Yeah, I played that. Didn’t bother me as much as some boss fights though. They clearly didn’t intend for you to fight that robot, so the only option was to sneak around it and I rather enjoy stealth gameplay.

I have many pet peeves when it comes to games, but the biggest that I can think of off the top of my head is the boss fights in games that don’t let you use the weapons & skills/techniques that you’d used to get to that point. It just pisses me off when they let you develop a character with particular skills and weapons only to force a particular combat style that’s contrary to what you’d used up till that point.

That’s precisely how the debate between myself any my SO was finally ended. The seat stays down now unless in use.

There are multiple reasons why most people don’t shift countries willy-nilly.

Moving, even within the same state is a difficult, stressful, and expensive prospect. Moving to a different country is even more so, and that assumes you have a job lined up when you get there or substantial monetary reserves. Then there are the legal hurdles, which depending on the destination country can be downright daunting. In many countries unless you are a top earner with an in-demand skill-set you are likely to experience significant legal challenges to even achieve temporary residency. And then there are language and cultural differences that can make life difficult once you get there. Unless you have friends/family already in the destination country and/or know the language you can expect it to be rough going for quite a while.

All this would be compounded if you have a family. Not to mention the added difficulty and expense involved with visiting or supporting extended family members or friends back in your original home country after leaving.

Simply put, most people simply can’t move countries whenever the political situation in their home country gets dicey. It’s only after the fighting starts do you see people doing that in significant numbers and at that point they are refugees.

Oh, thanks for letting me know. It appears that I’d inadvertently mangled it. It’s been corrected.

In my second play-through of CP77, I played as a female V just so I could romance Judy. It was great. Even went so far as to decorate V’s apartments with pictures of the two of them together. So when the end came, I was not emotionally prepared for …

While I can’t say I cried, it was probably the closest I’ve come to crying because of a video game.

No

Like a lot of things, the answer is “it depends”. Probably the biggest factor I’ve seen is the willingness to accept their condition and stick with the prescribed medications. The worst cases I’ve seen all involved individuals who either consistently or intermittently refused to acknowledge their condition and take the meds. It usually resulted in some near tragic circumstances that costs them friends, jobs, and the support of loved ones. In one case I know the end result was fully tragic. However, some people who are bipolar have lived mostly normal lives, so not all hope is lost. It just depends on their willingness to deal with their condition head on.

Not sure if you are in the US or not but just so you are aware, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) will not issue a copyright to AI generated content. I don’t know what the laws are outside the US, but other jurisdictions may be similar. The upshot of this is that while you may try to sell AI generated content, you will not be able to enforce any sort of copyright on it, at least within the US and possibly other countries. Many (those whose countries don’t recognize copyrights on AI generated content) will be able to take what you post/sell and sell it or use it as their own without having to pay you anything.

Thousands of hours in Skyrim and I’ve yet to kill a bunny once. To be clear, this is intentional. I wish no ill on the bunnies. Just happy that I’ve somehow managed to not kill one accidentally.

While the concepts outlined in the team’s new paper pave the way toward making travel through space nearing light speed a reality, constructing such an engine is likely something that will only be feasible far in the future, as the present state of technology would not allow for such a device.

People who say that scientists are paid liars clearly need to meet more scientists.

I’ve already scaled back my use owning in part to the LLM (AI) menace and general enshitification, but if my country (USA) went fully authoritarian I would definitely scale back my use of the Internet even more.

LOL, thanks for that article link. Fun read.

I can’t speak authoritatively regarding ocean cruises as I’ve only ever been on a river cruise. It was, from what I’ve come to understand, a very different experience. However, I have become acquainted with a number of regular ocean cruise goers and the authors comments regarding it being part cult and part pyramid scheme rings true in my mind. There’s definitely an almost cult-like adoration of cruise ships and the cruising life-style. Those people plan their lives around their next cruise. The amount of time and money they spend on cruises can be… shocking.

