I hope they don’t drag out the “will-they, won’t-they” romance suspense for the entire series again. Rumiko Takahashi is infamous for refusing to resolve love plots in her manga series, claiming that the tension keeps people coming back for more. My wife won’t watch any anime series created by her, just because she knows the romance drama will never be resolved by the end.
When I was a child, my mother had to travel to Kentucky for work and I told everyone who asked that she was at “Kentucky Fried Chicken.”
My dad pointed out where Kentucky was on the map, and I almost immediately saw the chef and pan in the state shapes. I’ve never forgotten where Kentucky was since then.
I knew a guy when I served in the US military who got caught cheating in a semi-related way. He got assigned to a base in a new state and his wife refused to relocate their whole family for the few years he’d be assigned there, so he went by himself, leaving his wife and kids in his home state.
Turns out, he was sexting one of his younger subordinates at work. One of his daughters found out when she tried to use an old tablet and found out his account was still synced to it. She saw all his texts updating in real time.
He was ultra-conservative and didn’t believe in divorce, so he was doing everything he could to save his marriage. His wife forced him to install security cameras in every room of his apartment and banned him from going anywhere after work. She knew his schedule and expected him home immediately after work ended. He was basically on house arrest until his job was done and he could move home.
The last I heard, he told his wife the landlord needed to paint the walls, so he removed all the cameras, dunked them in the bathtub, then played dumb when none of them would work when he set them back up again. He was seen inviting young women over to his apartment after that. So, you know… he didn’t learn his lesson.
I remember when this meme was about the early '90s. I just turned 40 like a month ago. Now I just feel super old.
Way back in my senior year of high school (around 2002), we had a debate project where everyone partnered up, picked a controversial topic, picked a side of the topic, and then researched and advocated for their side to the rest of the class, including a Q&A at the end, where the class could challenge their position.
To our surprise, the two hottest girls in our class picked prostitution as their topic, and advocated for it to be legalized. The teacher was also surprised, and curious enough to let them present their topic to the class.
We all thought they were joking with their topic, to get a rise out of all the horny boys. After all, as 17/18 year olds, our experience with prostitution came from movies or TV documentaries, where it was generally shown as a disgusting and degrading act; the last resort for a woman down on her luck.
But the girls’ presentation was incredibly well researched, with figures regarding the number of deaths, violent crime, drugs, and human trafficking involved in illegal prostitution, compared to Nevada’s legalized prostitution since the 1970s, which had practically no numbers to report.
They even did a deep dive into a brothel in Nevada, where the women were paid very well and treated kindly and fair and not like they’re just a piece of meat. Plus, they had regular checkups and practically free health care because of their profession. They even walked through the various services they provided, since some people (they serviced anyone, not just men) wanted other forms of intimacy instead of just sex. It was a safe and judgment-free environment, on both sides of the table, and the women employed there actually wanted to do the job, with the option to quit anytime. Unlike illegal prostitution, which removed the woman’s autonomy over her own body and placed her in dangerous situations, exposed to violence and drugs to barely make a living.
In the end, the girls did a fantastic job on their presentation and convinced a whole class of seniors that prostitution could be an honest and respectable position, and should be legalized. I’ve never looked at it the same way since.
I actually prefer Lemmy because it’s less active. I browse Lemmy’s version of r/All and I have more than enough content to keep me entertained for hours. Plus, when I find a popular thread, I can actually contribute to it and my comments aren’t buried under 10K other comments within a few hours. I feel like I can actually communicate with the community here, instead of shouting into the void like on Reddit.
Personally. I don’t consider it a vacation until I’m cut off from everyone and everything. Let me relax in peace for a while, without distractions.
It’s my first name and a single syllable of my last name. This is my standard user account that all my family and friends know, so if they want to find me online, they know what to look for.
I used to do private user accounts so I could post things that I didn’t want people in my life to find, but then I realized I just didn’t care to use them. I stay true to myself, even online. Anything I post is what I would happily share with anyone in my life anyway, so there’s no reason for me to maintain multiple accounts anymore.
