I also want to see a shapeshifter character as one of the good guys! Why are they always the bad guys?
Morph, from X-Men.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morph_(X-Men:_The_Animated_Series)
I think that it’s more that the viewer normally gets to see things from the view of the good guys, and suddenly revealing that someone is actually someone else shape-shifted — which doesn’t work if the viewer has been following along with the good guys — doesn’t work as well.
If you’re talking about what sort of content (rather than what type of media):
I haven’t really been into traditional superhero stuff for a while, but I did really very much enjoy the Parahumans novels (which some may know as Worm and Ward).
Those are dark, don’t shy away from taboo content, and tend to focus on using powers together in complex ways to pull off larger goals. The main character is an antiheroine.
I enjoyed the series more early-on, when it was “lower power”. I think that there’s a strong tendency with magic or superpowers or…honestly, many genres of fiction to always want to top the previous book or story in scope. This usually tends towards trying to save the world or universe or something like that. I feel like that gets to be a bit clichéd. It also limits the story and forms of antagonist that can come up, and makes it hard to continue the story effectively after a “save the universe” one. I’d like more authors who have discipline to hold the “power level” in their worlds down down. If Sherlock Holmes had been fighting cosmic brings by the end of story 10, I think it would have been hard to have a good story 11.
So I’d rather have characters with strongly-constrained, limited abilities that they have to use in creative ways, rather than doing the constant uncovering of new powers.
A few characters in the superhero genre have some form of ability that changes without their power, which helps to let the author explore other possibilities and then dial down the power later. Resurrection Man, for example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resurrection_Man_(character)
Due to sub-atomic technology in his bloodstream, Shelley cannot be permanently killed. No matter how he is killed or how much damage is done, he always resurrects fully healed. With each resurrection he has a new super-power (while whatever super-power he had previously disappears). In some cases, there is a physical transformation element to his resurrection (in one case, he resurrected as a living shadow, while another time his body altered into a woman’s form).
I’m not sure that that’s actually a fantastic solution — maybe too random — but as a mechanic, it helps keep characters with superpowers from becoming stale or written into a corner after being extra-powerful in one story. Maybe it’d be nice to have a world where characters have some character-defining fixed powers, but there’s also some mechanic that can cause others to shift from time to time.
It can’t really be strictly-called “superhero”, but probably my favorite graphic novel series was Sandman. That is the dead opposite of “low power”, but the protagonist also typically faces a lot of serious restrictions on what he can do, for one reason or another. It’s conflict, challenges for the protagonist that make for an interesting story, and having a constrained and limited set of powers, I think, helps permit for a wider range of interesting conflicts.
If you’re talking about the type of media, superheroes evolved around for comic books and graphic novels, and I think that that’s still the best place for them.
As I mentioned above, I do like the Parahumans series, and that’s an illustration-free novel series, so that can definitely work, and the lower cost of production maybe opens the doors to some interesting niches. I’ve read very few superhero books, though, so I don’t knownif I have a feel for it.
For movies…they’re okay, but certainly not my favorite type of media for superhero stuff. There was a long run of bad superhero movies. After 2000, some better ones have come out, but while I enjoyed some, I don’t watch many movies in general. I also tend to feel that movies are shorter than I’d like for a good plot. and that a lot of the fantastic stuff that superpowers involve requires expensive computer graphics, where movies tend to do better if a lot of what’s going to be done can be acted out by ordinary humans on more-or-less real sets. Also, actors and actresses age, which I don’t think works well with very long-running characters…and a lot of superheroes are pretty long-running.
Video games…I’ve played some video games with superheroes. Generally not that enthusiastic about them. Some superpowers of existing characters were designed around being fun to look at and read about rather than being fun to play with. Many superhero games are action games, which I’ve been decreasingly interested in. For RPG games, I tend to prefer more CRPG-style conventions, which don’t work as well with already-fleshed-out protagonists. I suppose that there’s nothing really prohibiting making a video game in any genre with superheroes, but the track record for me just hasn’t been that great. I do enjoy roguelike games, where the main character may get superhero-like abilities, but I don’t think that one would really call such things thematically “superhero”.
The Freedom Force series was fun, but not amazing.
The “Heroes Rise” multiple-choice adventure series from Choice of Games isn’t bad, is one of their better games, but it also never left me really super amazed. I don’t like the tendency of many Choice of Games games to try to make a winning strategy just consistently playing a particular type of character. Don’t remember if those did that.
The broccoli thing depends on the kid. I loved broccoli as a kid.
Whether-or-not it and some other vegetables have a really unpleasant taste is a genetic thing.
https://distance.physiology.med.ufl.edu/the-science-of-supertasters/
It’s a tale as old as time. Growing up, your family tried to instill a love of broccoli and other leafy greens in you, but it never quite took. Now, you might be an adult who still doesn’t appreciate certain veggies, coffee or spicy foods. Perhaps you’d even go so far as to call yourself a picky eater. If so, have you ever considered whether you might be a supertaster?
Picky Eating
Many supertasters have a laundry list of foods they wouldn’t dare touch unless they were stranded on a deserted island — and even then, it would be a challenge. To their credit, there is a scientific reason behind their finicky food preferences. Scientists believe that many supertasters have the gene TAS2R38.
