Dark_Arc

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago (edited 8 months ago)

You know, I don’t really care what you smoke, but I care that it’s communal. Somebody drinking wine, beer, a white claw, etc a few feet away doesn’t immediately negatively impact my existence by depriving me of clean air.

Plenty of adults “decide” to smoke for kids by smoking with the kids around.

Plenty of adults “decide” to smoke in the entrances of buildings. On busy sidewalks. In outdoor malls.

It’s actually pretty freaking infuriating. One of the best things that’s ever been done is banning smoking inside of most buildings.

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

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago

It’s all pretence and showmanship but in the end everything is rigged and corrupt as fuck

Right because Trump winning is what the “rigged and corrupt” “deep state” wanted to happen. /s

Things aren’t ideal but they’re far from rigged. There’s corruption but anywhere people and power are involved you’ll find someone trying to carve out more than their fair share.

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago

And…?

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago (edited 8 months ago)

And…?

If you’re trying to make a point that the electoral college is messed up, yes. If you’re trying to make the point that that’s an example of things being “rigged” and “corrupt”, I think you’re way off base for what actual rigging and corruption looks like.

Also, he did win the first election, which is what I’m talking about. If things were truly rigged and corrupt, Trump would’ve never been president. I shouldn’t have to qualify that with “in 2016”, but if it helps that’s what I meant.

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago

I always thought pedestrian crossings should be further back from the intersection. With them being a part of the intersection itself you have to deal with traffic and pedestrians changing positions at the same time vs just traffic or just pedestrians crossing the street.

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago

I Am Legend

The cure for cancer creating a bunch of rabid, fast moving, sunlight fearing, flesh hungry, “zombies” … Yeah that was a bit much

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago

14/hr in Ohio is actually pretty good for a fast food job.

That said, please do support the mom and pop over the fast food giant! You’re keeping money in your community! So many (especially rural communities) have been drained of meaningful dining and shopping experiences by chains that contribute very little back to the local economy and the towns are in a state of disrepair.

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago

I mean, you can get rent for $500-600 in some rural parts of Ohio. I don’t know anywhere in Ohio – unless you’re going for literally the most expensive area – that’s $1,400 for a single bedroom.

For a high school student working fast food … which is really who these jobs are best suited for $14/hr is a pretty great deal. I mean not 10 years ago, they were paying like $8/hr. I know inflation has changed things but we haven’t seen 50% inflation since I was in high school.

But yes, it’s not a comfortable wage, it’s just pretty decent as far as minimum wage standards go.

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago

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.

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago

That’s evil

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago

but I knew it wasn’t going to amount to anything

It really almost did though. There should be a statue of that black capital police officer that drew the mob away from the senate chamber without firing a shot.

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago

It definitely depended on the feed, but there was some violent window smashing and screaming/yelling/trying to break down doors.

The news crews really weren’t set up for “action movie” style coverage with all the key points of interest. That’s part of why it didn’t “look” that bad. Like, if you look at most gas station robberies, they don’t look that bad either … because the angles aren’t dramatic, they don’t make you “feel” the moment.

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago

You’re getting down voted, but I think your point makes sense … at least on the surface.

Ultimately though, it would’ve caused a constitutional crisis if Congress was unable to swear in Biden. It would basically be up to the courts to decide who the president is, and Trump could presumably ask for emergency powers from the reduced head count (likely of loyalists) in Congress … which would’ve created further conditional crises. Not to mention martial law was something Trump’s team (it hasn’t yet been proven to be spoken of directly by Trump or to Trump) was considering using along with the instruction act to squash protest.

Basically, it would’ve depended on two things:

• What the courts did
• What the military did

And that’s never where you want your government to be. It might not have made the table collapse itself, but it certainly would’ve made the table wobbly and put it in a weakened position where it could be much more easily smashed.

It really depends on how much faith you have in institutional leaders and members of those institutions to “see through” the county. If the military leaders or a large majority of the rank and file went “TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP” and state governors got behind the overthrow (or didn’t react quickly enough to replace important seats in Congress) that probably would’ve spelled the end of the US.

Fortunately, we didn’t have to find out how that version of the story ends.

