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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 13th, 2023

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  • Games developed by Paradox have been like this for decades and it’s fine. The player base is aware of it and buys the game with the expectation that it will take an additional 2 years and several dlcs for the game to be actually good. Everyone knew Victoria 3 won’t be good on release.

    And crucially, the developers of Paradox are also aware of that and delivery a product that is still somewhat enjoyable on release. They know where to cut corners that will be fixed with dlcs and what needs to be focused on for release.

    But when Paradox is just the publisher things don’t work out that well. Because the developers might not actually plan their game around that kind of thing. And when they are then forced to release early, their game is still a huge mess.



  • That kind of punishment is used all the time in the USA. It’s criminal and/or civil forfeiture depending on the circumstances. But just as in the case in China it’s mostly applied on people who can’t fight back. Big mega corporation are mostly safe from it. But occasionally it hits rich people.

    Civil forfeiture is even heavily abused in the USA because the police department gets to keep the seized money and the burden of proof is shifted. The person who’s assets have been seized needs to provide proof of their innocence.



  • I am not really sure what you mean with their settlement. If you just mean the existence of Israel, then yes it’s fine to support that. If you are talking about their actual settlement policies, then no. I don’t think supporting a system of displacing people you deem “inferior” or “unwanted” to make room for “superior” people should be supported.

    How to feel about the military response to the attacks is purely a personal choice. A fight against terrorists is never clean. And whether or not the amount of “collateral damages” is acceptable is up to you. I personally think that the attack by Hamas were extreme enough to warrent the response by the IDF. I don’t think you can expect someone to just turn the other cheek in this scenario. But I totally understand people who say any amount of civilian casualties is too much.





  • Fully agree with this. People just have a lower tolerance for mediocre content. YouTube is a great example for that. Long form content is as popular as ever, it’s just the demand of quality has risen. A few years ago Let’s Plays still did very well. Today Let’s Plays are generally falling in viewership. But that’s because Let’s Plays are mediocre quality at best. Many content creators shifted away from Let’s Plays and provide different content. But the actual video length hasn’t changed.

    Ppeople always found stuff to distract themselves with if a task is boring. As kids we would just play with pens, erasers, or anything else in our reach while studying. Today, kids just look on their smartphone instead. Re-reading the same passage over and over in boring book happens just as much today as it did 20 years ago. But today I am more likely to just not continue reading.




  • I can talk a bit about the censorship. Censorship can be found in every type of media and has reached extreme levels under Xi.

    First, all IPS in China have to block access to a lot of websites that are hosted outside of China. This includes sites like Google, Wikipedia, Netflix, CNN, and GitHub. Basically anything that is even slightly popular and can be used to share information or media. I am not sure if Lemmy is already on that list but if not it will be soon.

    You can circumvent this by using VPNs but that’s illegal. People usually get away with it unless they actively go against the interests of the Chinese government. So consuming western media generally is fine but getting politically active isn’t.

    Then there is a more active form of Censorship. There are a few government agencies whose purpose it is to go through all kinds of media and ban/delete anything that doesn’t align with the interests of the Chinese government. This is done automatically with stuff like image recognition software, algorithm analyzing texts, and today probably with some kind of “AI”. But also done manually by people reading through stuff. All media companies operating in China have to be compliant with this.

    So if you use something like WeChat to share to information that’s critical of the Chinese government, it simply will get deleted as soon as it’s detected. The person who sent it could get into trouble depending on what exactly they tried to share. Anything that’s detected by the automated system the other person won’t even receive.

    Movies, books, TV shows, and other forms of entertainment have to be approved before being released. This is kinda like the age rating agencies in western countries. Just way stricter and mandatory for every kind of publication or media.

    An example on how ridiculous the censorship system is: A few years ago the General Manager of the Houston Rockets tweeted “Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong.”

    This led to China disabling all NBA broadcasts for the rest of the year. The Rockets lost a lot of sponsorship money because of it. China said it will only return the broadcast if he gets fired. They returned earlier though. But a lot of popular people in the NBA spoke out against Morey for tweet, including LeBron James.


  • You can host your own instance on the fediverse and not censor/moderate it. Other instances will most likely defederate yours but you can still build your own place.