This particular gene increases a person’s perception of the bitterness in various foods and drinks. Many supertasters that have taken part in scientific studies often find that they’re extremely sensitive to a chemical called propylthiouracil (PROP). This chemical is often used in research to measure a person’s sensitivity to notes of tartness. Because PROP has an easily detectable bitter taste, supertasters often note an extremely bitter taste when given the chemical, more so than average or non-tasters.
Camouflaging Bitter Flavors by Overcompensating With Other Flavors
Broccoli and spinach may leave an overwhelmingly bitter taste in the mouths of supertasters, but that doesn’t mean they don’t understand the nutritional value veggies offer. To mask the bitterness, some supertasters add sweet, salty or fatty flavors to foods they wouldn’t eat otherwise. This makes certain bitter-tasting foods more palatable so supertasters can have their vegetables — and their nutrients too.
Easy-Bake Ultimate Electric Oven Playset, Kids Toys for Ages 8 up
CAUTION – ELECTRIC TOY: This toy has a heating element, which can result in burns.
I’m absolutely confident that I helped Mom in the kitchen long before 8, though. A relative’s toddler was helping make cookies the other month. Wasn’t putting the cookies in the oven, though.
A lot of services today do require a cell number for sign-up, as a form of “expensive ID” that one can’t just make more of.
My guess is that a lot of kids might be kinda conditioned to provide it to services, since these days, they’re probably already handing it over if they’re getting a Google account or something.
All this is assuming that the kid has a cell phone with service. I suspect that it’d be easier, from a technical standpoint, to keep a kid from cell service — which actually costs something and is harder to share — than Internet access.
Not a hard link, but first grade is normally 6-7 years old, so eighth grade is 13-14.
On timing, I’d say that unless you plan to live in wilderness somewhere and limit connectivity options, that it’s going to happen pretty quickly regardless of your position. Even if you don’t provide access to the Internet, once kids start going to school, I expect that they’ll make friends, and at least some of those friends are going to have Internet access, probably in a mobile form.
And phone-based WiFi hotspots and Bluetooth tethering means that if someone’s friends have some sort of cell service with unlimited data, as long as they’re around them, they can share an Internet access link, so can use their own WiFi-capable device, don’t need to share devices. I expect that used WiFi-capable devices are not going to be hard to come by, though I guess that a parent could try to forbid their kids to have one.
And once a kid’s location isn’t restricted to being around their parents all the time, for anyone in an urban setting, there are going to be foot-accessible places that provide WiFi access — like, everyone at school knows the local Starbucks password or whatever.
EDIT: On consideration, I don’t think that Starbucks actually passwords their WiFi service, but even for restaurants or shops or whatever that do and have guest WiFi, not a super high bar.
I can type 160wpm on a good day.
That’d be very fast. I mean, even without doing real-time composition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Blackburn_(typist)
The Guinness Book of World Records included her speed records amongst others in the “Typing, Fastest” category of the 1976[5]–1986[6] editions, where she was listed as able to “attain a speed of 170 wpm” and “maintain 145 wpm for 55 minutes”
Blackburn was popularly recognized as the “world’s fastest typist”[9][10] and made media appearances to exhibit her typing speed and the Dvorak layout, notably appearing in a 1985 episode of Late Night with David Letterman[9] and in a television commercial for the Apple IIc.[10]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M16_rifle
39.37 in (1,000 mm) (M16A4)
I didn’t know until today that it was exactly one meter long, though.
If an instance isn’t defederated with another instance, it can talk to it.
You can see which instances an instance defederates with yourself. For lemmy instances, it’s at /instances. Just check each end.
So, for example, I’m on lemmy.today. http://lemmy.today/instances doesn’t have lemmygrad.ml in its Blocked Instances list (it doesn’t defederate from anything, as a matter of policy, in fact).
https://lemmygrad.ml/instances doesn’t have lemmy.today in its Blocked Instance, so it isn’t defederated on their end either.
Ergo, they can communicate.
Pretty easy to check a pair of Lemmy instances for that.
All that being said, though, if you want to create a series of throwaway accounts to argue with them without them banning you, I think that both you and they are going to be happier if you two stay away from each other. It’s just not worth your time, and I think that the chances of there being a productive outcome for you or them isn’t very high.
I mean, it’s the hiring company’s job to vet you, not yours. The requirements are to provide you with some guidelines to avoid having you waste time. If you think you can do the job, I’d go ahead and apply. They’re gonna try and get the best fit candidate from those that apply, regardless. If they had more-specific requirements, like knowledge of some specific software package, they could have included it in the job requirements. I wouldn’t over-analyze it.
If you’re concerned about it, every place I’ve ever interviewed at has had someone who is supposed to take questions from the candidate at the end of the interview. You can probably ask them there if there’s a specific set of things on Linux that it’d be useful to know.
EDIT: And as someone who has done plenty of software development work, if someone just put down “Linux proficiency” and expected it to be interpreted without additional context as having some specific background in software development, I’d be surprised. But my larger point is that I don’t think that I’d fret about it.
