BananaTrifleViolin

joined 2 years ago
[–] [email protected] 24 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (5 children)

As long as they're both of an age to consent legally, then yes, absolutely. Not sure what jurisdiction you're in but 16 is age of consent in most places, and they're going to do it if they want to do it. It's far better to treat them like adults, let them be somewhere safe, and teach them that they should not feel shameful or fearful about that part of them. If the age of consent where you are is 18, or Tiffany is not legally of age, then the situation would be quite different and difficult but would have to be no.

That your son is able to be so honest and comfortable with you, and Tiffany with her parents (hopefully!) is a credit to you all. This is an opportunity to encourage him to practice safe sex and also that sex as part of a healthy relationship like this is healthy and valuable in itself (as opposed to sneaking around, and him not able or even bothered to provide a safe space for his girlfriend). It's worth encouraging this attitude that to do this they should be somewhere safe, and comfortable, such as his room in your home. It will also ensure a much better experience for both of them should it be a first time (whether overall or just together).

I would just consider confirming that Tiffany's parents are aware of this and comfortable with this; especially as at 17 are in a grey area socially between being legally adults in many areas but not others. EDIT: As someone else suggests, ask Tiffany to get her parents to call you - so that the ball is in her court.

I would also even consider being out until late so they can have some privacy. I would also set some ground rules such as no drinking or drugs in exchange for this, and no one else in the house while you're out. I totally accept that may not instinctively sit well with you to be out but they're both at the cusp of adulthood and total autonomy (literally months away if your son is 17) and already have autonomy in this decision (unless you're in one of the few places where the age of consent is 18).

This sort of treatment, respect and trust is something your son will remember for the rest of his life.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (3 children)

Interesting read. The author says its not a rant but it reads as a rant. However it also has a fairly clear and concerning message: attention spans of current students are dire and its down to smart phones.

Some elemenrs of the piece are off though. Laptops in class are essential -its a far better way to take notes than handwriting for many people. But you also have to treat students like adults and trust them - if they want to sit in a class and gamble then thats their problem. While there is some overlap with the phone issue it is different.

There is nothing much the author can do about the main issue than sound the alarm. Social media is designed to give people dopamine hits and be addictive, and were seeing the effects of that addiction permeate through society.

The response to anyone reading that article is to get off their phones. Lock it away when youre in the gym, lock it away when in school or work, leave it in another room when its time to go to bed. Break the addiction.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 days ago

Windows intuitively making you jump through 7 steps to not have an online account. The reality sadly is most Windows users will just be pushed by Microsoft to use a Microsoft account to access their own PC.

Only 1% of Windows users who are IT people and enthusiasts will find out how to avoid being forced into internet based accounts.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

You can't directly convert the app to make it natively android; android is too different for that. The app is built to use the whole android OS, not just the kernel (which is forked from linux). That means the android app is designed to run on mobile processors (usually ARM), and will be making calls to the android OS for everything.

You can't repackage it directly as a linux app. However there are emulators and translation layers that cannbebused to run android apps within linux.

Waydroid for example allows android apps to run using android containers in linux. Anbox is also a container approach to running android apps. Both these approaches essentially translate for the android apps, and reduce the overhead asnthey dont have to emulate everything and can directly pass instruction to the linux host system. You can also use full virtualization to emulate an android device and run a whole virtual device. This would have a bit more overhead though.

I'm not aware of tools that can be used to compile android apps from source in to linux apps. It could be done in theory but would be complex due to the degree of translation of android APIs needed. Again compiling into some kind of container approach (I. E. Compile to include anbox or waydroid) might be doable but would bloat the app. I dont think there is the demand for that kink of approach when building in containers into Linux (and Windows) allows direct reuse of the android apks.

[–] [email protected] 88 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

Its something of a myth but not completely.

For women, if the hymen is still intact it can tear during the first time having penetrative sex and that can be painful plus accompanied by blood. However it is a myth that the hymen is intact in all virgins and that the first time is painful for all women.

For men, the first time penetrating someone can rarely be painful too if they have not retracted their foreskin much before or it is tight. Some men don't realise they can retract their foreskin fully when masturbating for example, and may not be told by anyone (particularly is homes that may by uptight or even puritanical about sex education). So it does genuinely happen that people find out when they first have sex. For most men the foreskin will stretch a bit over time and tightness or pain will resolve but occasionally they need a circumcision.

Men with circumcisions may also experience pain the first time if theyve has a bad circumcision and the scar is restricting them or being pulled on during penetration. Again that usually settles but very rarely may need surgery.

Meanwhile for anal penetration, the first time is often painful largely due to inexperience. People are not used to relaxing the anus, or are nervous and tighten it. Also if they have a bad partner they may be too aggressive which can be very painful, or they may not use enough lube.

So yes the first time can be painful, but is a myth that it must be painful or is always painful. Pain can be avoided . Persistent pain every time sex is had may be due to poor technique but may also warrant a medical check up - for either gender/sex.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

If youre new to linux, then I'd say Linux Mint is the place to start. Use it with XFCE if light weight is what you want.

Not having cutting edge packages is a red herring - you really dont want bleeding edge as thats where the errors and breakages happen. Mint is reliable and secure which is what you need when starting out. You dont want to be a beta tester. Dont confuse latest packages for most secure on linux - plenty of packages have stable older versions which get security patches.

Mint is also very popular, with a huge range of easy to find resources to help set it up the way you want it.

Wayland is also a red herring - its the future but its just not really ready yet. Yes its more secure due to how its built but the scenario you're using linux in the particular security benefits you're hearing about are not really going to impact you day to day. And the trade off is that Wayland is still buggy, with many apps still not working seamlessly. Most apps are designed for X11 and x-wayland is an imperfect bridge between the two. I'm not saying Wayland is bad - it's actually good and is the future. But you dont want to be problem solving Wayland issues as a linux newbie. Dont see Wayland as essentialnfor an good stable and secure linux install.

