++++1 for Rimworld. The first time I really committed to learning to play that game, I lost almost 100 hours in ~3 weeks (which is a ton for me, since I have kids and a job… I lost a lot of sleep). The best part of Rimworld, is if there’s a vanilla mechanic you don’t like or wish was fleshed out more, there’s a 98% chance someone has made a mod for it.

But yeah, it isn’t for the faint of heart. It definitely has a learning curve and it isn’t super easy to just pick up and play for small amounts here and there. It’s a game that you really need at least 1-2 hours per session.

I’d recommend watching a quick start tutorial video before you start playing, as that’ll also give you an idea on whether or not you’ll like it.

I mean, I think Nintendo is a shitty, awful, greedy corporation, but this is just the tip of the iceberg for how tariffs will effect consumers. It’s bad for the economy and the GOP are a bunch of fucking morons for letting their prophet get to this stage.

And yes, I know all the chums will pipe in that their strategy is for all the billionaires to swoop in and buy up everything cheaply. But that’s very short sighted, as this type of bullshit is causing long-term damage to the US’s soft power and influence. Our allies and trading partners are literally forging new agreements without us, meaning even once the tariffs are over, things are not just going to magically go back to normal, if they ever even do.

It sold almost 470,000 copies on PC in its first week 11 years ago. The number of PC gamers has dramatically increased since then, so comparing launch numbers between now and then isn’t really an apt comparison.

https://www.vgchartz.com/weekly/41889/Global/

If you can’t fathom why I compare a game’s total sales to its competing newcomer, maybe you’re missing the whole point of the specific comment thread I responded to. If you want more recent numbers for a better comparison , EA claims they sold an additional 15 million copies in 2024 alone.

https://www.ign.com/articles/ea-earnings-the-sims-4-manages-to-adds-15-million-new-players-in-2024-despite-being-more-than-10-years-old

The main point is, I do not think EA is sweating quite yet. They’re a shitty, massive corporation and I’m sure they’ll pump out a sequel if they determine the newcomer is actively taking large enough chunks of their player base.

Which is crazy. Just make a new game.

To be fair, their predatory DLC model for Sims 4 means that their primary customer base has hundreds of dollars invested. Abandoning it at this point might piss a ton of them off. It’s also worth considering that a lot of their users aren’t normal gamers. They typically have basic devices that aren’t really geared towards gaming, so a newer game that’s more demanding might further alienate their base.

A million sales is a lot, but it’s nothing compared to over 85 million copies sold that Sims 4 has achieved.

There are other search engines than google. I never even mentioned Google specifically in my responses, that was the top comment. I used the generic term. VPNs and anonymizing extensions also exist. “Appropriate forums” can and are infiltrated/monitored by fascist government agents all the time, so don’t pretend like it’s that much safer unless you’re also taking safety precautions.

Edit: I will add that your best bet is finding a local group initially and going analog from there. But again, those aren’t immune to fascist spies, so I’d recommend learning how civil rights groups of the past/present reduce(d) their risk against infiltration/spying.

It’s gotten worse, I won’t argue that. But basic stuff is still quite easy/straightforward to look up, and using search modifier tools is still incredibly useful in narrowing down results.

Man, it’s crazy how bad it’s gotten with people not knowing how to use search engines, let alone how to effectively use them. If it’s not on their social media platform of choice, it’s simply unattainable information.

Damnit, I just finished watching Alien Romulus and that’s a dad joke worthy for the android in it.

I’m mostly agnostic to it almost all of it. For all I know, the ancient Egyptians were spot on.

but I would settle for one of those hd2d things.

Settle? I’d much prefer these older pixel 2d games in that setting over a full 3d remake.

I think some states are offering workarounds for that dilemma now, but I really do wish the US federal would just legalize it already. We have 24 states that have already legalized it, as well as 3 territories and D.C… Around 33 states have for medical purposes.

When 2/3 of a country has legalized something in some form, it should become the de facto law of the land at the federal level. Those other states can continue keeping it illegal if their citizens so choose, but the Federal government should be forced to at least decriminalize it if it’s something that isn’t directly harming people against their will.

