cerebralhawks

@cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Game marketing company takes down blog post bragging about how good it is at astroturfing Reddit after Reddit finds the post⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago⁩:

  Sprog, that was it. Yeah. What’s a sprog, anyway? It’s not flagged as misspelled. Yeah, I don’t like AIs that steal content, but funny jokes are fine. Novelty accounts are fine. There were a few people who claimed to be famous people. Maybe they were those people. I never cared. They weren’t anything special to me. I just treated them like novelty accounts, same as anyone else really.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨A brain transplant is one of those rare cases where you’d rather be the donor than the recipient.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago⁩:

  I was actually kinda thinking how interesting it would be to have to take a body of the opposite sex. That’s actually how I play Cyberpunk — a game in which you play a mercenary who gets possessed by Johnny Silverhand, a rock star turned terrorist whose mind was stored on a chip that you steal from the company that did it to him. And he’s played by Keanu Reeves. (For the two people who don’t know.) So you can be a guy, or you can be a girl. For the guy, they got this new guy, he’s a good voice actor, but he sounds New York and the character is in California, so there’s a bit of a disconnect there. But he does sound like a street tough, so it works. The girl is played by Cherami Leigh, a relatively well known voice actor, at least in anime. So as a nerd, I mean, I’m drawn to Cyberpunk because Keanu Reeves was Neo, because Idris Elba was Roland (Deschain from The Dark Tower; also Luther from the BBC series of the same name)… and because Cherami Leigh was Asuna in Sword Art Online. It’s a total geek fest. Or I could play this guy who’s… pretty much just done this. Nah, I’m playing Asuna but bad.

  Anyway, a finer point of the game people don’t get is, it’s presented as Johnny is taking over V via the chip. But — and the game slaps you across the face with this multiple times — V was killed in the prologue. Johnny is on the chip (in her head), Johnny is the reason you’re alive. It’s Johnny’s body now, but the remnants of V are clinging to existence, and slowly fading. The whole point of the chip is that the person whose mind is on it gets the body. That’s why it exists. To allow Saboru Arasaka — the patriarch of the company — to try to live forever. They were just gonna put it in some younger person’s head and let him take over that body, but it didn’t play out that way. Whole lotta details, ins and outs, it’s weird… point is, the way the game seems meant to be played, it’s about an older guy taking over a younger lady’s body. (Or a guy if that weirds you out, that is an option, but IMO it’s the lesser option.) And the game makes frequent reference to it. In one ending, a guy says “but you’re a chick,” and you play it off. It doesn’t really matter to him, he’s just reacting based on what he sees. (It’s not a spoiler without context.) There’s also the time when Johnny says “you remind me of me when I was younger, minus the charisma — and the impressive cock.” The line technically works if you chose to play a guy (it’s more of an insult, implying Johnny’s new equipment is smaller), but it works better if you pick the girl.

  Anyway, that’s my take — I mean, that I kinda had that in mind based on my current favourite game.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨iPhone Pocket: $229.95⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, step two is to buy a Pixel with iPhone 11 level performance and just not give a fuck that Google sells my personal information off the back porch.

  Nah, I don’t agree with everything Apple does. Like the Vision Pro. I get that it’s not a VR headset by Facebook and that it’s a “spatial computer.” I don’t care, it’s not what I want and I certainly don’t need it. And the iPhone Pro… it meant something before, but this generation? Base 17 is all I need. The optical zoom is a lie (it crops its main camera to get you 2x zoom) but it’s good enough for my needs. Never cared about the iPad, but my wife loves hers. HomePod is expensive but good (like Bose, though maybe not as good as Bose, I dunno). I like Macs. I like the idea that you can buy a computer and not necessarily be the product. Like yeah they all have telemetry, but I don’t have to have Candy Crush on my Mac because King… well, I guess Microsoft owns King now? Bought them with Activision. Before, it was because King bought the rights to Windows 10 users. Macs aren’t perfect, but they don’t do shit like that.