Also, I’m retired now, so it’s not like I need to watch what I say online. I don’t have to fear my boss finding less-than-professional social media content I’ve posted. My friends are all still working and they get really nervous about broadcasting our chats, like when I’m trying to stream our gaming sessions on Twitch. They sometimes vent about their work, and they’re afraid of their employer finding it. (BTW, I don’t record our game sessions.)
One friend in particular will ditch our game nights completely if I mention it’s going to be livestreamed. I live halfway across the country from him and I don’t even know his employer, but he’s paranoid they’ll somehow stumble across my Twitch stream and recognize his voice or something. I’m lucky if I get 2 viewers all night long, so I’m pretty sure he’s safe.
That analogy doesn’t make sense. Volkswagen is a brand; PC is not. Every personal computer is, and always has been, a PC. That’s why we differentiate between desktop PCs and laptop/tablet PCs in the industry. Macs are a type of PC. I know this; I worked IT in the federal govt for 20 years and there’s is no name brand just called “PC.”
What you’re confusing for “PC” is specific name brands of PCs, with specific hardware. When they added PC to software designation back in the day, they were letting you know it was specifically for a personal computer; not a VHS, not a record, not a game cartridge, not a cassette tape, etc. That was the designation, and then there would be more details about what specific hardware/software was required to use it. (e.g. Windows 95 with 512 MB RAM, at least a Pentium III processor, etc.)
When Apple started marketing their PCs, they built their own unique system that wasn’t compatible with other PCs, so they started pushing the Mac vs. PC campaign to separate their equipment from the rest, which eventually culminated in those Mac vs. PC ads many years later. Products started receiving a Mac label instead of PC, to show that they wouldn’t be compatible with the rest of the PCs on the market.
It helped that the rest of the PC industry started standardizing their equipment, to be compatible across all systems. Macs stood out from the rest, by refusing to be compatible with other PCs and forcing their users to stick exclusively with Apple products. It was a very anti-competitive practice, preventing users from sharing across systems, and one of many reasons the federal govt never went with Apple computers; we need to be able to share data with a variety of systems across the globe.
But Macs still fall under the umbrella of a personal computer. They are PCs. Even if they prefer no one calls them that.
On a side note, the EU just forced Apple to standardize their cables to USB-C, so they’re getting rid of their Lightning cables and finally joining the rest of the world in cable standardization. But they’ll fight tooth and nail to prevent any other changes. They’re still fighting against Right to Repair laws, as they want to force you to return to them directly for any maintenance.
As an IT guy in the early 2000s, it was really annoying to see all the “Mac vs. PC” arguments. PC stands for Personal Computer - a Mac is literally a PC! When I was a kid in the '80s-'90s, my schools all used Apple IIe computers (and later versions of Apple products as I got older), but they always called them PCs.
But those Apple ads convincing people to ditch the frumpy old guy PC for the young, hot Mac guy did their job, and pop culture decided that a Mac wasn’t a PC.
I was referring to PlexAmp. It’s decent, works well, but I just liked the interface for Symfonium better. It seemed more functional than PlexAmp when I switched over to it.
I actually haven’t used PlexAmp in a few years, so maybe it’s gotten better lately. I guess I’ll have to compare apps.
I’ve been maintaining a self-hosted music library for so long (30+ years now), there used to not be any tools for editing metadata. I used to have to go into file properties and manually edit the data for each individual MP3 file. Nowadays, I use Mp3tag to manually edit entire albums at a time. I have ADHD though (the hyperfixation kind), so I’ve literally dedicated thousands of hours to manually fixing metadata.
I guess I never bothered to look for more advanced tools to auto-update metadata. I had to go in and manually fix stuff that updated automatically from the Internet in the past, so I guess I stopped trusting online databases. But they’ve really advanced since the last time I went searching for tools, and their databases are a lot more complete in this day and age. I’m gonna play around with some of these programs and see how well they work.
I host my music library through Plex, then use Symfonium on my phone if I want to stream my Plex music remotely, just because I like their interface a little better than Plex’s.
He wasn’t just stealing food. If someone needs food, you look the other way. But non-essentials? That’s a different story.
