cerebralhawks
@cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com
- Comment on You Don’t Yell at a Broadway Show. But What if It’s ‘Rocky Horror’? 57 minutes ago:
Audience participation is a thing, and it’s expected in some cases. Like Kpop Demon Hunters. And The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
- Comment on Fired Rockstar devs don’t want you to boycott GTA 6 but ask for support - Dexerto 4 hours ago:
Not boycotting it per se, I’m just not getting it at launch. I think I’ll play Saints Row 3 again. Those games are so good.
You see what GTA 5 goes on sale for. You got me fucked up if you think I’m dropping $100 on GTA 6.
- Comment on Why we're so sure our phones are listening 4 hours ago:
Because every time someone says it, the usual suspects come out of the woodwork to convince us they’re not.
- Comment on What's your MarioKart character and why? 9 hours ago:
Turtle or Toad. The first one. We have it on Switch but don’t play it much. It’s fine, it’s really pretty, but my experience is with the first one.
- Comment on Pauline Hanson still doesn't like Mardi Gras, says sexuality should be 'behind closed doors' 3 days ago:
So who’s stopping her from keeping her own sexuality behind closed doors?
Also, Australia has Mardi Gras, too?
- Comment on YouTube won't let me search for music by musician unless I remove the word "naked" from her name 3 days ago:
Maybe if you make it two words. That’s not the name of the band though.
- Comment on Harry Potter star Bel Powley says she 'strongly disagrees' with JK Rowling's views 6 days ago:
Sounds like they should cancel the series, since it primarily exists to distance Rowling from the naysayers who were in the movies. Now that those in the series are also opposed to her views… what’s even the point anymore?
- Comment on Is there a point to the Straight Of Hormuz? What is the difference between the Iranians having it than the US? What does it mean for the average joe in either country? 1 week ago:
A lot of oil flows through the strait from the oil fields behind it. Iran can use the oil without it because they’re behind it. By limiting access to the strait, they can harm the global economy, at least as long as, one, they control the strait, and two, the global economy depends on oil. The Americans are doubling down on their reliance on oil, probably to justify fighting Iran for the strait. So they challenge Iran’s control of the strait. The other option is to make a rival strait, or canal (e.g. Panama Canal), on land the US or an ally controls. That’s expensive though, and will take time, and the US/the west doesn’t really have friends over there, just unsteady allies.
So right now the issue is Iran keeps flip-flopping on letting ships travel through the strait, but I don’t imagine the US would be a better steward of it. The better option by far would be to get the west on renewable energy. If the US/the west didn’t need oil, the Middle East/OPEC would lose a LOT of influence over the global economy. The US may be doubling down on oil to appease their allies in Saudi Arabia.
- Comment on People who play videos and podcast loudly in cafés and restaurants: What's your deal? 1 week ago:
I don’t think you’ll find those people on the Fediverse. You might find them on Twitter.
They probably wouldn’t answer you anyway, because you’re beneath them. People who do that tend to be selfish, narcissistic types who think everyone who is not them and theirs is less than human.
- Comment on Local newspaper presents paid political advertising in the same format as a regular news article 2 weeks ago:
Tech blogs have been doing this for years. I get it, they cater to people who block ads. I block ads. But now I just assume their reviews and coverage is all sponsored. Because you don’t really know.
- Comment on Is Myspace coming back? Owners confirm relaunch plans 2 weeks ago:
Look into “the small web”. You can get a site that is kinda like a MySpace profile, but you have more control.
- Comment on Every YouTube video PlayStation posts has hundreds of comments about physical discs 2 weeks ago:
I have an XSX, but I hate changing discs. I wish they’d just implement that feature where as long as no other Xbox user has inserted your disc, you have a revocable digital entitlement to play without the disc.
- Comment on Every YouTube video PlayStation posts has hundreds of comments about physical discs 2 weeks ago:
Yeah, I mean that was the generation where games really started to require Internet and/or Day One updates to play. Before that, online was really optional.
Sure, some newer games are fully contained on the disc and 1.0 is playable offline, but from then, more and more weren’t.
- Comment on Every YouTube video PlayStation posts has hundreds of comments about physical discs 2 weeks ago:
And the physical discs aren’t the problem. People billing it down to that means the problem won’t get solved. Might as well tell Sony they don’t care about the real issue. Since PS4/XB1, games have basically required Internet to play. If the game is delisted, it still won’t play even if you have the disc. Delisting is the real problem. Stopping sales of the game isn’t fine, but it’s forgivable. But let people who own it play it in perpetuity. Or refund their money.
