…Dickweed.

Me: This is America.

Pornhub: This content is not available in your state due to ID verification legislation.

My VPN: This is Germany.

Instead of buying a TV, look for a digital signage display. It’s a TV, but with none of the “smart” crap on it.

Alternatively, just don’t hook your device up to the internet.

I knew STALKER was a cult classic. I also knew it was the definition of eurojank, so I was already holding off on the sequel until it gets several patches and/or a few community fixes.

Still, I have several people on my friends list who have been playing the absolute shit out of this game. The devs clearly remembered how to capture the magic of the Zone.

“It is not the severity of punishment that deters crime, but the certainty of punishment.”

Journeys (the shoe chain) and Hollister Co. both use Linux distros on their point of sale machines. Hollister’s machines are pretty locked down and can basically only run the RPoS software, but a lot of Journeys’ software is browser-based, so they have to be a bit more capable.

Pretty sure they’re both custom distros, though.

I’m thinking someone went nuts with the Photoshop. It’s what Elon Musk thinks he looks like, and I don’t think AI would be able to get that look just the way Elon wants it.

Super famous singer “offers” to be featured on your track

“Sure! I had my lawyer write up a contract; let me send it to your people and we can go from there.”

If they’re cool, they’ll negotiate and sign a contract. “Just trust me, bro!” is never an acceptable answer. Protect yourself; have a contract before collaborating with anyone.

An oldie, but a goodie.

and the story takes a while to get started.

That’s the problem the game has always had, though.

I played for a bit right as Endwalker came out. I went in blind, played consistently for two months, and by then, I had just finished the first third of Shadowbringers. In contrast, it took me a month-and-a-half to level my first WoW toon back during Wrath of the Lich King.

People may praise the story, but while there was a lot of great stuff, it just takes so loooooong to get there. They really do need to go through and prune the filler quests or boost experience gains.

In DA2’s defence, the game went from concept to release in 16 months. With a development cycle that fast, it’s a miracle it was even playable; I wouldn’t call its rampant copy-pasting “lazy”. I’d call it many bad things, because that game had tons of problems, but that’s what happens when the beancounters have an unexpected success and want to capitalize on it yesterday.

instead of just playing the game as intended.

I feel like you just unwittingly hit on the problem many series veterans have been having.

People are approaching bosses in Elden Ring like they’re Dark Souls bosses, and in my thousands of hours across the series, the only bosses I summon help for is Sister Friede and the Demon Twins. Everyone else I was eventually able to defeat on my own, because that’s how they were balanced.

But in Elden Ring, you have the open world to grind in and Spirit Ashes and crazy weapon arts that are far beyond any that were in Dark Souls 3, and the bosses are balanced around these things. It’s harder to make a good guess at how powerful a player is at any given time in Elden Ring, so in order to counter the player’s bullshit, the bosses need bullshit of their own.

This, naturally, throws a wrench into the plans of veterans who are used to bosses that are tough but fair and approaching them in that manner. They then promptly get their shit pushed in because they aren’t using the things the encounters are balanced around having simply because they didn’t used to need them.

It makes the bosses binary. Either you get your ass kicked, or you summon help, use a Mimic Tear, and run a train on them. They’re either frustrating or boring, and fights that are frustrating or boring just aren’t fun. I’m not having fun getting comboed to death or just pelting the boss with spells while my goons beat them up.

The magic is gone. Bosses used to be the highlight of Souls games, and now I just want them to be over.

The only time it was challenging was back when AI factions had a hate boner for the player and ONLY the player. Like how they would leave their settlements undefended to march halfway across the map, through territory belonging to a faction they were at war with just to sack the player’s settlements.

Thing is, all the other major manufacturers are just as bad or worse.

As a PC technician, HP still somehow has the best service and support, which speaks volumes about how bad everyone else is. Dell’s support tools are a generation behind HP’s, and Lenovo’s build quality is atrocious. Not to mention Lenovo’s technician support is so badly fragmented and poorly run, they default to having the customer send the device in for repair and avoid sending an on-site technician just so they can avoid dealing with technician support. Speaking from personal experience, getting to the right person when I have a problem or need to order additional parts is like pulling teeth, and even if I manage to reach someone, they’re usually equal parts incompetent and unhelpful.

And Apple doesn’t even want to service their stuff.

These days, you have to pick your poison.

I’ve been getting a lot of mileage from this.

TikTok isn’t doing anything that any other major social media company isn’t also doing. The only difference being that TikTok is owned by a Chinese company, and not a US one.

Just banning one app does little to resolve the overall privacy and information nightmare that social media is.

Just get a second account. They’re free.

I have a second account for all of my filth, it’s easy.

Their problem was they counted their chickens before they hatched. They went on a spending spree while expecting an influx of cash from the Saudi PIF. But the deal fell through and suddenly, they were short about $2 billion.

old.reddit is probably going to be on the chopping block, too. I only go for niche communities these days, but I’m gone for good once old.reddit is gone.

I imagine this is only for consumer-grade printers. HP’s business-class devices are usually purchased under a contract.