Cosmin_C

I work in the medical field and my brain cells have been constantly assassinated for years by bad presentations. Every once in a while I find unicorns - people who tell a story, teach and present using Powerpoint/Keynote slides as support - conveying information that is hard to put into words -> a photograph, an animation, some simple flowcharts to refer back to whilst talking about what is really the subject of the matter.

I've seen Powerpoint since medical school evolve from trying to squeeze as much information as possible on slides to utter nonsense and hundreds of words per displayed page. Heck, just stay home and automate your presentation to display the slides and mail them to your students instead, don't do this.

I've also been guilty when having to turbo half ass wing a teaching session of stuffing a lot of text in my slides. But I was aware this was not appropriate and I always tried to not be "that person". However, when you have 30 million presentations per day around the world, this is almost impossible to do.

If there is anything we can take out of the current conflict is that being a NATO member as a country is exceedingly important. I am unsure Russia would have made all the moves it made against Ukraine if the latter were a NATO country.

Also, mr P managed to do what the US hasn't achieved - make Germany put a ridiculous amount of money in the defense budged - exceeding the 2% of the GDP that was asked by the US in the past.

Every way you look at the current situation it is undescribably stupid and dumb, I don't care about "super sekrit intelligence information", the backlash from the US and the EU to the Ukraine invasion is incredible and continues mounting up. All that mr P can hope right now is that he doesn't end up in jail for life at the end of this whole debacle.

The Pi mk4 can do up to 4k (HDR) with the most recent Kodi updates. Really nice. Mine unfortunately requires a smol fan because otherwise it would randomly reboot, luckily Noctua makes 40mm silent fans. Connected on the GPIO pins for 5V, it's more than enough.

I'll try and write some thoughts on this so maybe you can understand where I'm coming from.

I feel that a lot that makes Prometheus a good movie in itself is how it's paced and the graphical effects, albeit it still suffers from bad writing in a lot of places. The story per-se however is a complete dumpster fire because it changes and retcons the Alien universe lore to fit a story that perhaps didn't need to be told. At the same time there were deleted scenes that literally would have added 10-15 minutes to the run time and would have made it at least a 20% better Alien movie.

What makes a good movie and what makes a great sequel/prequel/movie in an established universe are two different sets of things. A good movie can be a good moviein itself but at the same time an absolutely terrible sequel/prequel/movie in an established universe. If you're working on an original idea then all bets are off, but if the work you're doing is in the exact same universe as preceding works then it needs to follow the lore of that universe - or at least NOT contradict previously established things. And you have to ask yourself - is the story that you're telling belonging in this universe? Does it enrich it? Does it bring something new? And by this you answer if the movie is worth actually making from an art point of view.

Would you like to see a modern version of the Mona Lisa painted in 3D on a computer? What if this art would have a blonde woman in it? With curly hair? And skimpy clothing? It can be a great work of art in itself, but has no business piggy backing on the Mona Lisa original.

As another example, there is a school of thought to subvert expectations by writing really dumb stuff, whereas you could subvert expectations in a manner that fits the universe. Star Wars VII, VIII, IX, Prometheus, Alien: Covenant and a lot of other works basically step all over established lore to tell submediocre stories, thus harming the universe in the process. I mean with Star Wars there's a whole 'nother can of worms - they literally made a huge part of the universe that exists non-canon. Why would you discard a lot of good stuff just so you can push your sub-mediocre stuff is beyond me, but hey, it's their IP, they do with it what they wish. I just can't be over the moon about it.

I agree, when Ridley Scott does something nowadays all I can think about is how he will ruin it. Villeneuve is an absolutely amazing director, but my personal feelings towards Ridley Scott after Prometheus and Alien Covenant is that he should retire, his job in ruining the Alien universe is done.

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All right, keep your secrets.

This guy is basically Tony Stark with a box of scraps. I'm speechless.

A while ago I caved in and purchased and installed Bitdefender, which I knew was all right.

It wasn't. I didn't renew the license and uninstalled it.

FFWD a couple years and my best friend upgrades his PC. Threadripper Zen 2, 128GB RAM, 2x NVME RAID 0 for the system, another NVME for stuff and HDDs for backups. System was incredibly sluggish and unresponsive and his extra NVME was sometimes dropping from the list of drives shown by explorer. Uninstalled his Bitdefender and all the issues disappeared.

It's just complete robbery at this point. Malwarebytes is a good product for example and Windows Defender is enough. But the best stuff is disabling all of these and just use script blockers and safe browsing practices and you get to keep all the processing power you paid for.

Funnily enough I was reading the other day how some BMWs will come without a touchscreen due to the silicon/chip crisis and I actually thought that was a plus. Seriously, whomever thought it was a good idea to make cars use touch controls and going through 5 menus to turn the heat down should be just shipped to Antarctica to explain their thought process to the penguins.

I'd like to meet some of those people. iOS changed, but not in a way that it hampers usability - and by this I mean basic usability. Texts, calls -> these are the important bits in a phone, not 5000 weather apps that do the same thing and flood you with ads as a bonus.

Android is a bloated mess and this bug should be a giant red flag for both Google and MS to get their shit together. Windows is currently a huge mess as well, bloated beyond repair and with "features" nobody ever asked for, but hey, who doesn't like advertising on their login screen and unrelenting telemetry?

The goal was never to establish a human kind repository of knowledge, but to rule the world. Somebody read Asimov's Foundation series, much better than the current TV show creators anyway :-)

As somebody who has been using Microsoft stuff for years and paid through the nose for it, can you take a guess on why Microsoft is going this shitty path since Windows 8 came out?

I have issues with a LOT of stuff, but ads on the login screen, telemetry that can't be opted out of, privacy invasion, Cortana that is literally malware and the list can go on for days - which people did push for this? The janitors?

Excuse me, but your explanation is just a personal anecdote. Management approved on all this crap and bloatware, you can't realistically cop out that "ohnoes all the PMs at Microsoft I've ever known are more interested in the company's image etc and haven't been actively pushing for this stuff".

I mean, we SEE IT. How tf did all this stuff end up in the OS? Somebody stumbled and landed face first on a keyboard and this crap wrote itself?

Edit: how can upper management ask for this stuff from their underlings if they have no clue about what is happening or what the users want? I also apologise for the harsh tone, but I am so done with Microsoft products I can't help being upset.

Luckily with the advent of Proton and actual anti-cheats being supported by Linux, the last thing keeping me on this utterly disgusting platform will be gone.

I won't miss Windows one second. Now just to find the right distribution environment...