pigeonburger
11hr ago
It wasn't a frivolous lawsuit, just a stupid one.
Indeed; I can easily see how that suit could win on its own merit. But the cops did a severe injustice to Afroman and in trying to get justice for a much less severe retaliation they gave a jury the power to make things right.
pigeonburger
12hr ago
He was kind of stuck there; if he said yes he'd admit into court being a cuck, and if he said no he'd weaken his claim that the songs are to be taken seriously.
I got a new phone last weekend and I got one of those stretching controller grip for it (Gamesir G8), and put some effort into building a nice cosy gaming console with it at the center. I also finally have a phone with a relatively generous amount of storage, so I can stretch my legs. I have installed a few weeks ago a ROMM instance, so emulation roms are shared and downloadable from my phone at the press of a button, I have Gamenative installed with a bunch of PC indie games, my main mobile game I'm playing these days (Arknight Endfield) and a whole lot of game streaming services setup.
When it comes to game streaming, it's become more viable for me than I originally thought it would. In December and January I had to prepare to go to visit my mother-in-law in europe for about a month and obviously I couldn't take my gaming computer or Xbox with me so I gave Nvidia GeForce Now a try and was pleasantly surprised by how well it worked. I obviously wouldn't play fighting games on there, but most everything else worked fine, provided it's supported by the service (the business model for GeForce Now is that you can play games you already own on digital game stores there if they are supported by GeForce Now, with some popular recent games requiring a subscription fee and additional performance, queue priority and gaming session length limit on paid subscriptions). I also have Amazon Prime so I do have some additional games included with Luna, that's nice. On my previous phone I couldn't get a low latency enough connection to Luna to make action games playable but now on my new phone I do, so I might play through the recent-ish Indiana Jones game there, and maybe Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, that's included too. My wife wanted to play some horror games and I have an Xbox but didn't want to pay the extortionate rate for new games, so I got a game pass subscription that was on sale, and honestly the cloud streaming there is solid as well; if someone who didn't have an extensive Steam catalog and had no console wanted to play some games I think they could be quite satisfied by that service.
But the most interesting to me is how much local streaming improved. I put some effort into getting Apollo (Sunshine) setup on my gaming PC and action games are totally playable on there, no problem. Even streaming over the internet, on a VPN (Wiregard) has negligible latency for shooters. Works well with HDR (or as well as Windows ever does), 120hz... Only concession I make is that I play at a ratio of 720p since the way I hold my phone it makes no difference whether it's 720p or QHD and it helps my aging gaming rig. I also tried in the last months streaming from my Xbox Series S, but that had been disappointing, but I think maybe my new phone might be doing better there now too. I have also set up streaming the other way around with the Xbox, from my PC to it, so at least when Microsoft finally gives up on it, it'll still be useful to stream PC games to my TV.
So on the subject of games, since this is the gaming thread, I got Marathon recently; for those unaware it's yet another extraction shooter, but from Bungie. I had played Ark Raiders for a few months before, so it wasn't my first extraction shooter, but Marathon immediately came up with the reputation of being the opposite to Ark Raiders when it comes to player interaction. TBH, it also works for me. I mostly play solo, and there's no additional mental load from interacting with the players since you can pretty much just turn off your mic and treat them all the same as you treat PvE enemies, the only interaction modes seem to be shoot on sight or avoid you, I've yet to see a single interaction that wasn't that. The Rook class is also an interesting mechanic for solo players like me; you can chose to play as a relatively weak class that can only play solo, starts with free kit and are dropped later into an already started team game. There's lower stakes for you, since you don't lose your own loadout, so you run around and pick the bones off the fights that happened earlier in the game, maybe once in a while you can also ambush some players. Since you are a Rook, other players know they are unlikely to find anything worth the fight on you, and you have an ability that allows you to avoid PvE fights. It's a nice way to build your kit.
