Spyke

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Let's blame the dev who pressed "Deploy"

If capitalism insists on those higher up getting exorbitantly more money than those doing the work, then we have to hold them to the other thing they claim they believe in: that those higher up also deserve all the blame.

It's a novel concept, I know. Leave the Nobels by the doormat, please.

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Google slashes Indian maps API prices – after rival's launch

The city (and district) I live in still has its name spelled incredibly wrong, and has had so for the past decade.

You cannot select a municipality name. They're not buildings or roads marked by mere mortals. And what you can't select you can't correct. It is just believed that they are always correct. Immaculate. Immutable.

Every attempt to fix it has failed, from contacting support (as a "premium Google One customer") or looking for senior Google Maps contributors (all of whom lost all their contacts with "higher up" Googlers when the old map transitioned into new, or just vanished once the forums closed).

In a country where last mile location is often ambiguous, that Google manages to fail at it on a scale large enough to be visible from space says volumes about how worthless their services are.

P.S: Yes, of course it's correctly marked on OSM. And a lot more.

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[Discussion] Using my Steam deck as a mini PC ?

The Deck can bypass the battery when plugged in. And in fact, does so by default if the battery gets above 90%; it would stop charging the battery and just draw power directly from the USB cable.

With the Decky Loader plugin Powertools you can customize this threshold. I use my Deck as my only PC for work, and have the threshold set to 70%.

For video watching, I can't imagine having any issues! If you have the OLED model (I think), you can even get Wake on WLAN to work if you plan to store it out of view (although that does feel a bit unfortunate for the poor guy, it has such a nice screen...)

linux

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The truth about linux having 15% market share in India.

Every single one of my friends are on Linux. Only one of them is in "IT". Most of my family is on Linux, because they didn't want to deal with viruses and ads. (I don't even "IT" for any of them, so I wasn't consulted. At best I introduced them to the fact that Linux is at least as usable as Windows many years ago). A lot of my colleagues are on Linux; now, most of them are devs, but some of them are on macs and until Apples's Proton-clone becomes a viable option running Linux on them is just cleaner.

Obviously, we're less than a rounding error all summed together. Obviously, most of that number is from government issue systems. But it's not as bleak and impersonal as it seems.

But so what?

Why do these numbers matter at all? Is it inherently virtuous for a country to have a high number of willing Linux users? Or is it because at least these machines waste fewer resources, run cooler, and more secure? Then does it matter who and why installed Linux on them?

If their users are fine with using a browser for all their work, and the offices can buy these PCs for cheaper than Chromebooks after our infamous taxes, not to mention avoid being ewaste for much longer, this is a win-win situation whichever way we look at it.

P.S. that I also own a Steam Deck (and use as my only PC) probably doesn't help my everyman-credibility much 😅

In my defence, I could afford/justify it only because a good friend volunteered to buy it for me and bring it over. I wish things were different. But I'm happy I have one, at least.

games

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What are some game series you would like to see revived? And if possible, which entry should the new game follow from?

No One Lives Forever! Please and thank you.

They're both fantastic games, but the original (in which you go to Hamburg and a space station) felt more adventurous rather than the more grounded sequel (in which you go to the arctics and even more exotic locale: my hometown of Calcutta). Set it in the fictionalized disco-themed cold-war with the lead jet-setting around the world, and we're golden!

Also, only a single game, but: Arcanum. (At least this one's possible to buy on Gog and Steam...)

Arcanum supposedly had a sequel in the works at some point: Journey to the Center of Arcanum, and frankly, while I'd prefer to see other continents on that world explored a là Around the World in 80 Days, I'd still be sold on a hollow-earth adventure any day!

[Finished with the edits now!]

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Introducing Steam Families

With cooldowns for abuse prevention now on the table, I wish Valve will consider adding something like a "day pass" for Steam friends where they can share their libraries—or perhaps specific games—for a short duration to someone they know without having to adopt them.

With cooldowns they would find appropriate, of course. And I hope that isn't a whole year...

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I said what I said

Now, if we could get the Unicode Consortium to add the graphical logo, I'd be sold. But if we must pick an existing character, I for one prefer the outlined star (⚝) much more than either the asterism (⁂) or the pentagram (⛧).

Unlike the pentagram, it aligns a lot better with inline text and looks nice and smooth. It's also far less commonly used or overloaded with existing readings.

The asterism would be easier to unambiguously read or write by hand though! That's its one pro.