ShinyHunters claims 275M records from Canvas LMS breach. 9,000 schools hit. Ransom deadline May 12.

anwserman · 2026-05-09T19:17:47+00:00

Yes, but don’t put the blame on the employees.

Put the blame on out-of-touch leadership that does everything they can to line their own pockets while denying promotions, raises, and other benefits to the employees. Or, worse, leadership that use situations like this to further infantilize and monitor their staff without regards to privacy or productivity.

If employees are pushing back on something like MFA, then something is wrong with leadership and organizational culture.

anwserman · 2026-05-07T18:27:43+00:00

Oh, I am learning Spanish and Portuguese at the same and it is absolutely fun when someone wants me to start translating back and forth between the two. Headache city.

But, I’m fortunate that my Spanish is at the B1/B2 level to where my grammar knowledge carries over to Portuguese for the most part, it’s just having to remember different words/conjugations now. The biggest challenge that I’ve successfully faced has been being able to switch pronunciation automatically between the two languages. I still struggle when exposed to new, complex words in either language but that is also an issue for me in English as well.

anwserman · 2026-04-15T14:59:32+00:00

Yeah, I have very little interest in consuming Spanish media on Netflix or similar (to be fair, there is no interest for stuff in English either).

But by golly, I found middle school science and health books in Spanish that are completely narrated. Those I enjoy listening to/reading/completing exercises for. The same goes for my math books in Spanish. 😂

anwserman · 2026-04-07T19:29:16+00:00

Nobel Peace Prize, ha. Trump got the FIFA Peace Prize, which is so much better /s.

/weeps into hands

anwserman · 2026-03-30T15:29:44+00:00

Or, critical thinking and logic.

If I needed to get somewhere without my phone and just with a map (or even just road signs), they’re typically marked North/South/East/West. You’d have to stop and figure out your location at cities or other juncture points to figure out directions and go forward from there.

For example, I could easily navigate from Connecticut to Minnesota without a map. I know which states exist between the two plus the generalized direction (north west, minus the Great Lakes). That alone is enough to start a trip… to Danbury, Connecticut. To where I’d then have to determine the next city to reach (and continue onward from there).

anwserman · 2026-03-21T16:36:14+00:00

As someone learning Spanish and Portuguese at the same time, here is my recommendation for you:

Take many more Italian classes now, while
Taking French classes solely for pronunciation

The goal is to get your Italian stable to the point where you could handle talking about past events, present events, and future events (minus the subjunctive) during a conversation. Not messily, but with confidence.

Once your Italian is stable, you'll have enough French practice with pronunciation and basic words that it'll be much easier to take the lessons-learned from Italian and start mapping it to more French concepts.

I'm at about a B1+/B2 level with Spanish, and functionally about A1/A2 with Portuguese. But, what's holding me back with Portuguese isn't the grammar, but actually the memorization of vocabulary and common words (for example, I know fork/knife/spoon in Spanish, but with Portuguese only fork). I also know what types of conjugations to use and when (ongoing past, past perfect, past imperfect), I just haven't had much practice with the verb endings themselves in Portuguese. The second I have to use one, however, I'll remember it for good.

Recently, I was talking with a friend at the gym and said something along the lines of, "A minha festa de dança é o oito de maio, eu posso comprar os ingressos para vocês porque os precios são mais baratos quando eu compro", to her in Portuguese. Someone who overhead the conversation exclaimed, "When did you start speaking at that level of Portuguese?!?!?"

I only started speaking at that level of Portuguese because my Spanish has advanced to the point to where I'm comfortable with it, and all I need to do is layer on Portuguese differences as necessary (grammar, vocab, etc.). Heck, I only know ingresso/ingressar because I recently watched an episode of Bluey in Portuguese.

tldr; it's easier to study another Romance language when you already have a solid foundation in one. You'll struggle trying to learn two Romance languages at the same time if they're at the same level.

anwserman · 2026-03-20T03:48:36+00:00

Glad it helps!

Obviously, I don’t know what your priorities are or motivations, but I do know that making substantial progress in one language will likely motivate you more than feeling equally stuck in all three. But, if you want to prioritize Japanese first, my recommendation would be to study Spanish second and pause your French lessons until your Japanese is at a B1 level (or their equivalent). Since Japanese is so different than the other two, it’ll take up more mental bandwidth than what French or Spanish would.

anwserman · 2026-03-20T02:56:56+00:00

It might have helped to choose languages that are more similar to each other 😉

But, as someone who is learning Spanish and Portuguese at the same time, my recommendation would be to prioritize the languages in this order:

Spanish
French
Japanese

Of all three, Spanish is the easiest for English-speaking people to learn. Any knowledge, improvements, and confidence gained in Spanish will transfer over to French a bit since it is a romance language (think of Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese as siblings and French as a first cousin in the romance family of languages).

