Yeah, I used to have the mindset that either I loved or hated foods and would only want the ones I loved. But eventually, I realized that there’s a middle category of foods that I don’t go crazy for but aren’t bad, plus two reasons to revisit the ones that I still didn’t like: good cooking can make almost any food delicious, and tastes change as you age (and/or nutrition needs vary).

I have trouble respecting picky eaters after that. As long as your body isn’t trying to reject the food entirely (and I do understand that some people’s bodies will reject things that mine is fine with), it’s just sensations that you can get past. It’s a mental block that if you can get past it, you’ll eventually look back and wonder what was so hard about it.

Though my mindset plays a role. I like novelty more than familiarity (though ironically I don’t think we test our new things enough to really determine their safety… I like the new stuff but also side-eye it).

Hahaha. So, um, what other fucked up answers to secret questions have you used? They are sooo funny!

I’ve been enjoying Tales of Maj’Eyal lately. It’s a roguelike, though you can set it to give several lives or infinite lives. But I’ve been enjoying just going until I die and then rolling a different build. You usually only die because you get overconfident and I’ll leave figuring out the specifics of that to you :)

It also has over 1100 achievements if you like chasing those.

Except there are programs that can edit pdfs fine.

I believe that is the version my work has us use.

Probably projection.

Autosave requires the file be saved on onedrive.

I was going to say that the only way to make it worse is if it showed ads while it autosaved, but autosave itself is literally an ad for onedrive.

If you try any of the other decent options, some of them free, you might come to understand the contempt people have for word, because there’s nothing special about it that the others can’t do, and you have to put up with design decisions made because they have market dominance and can use that to push people towards other shit that makes them money.

Well yeah, because it’s not feasible to deconstruct a baked cake, not because “things that are made shouldn’t be edited”.

That one looks like it’s both. Not sure their eyes can turn that far to the sides, but the sockets seem to be positioned for both good focus ahead and a wide peripheral.

A flock of good sturgeons can strip the flesh from a man’s bones–kidneys included–in seven minutes flat, without even using their hands.

A flock of bad sturgeons take between ten and eleven minutes because they do use their hands, which slows them down to about two thirds speed.

BIOS and UEFI are collaborations between the mobo manufacturer and the CPU manufacturer. The CPU side of it includes things like microcode and code for moving the settings values into the registers (or other location) where they are actually used. The mobo side would be the UI itself and setting up the menus, as well as adding stuff for the other hardware components that need something set up at boot time.

Fwiw, the gigabyte AM5 mobo I use has a responsive UI in the UEFI program, and displays at a decent resolution (though probably not the native one, 1080p would be my guess). Though the mouse might be more usable because it has hardware DPI selection.

Though still apparently solid enough to be an example of how disney sucks at writing.

Things don’t despawn in the real world. What was happening is the contruction workers were looting it after their raid defeated it. Those crane frame pieces add 1000 HP to their home’s structure each, so they are great items to have, especially if another crane were to spawn nearby and managed to use its [Collapse] skill on their home before a raid could defeat it.

Also AI could theoretically do an even better job at ad blocking and also block other annoying shit like autoplay videos and html5 popups (fuck any web dev that uses them without a user click prompting the popup, they are like the old style popups that were a cancer on the early web, only marginally better because they don’t try to bomb your browser/system like they occasionally would do back then).

Though what I’d really like to see is a DOM designed to serve the user’s will rather than the webdevs’.

I think kawaii is in the process of being absorbed, though I’ve mostly seen it in more weeby areas of the internet, so hard to say for sure.

I disagree and point to Metroid Prime as the evidence. Mind you, it was still an amazing game, but it was despite its horrible control scheme (which was still closer to Goldeneye than the modern fps control schemes today).

Halo was the first game I remember having the better modern control scheme (outside of mouse + keyboard, where PC users lucked out that the obvious control scheme was the basis for any good ones, due to the much better precision of mouse aiming).

To be more specific, I mean the one stick moves while the other stick looks scheme. Metroid Prime used a one stick looks left and right, moves forward and back, hold down one button to strafe (with the same stick, around a locked on target), hold down another button to make that stick just look around. Goldeneye had the same basic stick scheme plus hold one button to look, but it was a bit better because it had buttons for straffing. Iirc, the up and down c buttons could be used to look up or down and hold it, which was useful when you were playing split screen against others who knew the levels as well as you did. Just look at the ceiling or floor and they can’t just peek at your screen to tell where to go.

I recall awkward controls being a common thing on the GCN in general, I think due to their attempt to move away from the SNES button scheme entirely. If I had to rank their controllers, I’d only put the GCN controller over the NES (edges were all to sharp; those controllers hurt to use for a long time), Wii remotes (they look the worst IMO and I dislike that the IR gimmick means they have to be used to play Wii games on the Wii U instead of a better controller), and maybe a tie with the Switch controller (specifically the ones attached to the system when using only one half, because it’s awkwardly small and can cause cramping over long periods of play, but it at least has the 4 buttons, which gets it the tie).

