CerebralHawks

Ah — it should have said that. I would not have made that point had I known that. However, thinking about it… the logic stands well enough. The problem there is, the argument can be made that the person will not stop with the fake doll, though I suppose that argument could be made in either case.

Yeah, I guess it doesn’t have bots. Or still use the first/OG Unreal Engine. Or use any of the old maps.

But, multiplayer showcasing the latest Unreal Engine? Yeah, it’s pretty much what it is.

Mass appeal and quality are not necessarily the same thing, though with Mario Kart and Red Dead, people will say both qualify.

If my favourite games ever wind up on a top 10 list by sales, I’ve done something wrong. It’s fine to like what everyone else likes. Most things “everyone” likes were manufactured to be liked by the greatest number of people. You’re not wrong for liking a popular game, it was marketed to you. The new Taylor Swift album was fire, and I’m not even a Swiftie. No shame there, it’s a mass marketed product. It would be weirder if a mass market product didn’t connect with you.

But if you don’t have favourites that not everyone likes… well, that makes for a very boring person. Again, there’s nothing wrong with liking popular things. It’s only weird if you don’t venture out into the darker corners of, in this case gaming, and find something you like that not many other people do, or at least not a majority. A lot of people like the first Deus Ex game, it has kind of a cult following, and it was Game of the Year in 2000, but, it’s still not a best seller. Unreal Tournament (the first one from 1999, also a GOTY) was an amazing multiplayer shooter that does not get enough love today. It’s currently called “Fortnite” and it’s very popular, and it gets a lot of shit for being overly commercialised… but I also like that my UT’99 skills translate directly to it. I’m way better at Fortnite than I have any right being, and better than I’m proud to admit. I don’t build, I don’t buy skins, but I will circle strafe around your walls and double tap you with a pistol or SMG just like I did 26 years ago in the OG. (Notably, before most Fortnite players were born.) (And no, I don’t play Zero Build, I just play the regular mode, let people waste time building, if they’re building they’re not shooting, and if there’s an opponent on my screen, that’s all I’m doing.)

Mario Kart isn’t even the best kart racer. That would be Sonic All-Stars Transformed, not least of which because it’s playable on non-Nintendo platforms. The OG Mario Kart was the best Mario Kart that I’ve played. It’s quite dated, but I think, still good.

Same thing with Amazon. While Amazon sells stuff directly, they also allow people of questionable status to sell things as well, and of questionable quality of the merchandise.

As for sex dolls, it may be an embarrassing thing, but I think these “weird” people would be better off using a sex doll than going out and assaulting someone. They’re likely buying that product because they have a hard time meeting people the right way, so they want the quickest means to their ends. I don’t think that’s something we should be taking away — are we telling them that they need to put forth the effort to get a RL girlfriend… or are we delegating them to the next quickest way to get what they want, even if that is to assault a stranger.

As far as who the Union can hold accountable — Shein itself is the obvious answer. If the app or the people under it won’t regulate their content, they accept full accountability by default. The EU can ban the site/app from doing business with the entire bloc if any part of it violates their rules and the site won’t regulate itself.

So is it also okay to be good at difficult games without bashing people who aren’t good at difficult games, or nah?

Democrats are trying to end the shutdown. They offered to give the ACA just a year to be reassessed, but they won’t let the Republicans take health care from people. That’s their line.

I know this is just a meme, but I have the answer to this, if anyone cares to hear it.

Most people probably think writing is like reading, linear, chapter one, then chapter two, and so on. And some writers do write like this. Stephen King writes like that. He also strongly believes if the story doesn’t hold up, it wasn’t good enough to write. And then he drops it. His bibliography speaks for itself.

It doesn’t have to be like that, though. There are two kinds of writers. Pantsers — as in, they write by the seat of their pants — is the first kind. Then you have plotters. A lot of what they write isn’t for the story. They plot their course in advance. They write a story bible about the characters and setting — this is easier to stick to than the actual story because it’s just notes, no pressure. They also write out an outline, like a table of contents.

The most interesting thing about plotters is, they don’t start the story at the beginning. They write their favorite scenes first, then they connect them. As they write more, divine more context, they rewrite their favorite scenes, shaping them as they go. The connecting parts might only get written once, but those memorable scenes? They keep coming back to them, refining them so they’re just right, so the reader never forgets them.

