Yeah, the 8 ball bothers me, as does the ‘it’s a dumb phone, but you can add a bunch of apps,’ which is… a regular smartphone with no apps installed for the most part. The e-ink screen is unusual and interesting for a phone and I can see the appeal there, but the rest is kind of odd.
I’m guessing the majority of the phones were bought by people who are big fans of Kendrick Lamar. I sort of understand. An (impossible) equivalent to me would be if Stanley Kubrick came out with some piece of tech. I’d be sorely tempted to buy it just because I love Stanley Kubrick.
If the 2019 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare reboot and last year’s sequel were triumphant comebacks, then first impressions of Modern Warfare III’s campaign are a bit more hit-and-miss. The band is still back together, with heroes Price, Soap, Ghost and Gaz all seeing action, with strong support from fan favourites Farah and Keller. What’s more, Modern Warfare III resurrects CoD’s most legendary villain, Makarov. But where Modern Warfare II went big in the style of a Mission Impossible movie, with each dramatic chase and set-piece topping the one before, its sequel seems to be working on a tighter budget, backing up the industry rumours that it started off as an expansion pack.
The big surprise is how the campaign plays out. Roughly half the missions follow the usual Call of Duty template, where you’re hustled along from one objective to the next, blasting every gun-toting goon that wanders into line of sight. There’s plenty of chatter from the rest of the gang, with the action broken up by epic moments and nail-biting battles designed to make you feel like you’re in the middle of a high-tech action thriller.
Expect more open missions in the Modern Warfare III campaign (Activision)
Expect more open missions in the Modern Warfare III campaign (Activision)
The rest of the campaign focuses on what Activision calls ‘open combat missions’, where you’re given a wider stretch of ground to cover and a series of objectives you can tackle in almost any order. Troops on patrol will do their best to stop you, with reinforcements always just around the corner, but search around and you’ll find supply drops crammed with armour plating, special weapons and a range of useful gizmos. Much of this will be more familiar from Call of Duty: Warzone and its DMC missions than anything we’ve seen before in single-player CoD.
The freedom is both intoxicating and mildly disconcerting, as you learn to sneak and blast your way around the maps without some commander telling you where to go and what to do. There are some real thrills to be had in choosing how to deal with an objective, then improvising as your plan goes horribly wrong. Yet there’s also a feeling that the lack of orchestration changes the pace and makes the action less exciting, partly because the AI, while smart and perfectly responsive, is never as good at creating all-action moments as a talented game designer.
Another tense firefight in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III (Activision)
Another tense firefight in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III (Activision)
It’s also a bit annoying that a lack of checkpointing can mean tackling huge chunks of these missions repeatedly, even if it helps that you can keep equipment you’ve discovered in previous attempts and add them to your loadout for the next one. Strong missions, silly storylines
There are plenty of times when the new mix of classic CoD and open exploration works, with some cracking missions like the extraction of one of Makarov’s lieutenants from a crumbling high rise, picking your way through armed patrols and sneaky traps. Another mission in the fog-bound arctic tundra features tense face-offs with enemy snipers and some brilliant set-piece battles.
Call of Duty’s gunplay remains as good as ever, and you’ll get a chance to play with some fantastic weapons, including chunky rifles blessed with thermal scopes and a crossbow that fires exploding bolts. Sure, it all gets a bit ridiculous when your team is telling you to keep a low profile while you’re busy blowing enemies to smithereens, but then subtlety and realism have never been strong points.
The campaign brings back fan favourite characters, but doesn’t do enough with them (Activision)
The campaign brings back fan favourite characters, but doesn’t do enough with them (Activision)
Yet while there’s plenty of fun to be had, the new campaign falls short in two key areas. Firstly, you can tackle it in six to eight hours, and more accomplished players will have it cracked in less. Secondly, the story being told doesn’t quite add up. It doesn’t have the big soap-opera twists and turns of Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare II, but it also wastes key characters and throws in ridiculous alliances that, even to our heroes, make no sense at all. There’s a sense here of fan service gone wrong; that the creators feel pulling in your favourite heroes and villains is enough, even if you don’t have any clear idea of what you’re going to do with them.
