BananaTrifleViolin

@BananaTrifleViolin@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨how is it to work everyday but Wednesdays and Thursdays?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I work in a hospital and the worst days to work are weekends. The hospital is still full but most staff are off so its busy. Also all your friends and family are off on the weekend so you can’t see them.

  Meanwhile if you have days off in the week, it’s great because everything is open (unlike a sunday) and all the kids are in school. So you can go out an enjoy the parks or shop freely etc. But most of your friends anf family are also at work.

  I would definitely take 2 days off together, not split them. If I were to have 2 days off and work every weekend I’d either take Mon/Tue off or Thu/Fri. I think its just preference and howbbusy your job is. It could suck being in work on a Friday while everyone else is gearing up for weekend off and discussing their plans, plus also people head off early where they can - I’d probably take The/Fri off so I didn’t have to put up with all that.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is it asshole behavior to hate someone for saying "Hi, how are you?"⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  How old are these people? These sound like kids?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Petition Apply for the UK to join the European Union as a full member as soon as possible⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I wanted to stay in the EU but I don’t want to rejoin.

  Just look at whats going on in Hungary where Viktor Orban is essentially a dictator, and is holding back the EU on it’s Ukraine response. Look at Poland where it skirted past descent into a right wing nightmare, and even now the leftwing government are struggling at unpicking the damage. Look at the Czech Republic where it looks very likely a right wing populist government is going to take power - they’re also against Ukraine. And look at France, which is political turmoil internally - right winger Le Pen has a good chance of being the next french president unless the centre and left can unite around an alternative.

  The EU is powerless to deal with Orban, was powerless to deal with Poland as the right wing government tried to dismantle their democracy and institutions. We’ve already seen what’s happening in the US play out in Europe - twice! And the EU could do nothing.

  We’re better off outside the EU at the moment. I never wanted to leave, but the UK is lucky to be outside the EU as it gives us a degree of flexibility and freedom to deal with the current crisis. We don’t need to be distracted by the internal problems of the EU and it’s rouge member states. Instead we’re working directly with the countries that want to work with us like France and Germany, and not having to deal with the countries that don’t like Hungary.

  I wish the EU the best - I want it to succeed but ultimately it has a serious problem with how you get things done when you have countries inside holding back the EU from pursuing it’s best interests. The EU leaders talk big about grand plans and high ideals including now over defence and Ukraine, but when it comes to getting things done it only takes 1 countries veto and paralysis. The EU needs to reform and become an actual democratic superstate but it won’t happen because again it only takes 1 country to veto progress. It’s clear Hungary will be holding the EU back when it comes to Putin for the foreseeable future. And maybe soon so will the Czech republic. And what happens in the EU if Le Pen is president of France?

  No thanks.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨No, Phil Spencer, Having AI Mock Up An Old Game Is Not The Same As Preserving It⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  One thing Phil Spencer does not seem to care about is emulation. There are already Xbox and PlayStation emulators that allow access to more of both platforms back catalogues than any of the current generation consoles are capable of…

  Xbox could build cloud based emulators off the open source tools already available and make their entire Xbox back catalogue accessible to current users to stream. They could help improve the tools to ensure greater and greater compatibility for titles and then it would be there forever.

  The reason it doesn’t happen is money. They dont see money in game preservation so they dont bother beyond a few big name nostalgia hits. Muse AI isn’t about game preservation, its about game development - they’re just pissing around with game preservation to feed it content as a punt on the future for it somehow making game development cheaper.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨No, Phil Spencer, Having AI Mock Up An Old Game Is Not The Same As Preserving It⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  AI can make Shakespeare BETTER! Like it can put it in modern text speak, and shorten it down to fit in a 30 second tiktok, plus give space for ad breaks and team product placement. AI will help enhance user engagement with Shakespeare and also leverage new monetisation options and cross platform synergies.

  All we have to do is let people copyright AI made content because ultimately it wasn’t Shakespeare that did tge hard work, it was the AI tech Bros who transformed it into a modern content meme and raised 3rd quarter profits.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨No, Phil Spencer, Having AI Mock Up An Old Game Is Not The Same As Preserving It⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, instead game preservation is being solved by abandonware and copyright infringement.

  Legal open source software is doing the heavy lifting, and then torrenting is sharing by he files. But there is a huge risk as there is no safety net to preserve the niche and unpopular games.