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago

I think you’re probably right. There’s still those seeds of doubt in my mind though

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago

How dare you come in here with your facts! /s

(Thanks)

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago

Because until we have energy independence (sometimes called green energy), they’re the devil we’re in bed with … Which is yet another reason to get away from oil

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago

Maybe if they’d stop replacing all the name brand stuff with Target knockoffs that aren’t as good, I’d actually do more shopping there. And you know, maybe if they didn’t make everything a crummy, awkward, self checkout…

I’m spending plenty of money, just most of it is not going towards Target.

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago

It should work reasonably well in password systems that hash the password from a UTF-8 encoding… Which should be most things really. If the system is trying to process everything with ASCII, maybe not. It might even appear to work but get converted to some other character (which is kind of the worst case)… That should be rare in web applications though

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago

That is very much not a 90s problem. Especially if the company has a website and an app or is a small company not thinking about these things.

In theory this shouldn’t be an issue but it definitely could be an issue on certain services.

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago

You’re not wrong, but some systems, especially smaller ones are intended for English-only situations (or originally were) so non-English language situations might not be as well tested and/or may cause things to break.

Remember there are some sites that still refuse service if you put a " in your password. I’m not saying it’s right, but it’s a definite possibility.

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago

It’s like putting a sign that says “lock fragile; don’t tug” on the door to your business.

That one made me chuckle, it really do be like that 😂

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago

Let’s be honest when they acquired Kings Island it was down hill from there

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago

This is the one part about lifetime appointments… They don’t need to be loyal to Trump the second after they’re appointed. They don’t need to be loyal to anyone except their own judgement on the issues and Congress (which can in theory remove them if they have bad behavior).

They really don’t have any reason to not throw Trump to the wolves if the legal argument stacks up, unless there’s some other kick back going on behind the scenes, or they personally are a huge fan of Trump… Which maybe his own appointments are, at least most of them, but I don’t think the entire conservative block will join those guys and may very well side with the liberal block.

Still, I’m not going to hold my breath, and I fear the implications of this trial either way. The cleanest thing to do would be to just not vote for Trump and beat him in the ballot box. This feels both appropriate and underhanded in a way that might result in violence from the right… But maybe that’s just where we’re at.

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago

I mean, those vouchers are for what the school would’ve received for that student.

What if the student never existed? Are those non-existent children robbing the public schools?

This take seems silly to me. As long as the education the student gets is of quality, I’m not going to stress over the details of where exactly they learned their stuff.

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago

I know at least one very good friend that was home schooled because he was poor and he simultaneously had a bullying issue. His mom pulled him from public school and put him in an online school to resolve the issue.

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago

This dude is literally on every social program available with no father and a very sick mother. You make it sound like he was some rich kid that just “ran off to private school” and that erased all his problems.

You need a reality and attitude check.

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago

So the per-capita formula for budgeting a school doesn’t actually work…if the state is there to serve the public and not the capitalist.

I’m not arguing for the per-capita formula, but if that’s what we’re using, let’s not act like these kids are greedy bandits running off with all the public education money.

I’m not even sure that it’s bad that you be able to go elsewhere. I don’t want people being taught a fundamentalist agenda on tax payer dollars, but I also don’t want kids to be forced into schools that are a bad fit for them because “that’s where their parents live.” I always did better in a more independent study environment, I probably could’ve had an easier time (in terms of learning things) if my parents had pulled me out and let me go to an online school that let me just skip the lecture and dive into the actual material.

Every state has different funding structures as well. Ohio bases funding IIRC primarily off of real estate taxes in the local community … which leads to schools like the one I went to having ancient text books and public schools in rich neighborhoods having (at least anecdotally) literal iPads for every student back in like … 2010.

I know Ohio’s system has been ruled unconstitutional twice but nobody’s actually fixed it. Education funding is a mess, but “having options” isn’t a bad thing so long as those options are of sufficient quality.

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago

Honestly they should just consolidate. That’s probably part of why they’re doing this. Like Discovery and HBO, running two services is expensive… I fully expect Discovery+ to shut down entirely once behind the scenes content deals are over

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago

Well that and customs/border patrol

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago

The FBI does not recommend using adblockers so that you can avoid ads on YouTube. That’s just 🤦‍♂️ worthy.

Every adblocker I know of can be disabled on specific sites.

I know this is an unpopular opinion here, but Google is within their rights to show ads or make you pay. It costs more than it probably should, and they serve more ads than they should, but their platform is unique and expensive to run; most uploads do not make them money.

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago

More like just get off my lawn. Constant bitching and moaning about completely optional services and spending a few dollars to use them is getting to me.

