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@Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg avatar

Dark_Arc

@[email protected]

Hiker, software engineer (primarily C++, Java, and Python), Minecraft modder, hunter (of the Hunt Showdown variety), biker, adoptive Akronite, and general doer of assorted things.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

Why is everything in consumer / American life so fucking shitty now - and companies literally just say 'oh bc profit margins' and we're now expected to swallow that and sympathize?

like I went to taco bell and they didn’t even have napkins out. they had the other stuff just no napkins, I assume because some fucking ghoul noticed people liked taking them for their cars so now we just don’t get napkins! so they can save $100 per quarter rather than provide the barest minimum quality of life features.

Dark_Arc ,
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We also all (in the US especially) collectively choose Chinese made products over domestic options as if the only consequence is that we pay less money and are thus a savvy customer … helping destroy a huge portion of the middle class that worked in manufacturing.

Maybe the robots would’ve gotten things where they are now eventually, but nowhere near as fast.

Dark_Arc ,
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We can… We’re just too busy arguing over immigration, what gay/trans people and women are allowed to do, where the line is between church and state, and to what extent guns should be a part of our society… Oh and Trump.

Dark_Arc ,
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postandcourier.com/…/article_7f4e1a0a-66b2-11ee-8…

Looks like he was ruled unqualified due to his reputation last month but he remains on as a judge until the end of his term… And could remain if the state congress keeps him… But the article paints a picture that that’s very unlikely.

So the good news is that the guy seems to be on borrowed time, the bad news is that he’s got a history of letting monsters back out on the street.

Dark_Arc ,
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Shit, the Bible says that the rapture would happen before a particular apostle would die. Yet, here we are without a 2000 year old apostle.

Wait what, really?

'Morale is at an all-time low': Ex-Googler writes scathing latter slamming layoffs and 'eroded' culture (www.businessinsider.com)

‘Morale is at an all-time low’: Ex-Googler writes scathing latter slamming layoffs and ‘eroded’ culture::An ex-Googler wrote a 1,500-word letter criticizing the firm and CEO Sundar Pichai’s lack of “visionary leadership.”

Dark_Arc , (edited )
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They did produce something of value, Stadia, but instead of investing in it further with some exclusive games to show off its capabilities and lure more people and developers in … or just outright signing a deal to paying for the development cost to port some hits or Call of Duty to Stadia, they wrote it off, refunded everything, and shut it down.

It’s a major fail, they tried next to nothing to fix their messaging issues, failed to invest in areas that would’ve made a difference, and didn’t stick with it to challenge people’s beliefs that Stadia was going to be shut down.

They should’ve:

  • Made a guarantee that if they shut down within the next 10 years, every game you play will be refunded in full.
  • Did a hardware upgrade to bring Stadia past consoles.
  • Never shut down their in house studios and invested even more into bringing other studios in.
  • Really upsold the cheat free experience (with no client side anticheat spyware necessary) and the ability for the platform to make even the games with the worst netcode stable multiplayer experiences.
  • Made something like steam workshop for Stadia and worked with at least one developer to prove that it works (they said they were open to mods, but they needed developers to take interest)
  • Potentially resolved the “you have to buy all your games again” concern by offering to buy everything on the platform in your steam, xbox, or PlayStation library 1 time (so you couldn’t “import” multiple times or buy new games on another platform and then import them for free).

Imagine if people literally just pressed a few buttons on their old gaming computer and suddenly could play a bunch of their steam library in the cloud with better graphics for free on any device they wanted. I can’t imagine folks wouldn’t have stuck around with that kind of a deal.

Dark_Arc ,
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This would have given people confidence, but really doesn’t reflect on Google as a whole, and just reinforces that they as a company will kill things at a moment’s notice.

I’ve typed up several replies to this but really, I think this is completely meaningless statement. It’s a hypothetical example, and regardless of how it “reflects on Google”, it would’ve addressed the concern and proved they were in it for the long-haul. Perception is reality and the perception of many was that Google is flaky.

You don’t fix perception by pretending perception issues don’t exist, you take actions that prove those perception issues either never were or no longer are valid concerns. Google making a promise like this would’ve worked towards that goal.

