its_me_xiphos
@its_me_xiphos@beehaw.org
- Comment on Xbox lay off 268 people as Activision take over Halo and Rare, while Obsidian become part of Bethesda, plus Forza and Fable studios merge 3 days ago:
Man. I’m going to vent and go on a nostalgia trip for a second because I had an excellent dark beer and I’m living my best life.
There’s a documentary on Netflix called “High Score” that I recommend to anyone interested in the gaming industry. The people and stories they highlight are wild. I grew up in the 80s and 90s as the video game scene was taking off and that documentary does a great job talking about those years.
My first game that I owned was X-Wing. It came on 5 or 7 3.5" disks. It was amazing. TIE-CD-Rom, Wing Commander III, Caesar II/III, anything by Westwood, Sierra, and Blizzard. All of that is gone. It’s a shame and I’m glad indy gaming is thriving right now, but something doesn’t quite hit the same. All of this innovation and awe around such a new and novel industry just evaporated in the 2000s/early 2010s as small corpos sold out. We can’t forget that. It’s not so much the a giant corp just took over, but a small studio decided to get bought or absorbed and then died. Even a MUD I played sold to Sony Online Entertainment and then get trash binned.
Don’t know where I’m going with this, but, there it is. Great brewery, Alchimiste in Quebec. Alas, I miss gluten and La Fin du Monde.
- Comment on US being left behind in EV charging speeds as China goes sub-5 min to 70% 3 days ago:
The United States is to EV’s what Blockbuster is to Streaming.
- Comment on Xbox lay off 268 people as Activision take over Halo and Rare, while Obsidian become part of Bethesda, plus Forza and Fable studios merge 4 days ago:
This is a dizzying reorganization. I’m reading the article but I’m just not processing the changes. Why? Streamlining development with an MS “games studio” or just corporation being corporation?
- Comment on Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Peter Thiel All Fled California’s Billionaire Tax. Nvidia’s CEO Isn’t Going Anywhere. Even With an $8 Billion Bill Coming His Way 6 days ago:
Exactly.
- Comment on Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Peter Thiel All Fled California’s Billionaire Tax. Nvidia’s CEO Isn’t Going Anywhere. Even With an $8 Billion Bill Coming His Way 6 days ago:
Ah yes. Soviet style oppression causing you to, check notes leave California and obscure your tax residency so you can be an oligarch and hurt people.
- Comment on ShinyHunters claims FBI hack: 'This is NOT financially motivated' 1 week ago:
The FBI has agents working on crimes against children, sex trafficking, and other heinous acts of exploitation. Thus, the potential for serious collateral damage is real and disturbing.
As @t3rmit3 pointed out, I’m skeptical of their motives.
- Comment on 1 week ago:
Yes. Absolutely floors me. Given the research on bots vs humans, fascism, etc. that plagues Twitter, playing the “but the audience” card holds no merit.
- Comment on We Regret to Inform You Chipotle Is Now Working With Palantir 1 week ago:
“In the immortal words of the virgin Mary…come again?”
- Comment on Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of September 16 1 week ago:
Valheim and Kingdom Come Deliverance II.
- Comment on The Steam Frame Is More Than Just Another VR Headset - Aftermath (Chris Person) 2 weeks ago:
Hell yes! Nice to see a happy internet moment in the wild. Hope it works for you and game on friend.
- Comment on Blizzard is reviving StarCraft as an open-world shooter, but it'll be a long wait 2 weeks ago:
True. I do wonder if there’s a bit of a second wind after getting out from under EA. Not the same as the Blizzard of the 90s and early 00s, but something a bit refreshing at least.
Either way, I’m thankful a staple of joy in my childhood didn’t meet the EA executioner. RIP Westwood, Bioware, et al.
- Comment on Blizzard is reviving StarCraft as an open-world shooter, but it'll be a long wait 2 weeks ago:
Man. Hyped and then apprehensive. If they went with a Helldivers style gameplay I’d be OK with it. But I was hoping for an RTS. Oh well.
- Comment on Albany investigator arrested for allegedly using Flock camera to track ex-girlfriend: Sheriff 2 weeks ago:
absolute power corrupts absolutely…
Look. We really opened Pandoras Box with the Patriot Act. Collective societal fear ruled the day and plenty of entities found ways to exploit surveillance to make money. But I admit that never in a thousand years would I have guessed a mass private surveillance network. I was always fearful of state over each. There’s a great Battlestar Galactica Episode on it. Batman movie covers mass surveillance. We were grappling with it. But we never acted.
Now, in my opinion, it’s too late. Yes there is push back, yes even Florida banned them recently. But these companies are like ticks with an endless supply of blood. They’ll latch on, get plucked off, but find another vein to tap into. You have to cut off their heads, but today’s governing systems don’t have the power or ethics to do that.
- Comment on Flock CEO calls for ‘compromise’ as surveillance company faces growing backlash | TechCrunch 5 weeks ago:
Sorry there bud, but in the simplest terms I can muster: You reap what you sow.