  The game publishers and broken copyright laws are blocks to preservation but fortunately people are just doing it anyway. And the more the big companies push against it (including targeting emulation systems for current systems) the more they push it underground and out of any control they might have had. Typical greed and stupidity.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Baldur's Gate 3 and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 show that the future of RPGs is in games way more ambitious, weird and unexpected than anything Bethesda and Bioware have to offer⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The article totally misses the big intervening step between Skyrim/old Bioware and the failure of Starfield/Dragon Age: CDProjectRED.

  While those studios largely just made “more of the same”, CDPR made Witcher 3 and then Cyberpunk 2077. Both games are way better narrative experiences and pushed RPG forward. Starfield looks very dated in comparison to both, and Dragon Age failed to capture to magic. Baldur’s Gate 3 and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 are successes because they also bring strong narratives and emotional connections to the stories.

  Starfield would have been huge if it had been released soon after Skyrim. But now it just looks old fashioned, and I think the “wide as an ocean, as deep as a puddle” analogy is good for Starfield. Meanwhile Witcher 3 - which is 10 years old! - has quests and storylines with choices and emotional impact. BG3 and KC:D2 are heirs to Witcher 3.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Rumor: GTA Roleplay Server FiveM Victim Of Hostile Takeover - And One Of Rockstar's Own Is Involved⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Out of interest, when GTAVI comes out will it matter?

  Will the next game need a new from-scratch RP mod? Or will some of the open source components of FiveM be reusable?

  FiveM have an advantage being owned by Rockstar but if it all has to be done again from scratch, FiveM may be irrelevant? Interested members of the community will make their own thing like they did before. Or is that wishful thinking?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Are mods usually confusing as hell or am I just an idiot?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Genuinely not had a problem with mods, and I’ve been PC gaming for decades. Of course sometimes mods don’t work but thats life. Just be patient, you’ll get it done.

  Decent mods have a readme file - follow the steps strictly - no skipping thinking you know better - and they should work.

  Also look on YouTube or search online for guides - people often provide step by step guides to mod games purely out of a love for gaming.

  Keep going - mods can be great, and its one of the many benefits of PC gaming.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Psst, the Americans are asleep, post some eggs⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Stop showing off your immense wealth.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What’s gone wrong with James Bond? No star, no script, no plan⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Paywalled, archived version: archive.is/M7hHZ

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Elon Reeve Musk⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Its probably just winXP running in a VM.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  So this isn’t shrinkflation, this is a small size pizza that they’re trying to claim is still as tasty as a full pizza?

  Like, if you wanted a full pizza it should be pretty obvious it’s a small 4.5" pizza from the box?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Putting the die in diet⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Sponsored by a wine maker. A bottle of wine a day - jeeze.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Amazon Artificially Discounting Items $0.01 Below the Free Shipping Limit⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Amazon are getting bad about refunds and replacements plus have a major problem with counterfeit goods due yo how they mix 3rd party and Amazon sourced goods in their warehouses.

  They can’t refund your house if it burns down because Amazon sold you fake electronics.

  EBay is find for the smaller cheap Chinese tat that you can find on amazon, and PayPal provides consumer protection. Go to other retailers for electronics - any site or shop that does not use third party sellers.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Amazon Artificially Discounting Items $0.01 Below the Free Shipping Limit⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah band anything of value I would not get from Amazon due to the risk of counterfeits. Amazon pools its stock for an item with that provided by 3rd party sellers in its warehouse - either can be delivered to a customer based on which is closed not who youre buying from.

  So you can easily receive dodgy goods from 3rd party sellers that may he counterfeit or refurbished rather than new.

  Get your expensive items from other retailers that dont have 3rd party sellers. Get your cheap random Chinese manufactured crap from EBay or Aliexpress. Get your digital content from other stores like ebooks.com where you can legally remove the DRM and keep your content forever.

  Fuck Amazon.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Review into Axel Rudakubana will criticise Prevent for rejecting his case three times⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah of the focus is on Prevent then its scapegoating. Prevent is there to tackle people being radicalised - its not there to detect and police all violent people in society.

  The real failings are in police, mental health services and social services - all of which have had resources slashed due to austerity.

  Blaming Prevent is a distraction - counter terrorism is not the route this very violent and sick individual should have been caught before committing an atrocity.

  I work in the NHS and the real question for me is how a very sick and dangerous child could have been allowed to walk away by child mental health services whose excuse has been that he “failed to engage”. A child does not have autonomy to decide to engage or not - it is the mental health services and social services that failed to follow him up.