Honestly, I always felt the $60 price tag for games (now $70+ for AAA titles!) was way too much, so I usually wait about a year or more, then buy it on sale.
So I get to sit back and watch the shitshow when people pre-order games and then get screwed when the game is garbage.
Dragon’s Dogma II was super hyped up recently, and even I got the free character customization demo to pre-build a character. Then it announced day-one microtransactions the day before release and pissed off the gaming community.
Remember when games used to be a finished product on a cartridge/CD? You just bought it at the store for a base price of a video game and that was it. Any bugs found in the game became widely accepted, and maybe even exploited by competitive gamers. But there was no patching, no updates, no DLC. You paid for a game up front and that was it.
I miss those days.
My father just passed in January. He was adamant that we not have a funeral for him. He said there was no point in wasting all that money to shove his body in a hole and leave it there. Instead, he signed up to donate his body to science. As soon as he passed, I called a phone number on a card in his wallet and they came and claimed his body. That was it. Whenever they finish whatever research they’re doing, they’ll cremate his remains and return them.
He said, if we really wanted, we could hold a “celebration of life” for him. Just a small barbeque with friend and family to remember him by. He just asked that his favorite beer was left sitting at an empty chair for him.
I’ve been replaying Prince of Persia, the old 2008 game, for the past few days. I originally owned it for the Xbox 360 back in the day, but I have a copy on Steam now.
The graphics hold up exceptionally well. Plus, someone in the Steam community had a quick edit that allows you to manually adjust the resolution to any size you want, so I’m enjoying it on my 4K monitor now, even though there’s not a 4K option in the video settings. It looks like this game could’ve released in the past 5 years or so; they put a lot of work into the look and feel of it.
This game is basically Assassin’s Creed before Assassin’s Creed released. Most of the game is spent running along walls, climbing things, chaining movements across multiple surfaces, etc. It’s pretty satisfying to play. And the controls are easier and smoother than the early Assassin’s Creed games.
The only downside is that fights are slow, as you need to chain attacks and defend at precise moments to make decent progress. Everyone has a large health bar, but lower enemies can be ended quickly by just shoving them off platforms.
Fortunately, enemies are few and far between. The game mostly revolves around collecting glowing white magic balls floating throughout the levels. When you get enough, the princess following you throughout the game can unlock powers that allow you to navigate new levels. Each level has an end boss to fight, and as long as you chain attacks and defend well, it’s mostly just a game of patience, picking down their health bar a little at a time. The ultimate goal is to clear all the levels and fight the BBEG who was released at the start of the game.
Like I said, there is a princess following you throughout the game. But it’s not an escort quest; quite the opposite really. She uses her magic to ensure you stay safe throughout the entire game. If you fall off a ledge, there’s a brief cutscene of her teleporting after you and then teleporting you back to a safe platform. If you die in battle, she rewinds time a little bit to when you’re still alive and fighting. She’s mostly able to take care of herself, so you don’t need to focus on her.
Back in the day, I got the sense that the prince you play as was just a snarky, sarcastic asshole, constantly harassing and belittling the princess. It always made me think of Link from that awful 1989 Legend of Zelda cartoon. But since playing through again, I see he’s not that bad. Maybe a bit sarcastic at times, definitely uses humor to deflect conversation, but he’s not the raging asshole I remember him being.
I really enjoyed this game 16 years ago, and I’m still enjoying it today!
I just sang it with a syllable pause after “Simpsons.” Either that, or just slip in the word, “and” at the beginning.
Spoilers for the series ahead:
I remember binging the whole series when I was a teenager, and the second movie (Nihao My Concubine) was the first and only time where Akane actually told Ranma she loved him. But only because they were in a nasty predicament and expected to die moments later. She reneged on that confession as soon as they were safe.
I remember being so mad that I had watched the entire series and that retracted confession was the closest they ever got to actually being honest about their feelings toward each other. They didn’t actually get married, or even go on dates together. They obviously cared for each other, but they could never openly say it, choosing to fight with each other instead. It was a very toxic relationship, and it’s hard for me to re-watch the series now, even though I absolutely loved it in my youth.
EDIT: Re-watch, not re-read watch. Stupid autocorrect.