The best controllers are pretty much anything that follows the dual shock scheme. It’s a great foundation. I think the PS5 did improve on it, and that the early xbox controllers did the scheme well but failed a bit on the shape (too bulky), but the good ones are all pretty much iterations of the PS2 controller.

Personally, I’m ok with it remaining niche. Reddit got worse as it got bigger. Both in terms of it attracted back the CEO that had left it, now that it looked like he could make money from it (which ultimately led me to leaving the site entirely and just lurking instead of participating if I do go there), and how it attracted every other person looking to either make money from spam or manpulate opinions via disinformation (or selective information). Plus the corruption when the greedy CEO and those looking to just make money worked together. Oh also a higher prevalence of people just looking to troll or fuck with people.

The fediverse mainly just addresses the stuff having to do with the admins. If the admins for one instance get greedy or allow corruption, users can move to a different instance to avoid that admin’s power.

But I don’t think it has anything to solve the other problems, those just require more moderation, which comes with problems of its own, like power tripping mods, users reporting things that don’t need moderation because overworked mods might just remove it anyways or automatically because they can’t handle the volume otherwise (and generally aren’t paid to do that work).

But coming to here from Reddit those years ago was nice because its size meant we not only got away from corrupt admins but also most of the other shit that made reddit crappy outside of how it was run.

I played a lot of games this year, but there were main ones that “stuck” more than others. I’m a patient gamer, so most of these aren’t new releases.

I was playing a lot of Satisfactory earlier in the year. Not much more recently but I know I’m not done with that game. I started a second save to organize things better, though not sure how well I’m accomplishing that. Though this second one uses more trains while the first one had more of a road setup, including a raised highway to access the oil area in the south east. Still nothing like some of the megaatructures I see in other builds online. I try to plan for expansion, so don’t tend to “finish” buildings, but rather build up a frame that can be added to in any direction. I’d give the game a 9/10 overall.

Another game I got into for a bit was TCG Card Shop Simulator. It was fun for a bit but then dropped off hard as the novelty wore off. I think that’s how “pretend to work a job” games generally go for me. Fun and satisfying at first, but then repetitive and unrewarding later on. I’m going through something similar with Ship Graveyard Simulator 2 right now, though I’ll get to that. I’d rate it about a 6.5/10, though it feels like an 8/10 at first before dropping off to more like a 4/10 once it gets old.

I’ll give Healed to Death an honourable mention, even though I moved on from it pretty quickly. It’s a great concept IMO, since sometimes I want to do a “healing the raid” type activity but don’t want to invest the time into a MMO to get there again. But this one isn’t just playing the healer, you also need to manage a constantly revolving party’s gear and switch them to follow mode (where they do no attacking even if they are ranged) to move them out of the fire during fights. So it’s basically healer simulator but your party is always the worst. If they (actually it’s one guy I believe, so impressive job even if it is lacking overall) added better AIs that didn’t need to be micromanaged, it would be much better. I’d give it a 4/10 in its current state but it could be a 9/10 with better execution.

TMNT: Splintered Fate is very similar to Hades (in fact, I’d call it a clone). I liked it but didn’t stick with it for long. 8/10.

Schedule I is another one of those “work that is fun at first but gets old”. Though they’ve added a bunch of stuff since I last played, so I will probably check it out again at some point. Game loop is basically find a spot, produce drugs, maybe modify them by adding shit to them, then selling them either directly or via a dealer. Then use the cash to produce more drugs or get new places (both areas to produce drugs and businesses to launder the proceeds, though I don’t know if laundering even makes a difference at this point), hire workers or buy vehicles and weapons. I believe they added competing cartels in an update since I last played, so it could be more interesting now. 7/10.

Then had a short period where I was interested in speed running, though mostly just against myself, since I’m nowhere close to the top charts on anything. Did a bit with Subnautica (best time to leave in rocket was under 10 hours now iirc) and Grim Dawn (I think I got my best Act 1 time to beat the record full game time lol). No rating for speed running in general (though it does not go well with ADHD unless you hyperfocus on one game), but Subnautica 10/10 and Grim Dawn 8/10 (it’s similar to Diablo).

Widget Inc was another, it’s pretty much an automation game without logistics, where each new production building rises in cost exponentially and prestiging to increase overall production. Apparently they just released a major update yesterday (looks like it adds enemies). Not sure I’ll look into it. 6/10.