  A child that was too dangerous to even be allowed on site at a specialist school - he was managed from home for staff and pupil safety - should have had heavy mental health and social service input. Prevent would be able to offer nothing.

  The whole story is an indictment of the failure of the state over the last 15 years since the ideological nonsense of austerity has ravaged the UK public sector and services.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Multiverse⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Infinite doesn’t mean everything. Infinite can include a repeating pattern, even a huge repeating pattern which seems random at first. Not everything you could possibly imagine would necessarily have to exist in the multiverse.

  And even if infinite and perfectly random, some things may just not be feasible and just not exist.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Would not adding a stamp and return address on a letter give you free postage⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah but they’re saying it will still just go to the “to” address anyway and they have to pay postage.to get it The post office won’t send it to the return address.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨'Terrorism has changed', says Starmer on Southport attacks⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  This was a tragedy and missed opportunity, but this was not “terrorism” in the sense being used. This was a seriously dangerous, violent and mentally ill person.

  The focus on how Prevent failed is a real problem because the Prevent strategy is there to stop people being radicalised, not to police society for violent individuals.

  The focus here should really be on the mental health system & social services, and how an extremely dangerous person who was excluded from school for violence, went to a special school and could only be dealt with as a home schooled student for staff and student safety, and for whom their family raised concerns. This guy was not radicalised, he was not a “terrorist”, he was someone who was clearly flagged as very dangerous as a child and failed to act.

  There have been dangerous people before, and there are laws and structures to detain extremely dangerous people for public safety. That’s where everything failed - yet again Social Services, Police, Health and Education. It’s a pattern seen over and over again with public agencies not working together, often because they’re under resourced and stretched as it is.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Baldur's Gate 3 publishing director thinks GTA 6 might have the "clout" to normalise a $100 price tag⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  “publishing director”. So Marketing.

  As for game prices, in fairness to the industry prices have actually come down since 2000.

  AAA Games on consoles in 2000 were around $50; that is $92 now due to inflation. Games went up to around $60 on consoles in 2006, that is around $93 now due to inflation. By 2019 they were still $60 but inflation eroded the value, and that is equivalent to $73 today. When they went up to $70 in 2020, that would be equivalent to $84 now.

  So a nominal price of $100 is not as unreasonable as it sounds. It’s higher than games were in 2000 but in the future if static would erode back to equivalent to $90 in probably 3-4 years.

  But the problem is people do not think in terms of inflationary value, and instead in terms of nominal value. And the bigger problem is most peoples earnings are squeezed by inflation and we have not been having pay rises to account for the inflation, so games are more expensive as proportion of income.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Hulu quizzing about the ads played⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I would immediately cancel any service that does that.

  I actively avoid advertising. I’ve cancelled Amazon prime now it has advertising.

  I got Sky’s Internet TV here in the UK - a supposedly premium service yet the first VOD demand show I streamed I found it had adverts and you had to pay more to be able to fast forward through them. I immediately cancelled.

  These companies are greedy as fuck, and driven by the stupidity of always trying to be “growing” to grow their share prices. That just means always trying to save money and take more money from their customers. Enshittification is a result of the stupidity of the stock markets.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Marvel Snap is banned, just like TikTok⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The law bans the distribution of the app and applies fines to the app store companies of $5,000 per user who is able to access the app to download it.

  So yes, TikToks position is theatrics - current users could continue to access the app but that would mean a slow inevitable decline as no one new could join and the user base would inevitably decline over time. Its not in TikToks interests to allow that and it would take pressure off politicians to do anything. So they’re within their rights to muddy the water and block access with a message blaming it on the politicians.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How is the current AI bubble when compared to the .com bubble in the early 2000's?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I think you’re missing the stock market part of the dot-com bubble which is very similar to AI, and the core part of the collapse.

  The dot-com bubble was a speculative bubble on the stock market with companies getting hugely over valued despite not being profitable on the hope they would make bank. Companies were getting huge amounts in venture capital investment, and floating on the markets to huge valuations all based on expected future earnings.

  Then companies started collapsing and not being protiable and eventually the stock market in the Internet companies collapsed. But the Internet didn’t collapse; lots of startups and companies disappeared but companies with solid business models surived, grew and prospered. Amazon, Google, Ebay etc survived the bubble and dominated their areas.

