I agree. Personally I have made multiple amazon accounts and subscribe to prime on each of them. It costs me more upfront, but I get more cash back on my orders. Plus, by buying different raw materials on different accounts the feds are less likely to discover my moonshine operation

You might just be chronically tired or worn down from the stresses of life. It’s pretty common.

Another thing is as we get older a lot of people will choose more “challenging” adult books and then just be totally bored lol. I read young adult and kids books sometimes (how can I give a book to a child if I haven’t read it myself?) and it’s always surprising to me how they can be ripped through in no time at all.

But in general I think you’re probably right that literacy can decrease with disuse. It seems like most things about the mind and body trend that way

It turns out nobody really thinks often enough for you to get any information

I keep forgetting about it, then being surprised and delighted weekly! Thank you OP

Oh, your link is broken in the post itself I think

She saying she likes having the ability to dip back to her place to rest between bouts of partying

Oh I seem to think you’re a dishonest, instigating time waster, huh? What makes it seem that way, the part where I directly accused you of it?

I’m not sure why you’re so resistant to it but I’ll just move on.

Oh, sorry yeah I can clear that up.

The reason I don’t feel like dancing for you is because you’re dishonest, aggressively self righteous, and obviously just want to fight about something meaningless for no reason.

Spend the extra forty bucks for something official if you don’t trust used, and don’t start dumb semantic arguments with people if you’re gonna want their help after. Not that I think you really do, mind. Just pointing out how ridiculous that whole pretense is.

Anyway, yeah. Probably is best if you moved along

But ultimately none of this is that high stakes

Been saying that for four comments now lol

Yes consoles are often the more economical choice

This right here is the main idea, yeah, even when looking at the used market for PC components. Glad we found our way back, and even ended up in complete agreement at the end

As for the help you requested sifting through listings, used and refurbished are different things, you should know. Refurbished direct from Sony is $400, looks like gamestop will do it for $370. This sets a hard cap on used prices, so you’ll notice all the used listings (that actually sell) are below that.

You should also know they have websites for you to track what actually sells, and not just the listings that are left standing for a while because the price is mediocre. Worth checking that out so you know where to watch, and have a good chance of getting a good price when it appears. Best of luck to you

And “well below” $300 is not $285-$330

You’re equivocating. In that instance I am responding directly to your claim that it’s far fetched to find a used one around the $300 point.

You’ll notice when you quoted me you also excluded the word “dips”. It’s dishonest for you frame my position as misrepresentative of the market by presenting my numbers without the couching I presented them with.

And why do you want to quibble over $50 when it doesn’t affect the discussion at all? Let’s just work with the higher prices, or even the brand new prices for that matter

Same, yeah I mean once you’re established the actual cost of games on steam is ludicrously small depending on your habits. I’m pretty much locked-in to pc gaming simply for the love of indie titles that more often than not do not get published to consoles. Lots of those games are just straight up free

We also have to consider the value the computer itself serves beyond just gaming. If you’re gonna get a $500 ps5 and you’re already going for an $800-$1200 computer, well hey. You could really get the best of both worlds without affecting the budget. Probably could even save money

But I think there’s also a big group that isn’t in that situation. I know plenty of people who rock like a chromebook and the cheapest xbox. Or people who only play like NBA 2k or something. Or people who play 1-2 big titles a year when they get caught in the hype train, and can enjoy them at 4k60fps for the much lower upfront cost

Why not? Like I said the certified refurbished directly from Sony is $399. Plenty of listings up right now for $285-330

But even if we compare new consoles to used PCs I think the conclusion is the same

Certainly, but we’d then have to compare with the used ps5 market, which dips well below $300.

Can a used pc or a build with used components be had with comparable performance to ps5? Even with a much larger budget of say, $800?

A certified refurbished ps5 can be had right at this moment for $399, $450 new. I game on PC for many other reasons but the performance for value is pretty amazing on the ps5

Yeah plenty of people develop these feelings about laser focussed games. Sekiro is a good example. Not gonna be your game if you don’t like parrying. Lots of comments online from such people who write the game off as “spam parry to win” as tho there’s no depth to it.

Huge parry fan on the other hand? Probably your favorite game, and you’re bewildered by those comments because you feel like you could write a novel about how interesting the system is and how rewarding it is to master all the way into your seventh charmless NG+ run.

