I played at varying levels of intensity between 2010 and 2015.

I met my first serious girlfriend through the game. It was also a long-distance relationship, and led to the frankly absurd story of how I lost my virginity, which involved a massive snowstorm and a lost passport. The relationship didn’t work out, but it was formative for me as a person.

These days, I still occasionally hang out with some of my old guild mates, who still play the game. Not as much anymore, especially after our D&D campaign ended, but I still consider them some of my closer friends.

I got a free three month trial for Google’s AI Pro plan, and Google wouldn’t shut up about the fact that I had the offer waiting, so I gave it a shot. It’s been more annoying than anything else. Gemini made me feel icky when I tried it, and now I get irritating popups asking me to use an AI tool every single time I go to type something in a Doc or Sheet

My brother in Christ, I am misusing Google Sheets to plan my character builds in Final Fantasy Tactics. I have entered all the information in the sheet by hand, and it is mostly text. This information cannot be put into a graph of any kind. I do not need your help with anything.

I had a DM who did something similar. We all had to describe five NPCs that were important to our characters: two friends or family members, two enemies or rivals, and one fate-bonded character who could be friend or foe.

In addition to the RP possiblities, it also gave the DM a ready supply of NPCs to populate the setting.

‘Epitome’ will forever be epi-tome in my head: ‘epi’ like in EpiPen and tome as in a big heavy book.

And the ‘c’ in ‘indictment’ also always gets pronounced when I read the word to myself.

All my grandparents save one have passed on, and I have no actual relationship with the one that still lives. So I’m not terribly concerned about her, beyond how much I care for any other random senior citizen.

To answer the spirit of the question, though we can talk about my parents, who are grandparents now.

Both are educated and about as tech proficient as I am. However, my mom nearly got caught in a gift card scam a few years ago, where someone was posing as one of her friends. She had even bought the cards, but insisted on going to give them in-person, which exposed the scam.

Because of that, I think my parents are actually pretty safe, as they are now extra vigilant about the messages they receive, and know to follow up anything suspicious using an alternate communication method.

I know, “once bitten twice shy,” isn’t the best defence, but alternate communication methods are. Stress to your loved ones that if they ever recieve a message from someone asking for money, to follow up using a different medium.

You can, but in my experience it is resistant to custom instructions.

I spent an evening messing around with ChatGPT once, and fairly early on I gave it special instructions via the options menu to stop being sycophantic, among other things. It ignored those instructions for the next dozen or so prompts, even though I followed up every response with a reminder. It finally came around after a few more prompts, by which point I was bored of it, and feeling a bit guilty over the acres of rainforest I had already burned down.

I don’t discount user error on my part, particularly that I may have asked too much at once, as I wanted it to dramatically alter its output with so my customizations. But it’s still a computer, and I don’t think it was unreasonable to expect it to follow instructions the first time. Isn’t that what computers are supposed to be known for, unfailingly following instructions?

I’m in my mid-late thirties, and my recovery time is about the same as it was in my mid twenties. This is because when I was 26 I had major abdominal surgery. That experience ended up delineating my life, having boundless vigour before and but needing to carefully measure my energy and actions after.

Socks are worn for 99% of my waking hours. They only come off in specific circumstances, normally involving water.

The socks must be well-fitting and put on straight, pulled up to their natural height and tightness. I prefer socks that come halfway up my shins, and I only wear ankle socks when working out.

The socks must be a matched pair. No mixing between different colours, cuts, brands, etc.

No holes allowed; if a sock gets a hole of any size, it immediately goes in the garbage. The widowed sock goes on my dresser until an appropriate mate is made by the splitting up of another pair.

On the other hand, I never sleep in socks under any circumstances. I find I get too warm.

This article only talks about the number of Copilot 365 licences that are active. It doesn’t even consider the situations like my workplace, where everyone was given a licence but hardly anyone uses it.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the actual usage rate for these licences is also very low, meaning the situation could be even more dire than the article makes out.

Here’s a couple random ones, outside of the obvious (Link from The Legend of Zelda).

Some of the character models in Warcraft 3 were left-handed, like the Footman and the Grunt. The weird implication in this is that in the Warcraft universe, left-handed is the default, because while the common Footmen were lefties, the heroic Paladin was right-handed.

Some of the party members from early Final Fantasy games were left-handed: Leila and Leon from FF2, and Kain and Palom from FF4. Because of the 2D sprites it didn’t show very well during battles, but it did affect the way their equipment was arranged in the menus.

“A revolting bit of casuistry,” as Christopher Hitchens put it. The problem this justification is that homosexuality is what people are and not what they do, and hating someone’s inherent and immutable trait is the same as hating the person themselves.

It’s a personal thing, but the smell of cumin kills my appetite. I had a bad experience with it once and I can’t shake the association between the smell and the experience.

Yeah, they are in different ridings, though they are adjacent.

I was thinking Flagpole Sitta, but that works too

Or a 90s indie song.

If I can’t find a Canadian version of a product, I look for Mexico next.

Help your neighbours, everyone.

I’d be interested to see the full breakdown, if only to find out how different my tastes are from the average lemmy.ca user. I nominated four songs, and I wouldn’t be surprised if one received zero points because I didn’t even vote for it.

I did have Fake Friends at the top of my French list, though.

That’s a sea border, but the idea is the same.

In fact, the distance between the shores of Newfoundland and St. Pierre and Miquelon is shorter than the width of the English Channel at the Straits of Dover (25km vs 34km).

That’s the one.

I don’t know if my memory of that era comports with actual history, but this is how I remember it playing out:

It looked like the Conservative attack ads were going to win the election for them again, just as they had against Dion and Ignatieff. They were ahead and gaining in the polls, and the Liberals seemed to have no response. The slogan was, “Trudeau: he’s just not ready.”

Then the polls stabilized for a few days, and the Liberals released that ad. The polls started rapidly reversing, and the Liberals decisively swept into power. I don’t think I even saw another, “he’s not ready,” attack ad from the Conservatives again after that.

EDIT: One can debate how much of an effect that ad had, and whether Trudeau’s actions matched it’s promises, but for me it will always stick out as a good bit of political strategy.

I remember the John Oliver bit where he laughs at how quaint it was when our media described a 45 day campaign as “grueling.”