  The AI bubble is very similar in that companies with AI focus are getting over valued despite not being profitable. The drive int he market is the same - people want to get in at the ground floor and are not being discerning in what they invest in. Very similar to the docotm era, people don’t yet see exactly how money will be made with AI or which companies will be the ones to triumph. It’s all gambling on things people don’t really understand. The AI bubble will also pop, but again AI as a technology isn’t going anywhere - it is investors who will be harmed and a lot of companies will collapse leaving behind ones that have viable business models.

  The dot com bubble burst in March 2000 due to multiple factors - a Microsoft anti trust case loss, the AOL-Time Warner merger being increasingly questioned, and rising interest rates putting pressure on the debt-driven growth of dot-cons.

  Looking at AI, it’s clear there is speculative valuations going on with lots of AI companies. And established tech companies are all throwing money at AI. Meta - which has been in trouble for a while as it needs to keep growing due to the stock market but Facebook and Instagram have peaked and face more competition - first tried to pivot to VR (that’s gone very quiet suddenly!) and suddenly has pivoted to AI. Nvidia has been wildly over valued based on its chips being used in AI and other companies stockpiling them for future AI work. Companies are making expensive moves to stake a claim on future AI market share but at the moment there hasn’t been any profitability coming from these tools.

  AI will survive, but a lot of companies are very obviously going to get burnt. This feeling was also prevenalt during the dot com era - the difficulty was actually picking the winners not that people didn’t know there was a speculative market bubble during the dot com era. People knew it was going to burst just as we know the AI bubble will burst.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon buys a TV without researching⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It really doesn’t sound too good to replace? It sounds like you got free junk, and haven’t actually bought a TV yet?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I need a flicker free LED lightbulb running in the 3000 K range.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Lots of good advice but one question - have you tried LED bulbs before and had flickering problems?

  Just worth checking a standard LED from your local super market before you go down the route of expensive brands or.online purchases.

  The reason I say this is that there are a lot of shoddy cheap and counterfeit electronics sold on Amazon for example. A supermarket bought bulb meanwhile actually has some quality control and standards plus you have somewhere you can go back to to return them.

  All my LEDs are from my local supermarket, own brand (Tesco, I’m in the UK, but Philips are also available for me) and I’ve had no issues. I’d also buy from local retailers where you can get good returns policies.

  Amazon meanwhile has a policy of mixing stock that it purchases with stock from small sellers that they place in their warehouses and sending any to a customer. So a “sold by amazon” item may actually be a counterfeit item supplied by a 3rd party. Basically do not buy anything of value or branded from Amazon.

  Personally the only time I had a flickering LED bulb was a dimmer-switch lamp; it was designed for LEDs but didn’t work with the bulb I bought but turned out I’d accidentally bought a non dimmable bulb. Otherwise I’ve not had a single bulb flicker in my house including all ceiling lights and numerous lamps. All my bulbs are supermarket own brand.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If you have diarrhea and you hold it in will your body retain some of the water?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Your colon is very good at extracting water; if you can hold it in then yes in theory it could remove some of the water. However in reality when you have diarrhoea your colon is inflamed and irritated during and you can’t really stop it happening. You’d have to overcome the cramping and the body trying to push the contents outwards.

  The most likely outcome of trying to hold it in is it gets worse and you get an explosive and even less controlled expulsion.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon's in trouble⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The biggest problem is he’s engineering in Imperial instead of SI units.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What makes a video game triple A (AAA)?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It is just a buzz word in the industry and doesn’t have a tight definition. It’s basically any big budget full priced game from a big publisher. They’re just communicating that they’ve made a big budget game with an expectations of hopefully big sales and profit.

  It does imply the game should be popular and high quality, but those are not a given. Plenty of AAA games end up being trash and flopping yet they’re still AAA games.

  It’s similar to the Blockbuster concept in the film industry.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Study finds young people more likely to spend Christmas alone⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  This probably reflects increasing immigration - there will be plenty of people who don’t celebrate christmas so it’s just a bank holiday, or who are alone in the UK without family with them.

  For example in 1981, 96% of the population was white british. In 2011 that was down to 87% and in 2021 it’s down to 83%.

  It’s not surprising that 10% of young people might spend Christmas alone if nearly 20% of the population is not white (which is largely Christian or secular with some Christian traditions). While some of the non white population may be Christian, it’s not surprising that christmas may not be an important day to Hindus, Muslims or Sikhs.

  Also European white migrants who might be christian may celebrate christmas on a different day.

  So there is a danger of over interpreting statistics like these. Saying more young people are spending Christmas alone over 50 years is kind of meaningless as it’s a totally different group of young people today than 50 years ago.