Potpourri

“i love low angle photos of cats / they turn into the vegas sphere” @meredithalden

EDIT: i forgot to switch her on

@noonesgaylikegatson your post has not left my mind since you made it. I see it everywhere.

writing is so fun

writing is impossible why does anyone do this

original by clairetablizo

conclave dares to ask the question "what if you didn't want to be pope but eveyone and everything was conspiring for you to be pope and the moment you decide that maybe you should be pope god immediately and dramatically explodes a wall to tell you to stop being stupid"

It is with the deepest frustrations that I must report Microsoft has pushed out Copilot onto Microsoft Word no matter what your previous settings were. If you have Office because you paid for it/are on a family plan/have a work/school account, you can disable it by going to Options -> click on Copilot -> uncheck 'Enable Copilot'.

(Note, you may not see this option if you haven't updated lately, but Copilot will still pop up. Updating should give you this option. I will kill Microsoft with my bare hands.)

In addition, Google has forced a roll-out of it's Gemini AI on all American accounts of users over 18 (these settings are turned off by default for EU, Japan, Switzerland, and UK, but it doesn't hurt to check).

To remove this garbage, you must go to Manage Workspace smart feature settings for all your Gmail/Drive/Chat and turn them off. Go to Settings -> See all settings -> find under "Genera" the "Google Workspace smart features" -> turn smart feature setting off for both Google Workspace and all other Google products and hit save. (If you turned off the smart settings in your Gmail, it never hurts to open Drive and double-check that they're set to off there too.)

Quick Edit: I found the easiest way to get to the Smart Feature settings following the instructions above was to do it through Drive. Try that route first.

Now is the time to consider switching to Libre Office if you haven't already.

Okay, all other Microsoft settings addition: If your Microsoft 365 apps don't yet have the Enable Copilot checkbox, you can turn off Copilot by changing your account privacy settings. This worked when I tried it, but it's a fucking pain.

Here's the Microsoft page for removing Copilot.

If you're using Word365, they've really buried this option. Wow.

From the File menu, choose More, then Options:

Then from Options:

Go to Trust Center -> Trust Center Settings -> Privacy Options -> Privacy Settings...

...where FINALLY you get to the "Turn on optional connected experience" feature which is the thing you want turned OFF. This prevents (for now) Copilot integration with Word.

Holy god, what a deep hole they buried this inside.

Accurate as of January 20, 2025 (Word 365 v2412 build 18324.20194)

can anyone tell me why i enter the grocery store a normal person and emerge as some sort of vile ravening monster

you are all. correct.

He’s not any better, but to be fair, he’s not claiming to be.

broadway antique market

i bought this telegram, because it’s probably the best thing i’ve ever seen.  i’m framing it.  it cost $1.

They should invent an essay where you just do research forever and then you never write anything

I genuinely wish we did more research for the fun of it in school and then just having a casual conversation about it. Why was nothing ever just to create a love for knowledge?

The brotherssssssss

There's an EU initiative going on right now that essentially boils down to wanting to force videogame publishers with paid games and/or games with paid elements such as DLC, expansions and microtransactions to leave said games in a playable state after they end support, or in simpler terms, make them stop killing games.

A "playable state" would be something like an offline mode for previously always online titles, or the ability for people to host their own servers where reasonably possible just to name some examples.

I don't think I need to tell anyone that having something you paid for being taken from you is bad, which is a thing that routinely happens with live service and other always online games with a notable recent example being The Crew which is now permanently unplayable.

Any EU citizen is eligible to sign the initiative, but only once and if you mess up that's it. You can find it here. (https://citizens-initiative.europa.eu/initiatives/details/2024/000007_en)

Even if you're not European or you signed it already, you can share this initiative with anyone who is, even if they don't care about videogames specifically because this needs a million signatures and there is different thresholds that need to be met for each EU country for their votes to even count and could also be a precedent for other similar practices like when Sony removed a bunch of Discovery TV content people paid for.

SUPPORT BELOW 50% OF THE THRESHOLD IN THESE COUNTRIES:

Bulgaria - 35% Croatia - 45% Cyprus - 12% (!!!!) Czechia - 47% Greece - 27% Italy - 41% Latvia - 43% Luxembourg - 20% Malta - 11% (!!!!) Romania - 48% Slovakia - 47% Slovenia - 38%

SEVEN countries out of 27 have met the threshold so far. Deadline is 31st July, 2025.

14 beers zoro

Mi amor 💚

national treasure movies + text posts (part 9)

happy birthday to every horse in the northern hemisphere what wouod we do without you

Did you know that many gastropods can create a pearl, including terrestrial snails? The difference is nacre which is only found in some species of mollusks and which which gives pearls their beautiful shine. Terrestrial snails occasionally produce very small translucent white pearls which are usually lost. One non-nacre secreting sea snail, the melo melo, produces gorgeous pearls that are extremely prized and rare.

Conches can also produce pearls.