The result is an oddly schizophrenic CoD campaign that’s fun while it lasts, but only intermittently hits the highs of its immediate predecessors. We’ll wait to play more of the multiplayer and the much-anticipated return of Zombies mode, but right now Modern Warfare III looks like a decent-enough Call of Duty, when we were hoping for another all-time great.
So my wife teaches at a college / trade school, and has worked there for about 5 years. Previously she was a field engineer with a lot of experience working with the trades. She prefers to be “one of the boys” but can also play the professional role.
So at first she figured “well we are all adults here” and treated everyone as peers who were there to learn. It didn’t take long for her to be frustrated and burned out. She told me it’s too hard emotionally to think of the students as people, much like how livestock cannot be pets (we have a farm, lol).
There’s an endless stream of them and some are good, some are bad, some don’t try and some give it their best but don’t have what it takes. Some ask her if she’s on Tinder or have an Onlyfans… Ick. You can’t get them all through the course and you can’t develop relationships with them or their stress and emotions will rub off on you.
So she started putting up this firm barrier where she is the teacher and they are the students. Changed her style of dress from business casual to “unapproachable career woman”, puts on that teacher attitude, and is enjoying her life a lot more.
However it results in that odd behaviour mentioned above. If we go out to a casual pub to eat pub food and drink beer, when one of her students walks in the door she’s practically hiding under the table. “They can’t see me like this! I don’t have my makeup on, I’m wearing jeans, I’m drinking beer from a can! They have to think of me as a teacher, not an ordinary person!”
X CEO Linda Yaccarino stepped in to remove a pro-Hitler post::X CEO Linda Yaccarino helped get a viral pro-Hitler tweet taken down, The Information reported. Hate speech has risen on X since Elon Musk’s takeover.
Does anyone else feel like saying Elon is worse than Hitler would be more acceptable than saying Hitler was better than Elon? It strikes me as odd because they are essentially the same statement but they just hit so differently.
Oddly enough, the “lite” subscription was introduced in some other countries during the time they shut it off in the launch countries.
I wonder if they’re testing willingness to spend using the cheaper sub, then pulling it if it turns out people are likely to buy the pricier plan once the lower tier isn’t available anymore?
The world isn’t odd - it’s just that people on forums don’t represent the wider public, especially on a site like lemmy. That’s why boycots don’t work too - most often than not it’s a loud minority screaming into the void.
Yeah it’s definitely sus. I went looking for some other stories that were regional news where I live and found other regional news papers also picking things up. It is a bit odd nobody else had run this story; it’s possibly an exclusive others are still trying to catch up on.
The author is on Mastodon, and I just sent her a message about this Lemmy post. So, I suppose we’ll see.
I personally think you are wrong since the original source is reputable. BUT I too find it a bit odd no one else seems to have picked up on this sensational piece.
If nothing else, perhaps we can use your doubt to raise awareness of this story.
I never cared for them. The technology and techniques have improved vastly over the years but given the choice I’m fine with the flat experience. Oddly enough I only play VR games anymore.
I have recently played 3 games that have forced a lengthy, unskippable tutorial section that runs for several hours of the game, just to unlock the most basic functions like buying the items, customizing features, multiplayer, and even 2-player split screen modes....
Tesla Vision fails as owners complain of Model 3 cameras fogging up in cold weather::A number of Tesla owners have taken to Reddit after their front cameras fogged up and stopped working in cold weather, leaving several features, including the US$10,000 FSD Beta, inoperable. Tesla has declined to assist to these customers,...
I apologize if this has been asked a ton, still migrating to lemmy. Still stuck on crappy reddit out of habbit, but i’ve found the lemmy universe to be much more helpful....
