It was supposed to be. I have to admit I haven’t paid any attention to it in many years so maybe things have changed, but it had turned into more of a vortex of ego, fleecing a fanbase, and sunk-cost fallacy, than a spiritual successor to anything.

No, I think?

I don’t actually know what a “Tankie” is. I tend to try to steer away from labels; I consider them a form of intellectual laziness. People will use them to either try to gain a feeling of belonging by adopting a line of thinking shared by their peers, or they will use them to smear those who they have defined as “others” without consideration of why these “others” might hold opinions that they don’t. Labels and label-based thinking lead to tribalism and division.

If you want to know what I think about something, ask with specifics. If you want to convince me of something, present an argument with reason and evidence, and be prepared for me to pick it apart and look for flaws. There is nothing I respect more than somebody who takes a comment I make and considers it, researches it and then comes back to me with a response, or presents me with a perspective that compels me to do the same. I find both depressingly rare.

To keep my mouth shut more than it’s open.

Still working on that one, actually.

The thing I find interesting about this image is that it oversimplifies the argument (like all internet politics), but contains the definition of the root of the problem from the side opposite that which the author is on.

See we live in a world where our livelihoods are based on us having things to do for income. Maybe someday a fantasy utopia will get built where everybody lives a life of leisure and can spend all their time focusing on what they wish to, but right now that doesn’t exist. So when everything is Made in China that means nothing is made anywhere else which means opportunities for work are reduced everywhere else. This is especially painful for people whose parents were well off because of the industry in the town they lived, only to lose those opportunities because the work went to China.

Now add to that the differences in approach between geopolitical Western and Eastern governments and you have the current argument.

Tik-tok is in the crosshairs because it’s convenient. Western Governments, most particularly the US, like to talk up the Free Market. Woo, Free Market, no government interference yeah! So just reaching out and legislating trade or manufacturing flies in the face of their ideology (not to mention that their campaign contributions might dry up if they piss off the oligarchs who are making big bank by manufacturing in foreign lands). Tik-Tok however, is perfectly situated. It’s run by foreigners who don’t fund political campaigns, and it has a practice that is politically palatable to oppose: Collecting data about Americans and storing that data within the reach of an ideologically different government.

Dog in a Hotdog car, all the way.

For my personal life I use a password manager, like most people in this thread. For my master password I really want a secure password (LastPass really reinforced the value of that), so I use a passphrase that is then hashed using an algorithm I can do in my head, so it’s a long string of high entropy alphanumeric gibberish that I can remember easily.

At work my IT dept seems to be stuck 10 years in the past, so they have now implemented a policy that our passwords must be at least 16 characters. They keep ignoring my suggestions to get some form of corporate password manager, so I have my work passwords stored in a text file that I’m not allowed to have any form of file encryption so it just sits there in my documents folder. It’s probably not going to be the source of our company getting penetrated, but I don’t consider it secure.

I do like pass phrases because I find them easy to remember, but my current prime work one is really easy to make typos, so I now use the reveal password button more than I ever have before.

Nope. Yes, that search I just did for how to break my network security. They don’t need to know that, they can figure that shit out on their own.

Because Fortnight. Epic cancelled development on everything else except fortnight.

https://screenrant.com/unreal-tournament-4-cancelled-epic-games-fortnite-reason/ https://www.pcgamesn.com/unreal-tournament/unreal-tournament-cancelled

I played that beta. I played that Early Access. UT4 was fun and I was stoked for it. I was shit at it, but I was having a blast when I played it. Now it’s dead. All Hail Fortnight!