  I dunno, I’m not a brand evangelist, I just like what I like.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨'The PS5 is only in the middle of [it's lifespan],' says Sony CFO⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago⁩:

  Also to be fair, we’ve kind of plateaued in gaming performance and demand. Cyberpunk set the benchmark 5 years ago and nothing’s really topped it yet. And now the Switch 2 can run it, and so can Macs built like iPhones with the GPU, RAM, and CPU all on the same chip. My MacBook Air can run it. I run around and there’s no traffic and almost no pedestrians, but it works! (I previously owned the game on Steam. I did not buy it for my Mac.)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨'The PS5 is only in the middle of [it's lifespan],' says Sony CFO⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago⁩:

  That makes more sense — and I bet they will, too. If they aren’t still supporting the PS4, they did for a while. PS2, also. PS3, I’m not so sure about, but that sounds like something Sony has done. A game will come out on Xbox, PlayStation, and the previous PlayStation.

  PS5 and XSX are both still great for 1080p gaming, despite one claiming 8K (since removed) and the other (still) claiming 4K. I’ve heard the next generation will support 4K native, and this leap in performance will come with a leap in price. I’ve heard the Xbox will basically be a branded PC and run Steam titles (I think this is mostly hopium); if so, I wonder what PlayStation will do to compete. Besides continue to support the previous generation longer. Either way, they’re too expensive now; I can only imagine what the next ones will cost.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨iPhone Pocket: $229.95⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  Apple fanboy here and what the actual fuck is this? This would have been funny on April Fool’s Day. It’s now the dumbest thing I’ve seen online all day, and I’ve seen a fair few dumb things. Maybe all week.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨'The PS5 is only in the middle of [it's lifespan],' says Sony CFO⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  Didn’t they say that about the PS4 just before the 5 was announced? They want you to buy their current console. Nintendo denied Switch 2 rumors right up to the announcement. Same reason.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨People who don't wear earphones outside - why, and what do you do instead?⁩ ⁨⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  Well, I have a pretty nice setup. iPhone and AirPods. Both Pro, for whatever that’s worth. More marketing than function these days, though it used to mean something. I wouldn’t use a base 16, but base 17 is the best of this year’s lot. And AirPods 4 are good enough for anyone.

  Anyway, I think sticking AirPods in your ears in public is kind of a rude gesture. It indicates “don’t bother me.” And I like strangers far less than normal people, neurotypical, whatever you call them. And I’m hard of hearing, so even if I’m not listening to music, I benefit from Apple’s “hearing aid” mode (which I have set up). We also have this thing, it’s buried in accessibility, called Live Listen. Superhuman hearing. Takes whatever the phone mic picks up and amplifies it. I stick the AirPods in my wife’s ears, go into the bedroom and shut the door, place the iPhone on the bed, then go past the bedroom into the bathroom, and whisper a phrase, and she hears it, clear as day. It’s that good. It’s literally spy tech. “Leave” your iPhone hidden and completely out of sight in a room, leave the room, pop in AirPods, hear every word spoken in that room. (When you first set up the feature, it actually tells you not to do exactly that.)

  So, yeah. I can hear way better with them on. But mostly I just do what I came to do and GTFO. I listen to the music in the car. Weird stuff like K-Pop (and not just the KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack, though that’s good too) or Enya.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Game marketing company takes down blog post bragging about how good it is at astroturfing Reddit after Reddit finds the post⁩ ⁨⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  There’s a way to look at the top Karma users on Reddit. Most of them are either bots, or corporate account. There’s a Marvel one that posts movie stuff, and some Turbo something or other for gaming. They don’t comment, they just post what their corporate overlords want you to see, and they probably have bots that push their content to the top. They just aggregate popular sites, though, driving people into the ads.

  When I was on Reddit, going to that leaderboard to block people was my first stop. Though, I do think there are a few that are interesting, even bots — like the haiku one is amusing. It doesn’t always get it right, but it’s fun to see it try. Then there’s a guy — pretty sure it’s a person, at least — who turns posts into poems. Not quite the same. Got a weird name. Regular Redditors know who they are. “Something for your something”, I think. I don’t block the fun ones. Just the corporate trash.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨A brain transplant is one of those rare cases where you’d rather be the donor than the recipient.⁩ ⁨⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  Brain transplants are purely science fiction for now, but while it might be called a brain transplant, it’s more of a body transplant. Assuming you’re taking a useless body with a useful brain and a useful body with a useless brain, and swapping, the person, being in the brain, is getting a new body. The owner of the brain-dead body wouldn’t get a new brain. Their family would get the useless brain and useless body to bury.