Yes, Lemmy is free, yes the Internet is historically free (because of ad driven content), but Christ things actually do cost money folks and services have a right to charge what people are willing to pay.

If you don’t like it… Don’t use YouTube, seek out an alternative, build an alternative, tell your creators you’ll only watch them on PeerTube (which probably won’t work because they want to make money) or floatplane or whatever.

This isn’t some crusade for Google. I’m just sick of this crap being in my feed and all these comments. This isn’t “technology”, it’s one service charging money 🙄

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago

I’m not sure what you’re advocating for here. Government regulation to cap the price?

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago

Gas Pumps

That one drives me especially crazy. I just want to pump my gas in peace.

It’s almost like they have a monopoly and the moves as of recent are anti-consumer.

I mean they do in a sense… But also complaining as a non-paying customer that you should have to pay is going to get you nowhere.

(Edit: I’m going to leave this part in, you were just asking for an alternative. My memory has blended other comments and a general “ugh” feeling in all these threads. So, this really isn’t aimed at you)

If you really want to make a change, stop using YouTube, create content elsewhere, try and convince the creators you watch to upload elsewhere. The thing is, most creators that are big enough for the average person to be watching are doing it because it makes them money, and Google is the best place to get that check. You could try floatplane, but my guess is it’s going to be more (not less) expensive than Google and/or might not have people you want to watch on it.

Google considered making 4k premium only because it’s so expensive. Linus tech tips did a nice video showing how 4k disrupts YouTube’s business model and imposes much higher costs. Instead of doing that, they’re raising prices and blocking ads. A more altruistic Google could reduce the ads once the adblockers are working, I kinda doubt they will, but it’s still a possibility.

The days of “free YouTube” (like so many other free Internet things) are over, it was a great deal. It’s not as great of a deal now. Maybe someone can actually afford to put up a fight now that it’s actually got to make money, maybe not. It’s still (IMO) a pretty dang good deal for all the content you get, and premium helps support the creators you’re watching (at least according to Linus) by a “significant” amount vs ad supported views.

The FBI recommends an ad-blocker actually because of malicious… Google Search, yes that same pesky Google, not filtering out dangerous websites in their search results under the “Suggested” part of the search (these sites spoof their web addresses and hope you click on them to deliver a malware payload on your system.)

Yeah you’re right on this one. I actually misremembered the reason, so I’ll take the facepalm for myself. Still, I haven’t used YouTube with ads in a while, but I remember YouTube ads being more like TV ads/a bit more reliable (and a bit too repetitive).

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago (edited 8 months ago)

I don’t have anything nice to say to you, so I’m just going to leave it at that.

For everybody else, consider how venture capitalism allowed for an otherwise completely non-viable product to come into existence. This isn’t a monopoly, it’s a product that could not exist any other way because of the expense of running it the way that it’s run.

You’re totally welcome to take your business elsewhere and it’s totally possible to live without YouTube. The fact is for most people (perhaps up until this point) there hasn’t been a significant motivation to create an actual alternative and get funding for it (or enough wrong with YouTube that people will actually pay what it costs to run a “YouTube without ads”). Rumble exists because the right wing wanted a similar service where they could talk without Google’s moderation policies.

I’m not endorsing Rumble, but alternatives can be started if the funds are put in place to do so and there’s a market for it. Like Lemmy, people just have to use the alternative over the existing dominant option (in this case Reddit).

PeerTube is an option as well of course, but I don’t see it taking off due to the expense and the inability for big creators to monetize on it. Floatplane has a better chance in that respect.

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago

The issue with PeerTube, is monetization.

You need to be able to tell anchors that draw people in and make their living from YouTube like LinusTechTips, Phillip DeFranco, and MrBeast why PeerTube is the platform for them… and losing all the money YouTube gives them is a big problem in any argument (as much as they might not like some of YouTube’s policies themselves).

Also, storage costs are going to explode if PeerTube gets popular and maintains the “anyone can upload in 4k” that YouTube allows. Linus did a video about how expensive 4k video is compared to the 1080p videos that have been dominate in the platform for most of the platform’s life, and how that increased cost has contributed to discussions of changes (at the time) which have evidently manifested as adblocking and promoting premium (speculatively, this is in part because Google feels regulars are going to hurt its advertising business badly and they need to get subscribers that could keep the platform afloat – going back to “old models” before the Google advertising money machine made the Internet “free”).

