Ah. I was hoping I was holding on to some long-lost file, I think every one in my list is included in your list. I think the rare ones were limited-time exclusives.

If it’s not too much trouble, you should make sure there’s an up to date copy of all these files somewhere. At least the IA should have it, I’d think.

Best of luck finding the rest.

Here’s what I got in my old local archive folder, if it helps. Let me know if I have something missing, I’ve never been on this side of this interaction!

Not entirely sure if this is complete, or if it’s even all Maxis. I have a third party mod folder backed up somewhere (and one with those old text guides, loved those) but I didn’t find it with a quick search. This folder is from 2010, so it’s not exactly period-correct. In case Windows doesn’t like these older .exes they seem to just be archives with the .far files inside, so you can rip them open. Not exactly sure why some of these are .zips and others are .exes, but the .zips only contain the .far files.

One thing that sucks is that some disk content was just permanently gated behind these downloads, and there was every possibility that you wouldn’t know these downloads existed. Specifically there were Makin Magic recipes for child-only magic stuff that used ingredients only adults could gather. So the Magic Bookshelf was mandatory to see that stuff that came on the damn disk. I’m pretty sure I was using a third party reskin of that item before looking for the original, but I could be wrong.

Good lord, .far files. Remember FARout? Those really were the days. I still like to think I’ll revisit TS1 properly someday. That was a proper game, with unapologetic personality.

I still prefer paper, although not having to store moisture-sensitive fragile things is nice. So is the fact that I can read books that are out of print or hard to find (or banned, yay Middle East), even if fumbling with PDFs isn’t wonderful on the device.

And of course, the obvious: downloading them for free. Which is always ethical when Routledge wants to charge you 85$ for a scholarly work of which the author doesn’t see a dollar.

I got a Kobo and just use the networking to sync Pocket articles. Stock system.

I don’t even think an account is available in my country. Just been syncing over Calibre. It’s not perfect (it uses a community plugin) but once you get the quirks of the Calibre-to-Kobo transfer it’s easy enough.

Now the hard part. Actually reading.

Not sure about that last bit. IIRC all of the EA TS1 downloads are archived pretty extensively, across many fan sites and the IA for good measure.

Then again the last time I checked was probably over a decade ago.

My country is being invaded illegally right now with zero consequences, I know what you are saying. But there should be zero way to profit from war, from an ethical standpoint these industries would ideally be nationalized and kept far far away from profiteers.

I know exactly what “peace” with the apartheid Nazis taking a fresh bite out of my homeland means, I’m not oblivious to that flavor of “pacifism” that gets promoted by the slimiest characters. You’re pushing back against a point I never made. I empathize with a lot of the sentiment supporting Ukraine specifically because I feel like that country’s relationship with Russia is in some ways analogous to our relationship with Hafez and Bashar’s Syria.

Arguably we need the weapons more. The countries controlling the world’s economic and social levers are more than willing to punish Russia, great, but then bend over backwards, and even spit in the face of their commitments to the ICJ, because we’re just in the way of a modern colonial project. I’ll take the guns in a heartbeat. I just believe it’s an unethical thing to privatize, monetize, and eventually promote to keep the numbers going up.

I think it’s sick that people downvote this in the name of civility. I understand people not wanting to make a super solid link between wealthy magic bean salesmen and societal issues and seeing it as a slippery slope, but the weapons industry? Fucking come on.

If you profit from the most literal form of human suffering, you are a statistical outlier even among outliers. I can’t think of many less ethical things to enrich yourself from than making the world a deadlier place.

Possibly for 2029 when used Decks become cheap and readily available and great candidates for lightweight HTPCs. Hell, I can see someone who’s put a lot of miles on an original Deck doing this to their original one after getting an updated one/competitor in like a year or two from now. You don’t need to do any modding for that to be honest, but a small device with a screen (and an old lithium battery…) collecting dust probably looks worse than a box. At least that’s my impression from my Switch. I can see people finding a handheld upgrade more worth it than a PC upgrade (the first 5090 presale listings are up where I am and they’re north of 3000$).

