Some android phones have the ability to long press on a notification, click on settings, and alter what kinds of notifications you receive. I’ve had a few instances like you describe, but where I’ve been able to turn off “special deals” or whatever. I think implementation of this is done by the app developer though, because I’m sure I’ve had some apps that had no useful settings. Example screenshot of Gmail settings:

Now you’re older, how frequently do you think you were right in your comparisons?

Now I’m thinking about an ex-programmer supervillain who does this as her big foray into supervillainy

Thanks for this comment, I hadn’t thought about it this way before. I had realised about how being gay is framed as a thing you do rather than a thing you are, because I have a friend who is an ex-benedictine monk, and they explained about how their vow of chastity meant they were basically “one of the good ones”. A large part of why they left was because their rhetoric was “everyone has sinful desires in them and turning away from those is an important challenge”, but the unspoken part was that his gayness made his desires extra bad, like there was just some innately bad thing in him.

And of course they would apply this same logic to gender. As you say, it makes more sense when you try to see it from their angle. I think that’s important to do if we hope to ever refute them

A few posts above this one, I saw a post about how German bridges are falling apart, so your comment has done me psychic damage. Man, things feel grim.

You’ve got to be careful with rolling your eyes, because the parallelism of the two eyes means that the eye roll can be twice as powerful ^1

(1) If measured against the silly baseline of a single eyeroll

I saw some previous news coverage of the Devs saying they’d rather players pirate it than have it spoiled for them, and I went in blind and bought it full price. I don’t generally play this kind of game but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

They were never going to let this man be Prime Minister

“vendored my library”

I’m unfamiliar with this phrase, are you able to explain what it means (or point me towards an explanation)? Is it relating to forking?

I was just skimming over the judgement

"The developer argued that, as regards the impact of the project on climate, the scope of the [Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)] […] need not include an assessment of the greenhouse gas emissions that would occur when the oil extracted from the wells was ultimately burnt elsewhere as fuel. The council accepted this approach [and granted planning permission]

The claimant, a local resident, applied for judicial review of the council’s decision. She argued that the decision was unlawful because the EIA was required to, but did not, include an assessment of the combustion emissions."

Props to the person who challenged the local council’s decision. No doubt she had a lot of support to do so, especially as this case travelled through the courts (even if she started the challenge without help, I would imagine legal support from climate activism organisations chipped in later), but it’s still a lot of work and stress to see something like this through. I wonder if she anticipated how far this would go, that this is now case law that is relevant in the global fight for climate action. I hope she and everyone else who worked for this feels proud of this achievement.

Holding corporations and the government to account on existing regulations may not feel significant given how much more is necessary in the face of the climate crisis, but that’s all the more reason why it’s important that we fight to maintain the ground we’ve gained. This is a small step, but I am feeling quite heartened to learn of this.

I resolve to keep an eye out for opportunities to challenge decisions like this in my area, because as this case has shown, when it comes to climate action (and inaction), decisions made at the local level ripple out and affect far more. I may not have the fortitude to see a complaint through to its end without forsaking my duty to take care of my own wellbeing, but I will aim to also look out for local climate action groups who can support people like me as we collectively push forwards (or, where I may be able to support people who are better poised to bring a legal challenge).

That’s really neat

I read this article a few months ago that I found quite interesting: Original link Unpaywalled link

The manufacturer in this blames the DEA, and whilst I don’t trust a pharmaceutical company to do anything other than ruthlessly maximise profits, in this case I’m inclined to believe this depiction of the DEA as the overly persnickety bad guy (because I have even less reason to trust the DEA)

The message is “we are heading towards complete climate collapse and The Powers That Be are acting like things are fine”.

I like area-of-effect damage as a framing device.

You might enjoy Freya Holmér’s videos - I mostly know her for her excellent mathsy video essays, but she has loads of videos about “maths for game Devs” that might be useful.

I wonder what would facilitate people to make their own solutions in this way. Like, I have made a few apps or automation things myself, but if I look at my “normie” friends who don’t have the level of tech familiarity that I do, they struggle with whatever out of the box solutions they can find. Poor IT education is a big part of this, and I’ve been wondering a lot about what would need to change for the average “normie” to be empowered to tinker

I couldn’t believe it when the portrait was revealed. The first time I saw it was actually in a meme made by Elden Ring fans, which put the portrait in the context of scarlet rot afflicted Caelid. It was hilarious how not-out-of-place it looked

Comments like this remind me of how I felt, as a Brit, to learn about Irish history, way after I left school.

That there is no silver bullet, no quick fix, no “Eureka” moments that happen without work. “Progress” is less an exciting event, more a rhythm made by the repeated struggling against entropy; when you’re doing it well, you’ll come to hardly notice its beat until one day you look around and everything’s different.

You’d think that recognising this progress might be motivating, but it’s often demoralising because it demonstrates how unglamorous the work of self-improvement is. You hardly get time to enjoy your achievements, because as you grow, you become aware of how much more there is to do; the burdens on one’s time and energy tend to expand as our personal capacities do, so even if one makes incredible progress it can feel like you haven’t moved at all — in both your “before” and “after” snapshots, it can feel like you’re still barely staying afloat in life, even if objectively, you have massively improved your coping skills.

And the worst part of it all is knowing that it’s okay to be feeling like this. You’re tired because it’s a lot of work, and you’re demoralised because the work doesn’t end. You’re not the only one who has the stake in your life and your wellbeing, and as you grow, this will be underscored by a greater sense of duty towards the systems and people that depend on you; When I was young and very depressed, I stayed alive for my family and I resented the fact that they cared about me because it bound me to life. (Un)fortunately(?), over the years, my attempts to stick around to avoid hurting the people I care about has led to a bunch more people being invested in my wellbeing and I ended up loving those people too. How privileged I am to have such wonderful people in my life, who give me hope for the world and embolden me to keep fighting. And yet, I resent these people too. I have to allow myself that, at least a little bit, otherwise I’d collapse under the pressure of a duty to a world so much larger than I am. The worst part of it all is that I wouldn’t have it any other way.

So here I am, still plodding along, despite everything, hoping to make my existence a tiny little monument to resistance, as I stubbornly push back against all-consuming entropic decay. I know that in the grand scheme of things, nothing I, as an individual, does will matter, nor will it last, but I don’t care. Well, I do care — the enormity of it threatens to swallow me whole — but I don’t care that I care, because what difference does it make? The hardest lesson I’ve learned is that everyone feels this way, to an extent, and I’m nothing special. In that truth is terror, but also the comfort of solidarity. I may be scared and exhausted, but I know I’m not alone in this. For better or for worse, my life isn’t just for me.

When I was at university, the student union had a small fund for creative projects that weren’t related to your degree. Many of the people who applied for cameras also included Adobe licenses on their funding application, because many of them were new to film or photography so they defaulted to what is “industry standard”, because that’s what the majority of online tutorials are available for.