  If that sounds grim, it’s because it is, and the potential for abuse would be so great. Imagine a random wealthy, 79-year-old pederast dictator who would demand that some family give up their ten-year-old child to receive his brain. Maybe they get compensated for their child, maybe they just get to keep living. Is that something medical science should allow? Would there be any condition in which it’s ethically or morally okay? And what if, with healthy body replacements, a brain can only live 150 years? After the second or third transplant, what would be the ethics or morality of taking a good mind (say, one that might cure cancer) and giving that brain 10 more years of life, versus giving a 10-year-old only 10 more years before that body just drops dead at 20 (maybe to be a recipient of another brain with a dying body, but to make things fun, let’s say a body can only get a new brain once: remove the second brain, and a third one cannot be successfully transplanted in)?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Arguing for the car as a good method of transportation is like arguing that having personal diesel generator to power you home is a good idea⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, but in the communist bubble people like OP live in, you don’t need a schedule because nobody has to be anywhere at any specific time, you can walk to the bus stop, and that TV you just bought is OUR TV, so, thank you!

  I’ve said similar things in anti-car communities, and I have never gotten (or seen) a good answer. They just dogpile on the downvotes hoping it gets pushed to the bottom and that too many people aren’t hiding vote counts/weights and just sorting by all/new.

  You’d think a person would want to address the most logical challenges to the argument, but that’s not how the Internet works. I don’t think it’s ever worked that way. If you find a place where it does, drop me a line.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨UK set to ban deepfake ‘nudification’ apps⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Nudification apps and the whole concept behind them are so dumb. There are thousands if not millions (or more) of naked bodies out there for you to look at. And when you’ve seen a handful of penises or vulvae, you’ve basically seen all the variations. The former’s either cut or it’s not and comes in a few sizes; the latter can be an innie or an outie, with the labia minora potentially being larger (or smaller, sometimes virtually nonexistent). From a purely scientific background, what a random person’s genitals look like are not a great mystery. It’s one way or the other, it’s pierced or it’s not, maybe there’s a tattoo down there, maybe a mole. Maybe there’s hair, a lot of hair, trimmed hair, or no hair at all. But once you’ve seen a fair few combinations, none of them will really surprise you.

  The difference, and the problem, is you’ve never seen any of those genitalia combinations associated with that person or that face. So on one hand, it’s stupid — why devalue someone you know IRL when there are so many examples of all the combinations out there, in many cases, sorted for you! On the other, with all the combinations being known to most adults, why would you even want to devalue a person by associating them with one type? Wouldn’t they have more value in you not knowing? Why reduce them to that label when you could know them as a person and experience all the diversity of opinions and thoughts as opposed to… meat? It’s not a good look for us, as a society, to pursue this kind of thing. We should be embracing diversity, not… reducing people.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Three prisoners charged with murder of child killer Kyle Bevan⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Charged? From the article, it seems like they should be given awards!

  The guy beat a 2 year old girl to death, systematically torturing the toddler over six hours. Who does that? Someone who shouldn’t be breathing, even in jail.

  I identify as a humanist, and I shouldn’t be saying I support bad people being killed, but if a person is so far gone that they lack any kind of humanity whatsoever… then they don’t qualify. A mere difference in opinion does not qualify that, it’s the act and the choice of doing something that terrible to someone that small and helpless and likely enjoying it that disqualifies the individual from humanity and the sympathy or empathy of humans. Like how we all basically love dogs until one mauls a baby, then that dog has to be put down, because that’s not “Man’s Best Friend,” that’s a predator that is out to do harm and you have to stop it before it does it again.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[Discussion] Which anime has the most mysterious atmosphere?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Yes, love Shadows House. It didn’t help that for the longest time you could only get the first two volumes in the west. They’re putting more out, though I’m not sure if they go beyond the two seasons yet.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If you are not a real fan of Marvel or DC you have no right to come see these movies⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Apply this logic to The Dark Tower. Only true fans of the book can appreciate the movie because they realise what the movie is actually doing. Yeah okay, I’m a fan of the books and I definitely get what they were going for, but I also value all of the criticism leveled at the film. I still like it. But all the criticism is valid. Unless your beef is they made the Clint Eastwood inspired character black. Then we got a problem. Unless you’re saying it’s because the studio didn’t want to have Detta Walker hurling racist stuff at a white man, so they made Roland black to get around the problem. Then they took Detta out of the story entirely, along with Eddie. THAT was fucking stupid. But just making Roland black? Idris Elba made an awesome Roland and I will die on that hill. But the reasoning for casting him was dumb.