I mean, you can build a render farm on a single Raspberry Pi if you want, technically.
But the the requirements for a server that “does it all” remains a mystery to me.
“All” can include anything. I mean, you can include a home parallel compute render farm that will cost millions of dollars.
You’re going to have to narrow it a bit down. You can have people maybe suggest some of the things that they use their systems for. Maybe it’s hosting services for a cell phone that some people use cloud-based services for. Maybe it’s home automation. Maybe it’s a webserver. Maybe it’s AI image generation.
EDIT: To put it another way, a self-hosted server is just a computer, often without a monitor and keyboard directly attached, that you have in your physical possession. The range of things that that might be used for and capabilities it might have is really broad. It’s like saying “I want a vehicle. What is a vehicle that can do everything?” I mean, that might be a bicycle or a three-trailer road train, depending upon what you’re going for.
FreeCAD exposes a Python console as an end-user feature. It has a macro recording system for automating repetitive tasks, much like MS Office does, it uses Python as a scripting language. Can you show me an API reference for this feature?
kagis
https://freecad.github.io/SourceDoc/modules.html
I want to write a macro that will insert some text into the cell of a spreadsheet I have selected. Click a cell, click the macro button, and it puts some text into that cell. It can do this. There are macros published that do this kind of thing. Show me where in their published documentation the functions necessary to do that are described.
I don’t use FreeCAD, don’t have any familiarity with this spreadsheet functionality, but let’s look.
kagis
They appear to have a Doxygen API reference for their spreadsheets here:
https://freecad.github.io/SourceDoc/d0/da8/classSpreadsheet_1_1Sheet.html
setCell() looks like it sets a cell value to me.
That appears to take a CellAddress, which it looks like is obtained via getCellAddress(). As I said, I haven’t used FreeCAD’s spreadsheets, but I expect that it has some cell-addressing syntax akin to spreadsheets that I’ve used, and that one passes the name in to that, same as one would if referencing the cell in a formula to compute another cell’s value. I’ve no idea if FreeCAD’s syntax is the same as Excel’s, or if it differs, though, and I’m not going to look that up; that shouldn’t be an API-specific issue.
It also looks like it has a macro-recording feature. It looks like, to my quick skim, that natively generates Python:
https://wiki.freecad.org/Macros
You can also directly copy/paste python code into a macro, without recording GUI action.
And looking at the source of an arbitrarily-chosen macro, it appears to be in Python, rather than some app-specific macro language:
https://wiki.freecad.org/Macro_Rotate_View
So I expect that you can most-likely just record yourself performing the operation and the macro-recording functionality will give you the code without you needing to write something.
EDIT: It sounds like you want to get the selected cells rather than specifying the to-be-modified cell by name, which it looks like SheetTableView::selectedRanges() provides you with; Range objects appear to provide for a selection including many cells, but if you only want, say, the starting cell (which would presumably be the case for a single cell selection), then it looks like Range::from() provides that, since the starting cell would be the same cell as the only cell in a selection if there’s a single-cell selection. That returns a CellAddress as well.
I mean, they may not have as much as you want, but they do appear to have documentation.
That has a manual in two ebook formats, PDF, and a French and Italian translation.
It has three help sections on the wiki, for each of users, power users, and developers.
And it apparently has some in-application help functionality.
And there’s a help forum.
EDIT: It also looks like some people have written books about using FreeCAD.
Some of the “old” devices people are listing here with an integrated battery may no longer be functional, if they’ve been left unused and discharged long enough.
Yeah, I kind of think that that should go into core curriculum in school, because it’s such a mechanical process, yet people just need to figure it out on their own.
At least in a business context, the vast majority of emails that I see sent out are mostly useless fluff. Many of them don’t need to be sent, and the ones that do are rarely concise or structured to summarize what they are saying up top, then later go into detail for people who might need more detail.
Time is a finite resource consumed by this, and there’s no penalty for using someone else’s. Businesses don’t, say, try to assess the business cost imposed by an employee’s sent emails when reviewing that employee’s performance.
I think that users attempt to compensate by committing less time to reading them. Doing ever-more-perfunctory skims in an attempt to limit how much of their time gets consumed by email that isn’t worthwhile.
And that tends to encourage not fully reading emails.
I mean, that’s really a software design issue. Like, the system should be set up to have a system log of those.
Most visual novel video game systems provide a history to review messages, if one accidentally skipped through something important.
Many traditional roguelikes have a message log to review for the same reason.
Many systems have a “show a modal alert dialog” API call, but don’t send it to a log, which frankly is a little bit bonkers; instead, they have separate alert and logging systems. I guess maybe you could make a privacy argument for that, not spreading state all over even the local system, but I’d think that it wouldn’t be that hard to make it more-obvious to the user how to clear the log.
TortoiseTTS can, given a handful of WAV files of someone speaking, try and clone them on local hardware.
https://github.com/neonbjb/tortoise-tts
I don’t know how well it would work on Trump, who has a lot of unique mannerisms, not just some sort of general accent.
Can’t use AMD hardware due to a dependency on transformers, though it sounds like you can run it on the CPU alone.