The shooting feels good, it's Bungie, no surprise that they know what they're doing with that. It's very different in shooting feel from Ark Raiders, the guns all feel very lethal. In Ark Raiders, I felt like if I didn't have my favorite guns I was useless, but in Marathon any gun you pick up feels like it'll do the job just fine. The gear advantage can certainly make a difference, but it's also easily neutralized by just shooting better. The visual language of the game is also gorgeous (again, it's Bungie). I'm not sure yet if and how it slots in with the fever dream that is the existing Marathon lore, but what is there feels mysterious and meaty.
pigeonburger
3d ago
Eh, it doesn't necessarily have to be, you just need one documentary to get mainstream traction and then the vultures will swoop down to make more content about it (or re-emphasise old content that wasn't too popular at release) "while it's hot". The same happened in recent years with the MJ child molestation accusations and the Chernobyl incident.
pigeonburger
5d ago
I see that kind of attitude a lot and my personal impression is that it's one of the ways for the people on the left who are unable to ignore the negative externalities of uncontrolled immigration to express opposition to it in a way that preserves their "compassionate" self-image. See, the problem is not the heckin' enriching immigration we've been supporting, it's that evil capitalists perverted it into modern slavery.
pigeonburger
8d ago
but that they are unwilling to accept the steps necessary to get there. So we're trapped in a permanent state of exception.
Are they even, or are they insufficiently critical of media reporting yet?
pigeonburger
10d ago
I've been aware of this phrase for years, mostly from Reddit. Is there a canonical definition, however? I say this with genuine curiosity / bewilderment. Capitalism, to my mind, is an economic condition bounded by certain conditions. I didn't know (and I am dubious) about there being a temporal aspect to it.
The people who use the phrase use it in the way you would say "late-stage cancer". You can infer what they think of capitalism from that. It's usually college-age people or redditors who used that kind of phrasing initially, though it's become common enough that you see it pop up elsewhere from people who don't necessarily hate capitalism (often in the way capitalism is blamed for the excesses of consumerism). In general, it expresses that capitalism is unsustainable and that the thing that's called an example of late-stage capitalism is an example of how a dying capitalist system will break down and fail, or of how capitalism ends up killing its host.
pigeonburger
10d ago
Reviews in general have that problem, but if you focus on the text instead of the score you can usually get some useful information. Ignore the Karens complaining about rude employees or the manager not taking their problems seriously, or the 5 star reviews probably prompted by employees or bots and focus on unique information. A Google Maps review recently warned me off an automated carwash that was malfunctioning on one side, with the reviewer having pictures of his car half washed as proof.
pigeonburger
10d ago
That's just magical thinking.
Cool, can you tell me what neat gadgets are kept at Area 51?
The testimony of Maduro's guards makes it sound like the US actually deployed magic against them (probably only sufficiently advanced technology, but what's the difference in practice?) It also read differently from other known accounts of incapacitating device prototypes I've read. Clearly the US has cards up its sleeve, I wouldn't be so sure of what they are and aren't.
Being a powerful guy and still being uncertain if it'll be enough to survive, or save the day? THAT starts to scare me.
To me, relative powerlessness still counts.
Also, I don't mean necessarily personal physical weakness as powerlessness; I still see the uncertain and unknown as aspects of powerlessness.
I wouldn't consider Aliens' main genre to be horror because for the most part the marines don't feel helpless, but the parts that do feel more like horror are the ones where they relatively weakened; the first engagement where they have their ammo taken from them and can't see shit for instance. Ripley arming up with the flamethrower duct taped to the pulse rifle, or with the power loader, to confront the Queen and save Newt feels more like a victory lap, a crowning moment of badassery, when the character regains her power. Just like you know right from the start when you hear Hudson's cocky "I am the ultimate badass" speech that he will definitely die, you already know when you see Ripley riding that elevator looking actually badass that she will definitely win.
I feel like movies that really elevate horror to a new level are those that play with that powerlessness in less straightforward way, and as you mention the powerlessness can be being unable or uncertain to be able to protect a loved one. The Exorcist is a great example, the movie is a giant metaphor for parents feeling powerless to help a sick kid. Rosemary's Baby is a uniquely feminine horror movie, in that the powerlessness it targets is towards the loss of social power. A woman's power is in being able to compel people around her to care about and for her. In Rosemary's Baby, a woman that is used to having the status and deference given to her as a middle-class wife in a time and place that valued that role, has that power stripped away from her as she transitions into a motherhood role. Suddenly her worries and well-being are being ignored. No one listens to her. She's no longer the target of everyone's care and attentions, the baby is.
pigeonburger
11d ago
And that movie only 'works' because of that brief period where CRT TVs, VHS tapes, and landline phones were the most common tech of the day. I don't think you could remake it effectively now!
It could be argued that One Missed Call is an attempt at making The Ring for the cellphone generation. Of course, it's not nearly as good, but it's not the worst either.
