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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: July 3rd, 2023

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  • that respect their time

    I know you’re not talking about old school RPGs. The older games tended to pad playtime by having insane difficulty levels or by requiring grinds. Hell, my favorite JRPG (edit: Legend of Legaia) is specifically more grindy in America, because the devs decided to slash the experience and gold drop rates by like 50% for the American release, and make all of the enemies hit much harder. (Interestingly, the original enemy stats are still present in the game code, and then the game runs some “x1.25” math when the battle starts, to bump all of their stats up to the values that actually get used in combat.) So you need to be a higher level to be able to survive, and you need to grind twice as long to reach those higher levels and to be able to buy better gear. I like it despite the grind, not because of it; In most of my play throughs, I end up using cheats to avoid the grind.

    and aren’t a glorified second job

    I mean, games like Ultima Online, RuneScape, Diablo, and EverQuest have existed since the 90’s. Hell, RuneScape used to be extremely approachable for young players because it didn’t require a good computer or any installs; It just ran directly in your internet browser.

    The bigger reason many adults feel this way is not because games have gotten longer or harder. Adults simply have less time to play. They don’t want to spend a bunch of time researching optimal builds or grinding rank in multiplayer matches. Instead, they want to fall back to the games that they already know how to play. They’re willing to ignore the fact that their favorite single player game requires 10-20 hours of grinding, because it doesn’t feel like work to them. Or if it does, they can just use cheats to get around it. They don’t need to research how to get a specific item, or how to approach a specific boss fight, because they have already done it a dozen times.


  • There’s also the fact that the entire American education system is set up to teach Americans that peaceful protest is the only acceptable form of protest. History classes teach about the American revolution as if it was a fully justified break from an oppressive monarchy… And then as soon as it’s done, there’s a hard turn towards “but that was the only time violence was justified. In every other case, you’re expected to peacefully protest instead. Here, have another portrait of MLK Jr in case you forgot what he looked like.”

    The Black Panthers were barely even a footnote in my history books. There weren’t any mentions of the union riots, where factory workers threatened to drag the owners out of their offices and lynch them. Because those would show that violence is effective.






  • Prion diseases. In order to work properly, proteins have to be folded in a certain way. Misfolded proteins typically don’t work as they should. Prions are misfolded proteins that cause other healthy proteins to misfold when they come into contact with each other. This causes all sorts of medical issues.

    Mad Cow Disease is one of the more infamous prion diseases. In humans, it manifests as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. It basically causes your brain to melt, as the proteins holding it together all get misfolded. It has a 100% fatality rate, typically within 1 year of initial diagnosis. Fatal Insomnia is another prion disease, where the area of the brain that controls sleep is affected, but the body’s need for sleep still persists. You just become totally unable to fall asleep, until you fucking die from sleep deprivation.

    The big issue with prion diseases is that they’re totally 100% incurable and untreatable. Once you have come into contact with the prion, you have a death timer. Prions are also extremely resilient. They aren’t destroyed by time, decomposition, fire, or even caustic chemicals. So they’ll just sit there, waiting for someone to come into contact with them.





  • I have similar feelings about my partner. They’re constantly in and out of the doctor’s office for a variety of medical issues. It would be nice if there were at least some sort of diagnosis. Like we have family and friends say “oh it’s good that the tests for all of those things came back negative” like it somehow means her symptoms will stop since she wasn’t diagnosed. Every time I hear it, the voice in the back of my head goes “how is not knowing the best case scenario?” At least if you have a diagnosis, you can work on treating the root cause.


  • Honestly, as long as you can just coast across, you’ll be fine. The people who get into trouble are the ones who intentionally stop (like maybe a red light across the tracks) and then can’t start again. Even with the giant “do not stop on tracks” signs, people are just stupid and park across them anyways.

    So just make sure you stop before the tracks, or that you have enough speed to get clear of them. There shouldn’t ever really be a scenario where you’re forced to actually stop on the tracks.


  • Yeah, my “Public Transit” option on google maps is entirely greyed out. This is my daily commute to work:

    It’s always entertaining to see the Europeans go “lol just ditch your car, it has to start somewhere” like it wouldn’t require me to move my entire family across town, (and pay 3x as much rent to live in the city…) Like I don’t even have the option of taking public transit, because there are no connecting lines between my home and my job. Literally none. The nearest bus stop is almost as far away as my job, and it’s in the opposite direction.

    And to be clear, that 2+ hour walk would be on a highway with no sidewalk. I’d be dead on day 1. If I wanted to avoid the highway, the walk would be closer to 4.5 hours; The highway is the only direct path.




  • Yeah, one of my most often stated phrases at work is “you can’t make people read.”

    Error pops up, explaining exactly what the issue is and how to fix it? Oh god, let me call IT to see what I need to do. Yeah, you can’t make people read.

    Some piece of equipment or machinery has changed in some meaningful way? Management is quick to go “just hang a sign on it, letting people know the new process.” Nope, you can’t make people read. People will physically move the sign to the side, try to use the machine like they previously did, and get surprised when it doesn’t work as expected.

    Some area is unsafe due to work happening overhead? “Oh just hang signs on the doors, telling people not to come in.” No, you can’t make people read; I have seen people push their way past physical barriers with big “do not enter” signs, just to ask if we’re open. How about we lock the doors, and disable the keyways on all the doors (except one, where we have physical barriers to entry) until the work is completed?

    The floor is freshly painted? People will walk past six different “do not enter - wet paint” signs and physically push past stanchions or barriers, and then act surprised when their shoes stick to the floor.


  • The most frustrating part is that my grocery store has so many eggs. The shelves aren’t empty. In fact, there are cartons on the shelves which are weeks old at this point. And that means supply is outpacing demand at the current prices. People are seeing the increased prices, and simply using less eggs. Which means prices could feasibly drop while we continue to have eggs on the shelves.

    This price increase is just more greedflation. Studies have shown that the bird flu issue should have only increased the price by 12-15%, but here we are with increases in the high triple digits. Why sell ten cartons of eggs at $1 each, when you could simply sell two cartons at $6 each and make more money than if you had sold ten cartons?