I’m currently playing Zero Parades. It’s good. If it wasn’t for the long shadow cast by DE, it would be amazing.

There are some elements they do better than DE. However, I think that each of those improvements come from just being a more modern game that could take learnings from what worked in DE and what didn’t. The best bits are where the game breaks free to forge its own identity.

Coolest points IMO (light spoilers):

• You play as a woman, and you can really see how this changes the way the world responds to your character (compared to DE).
• There is some very sci-fi stuff in there that’s front and centre to the main plot throughout the game. Nice choice.
• Many characters don’t believe what they’re saying and this really comes through. In DE, everyone feels like they embody their beliefs. In this, nobody does, not matter how loud they are about it. This is both a good and a bad thing.

Everything about the studio aside (which is all worth considering) - it’s a good game. It is right on the edge of being a great game. It certainly isn’t as good as DE, but how could it hope to be? High B/Low A tier IMO.

Great post, great summary. Adding to this excellent list, they are a monopoly. I think any monopoly is corrosive to it’s industry, but others may consider it a +.

This is some interesting context, which I was aware of but never properly considered. I think this has given me a better appreciation of Lynch. I saw Twin Peaks well after it was made. I also saw it after having been exposed to a lot of alternative cinema. I think I missed the chance to love it, both from a era of film perspective and from a gateway into more weird stuff perspective.

I share this opinion! I really don’t like Lynch’s work. All the best to everybody who enjoys it, but it isn’t for me.

My main reason (please feel free to relentlessly mock me) is that his films feel like they are hovering in this hybrid point between being “mainstream” and art house. As a result, they just fall flat on both fronts.

I also feel that he pretends that there’s more depth behind some of his arbitrary decisions than there really are. Its fine to be instinctual in filmmaking, to do stuff that’s random, and play with ambiguity, but often it seems like he will play coy and imply a lot of thought went into incidental elements. These points are often contradicted by BTS footage.

Fellini feels Lynchlike to me, but I think Fellini’s weirdness feels so much deeper and more nuanced because he isn’t afraid to really openly discuss his thoughts and reasoning.

Still, I will admit that Lynch had great style. I’m glad he pushed many people towards stranger cinema. On that front, he’s world class.

That’s good to know! I appreciate the context.

I love that docs receipt feature and agree with you. Great call.

Forgive me being well-meaningly obnoxious, but make sure to get receipts outside of the Google ecosystem too. As a professional writer/editor myself, I’ve heard horror stories about folks losing access to an account, and therefore the receipts.

I am also skeptical of these kinds of tools.

OP’s vile views aside - this does seem interestingly politicized.

I don’t know if Notepad++ have a history of creating commemorative versions. Good on them if they do. However, if this is uncommon, it’s worth noticing. AFAIK, we aren’t at an anniversary?

Personally, I think acknowledgements of sad events are generally a good thing. Helps remember & learn from history. But they absolutely can be propagandized through strategic use.

On another note, I really like Notepad++. I swap between it and Sublime. Both great.

This is reassuring. Thank you for the clarification. I’m familiar with affiliate links, so I really should have dug deeper to check if this guy was using one. Their vetting process does seem very loose, but that’s a much more common and understandable oversight (one that I’ve seen a lot of good people/services make).

My understanding is that Vincent Lapierre was a direct partnership, but Proton have already addressed this. Hopefully, his endorsement remains a one-off abberation.

See timestamp 8:26 for Proton banner adds. I don’t speak the language so I can’t tell what’s actually being said, but it has all the aesthetic of an advertisement.

I’m very disappointed in Proton. This level of carelessness has been enough to make me permanently avoid some software/services. I feel like I’m clutching at straws to find a reason I shouldn’t stop using them. Shooting from the hip and sponsoring multiple far right folks should be disqualifying to anybody patronizing them for ethical reasons.

I’m hoping that I have not correctly understood the situation.

You’re right that we should hold companies to account and expect them to do homework. Vigilance is good. Let’s extend that vigilance to monitoring Proton too. I think they’d approve of that.

Below is some stuff I think is interesting, but that is tangential and not intended as either endorsement or condemnation of Proton. (All intended in good faith!)

Your comment prompted me to look up their finances. For anyone interested, Proton AG seems to be valued at about 300 million (https://getlatka.com/companies/protonmail). However, I didn’t realize they are majority owned by a non-profit.

Some personal reflection, I am a French citizen living outside France (dual national). I had not heard of this guy. I probably should have. This is the kind of low awareness that makes me feel guilty about voting in the FR elections.

I use Adobe Acrobat professionally. I am also on Linux as a daily driver.

Bad news, it’s very very difficult.

If your gf’s use case involves sharing PDFs with other people at scale, there just isn’t a “low tech” solution. Every workaround I use involves some level of programmatic nonsense. For reading and relatively simple tasks, many of the open source alternatives do wonders, but they aren’t able to replicate some of the heavier features. Even when they are, you loose compatibility; something critical in certain workflows.

I am stubborn. I force my gimp files upon my Photoshop using colleagues. I edit videos in Blender instead of Premiere Pro (would recommend). I send open source documents and spreadsheets that work neither with my Google nor Microsoft devoted co-workers. But Adobe Acrobat wins. The FOSS readers are probably better, but for interactive, highly formatted outputs you can’t get around it.

I have a lonely second box at my work that I reluctantly boot windows on. I too would love an alternative.

I think this is an excellent suggestion. I used Cloudflare tunnels until recently, and it was very effective. However, I stopped because of a minor issue, which I’ll mention in case its a deal breaker for anyone.

Technically, using Cloudflare tunnels for Jellyfin is a ToS violation. You’re only allowed to do so if you have an enterprise account, which is quite expensive.

I heard from a “friend of a friend” that everyday users don’t need to worry about this. Cloudflare are aware of people using tunnels with Jellyfin and they aren’t fussed. The rule is supposedly there to combat large scale piracy.

However, I have heard that cloudflare does decide to start caring if they can use jellyfin use as an extra excuse to kick anybody involved in other ToS violations.

In all likelihood, this won’t be a problem for you. While I used tunnels, they worked perfectly. However, given that you are going to go to the effort of sorting out some level of infrastructure for yourself, its something to keep in mind.