I think in addition to all your points, they could have distanced Stadia from Google, and announced a new gaming company under the Alphabet umbrella. The hardware bundles they were selling with Chromecasts probably wouldn’t have been a thing, but I’m not sure if that would have been a bad thing. Having stadia as a completely separate entity from Google may have given it the breathing room it needed to get a good user base, without the stigma of google killing products.

Maybe; ultimately I don’t think this would’ve mattered much. Google is Alphabet’s software tech company and YouTube integration and general Google Ecosystem integration were selling points. If they ever properly leveraged having the Google Assistant integrate into games (like they posed) that would’ve been a really cool feature.

I mean it tooks Stadia like 3 years to get a search bar. It screamed of a promising product that had a rocky launch, and rather than investing in it (ala No Man’s Sky) they reduced it to a skeleton crew and went all shocked pikachu when that didn’t result in something gamers embraced.

Dark_Arc ,
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Hey no. The state does not elect that [insert your own expletives here], just one heavily gerrymandered district. That guy would not stand a chance in a state wide election and he knows it.

There’s a reason the Republicans are so keen on keeping our state heavily gerrymandered; they would not get near the representation they do without their dirty tricks, and with a bit of luck within the next couple of years the map drawing process will be ripped out of their hands by another ballot measure.

‘Energy independent’ Uruguay runs on 100% renewables for four straight months (theprogressplaybook.com)

“with wind the single-biggest contributor… Power production costs have declined “by almost half” … And the clean energy sector has created 50,000 new jobs… Ask me what was the impact on the electricity sector in Uruguay after this tragic war in Europe — zero.”

Dark_Arc ,
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Electrically independent doesn’t have the same ring to it

Dark_Arc ,
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And PeerTube has effectively no competitive monetization model. If there was a hope of eventually making more money there, I’m sure people would start paying attention, but there isn’t.

Overwhelming when people can get something for free or for cheap, they do.

Dark_Arc ,
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I mean yeah but also no. I think anyone would be the former guy (i.e., the Sam on the left) over the latter if given the choice.

Dark_Arc ,
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You think a verification via a video call is cheaper than SMS…?

That’s not to mention the potential concerns that would arise around the possibility of signal storing (some portion of) the video…

Dark_Arc ,
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Nope, just saying phone numbers are far from the only option.

What would you think would be an appropriate alternative to easily verify chat accounts that’s cheaper than validating phone numbers?

It’s the cheaper portion that’s the issue. There are “other options”, but they’re not cheaper and/or they have their own issues.

I didn’t touch the email case because email addresses can be so rapidly created (even out of thin air via a catch all style inbox) there’s nothing to it.

Dark_Arc ,
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Yeah… Diabotical looked like a promising update to AFPS (which is what I’d say you’re describing), but it didn’t change enough of the formula (I blame the weapon design choices) and it launched on EGS instead of steam.

Dark_Arc ,
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Crytek is working on Crysis 4 🙂

Dark_Arc ,
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Checkout Distance on Steam. It’s definitely up there in terms of unique racing games.

Split/Second was also a really interesting take on racing, I wish they had released DLCs or something to add more maps, the way that game worked with the crazy visuals to open up new shortcuts and modify the track midrace was an awesome idea

Dark_Arc ,
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Diabotical did do teams and objectives. I think what really needs to happen to bring the genre back to life though is for there to be a really good campaign tied to a really good multiplayer experience that brings in some new weapon design instead of the Quake meta weapons with minor tweaks.

UT4 was looking promising in terms of multiplayer before Epic killed the project.

You might like roboquest it’s a very recent game that’s not PvP but has a lot of AFPS characteristics.

IDK, kinda feels like we need idSoftware to do a new Quake with new story and new weapons even if they don’t call it Quake (or to release a DOOM multiplayer experience that is actually fun).