- Submitted 5 weeks ago to technology@beehaw.org | 21 comments
- Comment on There's No Reason to Buy a New Phone Anymore 5 weeks ago:
Alrgiht. Since its ride until this thing dies…is there an alternative OS for me humble Samsung S21 Ultra? I understand Graphene doesn’t work with it. I just need to call, 2FA support, Podcasts, Firefox, Maps, and use Signal. That’s it. And I can do without maps.
- Comment on ChatGPT, LLMs, and Automating the Fun Out of Roleplaying: Don’t let billionaires poison the beautiful creative collaboration at the heart of TTRPGs 5 weeks ago:
I’m hesitant to jump in here, seeing how far off the rails this went, but AI Data Centers have a plethora of problems. Potable water depletion (The Dalles, OR, USA), Exhaust (Boxtown near Memphis, TN, USA), Noise and lowering water tables (Sydeney, Australia). The issues they present over “old school” data centers are amplified because of the speed, resources, power (as in influence) that are part of the package.
They are being built rapidly, with little oversight or research, and suck up enormous resources that “old school” data centers did not. Toss in the ethical concerns as wide ranging as stealing the Gibli Style to destroying books; to be normative, that tends to piss people off.
- Comment on First test flight of largest all-electric aircraft used just $5 of electricity 1 month ago:
I remain cautiously optimistic. The corporate PR stunt aside, the technology will continue to improve. Indeed, it must continue to improve to meaningfully dent air pollution. We are years, perhaps decades, away from replacing regional and short haul flights with this though.
- Comment on 1 month ago:
I have. Usually I am a voice of 1 and they ignore it. I have a new member meeting at the Writer’s Society next month and plan to bring it up there.
- Comment on ChatGPT, LLMs, and Automating the Fun Out of Roleplaying: Don’t let billionaires poison the beautiful creative collaboration at the heart of TTRPGs 1 month ago:
Yeah, that’s sad. I don’t let AI touch my RPG sessions. As a DM, the imperfections and winging it are part of the fun.
- Comment on New website lets drivers check whether their license plate has been searched on Flock database 1 month ago:
This is conjecture. Now I want to find out and see if one if these is right; but first let me guess. There are a few possibilities and I’ll, again, challenge myself to find the answer:
- They competed for an award Google sponsored or held a competition for. Like an X Prize.
- A board member was related to someone high up in Google (as in colleague, college room mate etc) or worked there previously.
- Google wanted to fund something for PR reasons.
- Comment on New website lets drivers check whether their license plate has been searched on Flock database 1 month ago:
Here’s a resource for deeper diving. I apologize but I don’t have time to devout. But if its of interest to anyone:
projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/…/300100369
Also, by law, a 501©3 must respond to and furnish copies of their 990s to anyone who requests. Those are, simply put, their businesses records and reports.
- Comment on 1 month ago:
Is there a way around this? Local events near me only post there. Drives me insane and I refuse to get a Facebook account just so I know where the writers group wants to grab coffee.
- Comment on BMW’s in-car Spider-Man ad is a warning sign: we were promised a transport revolution, instead we got cars tracking us and serving us ads 1 month ago:
Slate would be perfect for my current needs. Less than 25km a day, trips to buy wood for my shitty woodworking, etc. Its slated (sorry…) for 2027. Stuff too big or too far to use my bike for safely. It’s not my time.
So here in the land of geese and syrup we’ve got giant American earth destroyers or the tiny Japanese utility trucks. In between would be awesome. The Chinese EV’s with some Pickups are coming and, although the monitoring and data capture bothers me, somehow it feels the lesser of two evils compared to legacy makers with this pay to play and forced ad combination. Is that an accurate assessment?
- Comment on US water facilities targeted by ‘malicious cyber actors’ – who’s to blame? 1 month ago:
OnlyDams.
- Comment on At colleges, the AI boom means everyone wants to dabble in computer science 1 month ago:
Silver lining.
- Comment on At colleges, the AI boom means everyone wants to dabble in computer science 1 month ago:
I refer to the six essays (might have been 5) I received in a contract grading scheme class on disasters:
“I first heard about critical theory in my sociology class.”
All of them opened with that. Exact same. Burned into my sad professor mind.
- Comment on Horrible PS experience 1 month ago:
I know nothing about game design, but here “poor optimization” often regarding such large games. Is this an instance if that? What exactly is optimizing?
- Comment on Horrible PS experience 1 month ago:
Battle bits was pixel COD/MW. Not sure if its atil going strong.
For an absolutely hilarious yet challenging experience (you need the right people honestly), Hold Fast.
- Comment on Stop Talking To Me, Google Search 1 month ago:
I forgot to mention. To get Ecosia financials, you can request them from the applicable oversight office in Germany. Aggregates, like Candid, have access to that too. That’s the sort ofndue diligence I’d expect; not a link to their oversight page and suggestion they are hiding something. Many large nonprofits have financial overviews like that, and doesn’t suggest organizational rot or greenwashing in this case.
A quick glance suggests that in Germany, you can request a social benefit corp’s financials. If like nonprofit law in the USA, you can request a 990 from any 501©3 and they are required, by law, to provide one within a certain time frame.