The only other antidote I can give is my experience witnessing what happens when a cruise ship full of tourists let out at what was a few minutes before a relatively quiet historical destination. The place was an ancient coastal fortification (sorry, I won’t give the precise name/location as I prefer to not give out too many details of my life/travels), and for a couple hours prior to the arrival of the cruise ship it was fairly quiet with only a smattering of other tourists there, allowing us to explore the ruins and mull over some of it’s curious architectural features and generally speculate as to how it’s inhabitants may have lived. Suddenly, we heard a cacophony of voices, many of them shouting. Soon, the entire place (it was a sizable, sprawling fortification) was practically overrun with cruise passengers who had apparently been dropped off like toddlers to a daycare by their weary mothers. Seemingly, being on a cruise entitles you to be as loud and obnoxious as possible. It was clear, that many weren’t even aware of what this place was or it’s historical significance based on the many stupid questions we heard blurted out at the top of their lungs. We tried to solder on, but eventually we were forced to retreat out of frustration and embarrassment (most of the cruise goers were clearly from North America just like us). Anyway, it was probably the event that most solidified the idea in my mind that I do not wish to ever take part in an ocean cruise. Despite this event taking place more than two decades ago, the thought of being around people like that nearly 24/7 to this day fills me with profound dread.

1. It would be a pain in the ass
2. You’d still have to post (alt)text for accessibility reasons
3. OCR exists

From my experience 4chan is not a place for any sort of serious discussions. From what I saw there it’s about trying to shock, disgust, and/or troll people as much as possible.

Reddit lost what little interest I had remaining when they announced they would be selling our content to train LLMs. To be clear, they were already on a downward spiral before then with their ever increasing focus on monetizing the platform as much as possible, but the “AI” business was the straw that broke the camel’s back for me.

X4 - Foundations. I’ve played over a thousand hours of this game, and cursed it’s name through much of that gameplay. On the surface it’s a passable first-person space-flight simulator (in the loosest sense of the term) with combat, trading, and various missions. It also supports higher tier empire building and strategy, which I’ve found the most compelling, but that aspect is often at odds with it’s first-person nature. I grit my teeth every time I’ve had to interrupt the act of building out a new station or coordinate an assault on an enemy system in order to personally save a single transport ship from a pirate/Xenon/Kha’ak attack because no matter how good or how many NPC escorts I hire they are never adequate. And if you lose a ship, good luck figuring how which station or trade routes it was servicing. The one saving grace was the ability to pause the game in order to do things like designing a station or directing ships without the concern of being interrupted. Naturally, this drags out the game significantly.

Other major detractors are the clunky, thoroughly inadequate UI (yes, there are mods that help, but they never go far enough) and the laughably bad missions. However, I must stop myself here or I will end up writing a lengthy thesis on this game.

Suffice it to say, it’s a flawed, but oddly addictive game.

Pong on the Atari 2600.

As others have said, the full, medical transition of children isn’t really a thing. Therefor my response is entirely limited to the psychological and limited medical support parents should give to a child while the child matures to the point where full medical transition can then be possible.

That said, I would conditionally consider it child abuse if a parent has the means to help their child mitigate their gender dysphoria issues, but refuses to do so. Where I would not consider it abuse is when there are major financial (i.e. the parents are poor), logistical (they live in a remote area with limited/no internet connectivity), or safety issues (the child or families lives become jeopardized should others in their community learn of the child’s apparent gender change) that would prohibit an otherwise willing parent from doing all that can be done to help their child in this regard. I would still expect a parent to do what they can, but if they cannot help the child, say for example receive all the necessary psychiatric help and/or medications then I would not necessarily fault the parents.

While growing up my family’s home had heating stoves capable of burning both wood and coal. While we primarily burned wood, coal would sometimes be used, particularly on nights when it was really cold out as it tended to burn hotter and usually burned longer than wood of the same volume.