Still catching up on the many Switch games I’ve missed over the years. Super Mario Odyssey, Starlink: Battle for Atlas, and Metroid Prime Remastered are getting lots of play. They are all excellent. Starlink gives me motion sickness though, so I have to limit that to 20–30-minute sessions.

This is a bit of a TIL for me. Alberta and Saskatchewan, obvious. I didn’t know that NB had an active anti-trans policy in effect.

My scepticism is through the roof reading this. First, I find it hard to believe that he has two working units unless they are programmed to sit in front of a terminal and tap Y…

The rest speaks for itself: Musk likes to BS.

If you are geoblocked you can stream it with https://ga.pbs-video.pbs.org/videos/nova/de12ed2c-17e6-4434-a430-7f80c26a6002/2000426341/hd-16x9-mezzanine-1080p/nova5107-AABR-AVC_793.m3u8 with mpv

See also: this thread on Mastodon https://octodon.social/@cwebber/112451933593063510

Ok. Makes sense. The video is geoblocked for me so I probably should’ve kept my mouth shut

Maybe just bad research. I haven’t tried, but I’m sure if you search for “how to protect yourself online” some of the SEO manipulating websites show up in the first results.

Yup

An old friend of mine that I’ve lost touch with is Chinese. They lived in Europe for a number of years. When they couldn’t get a new job their visa ran out and the went back home.

No problem getting a job. They had a place to live. Things were good.

But… When they left Europe they basically told their roommate, a student who was about 10 years their younger, that they were leaving and that’s it. They abandoned the apartment. This left not only rent up to the student, but also the €300 fee of changing the name on the rental contract.

If a police investigation is launched against someone in China, you can be damned sure they will turn up something. If this influencer ever saw a doobie they will find out, and if they never did drugs they will find an acquaintance who did.

I say this because one day when my friend left work there was a car waiting. It was the father of her roommate. Turns out he was a “special” police officer. He told them to get in and gave her a folder. The folder had photos of them, their friends, even me. There were notes on the friends, SMS and social media exchanges. This included references to drugs. He took them to a bank, told them to take out the equivalent of €900 (he had their bank statements already) or their family would hear about this…and then he left them there on the street.

Before you delete your comments and reviews change them to something very basic and neutral?

An animated series is also in the works, so there is also that to look forward to.

Dang. The fire got close to my family’s homes. 22 y/o probably won’t get max sentence but this will probably mess up his career aspects.

Yep. I have never had to use Discord. Or, I suppose I should say I haven’t had to use it yet. But when I see that a project uses Discord and not a forum or even Discourse, Matrix or IRC, I just hope I never have to ask for help.

Amazing that I can live in the country and hear nothing about this. I’ve just read the Guardian article and I guess not living in Paris or another major city might be one of the reasons.

ah zdnet, a waste of CO2 if there ever was

Probably a private school thing in that case. I haven’t taught at a public uni since 2008, but parents wouldn’t have tried to get involved back then.

I cannot contact parents, but administrators will without question.

This shocked me as well because my parents weren’t involved with my work or education after finishing high school.

In France, this is not the case. The majority of people are supported by their parents until the end of secondary education, especially when it comes to my students who are all in private institutions.

It is extremely rare for a student to have a job, for example.

Parents do get involved for even minor things, and will come stomping into the school flanked by a lawyer.

Why would they be involved?

Because they pay. That’s all.

Now, university is practically free and lots of students get a bursary (not a loan) to help them along. But, their parents will still pay rent sometimes because a full-time student with a job is seen as the most amazing thing here.

I will often bring up this stark contrast to how when I was a student I had 4 different jobs and still ended my studies 60k in debt and didn’t even see my parents during the school year, let alone get any money from them.

True! Guardian is British but still, they need a better analogy.

I am a professor as several different schools in France (business, notarial studies, agricultural engineers, communication). I would day 95% of my students are from well-to-do families. But, most of them are required to find paid internships. The notary students usually get unpaid internships.

As an internship advisor, I can confirm one thing: paid or not, they put in the hours and take the same crap as a paid employee. Sometimes it is worse. For example, if an intern is absent from work, the message gets to me, and I send it up the chain of command and sometimes parents get involved. It is stressful for the students. My business students get paid internships (about €1400/month) but still need help from their parents and many of them will be doing something they don’t really want to do (think finance instead of marketing).