    Anything that doesn’t censor and moderate only works as long as the user base is fairly small. So you won’t find people advertising it to random strangers. Otherwise it starts having to deal with things most people don’t want on their platform like illegal sexual content.


  • I would say Machinima simply filled the needs and there was no need for these kind of games to be developed on top of it. Just using existing game engines with a decent editor would always be cheaper and more popular since people are familiar with the assets. Just take a look at how many Team Fortress “movies” are out there.

    And even without editor using games was fine. World of Warcraft had a ton of videos as well.

    Tools for Machinima also saw the gradual advancements you talked about. While the initial movies produced had a lot of workarounds to get a decent end product there is now dedicated software for it. NVIDIA recently released their own version.

    On top of that with smartphones having cameras now, kids can always shoot their own movies.



  • Why not just leave a small amount of money so they can buy it themselves? It would solve all issues. From allergies, spoiling, and attracting insects or stray dogs.

    Because you run into the issue that most healthy things that don’t spoil are rather hard. And many homeless people have issues with their teeth and can’t eat that. So you either leave something less healthy, like sealed soft bread or you ignore food safety rules.

    Which isn’t as big of a deal in Asia. Even affluent people ignore it. Foods to look out for would be anything with a lot of soy sauce or vinegar. They tend to last a bit longer. And while it sounds stereotypical, anything with rice will be appreciated.

    Leaving fruits could also work.


  • Republicans know their voter base is slowly dying out. Younger generations tend to vote more and more Democratic. To counter this decline in voter base the Republicans have to increase the number of younger generations that would become Republican voters.

    A lot of women who opt for an abortion do so because they aren’t ready for a baby. If they suddenly are forced to give birth, they are very likely to be stuck in the lower middle class. Their children are unlikely to go to college. And then the Republicans blame immigrants and other minorities for their struggles. Luring them to vote Republican.

    After abortion ban we will see restrictions on birth control, to further increase the number of children born. Next will be restrictions on divorces, forcing families into the lifestyle Republicans want or further increasing the amount of lower middle class people. Who, due to having a child, can’t start fighting the system and instead are glad to hold a job. So it’s a win-win situation for Republicans.

    Also, everyone knows the no-abortion rule doesn’t apply to them and only to “others” because their abortion had “reasons” that are “different” from others.

    And of course there is the big fear of “white people are being bred out”. The fear of white people becoming a minority is very ingrained in Republicans. But the current economic system also relies on a constant increasing population. With birthrates decling the system starts to fail. So the only options are, increase birth rates, allow more immigrants, or change the economic system. Only one option aligns with Republicans.


  • Gaming laptops aren’t a scam, they fill a niche. For people like me they are the best option available. I travel frequently and then stay there for usually a few months before having to travel again. So a desktop doesn’t work for me at all. I need a decent computer for work. Most business laptop that fill my needs are also on the heavier side. The ones that are portable usually have integraded gpu’s, which just doesn’t work for me. So the step from business laptop that fills my needs to gaming laptop is minimal.

    All of the drawbacks of a gaming laptop are barely affecting me. And while this seems like an edgecase, there are a lot more people who have needs that a gaming laptop fulfills and can’t be met by other devices.


  • I can recommend the Acer Nitro 5 series. Have it for a few years now. The main drawbacks are

    Portability - You will run into this issue a lot with gaming laptops. But the Nitro series is probably one the lower end when it comes to portability. Especially if you go with the 17 inch screen. It’s heavy and big.

    Speakers - the newest series apparently upgraded them, but the one I have has terrible built in speakers. I use a headset anyhow while playing. So doesn’t concern me. But it just can’t be used to watch movies together in bed.

    Fan noise - It can get very noisy, especially during gaming session. If you are using a headset, you aren’t noticing it. But it can be distracting to others in the room.

    Batter life - It’s just bad, even if you aren’t gaming. But again, while playing you are usually plugged in anyway.

    Overall none of the big issues affect me. But could be a dealbreaker for others.

    The big pros:

    Available in 17 inch - which was a must for me.

    Decent cooling - Just make sure you get a 2021 or later model.

    Easy to upgrade internal storage & ram - you can put 2 additional SSDs inside. And even upgrading the ram is super easy. This also means they aren’t charging absurd amounts for upgrading the stock variant from 256gb to 512 or even 1tb.

    Performance for the price - It’s not a end of the line model but for the price you will get decent performance.