  The point being… fandoms are highly contentious. This isn’t even getting into anime and manga, e.g. a popular series whose author got death threats for not having the main guy and the main girl hook up. My guy doesn’t like writing romance, he wrote about teenagers, there was no reason for there to be a romance there, but whatever, dude got death threats.

  I say enjoy what you like.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨At this SF grocery store, you can't leave unless you buy something⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve seen the entry gates in stores, where you can’t go out the front very easily. Except, you can force them open with a little bit of pressure. And yes, it sets off an alarm. It isn’t terribly loud, but it will turn heads.

  You don’t owe anyone an explanation as to why you’re leaving through the entrance. They also can’t bar you from leaving if you don’t buy anything. I’m willing to bet those exit gates open just as easily. The article cites fire codes, but it’s also false imprisonment to keep people from leaving without probable cause to detain. That’s why a lot of stores’ policy is to let you exit the store even if they know you shoplifted. Because for it to be an actual theft, you must deprive them of their ability to sell it. Just pocketing it isn’t enough — once you step off the property however, you’re guilty of shoplifting. With the gates clearly being inside the store, even if you are holding merchandise you haven’t paid for, they have no legal cause to detain you.

  The law is not clear on what your rights are if they are not actively detaining you and you are not able to leave, at least not here. Where you are, it may be different. I do know if you break something trying to leave, you can be charged with vandalism or destruction of property. If they’ve barricaded you in, they have to lift the barricade upon request. The law is fuzzy on how long they have to do it, though. So they can obstruct you from leaving for a time but they can’t detain you. What’s the difference? The law is not clear. It’s not five minutes, it’s not ten minutes, it’s not an hour. But also, if you hop over the thing without damaging it, you’re legally in the clear. And it looks like you can hop over it without much effort.

  I’m not a big fan of Safeway. They have nice stores, and I enjoyed their soda (Safeway Select) when I was younger. Now, I don’t drink soda. I do admit they have good products (that they make) and clean stores, for the most part. When I am in Northern California, though, another chain gets my business. I don’t hate Safeway, but they are not my first choice.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Tax strike?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Most of the ones most affected by Trump’s cruelty would get something back on their federal tax return, not owe.

  And the government would not be able to pay tax refunds during a shutdown.

  The people who owe are less affected by Trump’s cruel policies, if they are at all. They will most likely pay to avoid the penalties. (Which ironically won’t fund tax refunds for the poor.)

  If you mean like sales tax? So you’re saying you buy an item that is $20, pay with a $20, and refuse to pay the sales tax? That’s stealing. The store still has to pay the sales tax, so, just to use nice round numbers, say the tax is $1. You’ve paid the tax and $19 of the $20 item, so you’ve stolen a dollar from the store. Not the government. It’s a bit more complicated than that. They pay the tax regardless of whether the item sells. Even if the item is straight up stolen. Stores account for this (it’s called “shrink”) in their pricing, actually. So some shoplifting/theft is subsidized by paying customers. But in any case, the tax is paid regardless. Now if the store were to just not pay the tax… well, they wouldn’t. They have more to lose, and again, aren’t affected by Trump’s cruelty.

  Now if you mean like states not sending money back to the feds? That’s been threatened, but the federal government also funds a lot of state level stuff, so they’d just withhold more, so there’d be no point to doing so.

  If there were a serious threat to the tax system, the IRS would just fix it. That’s all we’ve ever wanted for years. For taxes to make sense, and for there to be no need to file every year because they already know what we make and what we owe — and tax our checks accordingly. Nothing over, nothing under. Maybe slightly over to account for errors, and any runoff goes back into the community. That’s the ideal, anyway.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If animals could speak English in what foreign accent do you think that a certain species would certainly have ?⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I would expect roos to sound very stereotypically Aussie.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If animals could speak English in what foreign accent do you think that a certain species would certainly have ?⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Bears might sound like Nick Offerman (Ron from Parks & Rec)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Humans BY DEFAULT do not want to commit violence towards other humans, otherwise things like Killer's Remorse and PTSD would not exist.⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  People are conditioned that way by society, though.

