smeg

Disney World is arguing a man cannot sue it over the death of his wife because of terms he signed up to in a free trial of Disney+.

It says Mr Piccolo agreed to these terms of use when he signed up to a one month free trial of its streaming service, Disney+, in 2019.

We're all well aware of Steam's summer sales, but don't forget that indie storefront itch.io also has a lot of games on sale this week. I've linked to my post in !freegames@feddit.uk which covers 22 games that are currently completely free, but you can browse their games on sale page directly for a huge number of indies (of varying quality!)

I'm a regular user of Linux systems but apart from a couple of test Ubuntu installs many years ago they've always been containers or VMs with no DE which I can throw away when I break them. The Steam Deck showcasing how far Wine/Proton has come combined with Windows being Windows has given me the push; I've made a Mint live USB and it's running beautifully on my desktop. I come to you, the masters, with questions before I hit install:

1. What do you recommend I do about disk partitions? I'm keeping a Windows install for the few things that demand it, does Windows still occasionally destroy Linux partitions? Do I need separate partitions for data and OS? Is it straightforward to add additional distros as new partitions or is that asking for trouble?
2. Is disk encryption straightforward? And is that likely to upset the Windows partition?
3. Is cloud storage sync straightforward? It's my off-site backup solution on Android and Windows (using Cryptomator with Dropbox, Google Drive, etc) but I don't think that many providers have Linux clients. Is something like rclone recommended?
4. Should I just use apt to install software? I know there's some kind of graphical package manager (synaptic?), does that use apt under the covers or is it separate? Is it recommended to install something like Flathub too?
5. Any other pearls of wisdom? How do I keep everything tidy? Any warnings about what not to do? Should I use a particular terminal emulator or Firefox fork?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/12861354

Despite today’s date, this is not an April Fool’s prank. At a press conference in Tokyo last weekend, professor Hiroshi Yoshida from the Tohoku University Research Center for Aged Economy and Society, sounded the alarm bell for a looming crisis. By the year 2531, everyone in Japan will have the surname Sato.

Not, as I read, "Swan and Paedo"

Alas, the live service, bane of the patient gamer.

I picked up the original Super Mario Maker on WiiU for cheap a few years ago but haven't really played it much (who knew that professional level designers are better at designing fun levels than internet randos?), but apparently its servers are being shut down on 8th April. (This has apparently been announced for a while but I only discovered it from recent articles about players trying to beat every level!)

Does anyone know if there's any way to mass-download levels before the servers go offline? Is it just a case of manually downloading all the top levels one by one? Should I just play it intensely for two weeks assuming it'll then be reduced to the default levels regardless? Are there third-party tools to download levels on Cemu instead?

The answer is yes, and the TL;DR is not to use them, use 2FA, and not share personal details online (which is hopefully all obvious advice)

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/12060980

I was writing this out on my local !letstalkaboutgames@feddit.uk and realised I was basically making a patient gamers post, so here's a copy and paste:

Despite everything you might read from gaming journos about corporate greed destroying the gaming industry I still think it's an amazing time to be into video games. I'm absolutely spoiled for choice with games to play and I think it's just down to not caring about online multiplayer or getting caught up in marketing hype.

You don't have to pay through the nose to buy a fancy machine to play half-finished blockbusters, there are decades of classics that you can still play. Borrow a friend's old console and play some old games-of-the-year, find some random classics on Humble Bundle or GOG, see what random freebies I've posted in !freegames@feddit.uk, stick an emulator on your phone or find one that runs in a web browser.

Example: I played Metroid Prime after seeing a Lemmy post talking about. I could either:

• Dig out a GameCube or buy a Wii on eBay for £5 and find a copy of the game at CEX if I fancy the retro experience
• Buy the remastered Switch version if I fancied splashing out
• Just pirate a ROM if I feel rebellious
• Dump my own ROM and play it on PrimeHack if I feel like tinkering

This is just one example of a great game that passed me by, there are thousands of others out there. We have a crazy amount of choice not only of what to play but how we choose to play it. The bittersweet part is that this could all change so enjoy it while you can!

I've just replayed Mario Galaxy 1 and 2, and I think this video sums up quite well why 2 wasn't quite as good as the original. It's more than it just being more of an expansion than a sequel, it's the little bits that make it feel a bit more special.

Howdy pardners, this is a cheeky self-plug for !freegames@feddit.uk, a community I've created to post limited-time full-game free giveaways. It's been going a month or two and I'm already claiming games faster than I can play them, so come and join me and make your what-game-to-play choice paralysis worse!

Yes, I'm fully aware that the best way to have a streaming box is to run Linux on a Raspberry Pi, and if anyone has a guide for how to best set that up, connect to various streaming services, and allow casting from a phone then I'm very happy to check it out. However, I've heard Android TV boxes/sticks are still relatively customisable so I'd really just like something I can run SmartTubeNext on and cast YouTube to the TV without any ads. I'm not going to be putting much in the way of personal data on it so it's obviously doesn't need to be the most secure/hardened thing in the world, but I'd still rather avoid the dodgiest of boxes. Any recommendations for something cheap-ish and private-ish?