And as I understand it the recent crop of horror films avoid this issue by making the horror come from psychological conditions that may or may not have a literal personification onscreen, sort of a 'the monster is inside you the whole time' concept, or more abstract "racism/sexism/right wing politics/relationship drama" as the looming allegorical danger.
This can be done in a fresh way, though; The Babadook is very on the nose, but the fact that it's something we can definitely sympathize with makes it work more than the monster was the personification of something we all reflexively condemn. The Boogeyman attempts it with another sympathetic metaphor but with much less skill.
And the concept of being 'locked in' and conscious whilst your body is compelled to commit violence against people you care about is indeed horrifying.
It indeed taps into the root of horror: powerlessness.
Exclusivity is what makes luxury goods sell for such a high price, the reputation for high quality, outside of sometimes the very initial push that started the company, is a cope so that one does not have to admit they are that so vain and easily manipulated that they bought a technologically inferior watch (automatics are technologically inferior to quartz watches) at car prices just to keep up with the joneses. Expensive materials and manufacturing techniques are also a cope. If Burberry had kept the exact same quality and sold their products cheaper at prices chavs could now afford, upper-class people would still have turned away from the brand; they were buying because it separated them from people like chavs.
In the digital world, exclusivity is difficult. Digital data is freely copiable. The only way you could get exclusivity of a digital product is through a database; a company would sell you an exclusive digital product and would ensure its exclusivity through control over their database. But that requires that you trust these people when they claim their product will be kept exclusive and that you trust that they will still exist in the future. If you bought an expensive pet or mount in a MMORPG, that lasts until the servers shut down, and if someone makes a server emulator for the game then anyone can have the pet or mount.
NFTs enabled true exclusivity in the digital world; not only is the ownership of an NFT on the ledger not copiable, but you can also guarantee exclusivity through code; the code itself limits issuance, meaning that at no point the issuer can decide to make your NFT mass market and destroy its value. What Yugo Labs and other collectible people figured is that the crypto crowd is ironic enough that they would be willing to purchase exclusivity tethered to something essentially worthless (generated ugly monkey avatars), after it took off they started adding a marketing cope to keep attracting less irony-pilled buyers to drive up prices, that it was actually membership into an club, that it gave you access to unique experiences, etc...
Note that I'm defending monkey pictures here not in the sense that I think they're a good thing, but that they're no more vapid than luxury goods that sell on being purposefully exclusive, they just have less of a fig leaf to hide that vapidness.
There's NFTs as in "monkey pictures" and NFTs as the technologies. NFTs enable digital property that escapes the issue of control over the database. Right now, digital ownership is based on a) the database admins will not tamper with "your property" and b) if they did, courts will adjudicate the issue and force the database owners to restore your property. In that context, it being your actual property is debatable, it's more of a contract you entered with the company to get certain services that is kept by that same company. The contract's original, binding version is not yours, the original is in the company's control and possession. NFTs means that this contract, for instance, digital show tickets, is inscribed onto a public ledger that is hardened against tampering, not just an entry in Ticketmaster's database. A house is actually a great example of what an NFT could represent; owning a house is not having the house in your pocket, it's having the deed in your name. An NFT could be the deed to a house; it would be unique, impossible to (practically) forge, kept on a public, safe ledger (again, not just an entry in someone's database), and there's all sort of neat stuff you could do with it; keys and locks that unlock with proof of ownership (or a revokable proof of access from the owner). Legal and financial transactions (like mortgages) that are adjudicated automatically by code, etc... Whether we'll get there anytime soon is questionable, but that's what the technology enables. Anything unique could be represented as an NFT.
The monkey picture kind of NFT is mostly just playing around with the economic effect of introducing exclusivity to a market, untethered from any other inherent usage value. The image is typically not even part of the NFT (as in, it's not written into the blockchain, as that is expensive, at least if you want to keep it on the base chain; it's kept externally), so what you're paying for is more like certificate. Often the image is created by an algorithm, so if you have the code and your token's properties you can recreate the image. You could recreate any of the other images too, but you wouldn't have the certificate to them. You can then use proof of ownership of that certificate programatically, for instance your ownership of a monkey could be verified by anyone and used as a ticket to access a party where you get your retinas burned.
pigeonburger
13d ago
Thanks! Personally, I'd reciprocate but sadly I doubt Canadians as a whole would, at least not these days.
pigeonburger
14d ago
It's also an added, compounding layer of difficulty and complexity launching and landing on them. A country being able to build carriers is impressive, but not as impressive as one that's able to launch planes like from them like clockwork with few accidents bar rounding errors, under stressful war conditions.
pigeonburger
15d ago
If nothing else she's useful to keep around in a visible role rhetorically, as she can be paraded as an example of Democrats moving so far left they're leaving their own behind.
pigeonburger
15d ago
I actually thought the right wing infighting a ~month ago had died down, but maybe it's coming back?
