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…

If I’m reading that right, that could also say that Instagram is suppressing anti-israel content? It’s just saying that in comparison to Instagram tiktok is showing more x, y, z. But Instagram is absolutely not a neutral point to measure from.

For starters there’s different demographics on each one, but I’m sure you could adjust for that, maybe the study did. But I don’t think you can adjust for the impact the US government has on Meta. I don’t believe for an instant that some US agency isn’t manipulating algorithms or requiring certain tweaks to steer discourse just like they did with US news outlets.

I’d diagnose the problem similarly to the person you replied to and I don’t think I’d feel compelled to offer a specific remedy either.

People have been experimenting with economies and societies for thousands of years and we are in a relatively new money/power/control stuck spot right now. I’m sure there’s been a system in history that would work much better than what we’ve got, but I just read recreationally so I dunno what it is and just because something worked 1000 years ago in North America doesn’t mean it’ll work here today. I wouldn’t mind giving something new a shot though, what we have is not working for most people.

Second for guild wars 2, the world is huge when you first start playing, and though the initial levelling experience can feel like it takes a while, once you have hit the cap you can go pretty much anywhere. The story is pretty linear, though, so if you want a deep and complex story it might be better to look for a single player game.

I’d also say the combat system in Guild wars is fantastic, it’s simple enough to pick up and not have to stress about playing the game, but if you want to engage and get better there is so much to learn about and improve.

You can play with no survival mechanics on peaceful mode, but then there’s no mobs. I’m sure you can mod out hunger though for that og feel, theres a mod for everything.

Caususes are a way some state political parties choose to pick out their favorite party candidate for the November election.

In most states they have a primary which is just a normal election by US standards. In a few, including Iowa, they gather in a physical room and move from location to location to physically show who they support.

That means if I’m “caucusing for Bernie” I’d go stand next to the Bernie crowd. This ends when a certain candidate has a majority (I don’t remember the exact amount). So people move from candidate to candidate as they see theirs isn’t winning or as they are persuaded by others there.

Every state has their primary or caucus on a specific day, so yesterday was Iowa’s day, and it’s often very cold this time of year in Iowa. This year it’s pretty brutal, high of 3°F and low of -3°F today (-16C and -19.5C), and it was colder a few days 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.

You might have fixtures that overheat the bulbs. LEDs run cool compared to other bulbs but they are very sensitive to heat (that’s why the old ones had fins on them). If your fixture is enclosed, LEDs in there will have a much shorter life span.

One common fixture in these parts are those silly domes with the screw in the middle, they regularly killed bulbs at my old place. I even had one come out that had discoloration from the heat.

CFLs and incandescents didn’t like those fixtures or heat either, but I don’t know as much about how their life span was impacted.

Wow, that’s crazy! I certainly did not have that experience with my lockup, but it was in a parking garage behind a second locked gate, so fairly secure.

I guess that just becomes part of your risk assessment for biking places then! I know in my situation I’d have to lose an awful lot of bikes to make the cost of a car worthwhile, but I’d really rather not lose any.

You aren’t kidding, I have spent the last five days banging my head against cruciball 11 with the vanilla Peglin. Feels like a lot of rng and less about choices as it goes on.

As someone who would also love to do that, why don’t more cities have public lockups? I worked at a place near downtown that had one for employees and it was amazing. I could bike to work ditch the bike and catch a bus or train and not have to worry about my bike while I was out.

Dicey dungeons is a blast! I have such a hard time with the engineer, I’m sure there’s a trick but haven’t quite sussed it out.

I’ve been playing Guild Wars 2 again after a long hiatus after my raid static disbanded. Only a little bit into the new expac but it’s been great! I think the new daily system has done a good job of getting me to come back with a clear list of things to do and compelling rewards.

I’ve also been playing Peglin, trying to work through the cruciball. Really fun/frustrating/satisfying game.

I’m prepping for my next BG3 playthrough by playing through divinity original sin 1 and probably 2 after. I’ve never played either and I’m really enjoying the challenge so far. I’ve really been into that genre since BG launched, we will see how long it lasts!

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.

Vault hunters is a blast, it’s almost a completely different game set inside Minecraft. I got playing it when they updated the early game and only just put it down for a bit to play baulders gate.
I especially like making farms for a materials that the mod asks for, even if it’s not necessary yet. Just infinite amounts of nearly everything one could want.

I’m pretty hyped, I love the communication from them! I’ve still got so much to do from icebrood and EoD, time to dive back in I guess!

My only worry about the sky scale is how they talk about buffing its movement, it sounds fun but it’s also already the most powerful mount. Hard to imagine a use for our bunny or raptor if we’re zipping over queensdale on our dragon. Guess it matters less if everyone’s got it, no more leaving new folks out.