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago

Yes, they bought it (in 2006). However, it wasn’t what it is today, and IIRC it was “in the red” (losing money). It was in the red for years after Google bought it as well. There’s not a lot of good information on this unfortunately with regard to the current state. The last update we had was in 2015 that YouTube wasn’t making money wsj.com/…/viewers-dont-add-up-to-profit-for-youtu…

That’s 9 years of operating at a loss, and probably the 9 years people think of most fondly… We were getting the service at a loss to Google.

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago

That’s really cool!

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago

There are new players… We just brought another on last month… It’s really not that bad. The new light stuff has actually been worked into a pretty nice onboarding experience.

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago

Despite what others are saying, the game is fine (at least compared to its previous state/status)… They’ve made a lot of changes to improve the onboarding experience and remove pain points. They’ve made things less grindy and more engaging every expansion.

The last DLC just had kind of a meh story to it, “the discovery of strand.” The environment they used also wasn’t all that pretty or interesting. It wasn’t snow, it wasn’t a swamp, it was a minimalistic city-scape with some canyons.

That, plus increased pricing and over dramatization of the loss of the red war and foresaken content (which wasn’t even that good compared to the new stuff mind you – it was extremely short and grindy) has almost definitely caused the profit loss.

Not to mention, playlist activities still feel bland… Implement map voting and modifier voting, and make a higher difficulty playlist for PvE content. I swear once you’re caught up, it’s either stomp over everything in the same 5 maps over and over, or face the exact same somewhat challenging (or extremely challenging) encounter over and over for an entire week. They have all this content they could open up to high end rewards and mutators, but they don’t.

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago

There’s a couple here and there, it’s not like new players have completely stopped joining, but there’s not that many.

That’s typical when you hit market saturation/have an established game. Look at wow or RuneScape. The revenue comes from the people already playing your game.

The new light onboarding really was abysmal when I went through it earlier this year

You should’ve seen it before beyond light launched.

“Go shoot that, now that, now that. I’m so glad you’re back guardian. Welcome to the tower.”

My friends and I started without anyone to pull us through that mess, and we figured out what to do with Google and just clicking on things. We’ve since grown to a group of like 10ish, but yeah … Like newer people don’t really get what it was like before. It’s not great, but it’s gotten better.

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago

It sounds like the game’s next expansion has been delayed, and the game is being maintained by a skeleton crew while the rest of the studio focuses on Marathon.

FWIW, they have ~650 people even after the layoffs for destiny 2 alone. Hardly a skeleton crew. The content drops have been the same as they’ve been for years, seasonal content drops in-between expansions. There is definitely a lul period where there’s not new stuff getting released to give people a chance to catch up.

Competition. With few exceptions, good games always slowly bleed users as shiny new alternatives attract players.

There is some of this. I think there also just seems to be a general recoil of players at what games are costing these days. I’m personally fine with it, but I see what feels like infinite complaining about how greedy … basically every company that isn’t indie is being.

Realistically, I’d say it’s A) bad PR and B) a failure to make new gameplay loops that shake things up significantly C) a failure to fully utilize old content (there’s not a lot of reason to play old strikes, not a lot to encourage players to help others out in old story missions, etc – replay value is artificially neutered by making too many things curated which limits choice)

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago

Maybe, but we’re also seeing it in reviews in such high quantities, it feels like it has to be more than just kids. And like, sure I’d love if the games were cheaper, but they certainly haven’t gotten cheaper or less risky to make.

It’s frustrating either way… I don’t care if the game is $100. I want to know A) does it have pay to win mechanics or gambling (things I actually consider to be predatory – another word that is significantly over used right now), B) is it fun?, and C) how much replay value is it (i.e. should my expectations be set for a really great 80 hours or potentially hundreds – I’m okay with the former sometimes, but it’s nice to know what I’m getting into).

Lately with steam reviews it’s like “tHiS gAMe coSt toO muCh. Y u So gReDy!?!” Which tells me none of those things and just gives me old man yelling at a cloud energy about how things (particularly live service stuff) does cost money to develop and run beyond a 1 time purchase of $25.

Maybe you can relate … Maybe not …

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago

Oh boy… Wait until you hear about encrypted GPU buffers…

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago

www.theatlantic.com/international/…/675602/

Some choice, direct quotes from the article:

The most relevant of the document’s 36 articles can be summarized as falling within four main themes

1. The complete destruction of Israel as an essential condition for the liberation of Palestine and the establishment of a theocratic state based on Islamic law (Sharia),
2. The need for both unrestrained and unceasing holy war (jihad) to attain the above objective,
3. The deliberate disdain for, and dismissal of, any negotiated resolution or political settlement of Jewish and Muslim claims to the Holy Land, and
4. The reinforcement of historical anti-Semitic tropes and calumnies married to sinister conspiracy theories.