There are programs designed for plotters. Pantsers can just use Word, Google Docs, or even Notepad/TextEdit or the like. Plotters can use those (Vonnegut used note cards!), but there are dedicated tools. Scrivener is one of them. It lets you write scenes, write about characters, build an outline, and at the end you can put it all together. I think the software is kind of confusing, so I didn’t buy a license, but it has a generous 60 day trial.

Anything Soulslike

I had to work all through COVID-19 because of my job status. So while I understand people had time to sit around and play video games and “git gud”… I ain’t got the time.

I much more appreciate Animal Crossing. Also a pandemic game (the one on Switch) but it respects your time. Sort of. I mean you can just pick it up for an hour and run around catching bugs or fishing (I’d only do this in handheld mode, the lag with any controller and the HDMI connection make it impossible to catch 3/4/5-star rarity fish), so it’s a fun little chill game. And it’s not like you have to start over if you miss a fish on your lure. Or even if you get jumped by a scorpion or tarantula or wasp (yes you can “die” in Animal Crossing, but really, you just get knocked out and you return to your house and lose nothing except the chance to catch the bug and sell it to the little raccoons in the shop).

Do I “suck at games”? Eh, maybe. I got no excuse, I’ve been gaming since the 80s. I played NES games. I played computer and Atari games before that (and many computer games since). I’ve really got no excuse for sucking at hard games except I have a full time job, but the truth is… I just don’t care. I can beat Bethesda games. I can beat Cyberpunk. There are games I can play and I enjoy them. I haven’t beaten Blue Prince yet (that one is also very hard, but not punishing… you just aren’t advancing without a lot of luck and/or a very specific strategy… but a “losing” run is still fun and can still teach you something… a thing I think Soulslike games could learn from. They don’t have to be easy if a losing run is still fun. The difference is, the Soulslike is repetitive because you have to do repetitive things very well (blind QTEs to parry and dodge, for example), whereas Blue Prince is a highly randomised puzzle game you’re not going to win unless a very specific order of cards (blueprints) are drawn for you. You CAN manipulate the pool, but not enough to guarantee a win.

Is he not doing to the brown people and the gays what she voted for him for, though?

I heard someone say that Trump is the most honest (or the first honest) president and at first it made me mad, but then I realised he is doing exactly what he said he’d do. He went after brown people and he’s attacking what he calls “woke” culture (which is really just civil rights). He is also striving to make America great again — for rich white men. He never said he’d make it great again for the working class. Just for guys like him and Epstein and the like.

I feel like living on top of a Costco wouldn’t be as effective, though.

For everything Costco carries, they typically only have the most popular variety. You want coffee? We have Folgers and Maxwell House, and fuck you in particular if you like Colombian, we have regular and decaf.

You want a blueberry muffin? Here’s a dozen for six bucks, but they expire tomorrow. Even at one a day that’s not healthy (they’re like 600+ calories each) but they don’t last 12 days, they last 1 day, maybe 2.

Okay so it’s fine if you live in a massive home with your six kids and 18 grandkids. Those are apartments above that Costco. They are not benefiting from it. Then you gotta pay like $100 a year to even shop there.

I hear heir hot dogs are good though! I mean the ones you can get for a buck and a half in their food court. And from what I hear they don’t check membership, so you can walk in (anyone can go in, you need membership to check out), get a hot dog or two, and leave. So I’m told. Costco doesn’t have stores around me. I’ve been in a couple and I’ve been in similar stores (Price Club and Sam’s Club, same thing, different owners).

I agree with you, but I think we all know Bethesda’s best game is Fallout 3 Morrowind, and if you know these games, it’s really obvious in the picture. Even without the picture, we know what the gaming press believes is Bethesda’s best game. It’s either Skyrim (based on sales numbers) or Morrowind (based on wide opinion). However, Skyrim shipped with controller support; therefore, it can safely be ruled out. So did Fallout 3, for that matter.

I didn’t much care for Morrowind when it was new, but I respect the hell out of some of the decisions it made, especially after seeing those decisions reversed and spat upon by later TES games. Like how you have to cast all of like two spells to become Archmage in Skyrim. Whereas in Morrowind, if you did not have certain skills, you could not advance in guilds. You could JOIN all of them. But you needed to actually train in those areas to advance. New players would typically go Legion (army) and Fighter’s Guild because that’s easy and relatively straightforward; building out a pure mage build takes more work (and makes you way more squishy).

I’m happy to see OpenMW is on Mac and Linux as well as Windows. I have Macs, and I also have an Xbox Series X. I own Morrowind on GOG, I might own it on Steam, I’m not sure… and I’m pretty sure I own as many Bethesda games on Xbox as are available (except Starfield, played that trash on GamePass but never bought it… I did play that trash though).