I think at the end of the day, when the gameplay is simply not catered to our preferences we’re not really going to appreciate what makes it so great at what it is

Virtual Ricochet Projectile :p

It’s the game’s in-game (Crossworlds) terminology for the charged shot that bounces around, yeah. They cover it in the tutorial but the main cast basically ‘nerd emoji’s’ Sergey and they simply refer to it as “balls” for the rest of the game lol

timing-&-angling annoyances

But yeah, like I said, you just don’t like the central mechanic. It’s valid. This is the main point of contention for the minority of people who don’t click with the game, as is evidenced by filtering for negative reviews on steam

But imagine if you didn’t find it to be an annoyance, and instead found it to be inherently satisfying? One of my favorite parts about Crosscode is how unafraid they are to present you with puzzles that are not only difficult to solve in the typical sense, but also difficult to perform once you know what to do. It’s a rare treat, most games instead lean hard only into one direction (purely cerebral puzzling or purely focussed on action)

It’s a game that just gives and gives, and to the contrary of your experience, I found the constant innovation of the puzzles throughout the game is what brought it from A to S tier. I finished the final dungeon wishing there was more game to play. Imagine my delight when the DLC dropped and added another 20 hours of timing & angling goodness. Replayed the game 3 times over the years.

And yeah, frankly we should compare it to Zelda, the most celebrated and beloved puzzle adventure series of all time developed and supported for 40 years by one of the largest and most influential video game companies of all time. No joke, I think this is actually exactly where Crosscode stacks up. It’s up there for me with my favorite Zelda titles

Not a sequel, just their next game! Combat and UI look similar so far. They’re doing dev streams on their discord

I thought crosscode had the best puzzles haha. The way they built it out with the elemental system, the enemies that required puzzle mechanics you had learned, the tight timing where you had to send a ball flying and then race it to various objectives, the myriad of subtle environmental puzzles in the overworld. Could go on and on, but yeah the VRP is the game’s central mechanic so if you simply don’t enjoy lining up your shots then I imagine the game would be pretty rough lol

Crosscode for sure! They have a new game in the works as well, it looks like it will be just as good. Great time to get into it

what is DEXA and why does a scan for osteopenia matter for body fat?

HA. Yes this is the question at the very heart of the issue. Why is a misappropriated bone scan with notoriously inaccurate readings when used to measure body fat championed as the “gold standard” for doing so? A fascinating subject if you pry into it. At the bottom of the rabbit hole is simply the tendency of scammers to create scams. But I sense that further elaboration on my part is not appropriate at the moment.

Otherwise, to be honest I disagree with your advice. (I hope it goes without saying that you are equally free to ignore my words, and that I wish you well either way) I think presenting OP as “the person trying to learn” is a lopsided mischaracterization. They repeatedly asserted specific, grandiose claims without evidence. I directed my comment towards them personally because indeed they personally were the one running damage control for a random brand. Even going so far as to bring up the rest of that company’s product line lol.

Secondly, frankly, people can simply look up the words if they want the full context. Like I said this scam is incredibly well documented. Anyone who is capable of differentiating a company’s marketing from actual research will arrive at the truth quickly. If they can’t, and instead present me with mere marketing material, well hey, we can proceed from there if the attempt appears to be in good faith.

Which is the crux of our issue here. You and others consider OP to be posting in good faith. I do not, for many reasons, and as such continue to stand by exactly what said. I have acknowledged that I may be wrong about that, and the inherent problems that creates, but at the end of everything I simply disagree with that take. I notice someone else responded to OP as well, with a softer tone, and was also ignored. The truth is there simply is no truth whatsoever in what they said, and they quickly realized this and tried to flip it around on me when I called it out.

I do appreciate your insight and perspective despite our disagreement on some matters. Thank you for the discussion

Fair enough yeah. My way with words can absolutely be too serrated at times, in an unproductive way. There’s also the matter of unclear framing in the comment in question, sure.

But I don’t really see that my argument has shifted at any point. The actual content is the same, if perhaps taking it as granted that we will all be on the same page regarding who has the burden of proof. You’re saying that I deflected and instead asked for proof that my point was wrong, when what I did was correctly reposition the argument (“You are the one [making the positive claim here] [thus you are actually the one who needs to bring sources]”). I can see how it can be read the way you describe, but ultimately I don’t think that interpretation is correct. I may be to blame for that, sure, so hopefully continuing to elaborate here when pressed is doing some good to clarify the whole picture.

Some additional context here which is admittedly invisible, is that having immersed myself in the fitness industry, I am constantly presented with such scams lol. So at a certain point I have become quite unapologetic in my condemnation of them all. It’s why I come up with things like, “The reason you can’t find any source for this is because these are all worthless scams” and “whoever told you that is a con artist liar, exile them from your life” lol.

And hopefully by now it can no longer be said that I am refusing any type of deeper delving. The happiness that I feel in continuing to do so is also ongoing, even if by tone one would assume at points that I am impatient or irritated