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starbreaker

@starbreaker@kbin.social

Until kbin.social's admin gets off their ass and deletes my account, I will continue to shitpost. If this offends, block me and get on with your life.

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starbreaker ,
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Mozilla wants data that can be used to impersonate me? They can fucking well pay me for it.

starbreaker ,
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Funny that you think $10,000,000 is "a little money", but whatever.

starbreaker ,
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Here are a few names you can blame in addition to the USWDS:

  • Deloitte
  • Accenture
  • Ernst & Young
  • KPMG
  • PwC

The four corporations other Accenture constitute the US' "Big 4 accounting firms", and they get a shitload of money from local, state, and the Federal government to develop software for them at taxpayer expense -- and none of this publicly-funded code is FOSS.

starbreaker ,
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That's because the US government outsources a lot of software development to consulting firms who bill hourly for developer time while paying the developers a fixed salary. Even though these developers have to do at least 40 billable hours a week, they don't get time and a half for overtime.

starbreaker ,
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::: spoiler spoiler

::: a techbro caused the end of the world

starbreaker ,
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Trying to save some time and money for people who don't want to spend money on yet another long-ass video game. This is the internet, and there are people who will get butthurt if you tell them that Aerith gets shanked by Sephiroth and stays dead.

Most "simulation" games aren't simulators

I was just browsing the Google Play Store and I am getting frustrated seeing games being tagged with the genre, but aren't actually simulating anything. E.g. Idle Miner/Mining Tycoon (can't remember name). Nothing in the game is accurate or even tries to represent real life. It even has cartoon graphics. Now I'm not getting mad...

starbreaker ,
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Marketers gonna market. If "simulation" is a hot-selling category, then games are going to be sold as "simulations" if they bear even a slight resemblance to an actual simulation. This the same industry in which the customers con themselves into thinking that Final Fantasy is still a role-playing game.

starbreaker ,
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What are the new Final Fantasies like? 8 was the last one I “beat” and then I never played 9 because the characters looked so cartoonish.

With its protagonist Noctis as the chosen lightbringer, Final Fantasy XV was just an Andrew Lloyd Webber song away from being Lucifer Christ Superstar.

And Final Fantasy XVI is basically Devil May Cry with a story that resembles a George R. R. Martin fanfic only if you aren't familiar with Michael Moorcock's Hawkmoon stories.

starbreaker ,
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Since 14 is an MMO you’ve really only missed two main-series games

You can play most of it solo, aside from some of the major boss fights, and it's both a "greatest hits" nostalgia trip and a damned good FF in its own right once you get into the Heavensward expansion and beyond.

starbreaker ,
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This isn't quite what you asked for, but I've been in your position. I was never sure I actually wanted kids. Neither was my wife. And because I wasn't willing to alienate my family I'd keep telling them that "we're trying" whenever they asked me (never her; I drew that line in the sand immediately). And we did try, and we had a lot of fun trying. It just never happened for us, and frankly, we're glad that was the case.

We were both accidents, unplanned and unwanted (at first, or so my parents told me). We've come to believe that unplanned and unwanted kids never really stop being unwanted, and that their parents always resent them for altering the trajectories of their lives. So, in the absence of positive reasons to have kids, it was probably for the best that we didn't have kids. We weren't willing to commit to planning for kids and making them happen. We didn't want them enough, so it's a good thing we didn't have them.

TL;DR: all kids should be wantedd, and having kids ought to be a HELL YEAH OR NO situation. If you aren't absolutely sure you want kids, don't have them. It doesn't matter what your friends and family think or say; they won't be there helping you raise them. Nor does it matter what the rich and powerful say; they aren't going to help you either. Don't have kids unless you want them, and are willing to defy heaven and earth alike for their sake.

starbreaker ,
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This is why I linked to Derek Sivers' "Hell yeah or no". If you aren't certain about having kids, then you should default to "no".

The History and Future of Digital Ownership (www.theverge.com)

I'd like to get the community's feedback on this. I find it very disturbing that digital content purchased on a platform does not rightfully belong to the purchaser and that the content can be completely removed by the platform owners. Based on my understanding, when we purchase a show or movie or game digitally, what we're...

starbreaker ,
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Why is it like this? Because this is what the rich want, and the rest of us don't have the nerve to guillotine them for it.

