I think Sonic Adventure can be a frustrating game. I confess it has some issues that I have learned to work around. But I still can’t see it as anything less than a great game that gets way more hate than it deserves.

The first Sims was in fake 3D, the 2nd one was already full 3D. The fourth one is known for being a huge downgrade when compared to 3 and even 2. I haven’t played 4 a lot but people really hate it, a lot of the community stayed on 3. It doesn’t help that EA is EA, and while the whole series has always had expansion packs and extra purchaseable content, with 3 already being a bit unreasonable, The Sims 4 took it to unimaginable heights. I think buying everything will set you back like 1500 USD or more, and it was super criticized for slicing up content into multiple packs. They even have DLC for DLC, with a content pack only having content for another pack…

It’s a mess hahaha

I’ve been working on some personal and work things and there are a few moments with more free time (and anxiety) than I’m used to. So, I’m juggling 3 games right now:

• Yo-Kai Watch 2: Psychic Specters for the 3DS. I played the first one and really liked it, but when I went through the sequel I had a lot going on and really rushed through it. I ended up not liking it very much and not even doing the post game stuff, which is weird because everybody praised the post game online. Now I’m going through it with a bit more time and I’m enjoying it much more, it surpasses the first one for sure.
• Sonic Adventure 2 on Steam: I felt like revisiting this one due to all the focus on Shadow Generations now. I’m going for a 100% completion for the first time since I was a kid. I must have sucked back then, because I’m finding that getting A ranks is much easier than I remembered (and much more fun). The chao are cute but I wish I could have a “Skip” button for them to grow up, eat and sleep. I have already resorted to leaving the game on while I showered and it still wasn’t enough.
• Minecraft with the Cobblemon mod, essentially Pokémon in Minecraft: I tried Pixelmon too, and to be honest I didn’t mind the art style clash, but one of the mods I added to Cobblemon was a trainer/gym leader system, with included level caps, so there’s a sense of progression. But the enemy gyms are tough so I’m only on Misty so far and I’m seeing that my team needs a lot of work, even though I’m already at the level cap!

I also started The Sims 1, got to the top of my career and got married, was planning on continuing with the content from the expansions but haven’t picked it up in weeks. I guess I’ll go back some day, or maybe not.

I knew someone else had to have thought the same

Discord is an alternative to IRC, the fact that people use it as a replacement for forums is baffling

Maybe a terrestrial globe? That would explain why some have a point labeled “Bangkok” (sic, presumably used an old or regional spelling)

I think I’d like a game with those exact prices… In in-game currency

He has a PhD in Women’s Studies.

My impression as someone from Europe is that people wouldn’t even care if Trump started any war, as long as it isn’t named “Civil War” or “WW3”

Wait, really? Whenever I spend more time at work or at home I tend to forget how many really attractive people are really out there. Whenever I go out after a long period of time I end up being positively surprised. I would also not look at Tinder as an example, but because of the opposite: people on tinder look much uglier than in real life. But then again, usually outside you don’t look at people for more than one or two seconds, while on tinder there’s loads of photos for you to examine every single flaw

It depends on the tree, I think, doesn’t it? I have a fig tree and the figs are great for about 45 seconds in July. Essentially unfit for human consumption any other time!

As an extra advantage to the nose pinching trick, I no longer turn every dream into a nightmare from seeing my distorted figure in the mirror!

Oh no a massive time sink

(thanks! I have a lot of nostalgia for Runescape but don’t want to waste months of my life, so I’m considering getting a single player server up and running with a like 10x exp multiplier. Now to decide on 2003, 2009 or 2012…)

ChatGPT can be super useful, but I’m kind of worried about people learning to use it exclusively.

I tried helping a PhD student assemble a set up for measuring transistors. He used ChatGPT to do all the code for the software control (python), which is fine, even if he relied on it to fix every single part of his code when a quick trip to the reference manuals of the equipments would solve the problem instantly.

At a certain point I realized I maybe had misunderstood his set up design and asked him “wait, which device do you want to connect to your gate? Which terminal even is the gate?”

And I kid you not, the dude asked ChatGPT which terminal in his device was the gate

(he also reeked of weed so there’s that)

I bet all the people who said “chess is a solved game” are feeling really silly right now

I’ve always said that the worst thing that 9 did was completely destroy any excitement for Star Wars in an instant.

Prior to 9 releasing, people didn’t like 8 and were already souring on 7, but there was still discourse, people caught up on Star Wars news, people were excited for the new content.

After 9, the excitement dropped like a brick. It was the closure of a trilogy in one of the most profitable IPs in the world. There was still more content planned to come out soon iirc (the shows, and I think there was talk of more movies), so it’s not like people stopped caring due to the lack of content. Nobody I knew was interested in discussing fan theories or analyzing the movies (except to rag on them, I suppose). It was as if millions of voices cried out in terror… And were suddenly silenced.

Earl is a real name. However, for this one, they explain in the series that he was supposed to be named Carl like his father, but due to sloppy handwriting he ended up being named Earl

I guess that analogy was the coelacanth of lemmy comments. Extinct.

The Rayman 3 (drug-fueled) transitions between worlds are a touch I was not expecting. Looks nice!

You are being downvoted as if your point was offensive or harmful. You are wrong, but it’s totally counter intuitive and I think this is a mistake that everyone makes when studying introductory physics. This would be correct for anything moving at relatively low speeds. But when you’re talking about light, or anything that goes so fast that “percentage of the speed of light” starts being a useful unit to describe their speed, this concept starts being a bit weirder.

This is actually the basic principle of Einstein’s theory of relativity: the speed of light (in a vacuum) is the same for all observers, regardless of their frame of reference. That means that if the laser pointer emits a laser, the light is moving away from the pointer at the speed of light. If the pointer itself is moving at a speed reeeeeally close to the speed of light… Then the laser will STILL be traveling away from the pointer at the speed of light. And if you, an observer in a frame, see the pointer moving at near the speed of light emit a laser… The laser that the laser emitted is also traveling at the speed of light from your point of view.

And there’s no wordplay here. I don’t mean that it’s light, so of course any speed it travels at is the speed of light. I mean that if you measure its speed from any reference frame, you will get around 300000000 m/s, or around 671 million miles per hour. No matter if you are also traveling at near light speed.

Harm yourself?

Take the knife and harm the people responsible for this travesty. The laws of robotics prevent robots from harming humans: if you manage to harm them, then that means either you’re human or they’re not!