Personally I wouldn't recommend Fedora - it has a short update cycle and tends to favour newer bleeding edge tech and paclages. Thats not a bad thing but if what you want is a stable, reliable low footprint system and to learn the basics, in wouldn't stray into Fedora just yet. It has a 13 month cycle of complete distro upgrades and distro upgrades are the times when there are big package changes and the biggest chances of something breaking. The previous version loses support after a month so you do need to upgrade to stay secure. Most people won't have issues between upgrades but with any distro when you do a big upgrade things can easily break of you've customised things and set up things differently to the base. It can be annoying having to fix thongs and get them back how you want them, and worse can lead to reinstalls. Thats nor a uniquely Fedora problem, but the risk is higher woth faster updating and bleeding edge distros. And in fairness there are lots of fedora spins that might mitigate that - but then you risk being on more niche setups so support can be harder to find when you need it.

For comparison the latest version of Mint supported through til 2029, and major releases also get security patches and support for years even after newer versions are released. There is much less pressure to upgrade.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I work in a hospital and the worst days to work are weekends. The hospital is still full of patients but most staff are off so its busy. And its much harder dealing with sick patients and emergencies on a weekend as a result. Also all your friends and family are off on the weekend so you can't see them.

Meanwhile if you have days off in the week, it's great because everything is open (unlike a sunday) and all the kids are in school. So you can go out an enjoy the parks, or venuesnlike gyms or shop freely etc. But most of your friends and family are also at work so that limits things.

I would definitely take 2 days off together, not split them. If I were to have 2 days off and work every weekend I'd either take Mon/Tue off or Thu/Fri. I think its just preference and howbbusy your job is. It could suck being in work on a Friday while everyone else is gearing up for weekend off and discussing their plans, plus also people head off early where they can - I'd probably take Thu/Fri off so I didn't have to put up with all that.

I personally work 80% of full time and do 3 long days plus oncall. It works out 3x 10 hour days and 2 hours pay per week is for my weekend oncall work every 16 weeks. I end up with 4 days off every week and its glorious. So aiming for a 5 day week may be a mistake. When I was 100% full time I did 4 long days for a bit - it was OK but I had Tue off, worked the other days and had the rhythm of weekend off then on/off/on - it didn't feel like i was really off for 3 days a week. I'd definitely recommend always stick off days together.

But it may be longer daysnis the real best option if available. Even working 100% hours you have 1 less day commuting on 4 days, and if you work 10 hours so you start early and finish late you can even miss rush hour. I used to stay late or come in early to miss traffic when i was doing normal 9-5 work so switching to 10 hour 8-6 was easy. Depends what your role is and your own stamina for long days is though.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 week ago (4 children)

We're still in Europe; its more than fhe EU.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Its likely the friendly words will continue but the EU will delay Serbia joining.

The EU is dealing with Hungary already, plus looking with concern at whats happening in Slovakia.

Serbia won't be joining the EU any time soon, and the EU will string Serbia along in the meantime watching what happens. They won't want any more authoritarian regimes joining. Hungary is already a huge thorn in the aide of the EU.

[–] [email protected] 46 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

I'm a UK based professional and I come to the US for a conference each year. I won't be coming again.

I dont want to have my phone searched at the border, I dont want to risk arbitrary arrest and detention without legal representation, and frankly I dont want to spend my money in the US anymore (its a week long conference and costs a couple of thousand pounds including conference fees, flights, hotel and expenses). I'm already trying to buy European because of trumps other behaviour, so not spending mony in going to theUS is an easy win too.

Now multiply that out - even if its a small percentage overall there are lots of people who are no longer going to want to visit the US in the current climate. Expect a downturn in US tourism guvent the horror stories that are coming our of US ICE detention centres.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

Yes and no. The US chose to project its power around the world after WW2. It used that military power and umbrella protection to shape free trade deals, and preferential deals for US interests.

From a US perspective whats happening is the destruction of something extremely powerful to the US interests. US power and influence will be massively diminished in an era when China is on the rise.

Europe will be able to afford to go to 3% of GDP on military spending. It'll be painful in the short term but worth it for Europe as it will give them independence. Its not a threat to European tax and spending - that remains its aging population. Increased military spending will be a marginal problem.

Trumps destruction of US dominion is going to reduce their influence and power on the global stage. Even if the Americans elect an outward looking president next, Europe and other NATO allies can no longer rely on American promises as Trump has shown how quickly american orthodoxy can be undone.

The US spends 3.4% of its GDP on its military and for that it got an extraordinary amount of influence and power. The US will continue spending that much but will now be getting much less value for its money.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago

Yeah, I'm not sure the BBC have. I think users have been uploading all that stuff. The BBC makes much of its archive available in the UK via iPlayer but not internationally as it has to use then commercially to help fund the organisation.

Copyright infringement is the biggest threat to the internet archive. Its already been through a case with book publishers and now its facing an existential threat woth a $400m lawsuit from the music industry.

2
submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 

New adventure game "The Phantom Fellows" has released on GOG and Steam, with a 10% discount until 4th Oct.

It's a comedy mystery game featuring a guy and his ghost friend, who perform jobs and investigate mysteries over 7 days in a small Colorado town. The game has a pixel art aesthetic, reminiscent of recent games like The Darkside Detective, and synthwave music.

I have no connection to the company, stumbled across the game and been playing for a few hours. So far, it's a fun game, good production values for £11. Certainly scratches that adventure game itch.

EDIT: it's made for Windows, but I've been playing it on Linux via Lutris/Wine without issue.

view more: next ›