Did House Flipper for a bit, which followed the job game pattern of being fun and engaging for a bit and then repetitive. At first, I intended to get the second game, but my interest in the whole thing waned before that. It was cool that they had Kame house in the game, with hidden dragon balls to find. 7/10.

Also was playing some Dark Souls this year off and on. I realized that there was a lot more to the world than just a hard path through tough enemies. Like there’s shops, blacksmiths, and a ton of hidden things. I also tried builds other than highly mobile swords builds and found 2H is actually easier because your hits often stagger the enemies (and do way more damage), so instead of dodging and timing carefully, you can rush in and overwhelm opponents, eliminating members of groups before the others can even react. Got stuck on the gargoyles, though there were some close attempts and I’ll probably get farther the next time I pick it up. 8.5/10.

I 100% Particle Fleet: Emergence. This game is great if you like systematically picking apart an opponent’s position. Took 15.8 hours to get 100% of achievements, though there’s also a bunch of other maps without achievements that I haven’t done yet and will return to when I feel the itch that those games scratch. 7/10.

I didn’t play it for very long but tried Breathedge, going for a subnautica kind of experience. It does feel like it, but I don’t think the game is tuned very well. I’m not sure if it changes later on in the game, but the part I was playing had me constantly returning to the start. I could go farther out as I upgraded, but progress felt stagnant and I gave up on it. The game did set goals at points of interest, but they were pretty far between and I felt like either I didn’t know what to do to extend my range that far or that it would be tedious as hell doing it the way I could see was possible. I’ll give it a 7/10 on the assumption that part of my issue was needing to git gud, but if I was right about it being the tedious route, I’d drop it to a 5/10.

Played a bunch of Dota 2 for a few months. They give you free dota plus access when you start, which gives access to some useful meta information, but then when it expires, the amount they want for a subscription is kinda high. I’ll give credit for coming up with a f2p system that can generate revenue without any p2w (between the dota plus and cosmetics), but the price turned me off and I didn’t feel like playing as much without that info. Maybe I’ll return to it eventually, as I did enjoy the game itself and like that the full hero list is free (unlike LoL with a rotating set of free ones, though I also don’t mind that monetization system, but I’m on Linux so LoL doesn’t really exist anymore). 7/10.

Stuck in Time is an interesting idle-ish game. You play a regressor, so a character for whom the world resets and plays out exactly the same (depending on your actions) each loop, and as you loop, you get better at doing everything. You give a series of actions to perform each loop and can tweak that list as you go for the next loop. 7/10.

Icarus is a survival game on an alien planet that was teraformed and seeded with a bunch of earth life. You start out with stone age tech (though with a modern understanding, like you can build stone age tools for water purification). I like that, even though there’s oxygen on the planet, they still have you in a atmospheric isolation suit because the air contains microbes we can’t breathe safely (though no idea how it would be safe to consume food and water in those conditions, but hey, it’s still more accurate than most “visit alien planet with oxygen” fictions are which usually just do analysis that says it’s safe to breathe the air). The open world mode is very well done, a nice combination of freedom to do what you want plus missions to do something more specific for a reward or direction. I’ve more or less mastered the forest biome and have started branching out into the arctic biome. The wildlife can be tough to deal with before you figure out how to fight certain animals (like bears and polar bears), especially when you’re stuck with stone or iron age weapons. I almost rage quit the game a few times due to a scenario that spawns a bear, which then tends to stick by your corpse and gear. But there are multiple strategies to handle them, so I suggest sticking with it and even looking up how others do it if you’re really stuck (I did for bears, though they get easier to handle with shotguns). 9.5/10.

Nova Drift is a recent game I’ve been playing, a bullet hell roguelike, so far 2.8 hours in, it’s a lot of fun. 8.5/10.

And Ship Graveyard Simulator 2 is the latest in the job games I’ve been playing. It’s following the trend, as I’ve finished tearing down the biggest ship in the vanilla game and am now on the fence about whether to a) finish up the smaller ships I skipped along the way to the biggest, b) buy some DLC with more ships, or c) just move on from this game. I will say that it is more satisfying than other job games I’ve played, but at only 23 hours in, it’s hard to say if it will have more staying power than the others. 8/10.

And on my playstation, I’ve been playing through FFX remastered. FF7 was always the “main” FF in my mind, but I think I like the FFX gang better now. I’m not as into JRPGs and the turn-based combat as I used to be, but don’t mind it so much in this game. 9.5/10.

It’s a stupid argument to begin with. Trademarks should die with the original entitiy that used them. Neither of these companies have anything to do with the original brand but both want to cash in on its recognizability. Both should build their own fucking reputations. I hope they both go broke fighting over this.

I disagree with that. The instance you pick is important. They are a set of mini dictatorships (though not all are run like that in practice, but admins can be dictators on their instance). Some even have built in automated censorship.