Now, being a professor I am in contact with a rather large network of of profs spanning the private and public sector… My colleagues from the public sector are worried about this looming change to laws. It would lead to an overhaul of the system as the internship is counted as a credit. If it is decided that they should be paid, how many companies will want to pay when they can just hire a part-timer for the summer?

On a bit of a side-scrolling trip these past few weeks: Mario Wonder, Metroid Dread, Yooka-Laylee, etc.

The two big(ger) games I’ve played this year are Street Fighter 6 and Mario Wonder which are both fantastic. I haven’t played BG3 or the latest Zelda or any other major releases, but my partner and I were all in on SF6 for weeks. Wonder, though, is a great throwback to what made us both start gaming: very easy to pick up and play, things to collect, and a tiny bit of grinding.

I’ve told this tale 3 years running now:

I work at an international business school. I try to stay up to day on world news. There was a paragraph written about “infectious pneumonia” in Time magazine or The Economist the last week of 2019 (so the issue published the first week of 2020, I think).

Returning to work a week later I mentioned it in class, because that year I had about 6 students from different parts of China.

They said, “it’s nothing, just a flu.”

The next week, as numbers started to be published they said, “no, it’s an exaggeration.”

The week after they were the first students to start wearing masks.

Week 4, they told us they hadn’t heard from their families in several days. This would have been February 2020.

I felt so horrible for those students that year. They were only 18 or 19 years old. Sent to France in January 2019 (they are required to come several months before classes start in order to learn French and pass some tests). They were locked down March 16th 2020 and forced to take lessons on Zoom. Unable to return home for the summer. Took another semester on Zoom, etc., etc.…

I think they finally managed to head home in the spring of 2021.

I’m a recent Switch convert. I had only Nintendo until the DS and then ended up with an Xbox 360…and then a PS4. With the exception of a handful of games, like Gears of War on the 360 and Street Fighter 6 on PS4, I have never spent as much time playing as I have during these past few weeks on the Switch.

I’m still trying to put my finger on why that is. I don’t even have a Zelda game yet on this machine, but I’ve already bought a few games to play when I’m through with what I’m playing now.

As an almost–40-year-old who had a Game Boy at age 4, the only thing I can come up with that has made sense to my friends is that Nintendo is for playing as opposed to gaming? I don’t know why that rings true.

I’ve also noticed that Switch-owners have very large libraries of games. While I have just a handful, the average among my friends and students is 80 games. Most of them bought the Switch at launch and again when the OLED dropped. Their machines are just chocked full of games ranging from AAA to indie games.

For me, that might explain the lack of Netflix or Discord. They use their space for games to play. And, also, if you have used the Switch eshop you’ll notice that it is pretty busted and slow. Perhaps the have tried to make other apps, but we’re just too janky or not in line with family values.

[…] Nintendo neglecting every expectation of a modern gaming platform while it instead tinkers away on new hits.

Tinker is the word here. Some of their big games are worked on without deadlines. Even Mario Wonder was made without a deadline, and the result is just great (albeit easy, except for that secret last level where I can’t get the f-cking flag). I would wager that Metroid Prime 4 is just tinkering along as well.

Fine with me.

I’m used to buying consoles long after release, so if Switch 2 comes next year I hope I can pick it up in 5 years.

Until then, it’s like being a kid again: playing Mario and Metroid until my thumbs cramp.

Thorgi’s most recent video on the Street Fighter movie is great, even for casual- or non-gamers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q63M0rmeAXU

I agree on the recency bias. We tend to forget about older series and films, or watch them without considering the context of their time. This article even mentions Castlevania: Nocturne, but not the other great Castlevania series.

Was MK a dud? Maybe. But I saw that in cinema and owned it on VHS and had the soundtrack on cassette. It was a little bit of a phenomenon, same goes for the SF movie.

What I think has changed is that now they have decided to throw a little more money at these productions (actors, sets, etc.) and do the right thing by hiring consultants that know the franchise. Give the audience a little more of what they expect. Like with the NieR séries. It is essentially a walkthrough of the game and it is lovely.

I was worried I would hate them. I find myself looking forward to them. It is always a great feeling to finish one of them off.

