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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 5th, 2023

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  • It’s funny. When I saw this last night, I was in such disbelief that I was watching the real trailer that I was nitpicking all the way going “Nah, this looks bad, R* wouldn’t do that. That looks too good for a GTA game” etc until I double-and-triple-checked the links and went “oh”.

    Now I’ve had a few hours to digest:

    • The buildings and environments look absolutely beautiful
    • It seems to be running at 60FPS? Thank goodness
    • The characters look… waxy… I will say that black characters look absolutely phenomenal - much better than previous entries
    • This whole game sort of feels like “GTA V+”, which makes sense. Unfortunately, I’ve overhyped myself to a level that R* could never achieve. Not really R*'s problem, but still a bummer.
    • Looking at some of the social media/news freeze frames, it seems a lot of the satire’s edginess has been toned down a lot. Honestly? Thank goodness. GTA V was nauseating in how much it was trying to be a shock-jockey. However, I hope R* will still have its political leaning. Even if I don’t agree with R*, it (usually) is something of substance and is usually somewhat grown up (with exception of GTA V)
    • I would bet money that GTA VI will be delayed to 2026.
    • It will be interesting to see how the writing will be now that Dan Houser has left. It seems OK so far.
    • Everyone’s faces look so expressive except for the two main characters. They just look kind of robotic

    EDIT: One massive thing I forgot - the marketing for this was so stupid. R* kept saying “Upcoming Grand Theft Auto title” as if it wasn’t going to be called “Grand Theft Auto VI” like they called GTA5 “Grand Theft Auto V” and the one before with roman numerals. Like, for goodness sakes guys, get over yourselves. We know it’s going to be called Grand Theft Auto VI.



  • Backpack: maybe not, but as long as it doesn’t wear off. For example, I got myself an anti-theft laptop backpack (didn’t even realise it was anti-theft when I bought it lol) and it was £25. I’m not going to pretend it has the utmost premium of materials woven into the backpack or anything, but honestly? It’s not absolute crap either and it’s still going one year later. All my other bags have been the same - not the most premium materials (prob. pretty simple stuff) but it does the job and sticks around forever.

    Screwdrivers: So I found a ratchetng screwdriver for £21 - which comes with the bits (unlike from what I can see in LTT store, they seem to be sold separately!!!).

    As for “professional grade”, I have searched and searched online for an exact definition for what this could even mean for a screwdriver (because the implication is that other screwdrivers are Fischer Price plastic screwdrivers or something, which is absolutely hilarious to me and I kind of wish it was true) and I get wildly varying definitions (and that’s from the ones I could even find. The most I can work out is that it had more random bits - which I think my example provides (with torx etc). If it has something to do with the “materials” of the screwdriver, then I will say I cannot remember a single time in my life when a screwdriver has broke on me. Generally I buy them (no matter how cheap) and I have it for life.

    And yes, just because something is cheaper, doesn’t make it better. But just because something is expensive, doesn’t mean it is naturally better too. Clothing and quite frankly the backpack is incredibly subjective, so I can appreciate we don’t see eye-to-eye on it. But the screwdriver? The LTT screwdriver is such blatant markup on standard screwdrivers that it boggles my mind how anyone could defend it. If they were something along the lines of $30-$40, i would think “yeah, they’re expensive, but it’s clear LTT has got to eat and the people who buy it are clearly supporting the channel” but at $70 it’s practically robbery as an artform.

    Fun fact: When I was trying to find the words “professional grade” (hint: couldn’t find it) on the screwdriver page for the LTT store, I noticed this disclaimer text in the product description:

    NOTE: Bits are a consumable item and will wear or break down over time. Visual wear to the black phosphate coating is normal and expected.

    Now, to be fair, this is true with my cheap-o screwdrivers with the interchangeable bits too. However, I didn’t fork out lots of money for the privilege.










  • That’s actually a really good point. I think, ui wise, skype and slack served a different audience. I think skype was about 1-2-1 messages and calls, whereas Slack was about chatting amongst team members.

    Teams as a product feels like a really direct competitor to Slack in a way that Skype could never do (at least in the last iteration I used it in).

    As for Teams, same here. In my last job I had slack and it was quite pleasant to use. Now at my new(ish) job and we are all forced to use Teams as part of the license. And I guess that is the reason behind EUs decision right there.


  • I think you got it the other way round - EU are upset that Microsoft used its massive customer base with Office to ship a video conferencing product like Teams for free in order to dominate that market.

    I assure you, very few people would actively seek an individual Teams license. I’m very sure companies force their employees to use Teams as it’s part of the license.

    Teams, especially when compared to Slack, is incredibly slow and bloated while being entirely lacklustre. Slack is lean and efficient at what it sets out to do (while being pretty expensive).





  • Like others have said, there are multiple factors at play:

    1. The official reddit app sucks in terms of basic usability
    2. The offiical reddit app has poor accessibility
    3. The official website, while generally well optimised for mobile, keeps forcing users to use the reddit app - see point 1
    4. Reddit is trying to position themselves as an ad company (see here for one user’s explanation), so it’s in their benefit to get people using the mobile version where they can hoover up sensitive information for serving ads.
    5. Reddit are trying to grow their ad platform. Third party apps interfere with that. Reddit understandably wants to kill them off.
    6. Reddit are aware that people like third party apps and people don’t like their official app.

    Now, if Reddit had been honest and transparent throughout the entire process and just killed off the APIs without charging for it and gave the straightforward explanation, I think people would be sad as they are emotionally invested in their apps, and there would be some people who would go for good. But a lot more people would come back to Reddit - let alone seek alternatives like Lemmy, KBin, Tildes, etc.

    What has happened is that the CEO has tried to make apps “the villain” and reddit the “poor little company” - sort of like DARVO but for 3rd party apps, so they could paint their official Reddit as the “wholesome” one.

    Except the reddit community is large and pretty smart - technically and legally too. Receipts were kept, the CEO was exposed for his blatant lies, and then he has become incredibly unhinged and angry that things haven’t gone his way, giving incredibly aggressive interviews. And the Reddit community notices, because whenever Reddit is in the news, it’s very rarely for a good reason. The CEO was shown to be wearning no clothes after all.

    I’ve seen Reddit go through drama, but never quite like this. It’s quite incredible and astonishing how one person could fuck up a transition this badly. Spez has repeated that the Automod is going to be killed, but given the blatant lies that came before, it’s no wonder why folks aren’t trusting him on his word. He’s made his bed, he has to lie in it.