- Comment on 2 weeks ago:
Never played it but screenshot makes me think of Diablo II. I miss that game. I think it was the first game that made me feel like my trackball was the superior choice (to a mouse).
Game requires spyware (Windows) to play on a computer, but somewhat ironically, I have an Xbox, so I could play it there. (Also have a PS3 and a Switch.) Gameplay trailer on their website makes it look more like an action game than an RPG though. Either way it looks like a bit of fun.
- Comment on The hill I will die on: Games are the opposite of fun, and I’d ban them for anyone over 12 | Emily Watkins 2 weeks ago:
I get it, people should come together and socialise rather than play games… I mean, I can kinda see the logic. But, sometimes I just wanna murder aliens. Currently playing Saints Row 4, one of the stupidest games of all time. You can murder people in the streets, but they’re all holograms or aliens. You can’t canonically hurt anyone in this game, as far as I can tell. Well, my character just got punched by another human character for uttering the words “poodle skirt” (IYKYK) (also, Kinzie is awesome).
- Comment on While is it always the person's fault who rearended you? What about the person in front of you stopping all of a sudden in the middle of a highway? 3 weeks ago:
This is one way insurance scammers operate. Sometimes they’ll even have a partner drive alongside you so you can’t get over. Though dash cams have largely reduced these scams. Hard to do when everybody is recording.
- Comment on Why does Australia tend to ban or censor video games? 3 weeks ago:
I don’t know what fortnight concerts are (you go to a concert every two weeks?) and while I do like a couple streamers of old games from my childhood, I don’t much care about video game streamers. I also don’t give two dry shits about online multiplayer games. Doesn’t mean I’m any less a gamer. I’m speaking for myself because I’m in that age group and generation you’re generalising. I’m not saying you’re wrong about all of us, but you’re wrong about me and the people who are about my age I know.
They were cultural enough. I remember commercials for video games shown on TV. I specifically remember the one for Super Mario Bros. 3 where a whole stadium is chanting “Mario! Mario!” over and over. Hell, I remember Final Fantasy VIII (8) advertised in theaters. I mean, now, you have car commercials and other TV-type commercials in theaters, it’s obscene, but back when you only had Coca-Cola ads and movie trailers, seeing a trailer for a video game on the big screen was insane. Then there was all the hype around a possible Super Mario Bros. movie. That movie came out in 1993, so I mean in the 1980s, early 90s we were anticipating it, Nintendo Power was talking about movie ideas, then at one point (not sure if before or after) there was the cartoon series… then the movie came out and we were all disappointed. Oh, and trading NES cartridges on the school yard. It was technically against the rules to bring video games to school. It was a big grey disk and you couldn’t do anything with it at school other than admire the artwork on the sticker. But there was a rule. But on recess, we’d trade games we’d beaten for new ones we hadn’t, and we’d swap secrets we’d found.
