@[email protected]

"See, the Staircase of the Monarchs!"

"So if you make it to the top it proves you're the rightful heir?"

"​No, no. But we gave it a name that makes it sound like that to filter out the stupid and those vulnerable to peer pressure. And it's pretty."

@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] Isn't there basically no mathematical difference between ​GMI and UBI if you have a means based income tax system (which nearly everywhere does)? It seems like as long as you're calculating both things at the same time, you'd end up with the same answers. The only "bad" option would seem to be assessing income given and income taxed with two different systems which might be politically necessary in the short term, but is self-evidental more expensive to manage.

@[email protected] @[email protected] ​(for context, NextCloud can be self hosted and is open source but the fact they offered paid for enterprise options to schools and universities suggests they think it can take the place of classroom in at least some ways)

@[email protected] @[email protected] To get the ball rolling, NextCloud do offer an education product (including a hosted option) and are based in Germany, I believe. That said, I haven't used it and I don't know where the hosting happens. nextcloud.com/education/

@[email protected] @[email protected] ​# LibreClassroom sounds good, it doesn't seem like a thing that would need to be EU only (as long as solutions are able to be hosted in the EU). I'd be interested in this as well.

@[email protected] hmm. I think there's a difference here in that the cave was explicitly a story​ for teaching purposes, while the Babylonian exile was a record of historical events (of whatever accuracy, but it definitely wasn't considered made up to teach a specific point). No arguments with the commentary on the hypocrisy of effectively exiling people and then being surprised they find more truth in the old testament than your 'helpful' theology though...

@[email protected] all those ghouls cursed with empathy are out there looking for the unsavoury savoury people​

Made university life a lot cheaper too...

One thing I'll be forever grateful for my mum teaching me is not to be afraid of turning ingredients into food (and some basic rules for helping the results not be disgusting). We've opted for a rather more planned take on food than my family of origin in general, but sometimes you're tired and you haven't had time to shop and it is so powerful to be about to just grab a handful of ingredients and make 'a meal'.

To all of you who love your old school parser based #interactivefiction , the smack talk in this 1-1 game jam style competion over at the IntFiction forums is why the chef's kiss emoji exists... intfiction.org/t/iron-chif-s...

That’s not a verb I recognize.

@[email protected] I don't actually know the context of the emails, but from the quote it does seem that the exact wording is both second hand and ambiguous; is it the poorness that is suppose to go away, or the people?

Not that I'm feeling generous enough to the people involved to assume the nicer option, but I'd feel dirty to not at least acknowledge both exist.​

New round of courses for under 18s interested in #writing #visualnovels starts next week, so it's time to start releasing the improvements to VisualInk that we discovered would be useful in the last run through of the course.

bonfire.mavnn.eu/pub/objects... ​

@[email protected] @[email protected] On the flip side, I was once asked by a policeman to carry a (prop) sword more openly because they had to take potential 'hidden' weapons much more seriously than openly carrying a prop. It's hard to win sometimes...

@[email protected] I'm sure you'll succeed, but looking at my own history I'm not so sure about the staying sane part.​

@[email protected] @[email protected] oh my word.

The first time I ever met a published author in person​ ('98, I think? Hi @[email protected] !) I remember being completely gobsmacked when she showed the US version of her first book cover, where the heroine had mysteriously became a red headed model on a background that resembled nothing within the story at all.

It wasn't quite this bad.

@[email protected] To be fair, it's not like the banks don't take an interest as well. And... I even have some sympathy for why, given that fraud and money laundering are a thing. I've known some people who worked in fraud protection in banks and they were both horrified by how much information they had access to and rightfully proud of how much theft they had managed to prevent/people's savings they'd been able to return. But yeah... you're not wrong.

I had the misfortune to be reminded today that in the US it is still common to pay fees on domestic bank transfers. Not actually the biggest current issue in the US, but... seriously?

(context for those of you in the US: while cross currency transfers or 'instant' transfers can incur fees in the UK/EU, in general you can make a free transfer to anyone with a bank account in the same currency if you're willing to wait 1-3 working days)

@[email protected] Small heads up for somebody in the web content team; it looks like in some software links to specific articles under the 'presscorner' url get shown with a preview from the press corner index page rather than from the article linked. I think this is because the canonical link set in the head of the individual article pages is set to the url of the index page.

For example, in the post I'm replying to I see a link in the text which takes me to the article you're referring to, but a preview "box" from ec.europa.eu/commission/pres... (which is listed as the canonical source of the content on the article page)

@[email protected] @[email protected] My wife just steals my 'male' razors. I've never quite worked out how "women's" razors are still a product given the insane mark up for something functionally identical sold on the next shelf over.​

@[email protected] @[email protected] Crow Road also manages to open with the line "It was the day my grandmother exploded." ​Which wins it a fair number of points in my book...