horse

Also, I refuse to ignore this in any conversation about Counter Strike, it is fucked up.

Honestly, that’s fair. Valve gets a lot of good will for making good games, but the fact that they happily allow Counter-Strike to enable what’s essentially a casino for kids has got to be one of the most scummy things in video game monetisation.

Ignoring all the monetisation, which is basically a pipeline into gambling addiction for kids.

Counter-Strike players largely don’t want major change. The reason people play it is because it hasn’t changed much in the last 30 years or so that it’s been a thing. I barely switch on my PC anymore these days, so my information is largely dated, but Valve does add things from time to time, besides skins: new guns and maps, minor alterations to the mechanics and ruleset, new game modes (most of which didn’t survive the transition to CS2 unfortunately), seasonal events, etc.

Bigger changes like vehicles and destruction would turn the game into something else entirely and even if they were only available in a side mode, I reckon Valve has numbers showing that not enough people would care enough to actually play it (like the Battle Royal mode, which I’m still salty they removed).

You could argue that Valve is doing the bare minimum to keep the game alive and generating revenue from the gambling mechanics and I’d probably agree, but also I don’t think the game needs to change at a faster pace.

Gamers think they hate video game companies, when they really just hate capitalism.

I straight up don’t want to do it, even for my friends. But since they are my friends I would do it anyway. I’d definitely rather they paid for movers though.

I paid for movers my last two moves. It was expensive, but if you can afford it, it’s totally worth it in my opinion. Instead of the move taking a whole weekend it was done in half a day both times.

And it’s true: nobody wants to help with that shit. My friends offered, but the relief on their faces when I told them there was no need, was clearly visible.

Personally I don’t forward ports for anything that only I am supposed to access (such as SSH). Instead I connect to my home network via VPN and establish the connection from the inside. I just have an allow all from the VPN subnet to my main one, but you could also allow things selectively if you don’t want everything accessible via VPN. Using the VPN has the added bonus of ensuring everything is going through a secure tunnel if I’m connecting from a public network.

I agree with practicing harm reduction if you’re going to do drugs, but it’s still not worth it imo. I spent much of my twenties experimenting with all kinds of drugs and experienced a lot because of them. From party drugs to wild psychedelic experiences, none of it was actually worth a damn. With psychedelics especially it can feel profound and spiritual at the time, but it’s really not. It’s just your brain chemistry reacting to the drugs. Nothing special or worthwhile about it and you’re better off going outside and experiencing real things and forming relationships with people.

they’re taking pictures of a specific Bianchi model and asking what year it was manufactured

And the answer they get will probably be wrong, or at least wrong often enough that you can’t trust it without looking it up yourself. And even if these things do get good enough people will still won’t be using it frequently enough to want to wear a device on their face to do it, when they can already do it better on their phone.

iOS has this with “Guided Access”. It’s in the accessibility options.

To me it seems like a thing that sounds kinda cool on paper, but is not actually that useful in practice. We already have the ability to do real time translations or point the camera at something to get more information via AI with our smartphones, but who actually uses that on the regular? It’s just not useful or accurate enough in its current state and having it always available as a HUD isn’t going to change that imo. Being able to point a camera at something and have AI tell me “that’s a red bicycle” is a cool novelty the first few times, but I already knew that information just by looking at it. And if I’m trying to communicate with someone in a foreign language using my phone to translate for me, I’ll just feel like a dork.

Same. Lots of people like Star Wars. That means there are plenty of Torrents to choose from. I unsubbed a while back and it’s really no problem.

I recommend setting up Sonarr and Plex or Jellyfin for fully automated copyright infringement. It’s like having a free streaming service that has everything you want to watch as soon as it releases.

I thought the implication was that a muslim wouldn’t vote for a woman, because she is a woman. Re-reading it, I understand the comment to be an implicit reference to the last US presidential election and Harris’ stance on Israel/Gaza. Not being American myself, I don’t really have much to say about that particular dilemma.

That’s a terrible example. I was talking about having a choice between two evils and not an evil and a woman.

I mean I understand the cause and effect, but that’s not what the question was about. It was about morality. And I’ve explained how I feel about that.

What if fascist A plans to kill innocent group X and fascist B plans to kill innocent group Y, but group X is more people? Should I vote for fascist B then? How would you explain that to group Y, that is now being killed because of your choice, but would have been fine otherwise? Do you think they will be okay with your numbers argument?

That’s an extreme example, but I never said I would allow a fascist to win, because I disliked the other candidate’s policy on public transit, just that there is a line somewhere that I won’t cross, even if it means a somehow “less bad” outcome.

Yes. But what I’m trying to say is that whether you are an active participant in the outcome matters too, not just the outcome itself.

Your example doesn’t fit since it doesn’t involve doing something myself (as opposed to something happening to me) and there is no morality involved the choices.

The reason I wouldn’t do something evil to try to prevent something even more evil, is because I don’t believe in doing evil things, even with good intentions. Sometimes I think it’s better to just let the trolley do its thing, rather than getting involved, if there are no good choices.

Depends how evil the lesser evil is. There is a point where even the less bad choice is so bad I refuse to choose at all, even if it means a worse outcome overall.

In politics for example I might vote for a party close to the centre, despite being far left myself, if it is the only tactically sound choice to prevent a fascist from being elected, but I wouldn’t vote for a fascist to prevent an even worse fascist.

There really aren’t that many premium experiences on mobile that are worth a damn imo. They’re usually just ports of games from other platforms that control terribly on a touch screen. For me to be willing to pay for a mobile game it has to be a good game and a good fit for the platform. Apart from Balatro not much comes to mind.

That’s kind of my point. Some people buy 10000€ world tour level bikes, but you can get a road bike with hydraulic disc brakes new for under 2000€ which will still be a very good bike and be future proof for years to come. And you can get much lower than that if you are willing to go used and ride something a bit older eg. with rim brakes and that will also be an excellent bike, perhaps better than a new one for 2k€.

Cycling is an expensive hobby (just like gaming), but it only gets ridiculously expensive when people buy into the marketing and want the newest, highest end stuff. Which is fine and of course you can get some marginal gains out of it. It’s like buying a 5090: your games will run a bit better, but you can get just as much enjoyment out of an older card for a fraction of the cost.

Technically you can “play” other things too (there are competitors that offer the similar experiences), including GTA. But nobody is Zwifting for the gameplay anyway. It’s not really a game and just something to make indoor cycling in the off season a little bit less dull. Personally I don’t think it’s worth the subscription and would rather just watch a movie.