I've been using Clevo laptops for years. Large user base, lots of great Linux support. I just run Ubuntu, haven't had many issues (and no critical issues).
They usually get rebranded, and I've gotten them through IBuyPower, Origin, and... can't remember the other one. My most recent one was just straight up marketed as a Clevo, got it on Amazon.
You might have one or two odd issues (like having to install custom code to configure the RGB key backlights), but there are plenty of users to ask for assistance on various forums and repos.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is warning Israel that it risks destroying an eventual possibility for peace unless it acts swiftly to improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza for Palestinian civilians as it intensifies its war against Hamas.
I think people have a really warped view of war on the internet. That’s exactly what any army on earth would do including and especially Hamas. Only the United States and Israel are known to not. Coalition partners literally think we are odd for taking civilian considerations into account as much as we do. You can find tens thousands of examples of this from the current war in Ukraine, ISIS fight, and any other going back to WWII.
I don’t know what to tell you. You are just simply wrong about this. War is just bad overall. That doesn’t make it a war crime. That has a pretty high burden of proof. You can run this through any military lawyer of any military. I know more than my fair share and work closely with them.
“No one is looking at us or the extent of this disaster or the crimes that we are experiencing in Gaza,” he said. Still holding his microphone, he slid off his flak jacket marked with the word PRESS and unstrapped his helmet....
When you bomb 4000 children and have a "odd" recurring record of journalists dying as "collateral damage" then maybe the advocacy work could be put to better use elsewhere. Nobody has sympathy for Hamas here.
They don’t seem to play nice with autostart, on kde at least. Updates sometimes need to retry a couple of times. Other than that no problems on my end. I’m using a read only root fedora spin and mainly distrobox-export apps on arch for anything missing, or rpm-ostree for the odd thing I need to start at boot.
Scarlett Johansson hits AI app with legal action for cloning her voice in an ad | An AI-generated version of Scarlett Johansson’s voice appeared in an online ad without her consent.::Scarlett Johansson is taking legal action against an AI app developer for using her likeness in an online ad without her consent.
That’s a rather odd reply. I don’t think the ideology you express is very common. If you were to tell me more, I would read it.
I did not give any views on celebrities. I simply asked what the public benefit was. Do I infer correctly that, to you, the public benefit is beside that point, but that your view on this is determined by your views of celebrities?
Please note that fraud is criminal, which makes it hard to see what exactly you would want to be done about “shady scam artists”.
Note also that “massive corporations” can only benefit here if there is a kind of property right, similar to a trademark or a copyright. EG The Disney corporation still owns the rights to “Mickey Mouse”, created in 1928. That’s the same year in which Fleming discovered Penicillin, which is owned by no one. So if you have a problem with “massive corporations” extracting wealth, here, you very much need to rethink your position.
Hamas-run government says Israeli strikes on Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza killed at least 195 Palestinians, with concerns raised by the UN that these could constitute war crimes....
Interesting, where can I read more about this? Wikipedia says:
The Likud was formed on 13 September 1973 as a secular party by an alliance of several right-wing parties prior to that year's legislative election—Herut, the Liberal Party, the Free Centre, the National List, and the Movement for Greater Israel.
Nothing about Lehi.
the party of Netanyahu. Currently in power. Their own party members are all over Israeli TV advocating for the genocide of all Palestinians in Gaza and cheering on every bombardment.
I suspect that's hyperbole and they're not literally saying they want genocide, but still, right-wingers gonna right-wing. Assholes, the lot of 'em.
The number one target of most Jewish militant groups was the British. As they were the authority in mandate Palestine. You are truly ignorant of history.
From the article my comment was regarding:
the majority of the Yishuv [the body of Jewish residents in Palestine] ... had abandoned the struggle against the British when World War II broke out to join in fighting their common enemy of Nazi Germany.
The article goes on at great lengths about how the other militant groups were at odds with Lehi regarding their attempts at alignment with Germany. Who's ignorant?