I didn’t see it so nothing was spoiled. I’m trying not to read the guides but I do want to know when the last PNR is in case I need to explore a little.

Got a few on the go because I recently got a Switch.

Super Mario Bros. Wonder: just about 100%.

Metroid Dread: awesome.

Moonlighter: great for a few minutes here and there.

Axiom Verge: for when I get stuck in Dread.

The to play pile is growing, so I better finish one of those soon. Hades and Iconoclasts will have to wait a bit.

I would gift Overcooked to my friends (married with 2 kids) because they are a family of foodies.

I only just picked one up a week or two ago. I was always a Nintendo person… Then an ex wanted to get an Xbox 360 to play Rock Band or something so I was stuck with that for a bit, then my partner wanted a PS4 to play Crash Bandicoot when it was only on PS4 so I’ve had that for years. I was completely ignorant to the ease of the Switch. Underpowered? Whatever! It is quiet, it is small, and that OLED screen is gorgeous.

The sun is setting for the Switch, but at least I’ll get to experience it before it is fully retired.

You’re right, but it isn’t like some games I’ve tried with my son on PS4 where is has enough time to go to he toilet while the next level loads.

I decided to buy a Switch yesterday. Don’t know why. Something piqued my interest to play Nintendo. I bought it with Super Mario Bros. Wonder. It’s fantastic and light and fun and my kid loves it too. I almost regret not buying it on launch. It is such a pleasure to play a cartridge-based game without load times or hearing a fan whirring.

I might be inclined to drop some cash on this.

I’m usually an optimist.

Not regarding this, though.

Ridiculous choice of host. Sounds like the plot of a dystopian hard sci-fi.

Sorry for the confusion. I am Canadian, but you lose plenty of rights after 6 months. My wife is Spanish.

We were able to get a partial refund once we returned home.

Nova Scotia. I am not a resident anymore. No doubt to be had friend

Check it: https://www.nshealth.ca/documents-and-reports/hospital-fees-out-country-visitors-english

This is something keeping me from returning to Canada.

I live in France now. Looking at the ranking linked in the article I see that it doesn’t score very well here either. This is shocking because I find it so much better here in terms of health care. Today, for example, my son was unwell. At 8:30 we called and were given an appointment for 9:15. By 9:30 we had seen a doctor and had a blood test. By the end of the day I was emailed the results. This is the type of experience I’ve had again and again here.

The last time I was home, my partner waited 5 hours in agony in a waiting room. It took us 6 hours to find an clinic or ER that would take us. We drove over 200 km. When all was said and done, they charged us over $900 just to see a doctor. The doctor’s bill was separate.

I cannot even fathom what things must be like in countries that rank higher.

I really hope Canada can find a solution. It should not be like this in any developed country. In fact, it should not be like this in any country.

What is also sad here is that this is not news. I remember reading a story about this at least 3 years ago. All those cool tech websites are just handng money over, sometimes knowingly.

Why can’t you sign up?

Using the Outlook client with a none-Outlook email shares the data with Microsoft. So, a bit surprising.

There are no perfect desktop email clients, but Thunderbird is pretty great.

It’s a little too powerful for my needs, so I stick to Claws.

This is what I fear about returning to Canada. It is my home, but all of my post-uni work experience is abroad. I have no credit score in Canada, just a student loan that I did pay back. I own nothing there, cannot vote either… I know now that there are systems that work better. My father is 72 and still works 16 hours a day, 6 days a week! He only takes off Christmas day. I get 5 weeks paid vacation, paternity leave, bonuses, paid training, 100% free and nearly immediate health care—I had a CT scan the other week THE SAME DAY I was told to get one—meal vouchers, free public transport, etc. I don’t make a lot of money, but I also only work 33 hours per week for 36 weeks of the year and my wife works about 20. We make ends meet and have zero debt. I don’t think I could have the same lifestyle in Canada as I do here… But I sure do miss the trees and snow and nature and “going out for a rip, eh”

Sounds like maplewashing still works. Immigrants are drawn to Canada, only to discover it ain’t all that.

I would love to move back home, but, as others have mentioned, the prices and healthcare situation are bitter pills… Also, finding a decent job. I know someone who went from making 140k as an escalation manager for an international IT company, to beng laid off, to spending 7 months job hunting, to finally working as a fry cook just to pay rent.