Dark_Arc ,
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Never heard of blur, looked it up, you might enjoy store.steampowered.com/app/…/GRIP_Combat_Racing/

Dark_Arc , (edited )
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A) that’s a simulation, the Ronald Reagan is still very much afloat

B) you totally missed the point … which wasn’t “my boat is bigger (read better) than your boat” but “if you touch my boat, we gonna have a problem… and you ain’t gonna like the outcome”

Dark_Arc ,
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Sounds exactly like the kind of guy we shouldn’t be giving a platform

Dark_Arc ,
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Lots of reasons, Chinese knockoffs hurting US chip R&D, Chinese knockoffs with backdoors that compromise national security, lack of domestic production options which puts the US in danger of being cut off from chips at war time (and chips are used in everything from domestic devices to military devices/weapons systems).

Imagine if the Chinese government could just remote command and control some percentage of the military’s weapon systems and make them fire on the US homeland because the chips have backdoors. Or imagine if they could intercept critical military or otherwise wartime communications. Even beyond military uses, chips could be used for corporate espionage revealing trade secrets further accelerating China’s ability to create knockoff products.

Dark_Arc ,
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I think that’s an important observation. The next question though is, how do we fix that? … and I don’t have a good answer

Dark_Arc ,
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I think this was part of the gamble with lifetime appointments… Sure you don’t have to maintain your position … but you also don’t have to maintain your position. Which means if you get in, there’s nobody not even folks that helped you that you’re subservient to.

In other words … even the minority of justices that Trump appointed can backstab Trump at any moment without any repercussions.

Dark_Arc ,
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That’s such nonsense… Like Israel answers to Biden anyways.

This is exactly what Hamas wanted from what I’ve been reading. They set themselves up so that anyone who wanted to come after them would have to commit atrocious acts. Ugh.

Dark_Arc ,
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www.uswatersystems.com is who I went with.

If you’re willing to spend $$$ and want professional installation, www.kinetico.com might be worth a look as well.

Dark_Arc ,
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To be fair, in this case there is increased value because eventually the engine work requirements will be significantly reduced.

This isn’t rewrite everything, it’s basically remove a bunch of stuff and rewrite the rest.

Dark_Arc ,
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Maybe, it might also be easier to reuse portions of the engine in Unreal Engine while using parts of Unreal (like its rendering engine) than you think though. Assets largely I’d expect to be portable or at least comvertable with a custom asset loader.

I’m talking a little out of my ass though, and neither of us is familiar with the code. Point being though, it’s a little different moving engines than rewriting a complicated web server (a project I have been a part of and would not recommend).

Dark_Arc ,
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youtu.be/DOW_kPzY_JY?si=PQAlethlggD0ofaD

U.S. Army overturns convictions of 110 Black soldiers in 1917 Houston riot at Camp Logan [Houston Chronicle] (www.houstonchronicle.com)

“More than a century has passed since 110 Black soldiers stationed at Camp Logan were convicted of mutiny, murder, and assault in the 1917 Houston Riot, with 19 of them executed at Fort Sam Houston. Now those convictions have been overturned.”...

Dark_Arc ,
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I tend to find there are people that like symbolism, dislike it, and that are indifferent to it.

I’m with you in the second category, but I guess it brings the families of these folks some comfort or gets it into the history books… Fair enough

Dark_Arc ,
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They’re typically controlled by humans using remote controls

Dark_Arc ,
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And don’t forget it’s way faster to refill a hydrogen tank than an battery.

For now, this should change with solid state batteries

Dark_Arc ,
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I agree with everything you said except the retrofitting… I don’t think retrofitting an ICE is going to be remotely possible for any price anyone would be willing to pay. Sure they both have a “gas tank” of sorts, but as you mentioned, a hydrogen vehicle is ultimately an electric vehicle… And electric motors and their supporting components are quite different than ICEs.

Dark_Arc ,
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The alternative is the slow charging and short life high cost lithium battery.

I’ve seen nothing suggesting a short life. Solid state batteries also should result in short charging times

Dark_Arc ,
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Instead of doing all that … consider investing in carbon capture solutions and energy production.

We don’t like to spend millions to fix a problem preemptively, we wait for the damage and then spend billions fixing it.

Dark_Arc ,
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That was before someone on Twitter’s best addition to the conversation was to call me “a caribou diaper baby” … which while a very creative insult … is pretty ridiculous conduct.

