Aura V. @auravulpes@computerfairi.es

Decided today to take a break from Genshin Impact (because I have played waaaaay too much of that recently) to instead start writing a blog post in which I attempt to apply a tenuous understanding of game theory to the game show Blank Check. I don't know if it'll end up actually making sense and being, well, correct, but damn it, I'm gonna finish it and publish it! Expect it either tomorrow or Friday (maybe Saturday).

So, uh, I, uh, finished the quest where Lisa takes you on a date (or, rather, has you take her on a date) under the guise of retrieving library books, and, uh...

Is there a way to tell her I'm gay? I'm playing the male character and I'm honestly far more interested in a lot of the guys (Kaeya ) than any of the women. Can I tell her to knock it off because I'm gay?

I'm sorry, but the fact Xinyan's voice acting is done with a very deep southern drawl does not work for me. It just feels so fucking wrong. Why did they give her a southern drawl?!

So, I started playing Genshin Impact and, well, so far, it's certainly a video game. Honestly, the only thing I have to say about it right now is HOLY SHIT Kaeya is hot. Like, damn. There are few men who I can say I've been as attracted to as I am to him, but fuck is he hot.

Anyways, to wrap up, Android really needs to have properly different sounds for different emergency alerts, cops should really think twice about how they're doing this whole "blue alert" thing, and I now have severe alerts turned off because I don't give a shit about cops getting shot by guys who fled, even though it means I'll probably miss, like, flash flood warnings.

Okay, so now add on the latest stupidity: blue alerts. On some level, the thinking might be reasonable. If a guy who's shot someone is on the run and poses a threat to safety, it makes sense to warn people. But, a guy who shot a cop then fled does not a "severe threat to life or property" make. So, if you end up issuing those too liberally, you risk making people turn off "Severe Alerts" the way they turned off AMBER alerts.

And, mind you, wireless AMBER alerts aren't a bad idea in and of themselves. But they shouldn't have the same sound as a thing telling you to hide because a tornado's about to touchdown!

If AMBER alerts sound the exact same as, say, an earthquake warning, an evacuation/shelter-in-place notice, or a tornado warning, why would you keep AMBER alerts on? After all, if the two sound the same, how are you supposed to tell if your phone is going off because of a missing child or a serious threat to yourself? And with the fact that AMBER alerts can get issued in the middle of the night, why take the risk of being awoken by one of those just for a missing child?

Let's talk emergency alerts real quick. Specifically, let's talk WEA on Android. So, on Android, there are a few different categories of alerts. These range in severity from tests, to public safety messages and AMBER alerts, all the way up to "extreme" threats. As far as I'm aware, all of these produce the exact same alert on the phone. In particular, they have the same alert tone. Do I even need to say how bad a fucking idea this is?!

I think the most interesting thing to see going forward (assuming they are actually releasing Windows 11) is what Microsoft's plan is for those who have Windows 10. My Windows 10 product key worked in this leak, but is that liable to change going forward? Will they expect Windows 10 users to pay up like going from 7 to 8, or will they just get Windows 11 like a lot of folx got 10?

I guess, of course, this presumes this is actually a Windows 11 leak and not a Windows 10 major update leak with some slight tweaks to say "Windows 11". It could be that this is what they've got done on the coming October update and when they go to announce Windows 11, it'll be something else entirely. I honestly don't know.

There's always time for it to change majorly, but if you compare what we have now of "Windows 11" to the developer previews of Windows 8 and Windows 10, it really doesn't feel like a whole new version of Windows. It feels like an update to Windows 10. Like I said, it could change majorly before release, but, honestly, it really does feel like Microsoft just got bored of calling it Windows 10

So, having played around a bit with the Windows 11 leak, I figured I'd offer my opinion as a veteran of early builds of new versions of Windows: If this really is Windows 11 and not just a Windows 10 update, it'll be in the same way macOS stopped being Mac OS X: It'll pretty much just be a major update to Windows 10 that was given a fancy name, not necessarily a whole new version.

Ah, yes, the state of Texas, where the weather can go from from -20°C and snowing to 40°C and our electrical grid can't handle either.