[-] The_Sasswagon@beehaw.org 10 points 4 weeks ago

I never played BioShock 2 or Infinite, but I watched full playthroughs of each, and I thought infinite was great! Different to be sure in most ways, but it was a neat expansion of the world and themes hinted at in the first two games.

I seem to remember a lot of sideline criticism when it came out that boiled down to "NPC sidekick not love interest but hot so I don't like game". I thought, and think that is ridiculous, and fortunately I think that criticism has faded with time because Elizabeth is such a positive part of the game, from my view.

I should play through the BioShock games...

[-] The_Sasswagon@beehaw.org 14 points 1 month ago

Along with potential reasons mentioned in this post, right wing folks also have fewer obvious places to go troll now that twitter is just filled with them and Hershey's or whatever. Perhaps they are coming here looking for trouble specifically.

It's also possible they've always been here and have just found more reasons to engage recently. Either way, the amount of bad faith discussion and derisive language is frustrating and upsetting.

I have just been blocking individuals if I find myself getting frustrated, but I also took a long break from social media because I felt like the discussions about Gaza were bordering toxic, so I'm not sure my approach is sustainable.

[-] The_Sasswagon@beehaw.org 9 points 1 month ago

Imagine you have been purposefully targeted for harassment or excluded from activities in the past due to your preferred pronouns or perceived gender. Seeing "he" with that context would likely feel excluding, which is a reason someone without an 'agenda' would want to see it changed.

[-] The_Sasswagon@beehaw.org 8 points 4 months ago

I am not traveling to go see this one, but did for the one that went across the US a few years ago. I thought it was really cool and would go again if it weren't so far away. The way the hot Tennessee day got so much cooler, the way the evening bugs came out, the birds stopped singing, the shadows looking like they had a bite out of them, all together with being able to see the suns corona for a couple minutes made for a really really cool experience for me. It was also a big party/camping trip with friends so that helped too.

I could see it not having that impact for everyone, but I figured I'd share.

[-] The_Sasswagon@beehaw.org 15 points 5 months ago

I'd argue that, while reductive, "it's bad" is probably a pretty safe takeaway from this, given that the article says if you are of a healthy weight and activity level that you can get away with eating a less balanced diet. Most people in the areas interacting with this post aren't probably doing that exercise and weight thing, so the carefully balanced diet it is for us. Based on North American red meat consumption this is likely much less than the reader currently eats, so they should probably cut back.

Internet translation of that resoning: "it's bad don't eat it".

[-] The_Sasswagon@beehaw.org 14 points 7 months ago

Their coffee tastes the way it does because of how they roast it, it's a purposeful style thing (that tastes terrible and is horribly overpriced imo).

Their roasts are also darker than they say. Everything they have is dark roast, with their 'blond' coming in closer to a medium.

People go nuts over the sugar, caffeine and perceived status, it has nothing to do with the taste of the coffee. As a fellow black coffee drinker, my recommendation is to avoid Starbucks unless you happen to be near a union store where the coffee is guaranteed to taste more like freedom, but still like ashes soaked in oil.

In case you want more details: The way coffee roasting works is you move beans around in a real hot container, and you try to keep them to a specific point on a temperature graph at each moment as they roast. A different roaster would roast them a bit slower, but Starbucks just blasts those beans with everything they have, then they don't stop until the beans are burnt. This gives them their "signature taste". This is largely because of Howard Shultz, the guy who drove the company to be a cafe, and until recently the CEO. That's his preferred coffee taste and that's what he demands the company makes.

[-] The_Sasswagon@beehaw.org 10 points 8 months ago

Is that true? That sounds like something someone would just say with no factual backing. I read a fair bit recreationally about pre European societies and I haven't seen some universal truth about screwing each other over for some action.

There were and presumably are many societies that treat procreation and child rearing completely differently than we do today. Once you stop looking at your neighbors kids as "theirs" and seeing them as "ours" there isn't much drive to compete with them.

[-] The_Sasswagon@beehaw.org 12 points 8 months ago

If only it was just teenagers, physically grown ass men and women do this too. Have had some I thought were good friends cut me off from talking to them "because I didn't have an iPhone".

[-] The_Sasswagon@beehaw.org 11 points 11 months ago

I'm with you in parts, but some products are definitely made to a lower standard than they should be. There's reasons why they are made to that low standard (money for shareholders being the primary motive in most cases), but that doesn't excuse the waste they are creating and the bad situation they are placing on consumers.

We are faced with a false choice, choose either cheap and disposable or expensive and repairable. Most don't have the money right now to afford the repairable option and then take the more expensive in the long term disposable route. This keeps more money flowing to the company, and it keeps the consumer unable to buy the better option.

In the past there was not a disposable option, perhaps not an option at all, and the base cost was higher, but consumers had more money to buy things with. People also made more money than they do now relative to cost of living. There was also a member of the family at home sewing clothes and cooking meals, that's a lot of free labor. I deep dove into budgets from 1914 and sears catalogs but it's perhaps too much for this (though it was interesting).

I'll close with an example about clothes dryers (USA). They are incredibly simple appliances, they are made up of a rotating drum, a blower, a heater, and a control system for timing and temperature selection (basically another timer). In older models this did not break often, and when it did it was standard parts and quick labor and it's working for another 5-10 years. Newer designs have proprietary parts and chips that change from year to year. This means if your chip breaks you're done and you need a new appliance. The chip doesn't bring much new function to the appliance, and it certainly isn't anything that couldn't be done with an off the shelf part.

The difference is things were designed to be repaired before and now they aren't. We can still design things that way but we choose not to. There's no huge extra cost associated with a replaceable battery or an off the shelf control chip, companies just choose to push disposable because it makes more money. That push is bad for people and bad for the environment, and to combat it we can buy repairable, but we should also push back on companies trying to make a quick buck and support right to repair where we can.

[-] The_Sasswagon@beehaw.org 7 points 11 months ago

I third darn tough, I use them for running and hiking, and have used two pairs for 500 miles of running in the last year and I haven't had a hole yet

[-] The_Sasswagon@beehaw.org 41 points 1 year ago

Milk is another great example of industry influencing diet, it is not a necessary component of people's diet once they are done being a tiny baby.

Can't or don't want to? Cutting meat out is quite easy and more obviously a choice when you instead eat eggs, nuts, varied veggies, and legumes. Heck of a lot cheaper too

[-] The_Sasswagon@beehaw.org 7 points 1 year ago

Why are elders deserving of more respect than anyone else? Other than reference to tradition, which was often formed by religion ("respect your elders" is from the bible, old, but not nearly ancient history) which was in turn used to cement power and money in a few old folks running the religion.

Surely the young deserve the same respect as the old, it isn't like age makes you smarter or better able to handle new situations. It can mean you have wisdom but age alone has no bearing on that.

You can also respect someone but realize that they no longer understand what is going on in the world. I respect my grandfather who flew spy planes during the cold war, then came home and was an anti war activist. Do I think he should run for office today? Absolutely not. Vote? Honestly probably not. He's certainly not able to make an informed decision anymore. But I will visit him when I can, take care of him as best I can, hear his stories, and learn from those stories as I can.

In this threads context young people don't get to serve in office or vote but elders get to vote and serve until the day they die. This has directly and indirectly created a feeling of disenfranchisement with young (literally under 50 at this point) folks that shows itself in all aspects of politics.

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The_Sasswagon

joined 1 year ago