Speaker Johnson Explains Holdup In Releasing Jan 6 Tapes: ‘We Have To Blur Some Of The Faces’ To Protect Them From The DOJ (www.mediaite.com)

Yes. You read that right. Johnson is saying that he is intentionally hiding insurrectionists from prosecution in the release of tapes that Republicans claim will vindicate them on January 6th.

starbreaker ,
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All Republicans are Nazis.

All Nazis must hang.

Therefore, should all Republicans be hanged?

starbreaker ,
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If wanting to see Nazis dead after they've been tried for treason makes me one of the bad guys, then I'm proud to be one of the bad guys. But you should find a competent necromancer and talk to my grandfather. He wasn't content to merely want fascists dead after they've gotten due process. He managed to gun down a few during his service in WWII.

starbreaker ,
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Every one of these games succeeded at parting fools from their money.

starbreaker ,
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'Not a place of chaos, but one of red tape'

Sounds like Diyu, the underworld of traditional Chinese belief.

starbreaker ,
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Pretty much every JRPG on Nintendo and Sega's 8 and 16 bit consoles, too.

starbreaker ,
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I'm gonna level with you: I've played all sorts of games over the last 30 years, not just JRPGs, and I can't think of a single popular game that isn't an adolescent power fantasy.

starbreaker ,
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That's the sandbox game that wanted to be Unforgiven when it grew up, right?

starbreaker ,
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Being one of the few survivors of a zombie apocalypse? Still a power fantasy. Though I'll grant that The Last of Us does a better job of taking the player through the implications.

starbreaker ,
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Aw. Not quite enough white on his belly or chest to be a cannoli. Still a handsome old gentlecat.

starbreaker ,
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Maybe dig into some of the bands that influenced the development of black metal, like Celtic Frost?

starbreaker ,
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I played the first Dragon's Dogma on the PS3. It was pretty sweet, like an open-world version of Demon's Souls. Basically, a precursor to Elden Ring but without the From Software "Here's a weapon and a basic controls tutorial; now figure everything else out on your own" vibe.

starbreaker ,
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Glad you're enjoying it. If you want a slightly more grounded experience and you've got a PS5, I'd recommend Ghost of Tsushima. It's a better "Assassin's Creed" than anything Ubisoft's managed, and a beautiful historical fantasy.

starbreaker ,
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If you've got the right PS+ tier, the original Dragon's Dogma with the Dark Arisen expansion is a freebie.

And I have the DLC for GoT, but I haven't played it yet. I only recently started doing a fresh PS5 playthrough instead of doing the sensible thing and transferring my cleared save from the PS4 version.

starbreaker ,
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I'm sure I'll get to it. I've got it installed, and I've got a bad habit of trying to chase down every little objective in games like these.

starbreaker ,
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It's bad enough I'm already paying for PlayStation Plus, but it least it provides a shitload of free games. Why would I pay for that and Microsoft Game Pass.

starbreaker ,
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I've found that PS+ is good for stuff that I'm kinda curious about, but not so curious that I'd pay for it. Sometimes I find something cool. For example, Returnal isn't bad for a PS5 launch title. But I wasn't going to pay retail for it.

What annoys me is that even though I pay a monthly subscription for Final Fantasy XIV, I can't actually play it without also paying the PS+ tax. But that's what I get for not playing it on Windows (because I only put up with Windows when I'm getting paid).

What I would like to see is mandatory demos for all games. If your game doesn't provide a playable demo of some kind, it won't be listed in the online store. No exceptions, no excuses.

starbreaker ,
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That's fair, but maybe make it a 60-120 minutes depending on the game. I'd be seriously annoyed if I wasn't already familiar with Hideo Kojima's bullshit, grabbed a 60-minute trial of whatever he ends up doing after Death Stranding, and the entire trial is spent sitting through cutscenes.

As it was, I spent at least a third of the 60-minute trial for Soul Hackers sitting through cutscenes and reading exposition.

starbreaker ,
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Proton has done wonders. It’s legitimately incredible, the explosive growth of Linux gaming through Valve’s work.

Not disputing that, but there's no way I'm getting FFXIV to run on a Thinkpad T60 running Slackware. But it's still enough computer for Firefox and GNU Emacs.

starbreaker ,
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A Deck would probably run FFXIV pretty well, and with the form factor of a controller that you’re used to playing with.

