The Royal Spanish Academy’s dictionary, most likely. While I can easily have conversations in Spanish, the similarities with my mother language every once in a while make me get words confused, specially in conjugation (why does B and V need to sound so similar…). I’ve had it for a while, and although it was a bit pricey, it has saved me quite a few times from awkward mix ups. Also bonus points for working completely offline (looking at you, Yomiwa dictionary…), and having no problems being sideloaded into vanilla Android systems.

Previously, the site had some info on the project, but for some years now, it has been in this current “coming soon” state. Makes me wonder if Nintendo preemptively sued Piko Int./Bleem (sarcasm but not fully). But I also wonder, since this news piece has been released now all of sudden, if the Retro News people know something we don’t and, aligned to that, if perhaps Piko Int managed to sort whatever made them shut the site down in the first place and want to set some hype for a more definitive release.

On the joke, define “sane”. 😬

On a serious note, I think there are valid reasons to have several VMs other than “I was bored”. In my case, for example, I have a total of 7 VMs, where 2 are miscellaneous systems to test things out, 2 are for stuff that I can’t normally run on Linux, 2 are offline VMs for language dictionaries, and 1 is a BlissOS VM with Google programs in case I can’t/don’t want to use my phone.

I don’t make many calls, but I have observed the custom ROM I use, ArrowOS, has native screen and audio recording, so perhaps it also has call recording functions, and even if not, I imagine the screen/audio recording could be used for that purpose too.

VPN maybe?

Samsung’s been around for a while, some of their devices even have locks on hardware features if the bootloader is unlocked, e.g. the camera in those fold phones, so I ask, what devices exactly?

Step 1. Get your unique unlock code
(…)
Go to the dedicated page for the bootloader code.
Enter the IMEI 1 and serial number in the text fields of the form.
Click the blue button Get your unlock code.
You will then get your unique unlock code with further details.
Write down the code somewhere. You’ll need it later.

That sounds a lot like a form of external validation, so not really independent of third parties, and therefore not really an option for what I asked.

My current phone is a 2019 model, and it handles my demands decently.

Ooooooh

I’ll keep an eye to that phone. Thanks!

User GodlessCommie commented here in the post that Pixel phones use an online check, so maybe OnePlus is the same indeed.

Sadly it’s still a dependence on a 3rd party.

User over_clox commented here in the post that apparently a device known as Blu B131DL allows for the bootloader to be unlocked independently, so I’ll keep an eye for that.

Also a few more since the emulators list is split in a weird way and I missed them:

• For MSX: 真・魔王ゴルベリアス　先取り横スクロール面
• For PICO-8: #hasicontent, Celeste Classic 1 and 2, Slipways Classic, Dusk Child

Dunno what systems are made for the device, but checking a list of included emulators in a so called “Onion” operating system, I see a few other devices being listed, so if you don’t mind, here are some more:

• For arcade: the other Metal Slug games up to 4 (have yet to play further), The King of Fighters 2002
• For MS-DOS: MegaRace
• For PC-98: コテ・DE・メクール
• For NES: Böbl, Micro Mages, Nix: The Paradox Relic
• For Genesis/Mega Drive: Wonder Boy in Monster World, Tanglewood
• For NDS: Shantae: Risky’s Revenge

Avoided all plot-heavy titles, even when they may have long sections low on plot.

Maybe Celeste Classic? Apparently someone made a homebrew port of it to the GBA.

There’s also Final Fantasy VI, which can be played kinda with the brain “on automatic” on quite a few sections as well as having overall plenty of places to save.

And since you’ll be emulating them, if your device has save states features, Shantae for the GBC could be a good pick too. It is harder and less save-friendly than FFVI, but with save states, it should be better as a pick and play title.

And although focused on speedrunning, the impression I got from the homebrew Augury Red Code is that it is also nice if playing without having to focus too much on it.

Metal Slug 1 and X, and also Gunbird, all 3 released in the PS1, also benefit from save states to be more “pick and play”.

Agreed with Magician and RmDebArc, and besides that, it could also be for the challenge, for the enjoyment, or because the vision of the dev only works in such a platform. And with emulators that allow commercial use around, the developer can also publish his games to modern platforms without having to rebuild the whole game.

Afaik most such Reddit alternatives support RSS feeds, so a RSS reader could be an option.

Demo can be found on Itchio:
https://gortyncode.itch.io/chantey-prologue

To my knowledge, besides the newest updates not necessarily being as stable, but also, other softwares that interact with it would need time to adapt themselves to be sure they’re as compatible as they were before. In a situation of constant updates, other software would always be on a situation of catching up, whereas updates that take a bit longer to land allow “for the dust to set down”.

About gaming, from my personal experience, it’s overall pretty straight forward. When issues happen, you just got to have patience to read through logs and search up on Google or similar any suspicious parts of the log. Worst part is usually DRM/anticheat, but from what I can gather, usually pretty isolated cases are problematic due to compatibility, usually requiring the devs to go out of their ways to make the DRM incompatible.

As for the distros question, perhaps Linux Mint? It trades off bleeding edge updates for the sake of stability. Just avoid the Debian-based variant of Mint for now as it’s still in beta.

From the instances I used, it seems to be a mixed bag. Some even allowed for the user to block domains unrelated to the fediverse.