Are Romulans just Vulcans with emotions?
Kendrick Lamar's company just dropped a limited-edition 'dumb' phone. It's already sold out. (www.businessinsider.com)
Kendrick Lamar enters the tech space with a collaboration on the Light Phone 2. Light phones offer minimalistic experiences without apps or color.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III Single-Player Campaign Reviews
IGN 4/10....
Second teacher at Missouri school on leave over OnlyFans side hustle: 'It’s working out ok so far' (news.yahoo.com)
A second teacher at a high school in Missouri was put on leave after administrators discovered her OnlyFans side hustle....
X CEO Linda Yaccarino stepped in to remove a pro-Hitler post (www.businessinsider.com)
X CEO Linda Yaccarino stepped in to remove a pro-Hitler post::X CEO Linda Yaccarino helped get a viral pro-Hitler tweet taken down, The Information reported. Hate speech has risen on X since Elon Musk’s takeover.
Arm Acquires Minority Stake in Raspberry Pi (www.anandtech.com)
YouTube's plan backfires, people are installing better ad blockers (www.androidauthority.com)
cross-posted from: lemdro.id/post/2883134 (!android)
For scented candle lovers everywhere... (lemmy.world)
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Why Was This 11-Year-Old Brownsville ISD Honor Student Put in Solitary For Three Days? (www.texasobserver.org)
A fifth-grader reported being bullied by his principal. Five days later, he was handcuffed and detained.
Does anyone actually like 3d movies?
I’m rewatching Final Destination....
Games that require you to unlock the basic functions of the game can suck my nuts.
I have recently played 3 games that have forced a lengthy, unskippable tutorial section that runs for several hours of the game, just to unlock the most basic functions like buying the items, customizing features, multiplayer, and even 2-player split screen modes....
Tesla Vision fails as owners complain of Model 3 cameras fogging up in cold weather (www.notebookcheck.net)
Tesla Vision fails as owners complain of Model 3 cameras fogging up in cold weather::A number of Tesla owners have taken to Reddit after their front cameras fogged up and stopped working in cold weather, leaving several features, including the US$10,000 FSD Beta, inoperable. Tesla has declined to assist to these customers,...
How to choose a computer/laptop/device that is better compatible with linux? Are there certain things to look out for when shopping?
I apologize if this has been asked a ton, still migrating to lemmy. Still stuck on crappy reddit out of habbit, but i’ve found the lemmy universe to be much more helpful....
Blinken warns Israel that humanitarian conditions in Gaza must improve to have 'partners for peace' (apnews.com)
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is warning Israel that it risks destroying an eventual possibility for peace unless it acts swiftly to improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza for Palestinian civilians as it intensifies its war against Hamas.
Emotional outburst on live TV from Gaza over death of reporter encapsulates collective grief (abcnews.go.com)
“No one is looking at us or the extent of this disaster or the crimes that we are experiencing in Gaza,” he said. Still holding his microphone, he slid off his flak jacket marked with the word PRESS and unstrapped his helmet....
Xbox users call out Activision and Microsoft for "vomit inducing" full-screen Modern Warfare 3 ad (www.eurogamer.net)
What has been your experience with Flatpak?
I’ve been involved with Linux for a long time, and Flatpak almost seems too good to be true:...
Scarlett Johansson hits AI app with legal action for cloning her voice in an ad | An AI-generated version of Scarlett Johansson’s voice appeared in an online ad without her consent. (www.theverge.com)
Scarlett Johansson hits AI app with legal action for cloning her voice in an ad | An AI-generated version of Scarlett Johansson’s voice appeared in an online ad without her consent.::Scarlett Johansson is taking legal action against an AI app developer for using her likeness in an online ad without her consent.
Gaza says Israel's strikes on refugee camp kill more than 195 people (www.reuters.com)
Hamas-run government says Israeli strikes on Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza killed at least 195 Palestinians, with concerns raised by the UN that these could constitute war crimes....