Maybe when my PS5 dies in a few years. It's good enough for now, aside from not supporting SFTP even though the firmware is based on FreeBSD. :)

starbreaker ,
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It used to be eight megs and constantly swapping. But let's be honest: Visual Studio Code makes Emacs look as dainty as vim.

starbreaker ,
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I hear similar nonsense at my day job. Senior management wants me to risk my ass driving to the office, where I will sit at a randomly assigned desk in an open-plan space attending meetings that should have been emails using Zoom and Teams. Not happening. I've been working 100% remote for these assholes and crushing it in annual reviews since 2018. If they want me on-site again they need to offer me a much better incentive than "do it or we'll fire you".

'Cause if they fire me, and decide they still need me after all, then I'll damn well hold out for $100/hour as a 1099 merc with contractually-guaranteed time and a half for overtime after 32 hours/week.

ProTip: If you've prepared a PowerPoint deck for your meeting, then your meeting should have been an email.

starbreaker ,
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Biden's a neoliberal stooge. What we need is somebody like FDR. Never mind that we limited Presidential terms to a maximum of 2 precisely because FDR broke Washington's 2 terms and out precedent.

starbreaker ,
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This is why I hate the Democratic party almost as much as I hate the Republicans. They're not the same, but they're both scum and I want them all to shit themselves to death. Unfortunately, we're stuck with the Dems as the closest thing the GOP/KKK has to an effective opposition.

starbreaker ,
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I know. But try telling that to centrists and liberals in the US. They just give you shit for thinking "both sides are the same". No, you ignorant shitfountains, they're not the same. It's neoliberals on one side and neo-Nazis on the other, and neither of them give a fuck about anything but rimming their billionaire donors.

How Popular Does Biden Need to Be to Beat Trump? Not Very. (nymag.com)

Given the current state of partisan polarization, it’s unlikely Biden can get majority job approval next year even with the most fortunate set of circumstances. But the good news for him is that he probably doesn’t have to. Job-approval ratings are crucial indicators in a normal presidential reelection cycle that is...

starbreaker ,
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I'm a single-issue voter. My single issue is "fuck the Republicans."

I don't like Biden. He's a neoliberal stooge, the Democratic party is irredeemably infested with corporate-friendly neoliberal bootlickers, and they don't spare a fuck for people who actually work for a living if they can afford it.

But the Republican party is basically the American Nazi party now, and they've been a coalition of fundies, fascists, and white supremacists since Eisenhower left office.

My choice is simple: I'd rather vote for a neoliberal than a neo-Nazi, knowing all the while that I'm voting for the lesser evil and that the lesser evil is still evil. Voting third party only helps the Republicans; it's not like the Green Party are going to get their shit together and start winning local and state elections in my lifetime instead of just trying to get Jill Stein into the White House.

starbreaker ,
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They can't sell EVs because they cost too fucking much. Everything's gone up but our wages, but we're supposed to just keep buying shit anyway? Fuck this economy.

starbreaker ,
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I own my 2008 Sentra outright. Why should I take on a car payment just to "go electric" when the car I have still runs well?

starbreaker ,
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I know. That's another reason I haven't bought one yet, besides being the sort of miser who would rather drive the same car until it falls apart beneath him than take out more high-interest loans. I'm holding out for people to figure out that good public transport is much better than everybody having cars.

starbreaker ,
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I didn't say I was holding my breath, just holding out. Besides, I can breathe through my ears.

starbreaker ,
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Been re-reading Eiji Yoshikawa's Musashi because my wife had listened to the audiobook. She loved the story but couldn't keep track of all the characters, so I've been compiling a chapter-by-chapter character guide for her with links when a historical figure shows up in the story.

starbreaker ,
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Not just an interesting concept. It's an epic based on real events. Miyamoto Musashi actually won a duel by carving a wooden sword out of a broken oar.

starbreaker ,
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The viewing experience already sucks. I'd like to see them make it worse than it already is.

starbreaker ,
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She made a joke about sneaking hormones into my food and drink so that I could "become the woman I should have been" and something told me she wasn't actually joking. Nothing against trans people, but I'm not one of them and even if I was the decision to do something about it ought to be mine alone.

starbreaker ,
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E.g., Nioh. It's very souls-like overall, but I really wish this aspect of the game was more like a From game in this regard.

An interconnected world probably wouldn't make sense for Ninja Gaijin.

starbreaker ,
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I keep part of my TBR pile in the crapper and a read a few pages every time I use the toilet.

starbreaker ,
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ARMALITE: Mass Murder for the Masses

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