Now hold on, maybe they’re onto something. The highest levels of drug dealers most likely aren’t accepting cash, they’re laundering their money through legitimate fronts. Small time dealers setting up some simple LLC or something for a relatively small fee and funneling money through that could actually shield you better from local law enforcement. I’m pretty sure Cashapp and their ilk offer business accounts nowadays, haven’t checked myself.

We used to do tape backups up until about 6 years ago, but our higher headquarters decided they wanted to go all in on Rubrik instead. I will say that it is a lot easier to maintain and conduct restores from, and we have all of our various sites’ Rubriks backing up to each other for redundancy. But you’re definitely right that tape is far cheaper per GiB of storage than anything else.

What post are you referring to?

Lame. Discord has already been dipping their toes into the enshitification pond the last few years, so I imagine it’s going to get worse as they move closer to going public and moreso afterwards.

I had thought that 5+ years ago, Google, Apple, Meta, etc. all created “master” private keys that would allow them to unencrypt users’ data. At the time, the argument used was to combat CSA material/trafficking. I could be wrong, though. I’ll try looking it up later.

Edit:

I did a quick search while on break at work.

Apple claims they have no master key and do not allow governments direct access to their servers. They only provide data when legally required to;

https://www.apple.com/privacy/government-information-requests/

Google claims the same thing.

As for Meta, I could only find anecdotal Reddit posts that seem to somewhat contradict the E2EE claims from Meta, as an example:

https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/1g6tqg7/meta_ai_scanning_private_conversations/

https://www.reddit.com/r/facebook/comments/1al9dk9/messenger_has_access_to_the_endtoend_encrypted/

So it seems that Meta is likely scanning content before the encryption takes place. So they can still claim that messages are indeed E2EE, but that’s useless when their AI tools are still scanning the content beforehand.

There’s also this recent development:

https://www.medianama.com/2024/03/223-meta-end-to-end-encryption-europe-interoperability-2/

In spite of these processes, Meta has concerns. The blog post said, “Without ownership of both clients (endpoints) we cannot guarantee what a third-party provider does with sent or received messages” and thus cannot assure that messages are safely encrypted and protected. Further they said that with interoperability they would “lose connection level signals that are important for keeping users safe from spam and scams such as TCP fingerprints.”

Finally, Meta said that having a intermediary between third party provider and a Meta server could expose the “chat metadata to the proxy server, which increases the likelihood that this data could be accidentally or intentionally leaked.”

Tldr; I wouldn’t trust Meta’s E2EE.

Sometimes this one place gives me $20 of food before closing when I only intended to spend $5 so the upsell kinda hurts

But that upsell is strictly self-inflicted. If it’s before closing, I can almost guarantee the staff are just hooking you up because a large amount of that food is just going to go to waste since most restaurants require things to get thrown away (e.g. if it’s a deli, some of the meats may have hit their shelf life limit).

I’d just tip what you can comfortably afford and what you feel isn’t insulting (e.g. tipping someone like $0.50 on a $20+ order). I always follow the 15-20% rule, and possibly higher in some circumstances. But I don’t know, I haven’t worked food in 20 years, so maybe the manners/expectations have changed nowadays. Also depends where you live.

HDR in movies/TV shows that support it look phenomenal on a good monitor/TV, especially if you have OLED. Games, on the other hand, I have yet to see any that actually look improved with it.

Agreed. Parents and kids’ childhoods do play a huge role in how they ultimately turn out. However, there are near infinite variables during their development, many of which are completely outside our control. The best thing we can do is like you said, educate, mentor, and physically and emotionally support them as best we can. Sometimes, kids just grow into douchebag adults.

Anyway, OP, at the party you should totally just act like Mac, Charlie, and Dennis when they steal Frank’s credit card and think they’re rich.

Do not do the last part. He’s a minor living in fear. Publicly shaming him like that will will almost certainly create an even worse situation if the asshole is prone to physical violence. The key here is for the kid to survive in the short term and escape once they either can get the courts to grant them emancipation or they turn 18. Then after that, therapy so they can learn to move on and thrive.