I hate to break this to you but that means you’re not normal. If all you ever do in chat is talk about serious things that are of such earth-shattering importance that it would be incredibly rude and obnoxious for someone to post a silent looping video you’re not normal, and no fun at all.

The way Element currently works, it’s made for people like you… A strange minority that probably only thinks about “chat” in terms of communicating for an end goal and not for the pleasure of conversation.

There’s a fine line between “artisanal” and “insanity”. Post the end result when you’re done so we can judge for ourselves 😁👍

I meant it as: You can be a man baby and still be correct. The two are not mutually exclusive.

…but don’t let me stop you from overreacting to random, silly comments said in jest like a man baby 👍

Yeah it’s probably just a client side issue but the OP mentioned Element, specifically 🤷

I just wanted to point out that Element is no fun! No fun at all!

It works and it works great for what it does. Even voice and streaming are great with Element. It’s just got a terrible, no-fun interface and pointless limitations on things like looping videos. You can’t even configure it to make them play properly (as in, automatic and endlessly, the way they were meant to be played! 😤).

Looping videos and animated emojis are super fun ways to chat with people. Even in professional settings! It really breaks up the humdrum and can motivate people to chat and share more.

Element is all serious all the time and going into a chat channel there feels like a chore.

To be fair, both you and your friend can be correct 🤷

Element needs to be better. Discord is awesome with the way it auto-plays looping videos/gifs and has animated emojis.

Seriously: That’s all they’d need to do. The element devs need to focus on fun.

“I didn’t vaccinate my kids and the one that lived turned out fine!”

For a history of Dumb Restrictions on Media (aka DRM):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management

This fight goes way, way back. Microsoft worked with the media industry in the early 2000s to create a fully-encrypted media input/output pipeline for PCs in order to combat Linux adoption. Microsoft knew that it would be impossible for open source software to decrypt the media streams without making the encryption keys available so they went way out of their way to make sure things like HDCP would “protect” the media being played back on a PC from “illegal” copying.

It starts with the TPM module in your motherboard/processor and continues outward all the way though to your HDMI monitor (which has to have the hardware keys necessary to decrypt the content).

BTW: The keys for HDMI HDCP have long since been leaked so you can now cheaply and easily buy all sorts of HDMI capture devices on the cheap from places like AliExpress (they don’t ask any questions). Get one of those and your PC won’t even know that you’re capturing screenshots.

I think it’s part of a, “stabilizer diet”

I highly recommend not eating your keyboard. The most commonly-used macros probably taste like finger cheese.

Forget small phones… I want bigger phones! Why do we keep making phones that appear to be made to appease people with small pockets‽

Bigger screens are better! Give me a great big tri-fold phone with a week-long battery (as long as it’s under 10lbs it won’t be a problem!). Actually, fuck that: Where are our backpack phones? We used to have them in WW2 and now we have the technology to make them even better!

I want the power to unfurl my monster phone to turn it into a portable 3-monitor gaming rig. Make it run regular Linux too so I can actually automate things and decide where I want to store my stuff (not in Google or Apple’s clouds!).

It’s a lot simpler than that: Texas has a HUGE oil and natural gas industry lobby that views wind and solar as existential threats.

Oil & gas is mostly consolidated and lobbies under just a few really powerful firms. Wind and solar don’t have a lobbying arm with that kind of power. It’s too dispersed with too many disperate entities that don’t view themselves as being on the same team.

It’s just another way that money in politics corrupts everything. Even though there’s more players in the solar and wind markets the oil & gas industry has a lot more money to throw around at lobbying.

Go with a Nintendo Switch controller that works with PC like:

https://a.co/d/6cxE7qn (~$20)

There’s dozens and dozens of them and I’ve never had a problem with any of them. They all seem to just “magically work”.

The entire basis for this is the assumption that goods are being transported using fossil fuels. If we transport the goods using electric trucks suddenly plastic starts to look much, much worse than paper or even glass.

Aluminum is much better all around so I’m not sure why it’s lumped into everything else. It’s basically infinitely recyclable and you don’t have to use natural gas or propane to heat it up to the melting point for forming/extrusion. There’s basically an infinite amount of ways to heat things up; even to really high temperatures.

“With your powers dispersed, I can go back to playing games on my NES!”

Not an artist but I have an idea!

An image of an old man being given a book by a doctor. The title of the book is clearly visible and reads, “Everything Hurts: A Guide to Aging” and the doctor is saying, “You can skip to chapter 10.”

Above the scene is a hospital sign that says “Hospice ➡️” and there’s a woman in a wheelchair being pushed in that direction.

There’s family members standing around talking about the old man like he’s not right there in front of them.

On the wall in the background is a sign describing the, “Silver Alert” system and how to notify the authorities if Grandpa goes missing.

This is a handy joke!

He summons drinks and snacks.

The solution to this is to make breakfast in the afternoon 👍

Honeysuckle? Lame. Depending on your location plant something that’ll blow people’s minds like pumpkin!

Yes: If you train your pumpkin vine up the arbor it’ll grow pumpkins in the air and the vine will remain strong enough to support the heavy fruit! Though, that arbor might not be up to the weight requirement 😁

Another great option is kiwi. It requires cold weather though (does it snow in your area? Perfect).

If you want to demonstrate just how ambitious/crazy you are grow horned melons! They prefer warmer/tropical climates but man are they a cool thing to grow. You’ll have alien brains ready to eat in no time!

Disclaimer: Don’t touch horned melon vines with your bare hands! They have little velcro-sized spines that will stick into your skin and be annoying/slightly itchy for like two weeks (ask me how I know 🤣). They’re not dangerous but they’re annoying enough to keep certain pests far, far away from your yard (e.g. rats).