It was a different culture (streaming and online multiplayer games didn’t exist), but then The Wizard came out. It was a movie about us, about Nintendo gamers, and this autistic kid who could master any game within seconds of playing it for the first time. So his older brother “kidnaps” him, takes him to Los Angeles (I think), and enters him into a contest where Super Mario Bros. 3 is revealed to the public for the first time, so the kid’s never seen it, and he either beats it right then and there, or he gets further than anyone and figures out a couple secrets; either way, he wins by a landslide. That was the video game culture we grew up with. Oh, and we didn’t have GameFAQs, YouTube, or Google, so what we did was, we’d call this 1-900 number, and it was like phone sex, except for games. You’d ask about a game and they’d get you talking about games and other games to keep you on the line because the charges were ridiculous. So Nintendo had these people who basically groomed kids over the phone getting them talking about the games they play to rip their parents off on the phone bill. What they wouldn’t do was just simply answer your question and then take the next caller. Nah, they milked that shit. I never called but I knew guys who did, and they paid more for one tip than they did for the entire game. Imagine you paid $50 for a game, and then you got stuck and called the help line, they help you with the problem and you chat about games for a while, and you get a $60 bill. Make it make sense. Of course, it did make sense — to Nintendo’s shareholders. But, anyway…
- Comment on How do I have casual sex with wheelchair users? 3 weeks ago:
To look at this issue from a slightly different perspective, if you’re the kind of person who has a bicycle and primarily uses it for exercise, a wheelchair becomes immediately useful as it’s the same thing for the upper body. On one hand, they are a medical device; however, there’s no law against owning one for other reasons. The problem you run into here (aside from the social stigma of using a medical device for exercise and/or recreation, people will think you have no respect for those who need the device and may even feel you’re ethically obligated to donate the chair to a handicapped person in need) is that because it’s a medical device, it costs more than it should. When I was a kid, I had a neighbor who had a wheelchair, but did not use it. I would help her around the house (she was a multiple amputee), and I would help look after her sons. They wanted to play in the chair. She said fine, just don’t break it. It was pretty sturdy anyway. So I’d push them around in it, and sitting in the thing, I found it was a heck of an exercise device for the chest and arms. So I looked into getting one. In the 1990s, they started at $500. Meanwhile, you could get a decent mountain bike for $150. Not a great one, but one that would get you on the trail. And I wasn’t even looking at a sporty wheelchair, either, I was looking at the silver and grey kind you’d find in a hospital. I can only imagine the cool ones cost way more. But, maybe you can find one used, thrift one or something. If you got the chair, you or a partner can role play. Bonus, they’re kinda fun to use until you gotta go uphill, and if someone tries to help you and you tell them you aren’t really handicapped, you look like an arsehole.
Still, I think using a wheelchair for non-medical reasons is way, way down the arsehole ladder from fetishising people with handicaps in the eyes of society. You can make up excuses for either, but people are still gonna talk. The only way to win that argument is to not play from the start.
If it’s truly not a fetish and you really want to meet people with disabilities without running into the other social stigma (power imbalance in a relationship), I’d say one way to do that is to advocate for disabled rights in your community. So you would start with a rehabilitation place of some kind — the problem here is, those places are not going to refer you to individuals due to privacy laws — and your approach is that you want to fight for something in your community, and your cause of choice is the rights of people with disabilities. Ask these places if you can put up a flyer. You’re a rebel with a lot of free time and you want to make things better for people living with disabilities, so you want them to contact you at no cost or obligation to talk about the difficulties they face that abled people do not, and you try to effect some changes in your local community. Tell the people who contact you to come support you in town hall meetings where you call upon local leaders to implement more ramps, more handicap parking spaces, and other disabled-friendly implementations. This way, people see you as a good guy, and you don’t have any power over people with disabilities. Rather, it’s kind of the other way around, since you’re working for them. But you’re their local hometown hero.
You should not do things like that for the sole purpose of sleeping with someone, or other selfish reasons. But, that’s how you get out from under the fetishisation and power imbalance accusations. It’s not easy and it’s not fast, but what’s right seldom is.
I’ve never done anything like that, so if anyone who has experience wants to clarify, go right on ahead.
- Comment on Why does Australia tend to ban or censor video games? 3 weeks ago:
[T]he median age of politician is 50 [in Australia], so they’re not really a generation who value gaming.
Someone who just turned 50 would have been born in 1976, and thus, would have been 9 or 10 when the NES came out.
Generation X is the first generation to grow up with video games, from Pong (which was its own machine) and the Atari 2600; later the NES and Super NES.
I’m almost 50 myself, and I value gaming, as do/did most of the people I grew up with.
- Comment on A $40,000-per-Year AI School With No Teachers Is Opening in Oklahoma This August 4 weeks ago:
Okay, so most working people wouldn’t be able to afford that, especially in *waves hand* pretty much the entirety of Oklahoma. Maybe a few millionaires will send their kids there, and they can support those useless adults through adulthood, and leave them their estate when they die.
Doesn’t seem like a very good long-term strategy, though.
- Comment on Nintendo says users voluntarily paid higher prices, have no right to tariff refunds 4 weeks ago:
Right, I’m saying it should be both or neither. The argument Nintendo is making is the same argument the US government should use to deny Nintendo.
- Comment on Nintendo says users voluntarily paid higher prices, have no right to tariff refunds 4 weeks ago:
I’m no lawyer, but it sounds like they’re kind of right? It’s a case of “you’re right but you’re still an arsehole.”
However, I think if Nintendo isn’t going to refund consumers, they have no business seeking refunds from the government.
