There was existing precedent for a tiny version of Windows that is barely enough to run a single program. The original Windows version of Microsoft Excel came with a runtime version of Windows 2.1, so that customers who didn’t have Windows could still use Excel.

Fun fact, the “DOS” version of AOL did the same thing but with GEOS. Pretty impressive that it all fit on one 1.44MB floppy.

Yes, but only if it’s expired, moldy, or the stack is utterly pulverized. Common misconception that the crispellier is presenting it to you for you to determine if you “like” the varietal. It’s in fact extremely gauche to send back the tube solely because you don’t care for the flavor, as this forces the restaurant to try to sell it by the ziploc.

Incoming Chinese carmaker Xpeng

Australian firm Pegasus Aerospace Corp received airworthiness certification from CASA for its driveable Pegasus E flying police car last year

you would need a pilot’s licence – not simply a car licence – to be able to eventually fly the X2 in Australia.

likely to be bungled in red tape for some time before it could take to the skies

We can take orders… you can secure one with a fully refundable $100 deposit.

So I guess a more accurate headline would be this:

“Australia’s” “first” “flying car” “now” “on sale.”

Yeah, and it’s odd, the little changes they had to do to make the concept into a production model took a vehicle that was right on the cusp of being too stupid to be cool (couldn’t blame someone who thought it already fell on the wrong side) and pushed it straight into rusty Pontiaz Aztek territory.

A safety bumper here, a road-suspension height there, add a few dashes of munufacturable glass and some cost cutting, and it’s just… frumpy. Even apart from Elon revealing the true scope of his crazy to the world, this is a miss. I also assume most concept photos avoided the “I’m bored now let’s finish it and go home!” rear angles of the design.

Seems like they don’t work exactly the same as they used to, as they now use MTP instead of USB mass storage, but while annoying, it’s generally a pretty trivial fix and your OS may already use MTP devices with no trouble. It seems there may be some other knock-on effects with fonts not sideloading right and needing a Calibre plugin to make pagination work how it used to.

So yeah, it’s getting worse, but Amazon hasn’t figured out how to bring the hammer down yet.

Calibre has always been a small price to pay, but if sideloading goes away, I’ll certainly never “upgrade” again, and I’ll trash my 11th gen Paperwhite if they somehow make it stop working. Usable e-ink ereaders are even doable as DIY projects now, and Kobo will probably stay less closed-off than Amazon for a good while.

That said, reading the comments and the article it seems like as long as your OS (or some app) supports MTP, everything should still work more or less as it has, which is to say kind of annoying and with Amazon pulling little microaggressions like deleting your cover thumbnails, but overall sideloading should still function.

Yeah, I don’t think this goes to trial and rewrites the lawbooks or anything, but there’s enough here to litigate, and I reckon Tesla will settle to avoid going to discovery.

This is a bit different, in that it’s not a trademark claim, but rather a copyright claim. They’re saying that the still isn’t meaningfully trying to be anything other than a Blade Runner still, and Musk’s use is not protected by any sort of Fair Use. There would likely be a statue of limitations or something for the specific cause of action, but you can’t lose copyright the same way you can a trademark.

One could argue it’s an uncreative derivative work not subject to a fair use exemption, and actively used in commerce to make money for Musk, while simultaneously it damages the Blade Runner brand if, as claimed, other car companies assume Tesla and BR have a relationship, or the BR brand is inextricably linked to Tesla and Musk. The fact that Tesla and WBD hurriedly sought a copyright clearance, once Tesla realized WBD didn’t have all the necessary rights, doesn’t speak well for Tesla’s position, nor does the fact that Musk referenced Blade Runner at least twice in his presentation.

Well, first of all, I’m actively bad at it, because I mostly listen to liberal white men trying to reclaim country (and country-adjacent) music from the Nashville machine, but it comes down to hiphop being a fairly regional artform in a lot of ways.

Artists anywhere can adopt any style of course, but the local scenes can vary quite a bit, so what bubbles up commercially from a given region tends to match what they’re known for. Subject matter, slang, tempo, sampling & instrumentation, even accents can give you clues. Sometimes it’s fairly easy, like “Chopped and screwed” just screams Houston, with the vocals slowed down to the point where the pitch is noticeably affected. Atlanta rap, especially from the early two thousands, often has a bit more a party vibe and gained popularity as a bit of a reaction to the grimness of some east coast and west coast gangster rap from the preceding era. If somebody talks about “ghost ride the whip” that means there’s a reasonably good chance they’re from the San Francisco Bay area, where that’s a part of the local culture. There’s a million different things like that.

I’ve never quite become a fan like she is, but I can appreciate hiphop and rap as broad-ranging and important artform these days in a way I did not as a kid. It’s been kind of a master class in expanding my horizons.

True, but in return for her smiling at my memes and nodding politely at my rambling about my various Stars, both Wars and Trek, I stop what I’m doing to watch her capybara TikToks and try to remember what she tells me about the history of Hiphop beefs and how to guess the geographic origin of rappers.

This is what marriage is, and it works. 😂

In the link it has his letter to his British publisher, where he was even more blunt. Maybe the first time that “I have _______ friends” has actually rung true.

Personally, I should be inclined to refuse to give any Bestätigung (although it happens that I can), and let a German translation go hang. In any case I should object strongly to any such declaration appearing in print. I do not regard the (probable) absence of all Jewish blood as necessarily honourable; and I have many Jewish friends, and should regret giving any colour to the notion that I subscribed to the wholly pernicious and unscientific race-doctrine.

This one is even better than Tolkien’s response to a German publisher in 1938, asking for proof of his ancestry, which may or may not have been sent, but tellingly there was no official translation of The Hobbit into German until 1957.

Thank you for your letter. I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people. My great-great-grandfather came to England in the eighteenth century from Germany: the main part of my descent is therefore purely English, and I am an English subject—which should be sufficient. I have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war, in which I served in the English army. I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride.

Your enquiry is doubtless made in order to comply with the laws of your own country, but that this should be held to apply to the subjects of another state would be improper, even if it had (as it has not) any bearing whatsoever on the merits of my work or its sustainability for publication, of which you appear to have satisfied yourselves without reference to my Abstammung.

Don’t fuck with posh and emotionally repressed Oxbridge motherfuckers when they realize they are finally on the right side of history. 🤣

PLUTO

DID IT CLEAR ITS ORBIT?!?

I say again, did… Pluto… CLEAR… ITS… ORBIT?

Normal people walking past and shaking their damn heads as I am somehow in a fight with a pirate…

I didn’t do this but I definitely threw tennis balls at the girl I liked when I was 13, which may be one of the few dumber ways to try to get attention. Teenage boys’ brains are pretty much the reason crappy sit-coms resonate with anyone.

Meanwhile I’m over here playing in the through-hole kiddie pool or dead-bug handwiring keyboards.

Tres comas, indeed.

And at that time in my life, I was really interested in newspaper sales flyers from Japanese discount retailers. Good times.

Yes, it’s true. I’d reminisce about the Daiso fold.

So, apart from the overreaction to protests, larger universities will have their own police departments because they have a large physical footprint and tens of thousands of staff and students whose needs and interests and priorities may not perfectly align with the broader community’s. Students as “gowns” are transitory, young, rowdy, and annoying but often have issues the local “towns” will view as petty and low priority.

A University PD will ultimately report to the University’s leadership, and the University will set their budget and broad mission. Frankly, as a student 25 years ago, at least back then I would generally much preferred to have interactions with the University PD than the local city PD.