Cirno @cirno@fosstodon.org

I've bought the LOTR books like 5 years ago, and only recently have I started reading.

5 chapters in so far, and what strikes me the most is how much calmer it is than the movies, where they rush head-first into mortal danger all the time.

Black Riders, for example. In the movie they terrify folk and murder a watchman on the spot. In the book, they go from place to place, asking questions and offering bribes in exchange for information. The fear comes from the unknown, not from death threats.

I'm not trying to shit on Markdown. Like I said, I've used it in the past and it did its job and felt comfortable to use.

I'm just wondering, if I'm also comfortable formatting text with HTML, is there anything Markdown can offer as an advantage?

So, Markdown.

...Why is it so popular?

I feel like I'm missing something. It doesn't feel any easier to read than HTML, Sure, **text** is faster to type than <b>text</b>, but the HTML is viewable right away, whereas the MD has to be parsed and turned into HTML first, before it can be viewed, so what's the point?

I looked at markdownguide.org and I've worked with a few MD files in the past. It's comfortable and does its job, but so does HTML for me.

Saw this scene and immediately had an idea for text to put over it.

You know what's bizarre to me.

Telephone numbers.

Why are they so different everywhere you go? The US has 10-digit phone numbers and they somehow manage to substitute some numbers for letters (like wtf is "1-800-CALL"). Poland has 9 digits. Sweden has 10 digits but the first digit is always a 0 so it's sort of pointless. Then there's Japan, where numbers apparently can have 7 or 12 digits and they all include a special "regional exchange code".

How do phones make sense of all this?!

From the perspective of open access and libre software, how would you rate your city's digital infrastructure? Would you be able to, say, find a dining place and get a bus ticket to get there using only F&OS software?

TIL that Lantmäteriet, a Swedish authority, has made 1:1 replicas of the entire country's map. Most of it is just a bird's eye view without many details, but some areas were given more attention.

Here's a perfect replica of Gothenburg.

The more I hear about Windows 11, the better it makes Windows 10 look. Windows 10 was just a polished version of Windows 8, with lots more tracking and other annoyances. Windows 11 seems to just be Windows 10 with a slightly different skin and even more tracking and annoyances.

Holy crap trying to switch systems was a mistake.

I tried Arch, then LMDE, then Arch again, then Manjaro, and now back on regular Mint.

No matter what I tried, I couldn't get the graphics drivers working on any other system. By contrast, on regular Mint it not only works, but also out of the box.

I've decided to try my luck and move from Mint to Manjaro.

Can't wait to realise 2 months from now that I forgot to backup some really important thing lol

I've also been targeted by several people with cheats. Yes indeed, people were so upset by a simple request that I've had the long end of an aimbotter's sniper rifle aimed at me (and ONLY at me) on more than one occasion.

This isn't about transphobia. No matter who the instigator and the target are, this is just pathetic. Imagine being so fucking loathsome so as to go to these lengths and ruin the game for others simply because of their nickname.

Ignoring the obvious slurs and insults (boy, there were many of them), I've had some transphobic copypastas spammed at me in chat, and people butting in with derogatory comments into my conversations with other, sane people.

Then, there were people who went beyond insults and actually hunted me down, targeted me for the sole purpose of taunting and/or throwing insults in chat after a kill.

The people who used the pronouns the way I intended were fewer than five. About the same amount used he/him, and most just ended up saying my name directly.

That's that for people who would've normally talked to me. Of course, there turned out to be many who would normally never say a word, but who were determined to be toxic assholes to a stranger.

For about a month now, I've changed my Steam username to include "(she/her kplzthx)" at the end, and continued to play Team Fortress 2 like normal. The idea was that, if someone was going to talk to me, at least some of these people would be nice and use she/her instead of he/him, as seems to be the default for 99.9% of online game communities.

The results were... a little different (big shocker, I know)

So, Discord is not letting me speak on any server or even access an account unless I give them my phone number.

Anybody else experiencing this? I used the program for 2 years and never once gave them a phone number. Now I want to contact someone who uses Discord, so I make a new account and they demand that I give a number.