Lest there be any doubt about Hamas’s sanguinary aims toward Israel and the Jewish people, the introduction goes on to explain:

This Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement (HAMAS), clarifies its picture, reveals its identity, outlines its stand, explains its aims, speaks about its hopes, and calls for its support, adoption and joining its ranks. Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious … It is a step that inevitably should be followed by other steps.

this part of the covenant stresses that:

Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement. Abusing any part of Palestine is abuse directed against part of religion. Nationalism of the Islamic Resistance Movement is part of its religion. Its members have been fed on that. For the sake of hoisting the banner of Allah over their homeland they fight.

On May 1, 2017, Hamas issued a revised charter. Gone were the “vague religious rhetoric and outlandish utopian pronouncements” of the earlier document, according to analysis prepared for the Institute of Palestine Studies. Instead, the new charter was redolent of “straightforward and mostly pragmatic political language” that had “shifted the movement’s positions and policies further toward the spheres of pragmatism and nationalism as opposed to dogma and Islamism.” Nonetheless, the analyst was struck by “the movement’s adherence to its founding principles” alongside newly crafted, “carefully worded” language suggesting moderation and flexibility.

Israel immediately dismissed the group’s effort to promote a kinder, gentler image of its once avowedly bloodthirsty agenda. “Hamas is attempting to fool the world, but it will not succeed,” a spokesperson from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office predicted.

And I’d say they were right to do so given what Hamas has done since.

I am not saying Israel has clean hands. But painting Hamas as even open to a peaceful resolution is fraught.

the closest thing Palestinians have to a government

If this really is the “closest thing” to a government they have. Then I fully understand the desire to completely demolish their intolerant antisemitic society to make sure it never can even attempt to attack again.

Going to some other resources…

Approximately 60 percent of Palestinians (77% in the Gaza Strip and 46% in the West Bank), support armed attacks against Israelis within Israel as a means of ending the occupation, while 70% believe that a two-state solution is no longer practical or possible as a result of the expansion of Israeli settlements.

pcpsr.org/en/node/912 (from last year)

The whole thing is a mess because Israel was created by colonizers. It seems the two are now locked into a conflict where only one state can survive. The Gaza strip is pretty clearly going to continue to be a threat to Israel that peace talks or a “two state” solution cannot resolve.

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago

Fair, you’ve got to be careful with those genies though, if your wish isn’t carefully crafted they’ll happily use it against you 😉

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago

BYD actively sells electric busses in the US. There was never a sanction to stop BYD or NIO (to my knowledge).

reuters.com/…/special-report-warren-buffetts-chin…

But diplomatic cables revealed by WikiLeaks and provided to Reuters by a third party, as well as interviews with industry consultants and executives who have examined the company’s operations, raise a number of questions about the fledgling carmaker. Among other things, they describe a record of stealing designs from rivals, using those savings to undercut competitors on price and scrimping on safety.

And oh… There’s that

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago

Alright, you make a compelling argument. We’ll see, but I do have friends that are still optimistic about this game when it eventually launches, they mostly just grovel about it not being done yet.

Maybe the broader circles are more informed and more negative. I’m projecting a bit in that I’ve loosely followed this game after learning it was even a planned thing a few months ago from the friend that still carries some optimism for it.

I don’t think the “mass market” follows prerelease content in the way you’re suggesting basically. If it releases as a polished game, and I hadn’t had this conversation, I would never have known or cared about early reception of the gameplay/gameplay footage.

had numerous reports of unethical and illegal activity

I am curious about this though?

Dark_Arc , 8 months ago

Executives arrested for questioning in sexual misconduct probe: www.bbc.com/news/technology-53391689

Interesting… Looks like those folks are still going through the system arstechnica.com/…/former-ubisoft-executives-repor…

Hopefully conditions inside the company have improved, but it’s hard to get that kind of “positive” insight even if it does exist.

(While I think generative AI is an amazing and useful tool, I dont think it should be used in this way by a company that should be able to afford paying an artist. Therefore I along with many consider this unethical, but it is debatable).

Very fair.

Thanks