Honestly, some are better than others depending on priorities, but literally anything is a better option than Spotify on most fronts these days.

The first link I posted is for Guided Access.

I also mentioned hidden albums because that was the second thing the author requested in the blog post.

Literally both of these things already exist.

Android example already posted, but for iOS:

• Lock device to one app
• Hidden album in Photos

Physical deterioration is another reason to focus on DRM free rather than physical for the sake of physical.

Classic ROM-based cartridges have proved pretty resilient so far, but older games on CD are experiencing a culling due to disk rot. Lots of folks with PS1 collections will already have a few unplayable games, even if they don’t realise yet.

Thankfully almost all of them are backed up somewhere, but those backups are in a precarious legal position and could be lost.

I started in school and was lucky enough to have teachers who encouraged me to keep writing. The motivation has always been to entertain; to make people laugh with short stories, comics, scripts, whatever. That carried through to my work at university, and I spent a lot of my free time making goofy adventure games and entering game jams.

These days I still have the same core motivation of wanting to entertain, but I guess with the deeper idea of wanting to positively impact the world by giving people memorable experiences. But as any writer will tell you, those noble aspirations will only carry you so far. On the days where I’m less inspired, the motivation is getting paid ;)

What’s with the editorialised title? How do these changes make it harder for new creators?

You know, I’m starting to think maybe they’re milking this whole GTA VI thing…

What if the recipe steps include modifiers like ‘add half of the butter’?

Mass sociogenic illness happens when a group of stressed, socially connected people are exposed to a symptom template that the brain and body can, in a real physiological sense, adopt without any conscious decision to fake anything. The symptoms are genuinely experienced. They are not consciously produced.

No need to be condescending. Stupidity has nothing to do with it, which you might’ve known had you bothered reading some of those words in the article.

Soy sauce doesn’t tend to come in sealed glass ampoules.

Believe it or not, straight to jail.

DLSS 5 looks horrendous but let’s not pretend gamers haven’t been able to reshade and mod the everloving shit out of games for decades. Saying it’s not a real game because someone decided they wanted to slap on a cel-shade filter or turn the art director’s carefully crafted dragon into Thomas the Tank Engine isn’t really a defensible position.

Fans of true crime media are overwhelmingly female, and there’s at least one study that suggests it’s because they feel it helps them process and prepare for dangerous situations themselves.

Further reading here.

It’s all thanks to the Muzak company and studies in the 50s/60s that suggested bland music made people work better.

There’s an article on it here to get started.

The problem I have with most of these services is that every channel is too hyper-specific, often literally just playing a single show or, at best, 2-3 shows but in multi-hour blocks. Incredibly lazy IMO.

To me, the appeal of linear terrestrial TV is having channels that show a wide variety of things throughout the day. If I wanted to see 24 hours of non-stop Mr. Bean I’d download them and shuffle the folder.

There’s a similar incentive to this Windows 11 one, but for macOS. Yikes.

Not sure why that warrants a yikes; macOS is far more usable than Windows 11. I’d go so far as to call it downright pleasant in comparison.

Six-seven is already outdated, too.

I’ve seen a few people recommending Aqara recently, but no personal experience myself.

This is Sicily we’re talking about - local politics is pretty dicey.