Seriously, I’ve played lots of less-demanding games on my TV via a docked Deck, and it’s been surprisingly nice. A lot of these bundled games I wouldn’t have even tried. What the Golf is a silly mobile game that I got in a bundle that I ended up playing on the big screen. And I’ve bought a lot of bundles in the past, so I’ve got a lot of games to try.

For more demanding games that the system can play, you get tiny battery life. So this does make more things more playable. So I get it.

Would love to browse a list of games like this. I know there’s a FOSS game list but it’s not exactly easy to browse. No thumbnails or descriptions or tags or anything.

My eventual favorite game of all time could be in this list and I wouldn’t know how to find it.

This is exactly why I’d want a GPU in a home server.

That and transcoding. Wonder what the best option would be without breaking the bank/wasting too much idle power. All the GPU talk online seems to be for gaming.

I’ve never even looked at it that way. I’ve always thought of it as something managers would find to be an ultimate value add.

They overestimate how impressive their chatbots are and assume they can charge everyone a pretty penny for it. The massive costs are just a means to this end.

That’s how it’s always looked to me anyway.

Thankfully/sadly it’s a pretty short article. Very cool stuff!

The rabbit hole that has grabbed me on and off over the past half decade has to be all the golden age of piracy stuff. And those articles are damn long.

Not linking it here though.

shooketh’aspeare’d

How does OSM deal with Arabian Gulf / Persian Gulf? I’ve only ever seen it referred to by the latter name by western sources but only the former name in Arabic over here.

I’m well aware that the name “declaration” of Arabian Gulf was a political move in the 20th century, but I’ve never seen the name Persian Gulf in Arabic. Never.

Just curious.

Sending soyjacks to your father is a choice.

Not necessarily a bad choice just not one I’d make.

Always interesting to see the American boomer perspective from the front lines.

This photo makes my skin crawl.

That’s funny to read. I remember loving Odyssey because I never felt too punished for not having amazing video game dexterity. I felt like I had a ton of objectives that went up in difficulty in a very linear way and eventually got 100% on everything.

Even the very very last section, with a string of bosses that I found pretty damn near impossible, was surmountable. As someone with no interest in HP-sponge boss games, it was the part that I felt was the most frustrating. But enough rounds and I got better/lucky and finished that section.

What’s also funny about “articles” like this is that the author, like most of us, has probably spent hours as a kid trying to beat one level. Usually nowadays I feel bored after less than an hour of repeating and failing the same objective. I have way less time and patience for hard games. So I do sympathize a little. Bloodborne’s an intriguing game but I’m not going to torture myself over it.

Yeah I don’t even know why I wrote that. I think I mean something more like general audiences that are likely to find more points in common with the opinions on the show than points they’d object to.

People who don’t view themselves as political? Not sure.

A large swath of people will think you’re overreacting if you say something like “Joe Rogan is putting a friendly face on disastrous misinformation for millions of trusting listeners all over the world.” or its much milder cousin “This guy has uncritically nodded along to a lot of bullshit his friends have said on air, I can’t listen to this anymore, I think it’s weird that you still do.”

Nothing says free thinker like having very particular opinions on irrelevant US current events from across the planet that just so happen to line up with one of the most famous corporate mouthpieces since Oprah.

I’ve been thinking on this a lot. It’s genuinely amazing and deeply disturbing how innocuous he seems to people who aren’t aware of what he actually is.

I think he’s been able to market himself to his most ideologically aligned audience as a smaller deal than he really is, despite having the highest-possible profile guests on his show.

For better or for worse this man and his show will be studied for years to come. As someone who was an occasional listener back before the mask-off phase I have so many thoughts on the guy.

I was intrigued by this channel back when I was vaguely interested in geopolitics on a surface level but before I really started learning about history. Think Paradox player level interest in history.

When the 2022 round of fighting started between Armenia and Azerbaijan I was pretty appalled at this channel’s coverage. I’m Lebanese so I’ll definitely have a bias in that conflict as well, but it was pretty blatant and unapologetic. That half video was probably the last I’ve seen from them.