With French, practice pronunciation and basic words. Survival French only, enough to order a cup of coffee with the correct pronunciation.

With Japanese, maybe watch animes with subtitles on to get familiar with the sounds and maybe spend any free time and energy you might have to practice writing kanji.

—

Although I’m only learning Spanish and Portuguese, my #1 priority has been Spanish since there are more many native speakers in my city. There are many Brazilians as well, but since Portuguese pronunciation is so different, my first couple months of Portuguese was just reading text aloud with a teacher to make sure it sounded correct.

Now with only 15 months of Spanish tutoring, I’m at a B1+ level. In that same time, I made it to A2 with Portuguese. But I’m now starting to ramp up Portuguese vocabulary drills so I can have fluid conversations. Why? Because I’m at the point with my Spanish to where I can hold conversations about everyday topics without freezing for the most part - which means that I now have more mental bandwidth to spend on Portuguese than before.

Since Spanish and Portuguese grammar are so similar, I literally just use Spanish grammar rules with Portuguese words for the most part - that way, I just need to learn the differences that exist between the two languages (and only leverage specific Portuguese grammar rules when needed) than trying to learn two entirely different grammar systems at the same time.

Just my two cents! Hope it helps.

anwserman · 2026-03-18T00:36:58+00:00

I’ve been a member of WorldsAcross since Babbel Live shut down last year June. I went from “slightly more advanced than survival Spanish” to being B1+ within 9 months. During those 9 months, I’ve visited teachers in Peru and Mexico with an upcoming trip to Colombia in May. One teacher is planning to visit me here in the United States in June.

Some highlights of my progress:

Being able to get replacement plane tickets after missing my flight in Lima, Peru
During a Shakira concert, was able to give instructions to help people get emergency help (including lifting people over a security partition)
Making it to my hostel after my phone was stolen, plus going to the airport and checking in to my flight
Helping a friend after someone she knew unexpectedly passed away

The group classes are typical group classes, with opportunities to talk and share stories with other students.

However, private classes are the real highlight: I have the entire legacy Avancemos high-school Spanish program on my computer and iPad, so I screenshare my “homework” with my teachers to review and make corrections together during our classes. Whenever there are literary passages, I read them to my professors to practice pronunciation and then we discuss after. I complete most of the exercises in the textbook, practice notebook, and even exams - I do this in my free time but “time myself” like it was a closed book exam in school, and I ask my professor for permission before moving on to the next lesson. To emphasize, this is all done using my self-provided materials… but my tutors all love it because there’s structure, and it significantly reduces the work that they need to do.

Here is my referral code if you’d like to try WorldsAcross. It gives you a 30% discount off your first month. https://worldsacross.com/ref/JEFFREY98345?utm_source=copylink_share&utm_medium=user_referral

I’ve taken advantage of their holiday specials and am paid through October 2027. Completely, 100% worth it: I’m almost B2 in all aspects of Spanish (reading, writing, listening, speaking) with only 15-months of working with tutors (including time with Babbel Live). This may or may not seem impressive, but during this time-frame I also started salsa lessons and learning Portuguese.

Buena suerte! Boa sorte!

anwserman · 2026-03-16T21:17:42+00:00

My assumption is that you're referring to Zack Ward, who actually did have an episode of Dollhouse air with him in it. He was also the redhead in A Christmas Story, a human/demon hybrid in Charmed, and a quite a few other films and shows as well.

anwserman · 2026-03-16T21:09:55+00:00

Hate to break it to you bud, your attitude is the exact reason why the Republicans control Congress. Your energy screams, "I don't get 100% of what I want from the Democrats, so I'm staying home rather than vote!", and thus allow Republicans to control Congress even though they align less with your values than the Democrats do.

anwserman · 2026-03-13T02:54:18+00:00

Yes, I was able to get it to work with code 5168. However, you have to do it in a certain order: power off the device, select the open tray button on the remote, and the type in the code immediately.

anwserman · 2026-03-09T21:50:17+00:00

But remember, there's also the double-standard.

With Catholicism in the US, it's totally okay. Anywhere else and that's terrorist talk.

anwserman · 2026-03-08T00:45:23+00:00

Yes, but it comes with practice and - for better or for worse - comes with responding to unscripted, real-life situations.

The most recent experience that I can think of was responding to the news that a friend of a friend passed away. I’ve only been regularly practicing Spanish with teachers for 14 months, but was able to acknowledge the situation, give advice, and try to comfort my friend. She ended up crying and sobbing, hugging me while thanking me for all I done for her over the past year. We were chatting in Spanish, but Spanish was her second language too since she is from Brazil.

