Maybe your friend knew you made the mistake and was truly trying to congratulate you. A lot is lost in text, and it seems like you already had a chip on your shoulder from the reaction. Reach out to the person individually and have a talk, it might clear things up. I hope your day gets better.

Can it not just be for movies, but for food places as well?

Now you can have a cooking pot next to your cooking pot.

Keep that quiet. If people never realize the superior flavor and juiciness, we can keep them to ourselves.

No vampires, but they do have a werewolf.

Before the last few years, I was on a lot of torrenting sites. Really before a lot of software became what we now know as FOSS, it was the way we traded software. So, there was a potential much higher then than now. I’ve been doing this computer thing for closer to 30+ years, so my habits come from headaches and other learned lessons.

due to corporate IT policies

I think that answers your question right there. If you got the device outside of that realm, you’d probably have no issues. Talk to your security and IT people about why that is. There are huge security risks for people being admin over their systems.

For context, I run my home computer as a non-admin user most of the time, unless I need to make some deep changes, which is not often. Maybe once a month. This saves me from accidentally installing a rootkit or other software. I run my children and wife under the same context so they don’t need to worry either. Yes, it takes me a bit of time to go through and approve some updates, but that’s worth it to not need to worry as much about viruses and keeping data secure.

The amount of time it takes your IT department to do something is another complaint that should be directed at them. We get those kinds of complaints constantly, but it’s the fact we have everyone asking the same things or completely meaningless ones. You’re in the queue, please give us patience.

“They were really bored and drugs and/or alcohol was most likely involved.”

This is sad to see how far deep Duolingo has gone into the shittificatio hole. I really enjoyed doing the lessons with my whole family, but I guess we’ll be searching out a new way to get our second-language skill up to date. The AI thing wasn’t the absolute last nail for me, but this is.

The benefit of the previous system was that if you understood what was happening, you could practice for a long time, but if you kept failing, it would basically lock you out so you can put it down, recoup and come back later. This is now punishing people who are consistent and are understanding the language dynamics. Sad to see.

When getting into a new project or hobby, I tend to go to HF for the tools first. The tools are inexpensive, and I’m probably going to be dropping the hobby or thing soon after my hyperfixation dies off. So, that means I didn’t spend a lot of money on this thing that I’m not going to keep going on. If the tool dies, and I’m still into it, it’s not just hyperfixation and I can get a better tool, but now I understand what I’m looking for. Sometimes, the tool from HF is just fine for the long term, and honestly this happens more than you’d think. I have some drills that aren’t the best, but get things done for near a decade, and some yellow, teal, and reds that have died within 6 months.

My wife bought me a HF (Port Cable) pancake air compressor for a father’s day. It wasn’t the best, but it was from her and what she could buy without pinging the account in a way that alerted me. It’s just now starting to die off and it’s nearly 12 years old.