It's not, extremely online shock jockeys that only extremely online shock jockeys of both sides care about are not representative.
Sorry I couldn't find a link to the same clip that was not reposted by another extremely online shock jockey, but the right seems pretty united right now. https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/2029586732614557943
pigeonburger
16d ago
There's nothing in it for them to do this, and in fact it does cost them.
Short term perhaps, but long term they gain healthier relationships with half the human population and the opportunity for many of them to meet guys that could be great matches for them but who have been conditioned to never approach them out of fear of the social consequences.
pigeonburger
17d ago
The reason I would recommend one that was a lease return or in that range is that he's thinking of a car in terms of how it would improve his love life; a car that looks close to new helps more in that case. Also, it's likely still under warranty (at least partly), if it's a lease return, it's had one owner, it's been likely maintained by the dealership at recommended intervals and you can assume it hasn't been beaten up too bad. If you just need reliable transportation and want to pay the least then I agree, a proven survivor in the deep part of the bathtub curve is a great choice.
pigeonburger
17d ago
If the plan is to enjoy it, oh absolutely. OP just didn't strike as someone who wants a fun car since I figured he'd already have a car or know he wants one if he was.
pigeonburger
18d ago
Absolutely get a car, a used one, in the "lease return" range (3-5 years old) of a popular, reliable Japanese brand. Toyota, Honda, Subaru. They'll be fairly expensive at first, but if you need to sell them in 2 years they'll barely have depreciated.
pigeonburger
18d ago
I don't think there's much that's deliberate in him anymore, he was already lolcow levels of crazy before Trump's first presidency (remember "JUST DO IT"?), but that just pushed him off the edge and he has yet to recover. He's kind of the negative universe Kanye West.
pigeonburger
18d ago
It marks the end of the genre I think of as 80s action, creates the 'modern', 90s-and-onwards genre
Yeah, Terminator 2 was the template until The Matrix came out.
pigeonburger
18d ago
What pisses me off is the constant drive to create sequels that recontextualize the originals as only one part of a larger narrative with higher stakes that is almost always less creative than the original vision. It actively damages story of the original unless you decide to be arbitrary with canon. See, for instance, Alien. The monster being just a monster that can hunt humans effectively is very good. It is actively harmed if you actually need to know that it was found because David in Alien Covenant did blah blah blah... and in Prometheus we learn that the xenomorphs are actually... None of that shit matters, let the monster be a monster, I don't WANT the answers, the unknown is better.
A sequel should be another story. For instance, in Ghostbusters II, they don't suddenly decide that actually, that Goser in first movie was just Vigo's lieutenant and now the real battle is happening. For all we know, the stakes are similar between the two movies, maybe even lower in the second one (after all, they're no longer facing a literal god of antiquity).
It's not just gaming, I could watch a lot of movies and shows for free on Tubi, or endless Youtube videos or live streams on Twitch. A single subscription gives you access to almost all of music. And there's a lot you could listen to for free online as well. And public libraries have been making reading essentially free for longer than any other media.
But yeah, even gaming now. There's pretty reasonably free to play gacha games. Competitive online games that can be played for free unless you desperately want cosmetics (DOTA2, Fortnite, Overwatch 2...). Epic Game Store has its weekly free games (most of the time it's unknown indie stuff, but around the holidays in January and December they give some pretty big ones; last holidays people got Hogwarts Legacy, Total War Three Kingdoms, Bloodstained, Disco Elysium...). If you already pay for Amazon Prime, you get free games on Epic Game Store, GOG and their own service Luna, and you get free streaming for some free games. You don't even really need gaming hardware anymore! There's Luna as I mentionned, but also Geforce Now lets you stream many games you own on PC games stores for free! So you can get a game for free on the Epic Game Store and then stream it for free on Geforce Now! Not every game, mind you, but I bet you could easily find games for every taste.
And that's just the free stuff, if you're willing to pay "a little" you get a lot! Ultimately, if you're able to resist FOMO, and aren't a Nintendo only/mostly gamer, you can spend very little and play a lot of games. Eventually, everything (except Nintendo games) ends up on deep sales.
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