I agree the government regulating speech is a fine line. We don’t need real information being suppressed, but we also need a way (with checks and balances) to shut people that are entirely full of shit (or people that if the Internet was a real establishment would be kicked out for being deranged and unhinged) up.

Dark_Arc ,
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NYTimes, The Atlantic, and the Akron Beacon Journal … Plus a number of RSS feeds and lemmy content

Dark_Arc ,
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Well this would be mixing the treated water with the salt … which in theory should get close-ish to the amount of water put into the system/the original balance

It actually sounds pretty reasonable at least on the surface.

Another idea might be shipping that off for cheap road ice control in states with winter weather

Dark_Arc ,
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Which is madness. If we’re at the point where abortion can’t be found in the federal Constitution, then vaccine opt outs shouldn’t be derived from the first amendment.

Dark_Arc ,
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You can say the same thing about people that complain about Chinese junk and yet continue to buy it.

Dark_Arc ,
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Where were you when I was arguing with some dude on Reddit about how people “buy iPhones specifically because they can’t sideload” 🙃

Like no, there are lots of genuinely good reasons to buy an iPhone… This is not one

Dark_Arc ,
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Because constructive criticism makes the world go around. There are things I like about iOS, that’s definitely not one.

There are also ethical issues involving the lack of sideloading. Imagine Microsoft had never allowed people to install unapproved software in Windows. There would be a lot of Chinese folks that get around the great firewall that never would’ve been able to do so. Taking sideloading away makes it very easy for the CCP to just say “don’t sell that on your store” and for that to be the end of the story.

Dark_Arc ,
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😬

Dark_Arc ,
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They typically put them to sleep then kill them. It’s not 15 minutes of the chemicals boiling their blood or something per my understanding.

Dark_Arc ,
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You can match the performance just fine, it’s the performance per watt that’s the issue… and AMD’s CPU division is not making it easy on Apple (ref AMD promises its new laptop chips will crush the Apple M2 - and it’s got receipts)

Dark_Arc ,
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I’m hoping they’re just showboating… but also if they want to actually take that poison pill… it’s their own funeral.

Dark_Arc ,
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This whole Florida of the north thing is really overblown.

Dozens of health organizations pledge ‘full support’ for federal ban on menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars (www.cnn.com)

Eighty national public health groups, including the American Heart Association, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Preventative Medicine, placed a full-page ad in Sunday’s edition of the Washington Post in support of a federal ban on menthol in cigarettes and all...

Dark_Arc ,
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Good.

Dark_Arc , (edited )
@Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg avatar

nytimes.com/…/smoking-cigarettes-comeback.html?sm…

Yet, in 2020, for the first time in two decades, cigarette sales increased.

That’s not just an unsubstantiated “feeling.”

At the very least the age should be raised to match alcohol.

Jesus fucking christ, you people…

“You people” as if you know me.

In any case, the whole point of alcohol being 21 is that by 21 A) you’re not talking to that many people who are still in high school/not yet 18 and B) you should be making better decisions.

Which has a net effect of lowering the amount of people that engage in these behaviors, because it doesn’t spread as much in high schools.

Now, maybe that doesn’t work as well as “we” (society) thinks, but if we still think it’s a good idea for alcohol it absolutely should apply to cigarettes and vapes. Vaping was supposed to help people stop smoking, not create a whole new problem.

If you’re smoking cigarettes, and you’re proud or happy with that decision as an adult, you are an outlier among outliers. I can’t say I’ve ever met someone that smokes cigarettes that hasn’t tried to completely quit at least once (with the exception of the guy who believes “they’re completely safe” despite all the information to the contrary).

This isn’t alcohol where the majority is split between people that happily consume alcohol in small quantities vs a subset of alcoholics. This is a thing where it’s universally harmful to the smoker, to the people around them, to the environment (cigarette butts), etc. It’s also much more addictive than alcohol and marijuana where people need smoke breaks. It’s just a regrettable mess from when society didn’t know better.

Dark_Arc ,
@Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg avatar

Wow, I missed that. Good catch!

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