  More violent society conditions more violent individuals who just see it as the way things are.

  Feral humans (e.g. feral children who grew up) are not peaceful.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Physicists Just Ruled Out The Universe Being a Simulation⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Never finished it. Did you just spoil FFX for me?

  I always wanted to play FFX-2 because of that one video where Yuna does a concert and her eyes change at the end. I’m sure there’s something significant there but I’ve avoided spoilers this long. These days I don’t really care either way, but I could never get through FFX. Found it boring.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What's your favorite case of a game making fun of you?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  The “Plenty of Fish in the Sea” achievement.

  In Shadow Complex, a shameless ripoff of Super Metroid in its game mechanics, you play a guy who drives a girl out to a remote location in the Pacific Northwest and she gets kidnapped by a military organisation. You’re cut off from your vehicle, but fairly early on in the game you are able to return to the start point. You are able to get in the car and drive away and an achievement pops saying “Plenty of Fish in the Sea.” So you win but your guy gives up on his girl, leaving her to her fate.

  Hack/NetHack had a similar thing where you could just leave without completing the main objective (retrieve the Amulet of Yendor, which has a random chance of appearing at the 35th level and below, and make it back out with the Amulet). I remember it saying something snarky on the Amiga version, but I don’t recall exactly what. Like it said you went on to live a boring life or something like that. Any time you felt like you were locked out of the objective or outnumbered by enemies without the means to fight through them, you could backtrack and leave (though, things like disease, hunger, and thirst could take you before you got out) and you’d “win” (as in, you get to keep living).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Long-time iOS user considering switch to Android - Need advice on $1000 flagships⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I have both. iPhone 16 Pro Max (2024) and Galaxy S10 (2019).

  Okay so the iPhone 17 Pro is kinda pointless vs the regular iPhone 17. There’s a reason the 17 is the hot seller. It got ProMotion and it has a virutal 2x telephoto (by cropping into the regular cam) so it’s good enough for most people.

  Pixel 10 Pro is worth considering, but try the camera first. You’ll love it or you’ll hate it. I love how when dialing into the 100X zoom, you get a little preview in the corner so you see where you’re going! That’s helpful. But it uses AI to hallucinate what it can’t make out, so be advised the 100X is kind of an illusion. But it’s also a 100X zoom! That’s awesome.

  P10P has roughly the same compute power as an iPhone 11, and that’s sorry as hell, given the price, and given that Google sells your personal information. It’s borderline inexcusable, but if you’re considering Android, you’re not getting away from that. Also, benchmarks can be misleading. The Tensor CPU may be a few generations behind in raw compute power, but the P10P package makes up for this in other areas, like camera compute and battery life. It is NOT like having an iPhone 11 in 2025 (not that there’s anything wrong with that, I rock a 2019 S10 in 2025 and I still love that phone). The phone is not much slower (if at all to a layman’s perspective) than any 2025 flagship.

  Speaking of benchmark shenanigans, the Galaxy S25 gets the highest benchmarks (not sure if this counts the iPhone 17 line, they were benching against the 16 series), but it loses more when thermally throttling. So if you’re playing high-end games, the Galaxy S25 will become weaker than the 16 Pro because it slows down more. But in day to day tasks? Kicks the iPhone’s ass… in benchmarks. Both phones will perform admirably!

  If I had to replace my S10 right now, I’d get a base Galaxy S25. I like Samsung. It gets the best of Android and you generally get a year or two before Google’s more controversial decisions (removing the buttons, removing the headphone jack) come to Galaxy. Galaxy phones are fun. They’ve always had good energy to me.

  If I had to replace my 16 Pro Max, I’d get a base 17 in a heartbeat.

  I don’t hate the Pixel phones. I want to see Google step up the power of the Tensor chip a bit. I like Apple’s lax approach to AI. Samsung tries to make it fun and I think Google does too much, but I can’t point to any one thing with AI that really bothers me that Google does. I just think Samsung is better here, and they use more powerful chips.