I’m saying it’s bad when anyone does it. If you think rape is okay for countries X, Y, and Z, but you draw the line at Israel doing it, you don’t have a problem with rape, you have a problem with Israel. And that’s fine. They’re certainly doing bad shit. I’m saying I have a problem with rape and anyone doing it.

That’s sad. I think we need a forum for writers to learn how to write LGBTQ+ characters without fetishising their sexuality. So I have a story in my head, have had it for 30 years, never really got to write it. My main villain is a gay man. This is problematic for a couple reasons. One, he’s gay and he’s a villain, so am I saying being gay is bad? No, I’m not — the character has just always been gay in my head. I’ve had this character long before Heroes was a thing, but Zachary Quinto’s character Sylar on that show definitely helped inspire the character’s direction (10-15 years after the character was conceived). The second reason is that I myself am not gay, so the hurdle I face is, how do I present this character as sympathetic to gay youth who are looking for someone to resonate with? It’s not just about his sexuality. It’s not even about his sexuality — I have never, in 30 years, envisioned a male partner for this character. His favorite person in the world is actually his sister, and they have a close bond, and certain things with her motivate his entire character arc. I see this guy as someone who does not pursue romantic relationships, but he does happen to be a gay man. I don’t know if I’ll ever write this story. And, to be clear, there’s a story where he’s the hero (or something of an anti-hero), and then he’s sort of a villain, or at least he wants something opposite of what the hero wants, there’s a powerful object and they both want it, and he’s willing to do lots of terrible things to get it because, in his world, those things don’t matter. And the universe justifies it to him.

But, forget my story, it may never get told. What I want to see is a forum or a training course where writers can learn to write characters who are maybe not like them. I hear straight people writing LGBTQ+ as problematic and it shouldn’t be. Same with men writing women (or girls). I think there’s a stigma about writing non-men if you’re a man, and I think rather than stigmatising it, we should be educating people on how to do it right. Encourage inclusion to get inclusion… if you want inclusion (as opposed to bitching about a lack thereof).

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.

I don’t mean to excuse Israel with whataboutism, but I feel like most militaries do this? Americans have done it, the Israeli have done it, others as well… I’m sure a few like the Candians and Swiss don’t, but I would assume them to be the exception more than the rule.

It’s never excusable when anyone does it and it should absolutely be called out.

They mean an NSFW tag (standard practice for social media) or CW (content warning) (standard practice for Lemmy).

I wholeheartedly agree though, it shouldn’t be hidden. I’m also not opposed to warning people about triggering content on a social network where people who have such trauma tend to flock because their concerns are addressed better.

I can see these things being used in places like hotel check-in… or fast food order taking.

Any time you could use a kiosk but prefer to speak to a “person”, they’ll just replace a real person with a robot.

I think, people are assuming OP’s assertion that they are “going mainstream” means “you will have one in your home.” I see it more like “you will interact with one on a semi-regular basis depending on your line of work” and “humanity will start to accept this as the new normal.”

I don’t expect working families to ever have a humanoid robot doing their chores for them.

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.

Yes, but have you ever done speakerphone on a MacBook? It’s like they’re in the room with you.

Of course, carrying around a phone is a bit easier than carrying around a whole ass laptop, elegant as they may be…

In theory, maybe.

In practice, it has the same result. If everyone who did not vote for Trump, voted for Harris, we would not be where we are.

Most people who voted for Trump stand by their vote, for one reason or another. You can ask them to apologise but they won’t. It’s the ones who didn’t vote for Harris and hedged their bet and are now saying “not my fault! I didn’t vote for him!” who are the real problem. Because they didn’t want Trump but they also laid down and let Trump have the victory, for some reason or another.

Look, for fucking decades my mother would not vote. She saw Kennedy killed (and/or heard about it) when she was 9 and she swears he was the last good president. (I didn’t like Kennedy all that much. My “last good American president” was Franklin Delano Roosevelt.) Anyway, after Trump’s first term, she voted in both the last elections. For Biden in 2020 and Harris in 2024. She wanted Clinton to win in 2016 but did not go vote, she figured enough people would vote for her over Trump. When Trump won, she stopped sitting on the fence and started getting out and voting. And she’s like 70-something. Granted she’s retired. But if you have the legal right to vote, you should. I strongly believe that. And if you don’t vote, I absolutely believe you don’t get to sit there and say “well I didn’t vote for the guy who won.”