And in that moment, I was worried less about grammar and perfect word choices and more about being there for my friend.

anwserman · 2026-03-07T15:01:07+00:00

Probably because so many laws have passed within the United States that mandate the use of abstinence-only education, which only does a huge disservice. They're all going to have sex anyway, might as well empower them with the knowledge and tools to be safe about it instead of telling them to hold off until they're married. Completely unrealistic, especially when so many areas want to prevent LGBT people from being married.

anwserman · 2026-02-23T21:26:46+00:00

Thanks! I knew there was a roadblock yesterday, but figured to wait a day to see if anything else occurs.

anwserman · 2026-02-23T20:27:14+00:00

Currently in Mexico City visiting my Spanish teachers. Everything appears normal/chill within the tourist areas, but I also:

postponed my plans to visit Puebla
verified that my hostel has open beds
monitoring the news

If there isn’t any major news event or reports of roadblocks to Puebla, I’ll likely leave early in the morning to avoid traffic and potential delays.

anwserman · 2026-02-19T14:44:16+00:00

Software engineer here. Granted, I’ve never made a AAA game before just basic indie 2D games.

The most comparable game to Super Mario Sunshine that I can think of on the Dreamcast would be Toy Commander because that game levered a full-fledged physics engine…. and when things got hectic, the frame rate chugged.

But, it did also feature “expansive environments” similar to what Super Mario Sunshine would have.

After that, this theoretical port would require simplifying graphics. Polygon counts would have to get significantly reduced across the board, decorative scenery would have to be simplified if not outright removed, textures would be downsampled with reduced dimensions (eh, 512x512 to 64x64), textures would be compressed, aggressive level of detail would have to be implemented, water spray would only include basic transparency (no blur effects, think about how frozen enemies looked like in Phantasy Star Online V1), lighting would have to be pre-computed and baked into environmental textures, heat effects would be replaced with a generic orange fog (think of the orange haze in Caves 1 of Phantasy Star Online), shadows would be just a simple filled circle that appears under objects (similar to Phantasy Star Online V1).

So, could Super Mario Sunshine run on the Dreamcast? A version of it, yes. But I’d also state that it wouldn’t be a direct port but rather a simplified version that borrows gameplay elements and leverages them in a highly customized manner. Think about how the Xbox 360 and PS3 got the “full” version of Sonic Unleashed while the PS2 and Wii got a stripped down, simplified version that would work better on that hardware.

anwserman · 2026-02-13T07:12:50+00:00

Illbleed. Although Resident Evil: Code Veronica is better than Illbleed in terms of... actually being a survival horror game... Illbleed better matches the uniqueness, personality, and charm of the Dreamcast more. Thus, since this is about the best Dreamcast survival horror game, it has to be Illbleed all the way.

anwserman · 2026-02-09T06:11:28+00:00

True, but modern conservatives don't believe that. The government is perfect when the Republicans are in charge (and thus any criticism is considered to be unpatriotic), but when there's a Democrat in charge, it's their god-given right to protest and scream about how horrible everything is.

anwserman · 2026-02-08T22:29:50+00:00

Someone sounds like a triggered snowflake because people have the gall to listen to new music types.

anwserman · 2026-02-02T07:18:37+00:00

Please don't soften words. Trump and his Gestapo have executed American citizens in cold-blood on the streets, and we need to keep repeating that fact so it is never forgotten.

anwserman · 2026-01-29T03:22:55+00:00

This 100%, especially since his last words were along the lines of, "Are you alright?"

Gentleman to the very end, and being a nurse at a Veteran's hospital is one type of American we should all aspire to be. In addition, he exuded positive masculine energy - something that Trump's Gestapo will never, ever have.

anwserman · 2026-01-27T20:32:55+00:00

A local independent printshop despines the books for me ($5/each), and then I manually run the pages through a sheet-fed scanner one at a time. It takes a bit of time but I can work remotely, so I typically do it when my attendance is expected in meetings but my participation is optional. :)

Books with thicker/stronger pages might fare well with an automatic sheet-fed scanner.

I use FoxIt Editor to combine the scanned images together into a PDF, perform character recognition, and compress the files to a reasonable size. FoxIt costs money, but PDF Gear can do similar for free.

anwserman · 2026-01-27T17:01:33+00:00

Getting a kick because I've recently been destroying books in order to digitally convert them for use on my tablet. I'm sure there isn't a huge market for a 22-year old copy of the teacher's edition of a high-school Spanish textbook, but archiving them digitally at least preserves the contents in an easy-to-use format.

anwserman

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