  I’ve always said that no matter what side of the iOS/Android fence you’re on, you really can’t go wrong with either Apple or Samsung. That goes for platform loyalists and those considering switching. Samsung isn’t really the Apple of Android, that’d be Google, but Apple is kinda boring and so is Pixel, and Samsung… isn’t.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If video games actually determined our real world behavior, we wouldn't be violent we would be obsessed with powerwashing and all have CDLs.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Speak for yourself; I am a VERY violent gamer! There’s a mission in Cyberpunk that really gets my blood boiling. These two guys are into human trafficking and shooting pornography of their sexual exploits. The father of a little boy they abused and filmed themselves abusing and murdering hires you to find them and kill them. Well, they don’t just shoot porn, they shoot brain dances, which are like interactive VR videos where you play a role. And they “shoot” while “in” the brain dance… so when you find them, they’re in their rigs and unaware you’re there. You can shoot them. You can wake them up and shoot them. You can shoot one and listen to the other mourn the one you shot (they’re father and son). Or you can leave them for the police. I always wake them up, shoot the son, let the father mourn him for a few minutes, then pull out a sword and take his head off. Can’t do anything about the people who do that for real, so I do it in a video game.

  Though I just finished my third run through Night City, this time on the Xbox. I think I’m done for a while (it is a VERY long game and I insist on doing ALL the quests… my game time was something like 250 hours). I recently bought it on Mac (it was just ported) so I will go through it again on my computer with the keyboard and mouse. Sure, it looks like ass on the Mac (the whole computer, storage and all is one chip, there’s no dedicated graphics card) but it plays!

  I’m gonna do the Mass Effect trilogy next. Just got the remastered trilogy for $6 on Xbox. I’ve started the first one a couple times but never finished it. I keep hearing it’s a masterpiece. This time I’m gonna get through the first one, and then do the second one. I expect them to take a long time.

  I also play Animal Crossing. As of last year, that’s my main game. I’ve got everything unlocked, I’m just trying to finish the museum (without cheating). I got both the tarantula and the scorpion, so I never need to run around at night with my net out (which is what makes them attack, the only “scary” thing in Animal Crossing). They do sell for 8,000 Bells (the in-game currency) each, which is nice, but I make so much more than that every day, and I could make ~130,000 every 3 days harvesting all my fruit. Wasps is 15k (5 x 3,000 each), the money rock is 16.1k, I don’t need the hassle of catching the high value bugs (plus they’re rare). I’ve paid off all my loans to Tom Nook. The new update coming out in January will add two more storage upgrades, but I have 5.5M Bells banked, so I think I’m good and I don’t need more storage anyway (but buying it might unlock more fun stuff). They showed us more than they told us about, so there’s probably features they didn’t even show. Definitely a good time to book a deserted island getaway!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I figure it’s either because they don’t think joking about human rights is funny, and/or satire is a form of protest. Like there’s nothing funny about treating people as equals despite them being gay or having brown skin or calling their god something like Allah (Arabic for god), or that people should be able to eat.

  I do think comedians have clowned on the Democrats for pushing Bernie out in favour of Hillary Clinton. There’s a funny joke about Hillary Clinton that goes something like, Bill and Hillary are traveling through Arkansas (where Bill is from and was governor) and after leaving a service station, Hillary confides in Bill that she used to sleep with the service station attendant. Bill says “yeah imagine where you’d be if you wound up with him,” to which she replies, “yeah he’d have been president,” implying that Hillary was the kingmaker and Bill’s charm alone wouldn’t have gotten him elected. So even the shitty way I told it, I think it’s pretty funny, but I’ve heard it told better. I’m just not a comedian.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines, why is it so hyped?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I agree about the clans, you had so many options out the gate. Like 4-5 as I recall. I always heard, do not start with Machiavellian or however you say it, but I really did want to earn that playthrough. Got a couple hours into the game and glitched, I can’t quite recall where.

  I think the game had the same charm as the first Deus Ex. Butt-ugly graphics but amazing story and great gameplay. A real treat for those who could look past its dated graphics. I never thought the graphics of either one was bad.

