often the case that a meaningful vote will support one of those parties. But it doesn’t have to be this way forever. In fact, I will be able to vote for city office candidates by ranked choice starting this year!

Sorry for the rant. Not an expert. Just a dude who wants to love his neighbor.

John Gabriel’s Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory

Was lucky enough to have a sit-down cabinet version of Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator (Sega, 1983) at a local arcade. Very comfortable with the controls built into the chair. Along with having set all the games to free play, the operator had the volume cranked on this one so Nimoy’s voice would resonate inside!

Gonna go with Donkey Kong (1994). Made for a handheld (Game Boy) but also prominently features an enhanced mode enabled by running it on Nintendo’s Super Game Boy accessory for the SNES/Super Famicom (actually mine’s an SGB2–even better).

Nice pick! Was my first experience playing a Rogue-like game, though I wouldn’t know that term for at least two decades.

I’m as old as my tongue, and a little older than my teeth.

To be fair, there was a glowing red arrow in pursuit.

Gift-wrapped with a card and all, decades ago to my former significant other. That it was so long ago, and that I don’t remember what the present was would seem to speak volumes against the significance. Damn my cold heart!

Last time I felt like giving somebody a gift was three years ago. Burned a DVD of Spicediver’s fan edit of Dune (1984) and sent it to an old friend in a case with a printed color slipcover. With the first part of Villeneuve’s adaptation set to debut I wanted my friend to see this great version of a flawed film we enjoyed together in our youth.

Few months ago I gave a few Famicom game cartridges to a former co-worker because his wife collects Hello Kitty stuff. Not really being generous; was happy to get rid of them as those characters kind of give me the creeps.

Is it required to give them useful data? Thinking of using an old smartphone with bogus personal info, single-purpose email account etc.

Thought it was odd to call this a sequel to an “NES classic” considering Shadowgate originated on the Macintosh, but judging by the screenshots in the article it seems the authors indeed decided to implement an interface very similar to the one Kemco developed for their NES port. Interesting choice! Having played the Mac-like Amiga port and the NES port I do prefer the controls of the latter as they better suit the use of a keyboard or gamepad.

The music in the NES port is very memorable to me as well. If Beyond Shadowgate will feature sound, I would hope that cues are taken from the sound of the NES and the prior composer’s work.

Developed by The Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium.

Hey, good luck! I keep mine silenced and out of sight and just use the wifi hotspot for internet, VOIP etc. Didn’t know dumb phones could do that, else that’s what I’d have!

toothpaste, defoliants, genital deodorants strychnine, gasoline, benzene, polythene…

Bus ride meant I missed a good hour of the 'toons. But every Wednesday evening there was a test of the local fire station’s air siren, and I’d know it was time to rush home and catch MacGyver!

For ZSH and SSH I just speak the letters: Z-S-H, S-S-H. Sudo as “SUE-do” “SUE-doo”.

One I wonder about is xrandr. I say “EKS-rand-ur”, have heard others say “eks-R-and-R”.

edit: for sudo long vowel. Also I tend to stress the H in ZSH and SSH.

Profoundly nightmarish was mine, here are the highlights:

Go to take LSD for the first time with some friends at the seller’s house. Just about the time the effects are taking over I realize I met the guy once about ten years earlier, when as a stupid kid I accidentally shot him in the face with a pellet spring pistol.

Bit later, on top of feeling ashamed, regretful, worthless, helpless and out of my mind I’m becoming very nauseated so I go to the front porch. In a brief moment I see another guy I hadn’t seen in years walking by on the sidewalk, and reach my hand up to wave at him. As my stomach empties he freezes in his tracks, mid-wave as his smile of recognition turns to shock.

In my high school we had several of the Compact Macintosh models and I remember using them in two classes. One was English where we used a word processor. The other was more interesting: some sort of computer literacy course where we wrote HyperCard programs on the Mac.

Apart from the HyperCard stuff I found the courses and Macintosh computers quite dull. Maybe because I had been using Amiga computers for years at this point, and knew “The Fastest Apple Mac is an Amiga” (piped).

First time a political ad got me to laugh (in a good way):

Harris (…) got [transnational gang members] sentenced to prison.

Trump is trying to avoid being sentenced to prison.