The_Sasswagon

@The_Sasswagon@beehaw.org

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨TikTok set to be banned in the US after losing appeal⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t think you’re going to find peer reviewed studies on something that happened a month ago, but I would be very sure to say someone is working on it.

  But if you’ve used Twitter you can recognize when something changes. I haven’t used it for years, but secondhand I’ve heard it was pretty egregious. Obviously this could be due to external parties heightening a disinformation campaign, but I’m not sure that really matters.

  American social media platforms creating an environment where propaganda and misinformation flourish and refusing to take action against it has the same net effect as TikTok altering internal algorithm. Arguing that somehow TikTok is worse because it’s a foreign government is nonsense when every social media platform is manipulated by foreign governments to the same effect.

  Doesn’t help the US government just keeps saying “trust us bro, we have reports that say China is spying on us” while they threaten to ban one platform. Nobody trusts that, it looks like a witch hunt, and sounds racist when they single them out this way.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨"EU-Linux:" Petition calls for the implementation of an EU-Linux operating system in public administrations across all EU countries⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  To be clear, the EU developing an operating system for EU use is not a dystopian vision without assuming many things about the theoretical future project. The petition is asking for this for transparency and independence from an actual dystopian vision coming to fruition in a ‘forced’ Windows standard. That doesn’t really lead me to imagine a dystopian nightmare where the EU forces everyone to install their distro (A potentially comical vision on its own).

  I rather like the idea that governments contribute to open source projects, sounds a lot better than the same contribution going to private institutions. The use of open source software may introduce some vulnerabilities, but those are replacing vulnerabilities that are already there. I would also imagine investment in some open source projects would encourage more development in adjacent areas, much like Valve, Proton, and gaming.

  I would be interested to hear what alternative you have to solving the problems that the project in this petition is attempting to solve. It’s easy to shoot down something for not being perfect but it’s pretty challenging to come up with a theoretical proposal that pleases all.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Polygon - Was Bioshock good?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ 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…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Biden signs TikTok “ban” bill into law, starting the clock for ByteDance to divest it⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  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.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Open world games, need recommendations⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  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.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨‘Romeo & Juliet’ Play Starring Tom Holland and Francesca Amewaduh-Rivers Faces ‘Barrage of Racial Abuse,’ Producer Says ‘This Must Stop’⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, more like I worry that was your implication, it was hard to read it any other way.

  I’m sure the younger crowd are just as interested in a play from 1597 as you were in the 1900s, and doubly so in Tom Holland. Seems like the tickets would sell themselves

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨‘Romeo & Juliet’ Play Starring Tom Holland and Francesca Amewaduh-Rivers Faces ‘Barrage of Racial Abuse,’ Producer Says ‘This Must Stop’⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t understand how this play could possibly be hard to market, it’s possibly the most famous English stage play with very famous people. What am I missing here?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Starbucks accused of manipulating app payments for $900 million profit⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨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.