  I don’t recommend it now because AFAIK it requires Windows and I no longer run that. If it did run on my platform (Mac), I doubt it would run on the new ones. But I remember it being good for what kind of game it was.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Physicists Just Ruled Out The Universe Being a Simulation⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I follow that logic as far as computers today could not simulate this reality. Computers in the far future? What if — and this is a complete ass-pull, so feel free to disregard it as such, but what if — 25,000 years in the future long after the world’s dead and moved on, someone pulled some information on the way we were and made a simulation of it, and you’re one of them, with no memories of life outside, experiencing what this ancient civilisation experienced?

  So maybe science types feel they can rule out the explanation because computer science as they know it doesn’t have the capability. But what about alien tech? Future tech?

  I’m not a huge fan of the “simulation” theory, but I think ruling it out because it exceeds what we can do now is a bit silly.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Jonathan Kent from Superman and Lois is the most abused child in fiction⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Ha. Not even close. Maybe within comic books or some other bubble, but even then, not so. Because manga counts as comic books, though while a chapter might be equivalent to an issue, manga tends to come out in paperback volumes with a dozen chapters. Comics are sold this way after a while, too, so the difference comes down to reading direction, which is just down to the difference between East Asian and western writing conventions. The format can be converted but most people don’t bother because it’s simple enough to swap.

  Anyway, Eri from My Hero Academia has entered the chat.

  This child, a 7 year old girl, has developed the super power to “rewind” anyone she touches. It’s not an on-demand power, and the power queues up in a singular horn on the right side of her forehead. Once the horn is “full,” the power stops stockpiling, and once it’s spent, she’s powerless until the horn fills up to some degree. Since her power is involuntary, and since these powers manifest around age 5, she unwittingly killed her parents by them just holding her and her power activated on them. They were rewound until infancy and then they died (or were literally unalived in the most literal sense). Her father was in the Yakuza (Japanese mafia), so the Yakuza leadership saw potential in her power and thought they could weaponise it.

  So they placed her in the care of a villain called Overhaul who worked for them, whose power is basically that of Edward Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist. He can unmake any matter and reassemble it. He’s also batshit crazy and evil. If you ever watched FMA (or read it) and thought “what would this guy look like as a villain?” Overhaul is your answer. There are evil alchemists in FMA (Shou Tucker comes to mind, the guy who merged his daughter and her dog for more government funding into creating new life) but Overhaul has them all beat. So he keeps Eri wearing nothing but an off-white T-shirt that is a few sizes too big, he straps her into a chair modified for the purpose, and he slashes her arteries in her arms and legs wide open and bleeds her out until she’s almost dead… and then he rebuilds her. Wraps up her arms and legs in bandages (mostly for shock value to the reader since his power would allow him to fully repair her) and then does this every single day, until the heroes bust up his crib and rescue her. Which they only did because of a chance encounter where she got away and asked a hero for help, but he showed up and corralled her back to the Yakuza base. (He was also wanted by the authorities.)

  This child had never smiled in her entire life, and had no memories of being happy, even after her escape. She does smile at the end of the season she’s in (the anime series’ fourth season) and it’s a big deal.

  I’m not saying Eri is the most abused child in fiction, either, but she’s up there.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Jonathan Kent from Superman and Lois is the most abused child in fiction⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Psst… turn off votes/vote weights. ;) I still see the arrows and I can vote, but I don’t see any numbers. Takes the power away from people who would manipulate votes.

  Also, OP’s reputation. Which I don’t care about. I actually recognise OP’s name and yes, they have posted stupid things before that I did not agree with. I will still answer them earnestly because it’s not entirely a bad faith statement (though it’s clearly wrong).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why are Michelin Stars so highly revered when they originated from a tyre company?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  And tyres aren’t cheap, which was the whole point. The Michelin Stars program was to show you what was worth wearing out your tyres more for as opposed to local stuff.

  I would always advocate for finding local businesses to support, but that wouldn’t help a tyre company sell more tyres, now would it?

  As for why other tyre companies didn’t do it, they didn’t need to. You don’t need to buy Michelin tyres to visit restaurants awarded Michelin Stars. The restaurant doesn’t check. They don’t even care. It’s not about the tyre brand for them. Certainly people with other tyre brands will go to places with Michelin Stars… but if you can’t afford Michelin tyres, you probably can’t afford to eat at places with Michelin Stars, either.