I never really thought the lawsuit against Nintendo had much merit. If costs go up, so too must prices, and demand goes down. People who support the price increases and continue to buy at the jacked-up prices are sending the message that price has not affected (their) demand. I do not believe they should be made whole because they are not out anything. They saw the price and they chose to pay it. Like everyone who buys a Steam Deck post-increase, or Xbox, or PlayStation. The Steam Machine was always gonna cost about $1000, that’s been expected since it announced, and it hasn’t increased in price (AFAIK).
But, again, not a lawyer.
However, I do firmly believe that if Nintendo is not going to make consumers whole, it similarly does not deserve to get made whole. For the same reason. Those tariffs were the cost of doing business. And they chose to do that business, and they did so… by raising prices. So it seems if you can’t have one increase without the other… you can’t have one refund… without the other.
- Comment on this absolute bullshit from reddit 4 weeks ago:
Okay, so if you were to get banned from Reddit because you said that paedophiles should face harsher legal consequences, you wouldn’t think that maybe the site is run by paedophiles? So maybe you appeal, maybe you caught one bad apple, but then it’s upheld by a second one. Then I think it’s absolutely fair to say the site is run by paedophiles. And I think that’s deserved.
True, you didn’t have all the facts. I’m not gonna tell the story every single time. So maybe that’s on me. Maybe you feel like I pulled a bait and switch.
It sounds like you’re just tired of hearing about the bad shit the ruling elite do. Not much for that, I’m afraid.
- Comment on this absolute bullshit from reddit 4 weeks ago:
Yeah, fuck Reddit, but there’s a lot of good information up there, even if it’s currently run by paedophiles. People who were on Twitter before Elon Musk bought it still enjoy their communities even though the site is owned by an AI company that generates CSAM.
- Comment on Which movie have you seen where an actor started as an extra prior to becoming famous? 4 weeks ago:
I’ve been meaning to see that.
- Comment on Which movie have you seen where an actor started as an extra prior to becoming famous? 4 weeks ago:
Also, does Jena Malone count? I saw her first movie, and wish I didn’t. It was on late night TV. I’m not naming it or linking it because it has some really explicit, NSFL stuff in it and trigger warnings like you wouldn’t believe. It was also briefly banned, and I happened to see it for sale on DVD with a big warning calling out what it briefly got banned for. You DON’T want to see it. (That said, she was not an extra, she was the most important character and basically the title character, it’s just obscure for other reasons, like, most people would have never seen/heard of this film.) (And I don’t want to talk about it, I like her acting but that film isn’t one I will discuss.)
Anyway, I would later see her in Donnie Darko and Contact, and while she’s never been a big star, mostly preferring indie flicks (she chose Contact because she always wanted to work with Jodie Foster, who is her role model), I’ll still watch just about anything she’s in. I think she’s talented and I enjoy seeing her work. Kind of like Jake Gyllenhaal. I don’t like a lot of actors for their acting, but when I find one I do, I tend to enjoy seeing them even if I don’t like anything else about the movie.
- Comment on Which movie have you seen where an actor started as an extra prior to becoming famous? 4 weeks ago:
My boy Adam Scott (main guy in Severance) in Star Trek VIII: First Contact as Worf’s helmsman.
Here’s his scene: www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-KoydNOWGc
- Comment on James Bond should stay white and male, says casting chief 5 weeks ago:
I’ve always said this as well. Elba himself agrees that he is too old.
He played a retired spymaster you can work for in Cyberpunk 2077, in which your character is voiced by Asuna from Sword Art Online (unless you picked the dude) and you’re sorta possessed by a rare evil Keanu Reeves, so if you’re also a sci-fi nut, it’s even better.
And when I say he played the character, I don’t mean he did the voice. He did, but the character was also modeled after him, so you will see Idris Elba in your game. Same with Keanu Reeves and his character. Of course, the player character can look like whatever you want her to. (Again, or you could choose a dude if that’s your thing.)
- Comment on How does death with a mechanical/artificial heart work? 5 weeks ago:
I would imagine that it would. The alternative is that it would not, which would mean that it would need some sensor to determine that you were no longer alive, at which point it would stop working. There’s no real point for it to have a feature to stop working. It’s probably better for it to be seen as ‘creepy’ by continuing to work inside of a dead body than for it to constantly be checking to see if you’re alive, since the surgery to change the battery is probably pretty invasive, so they want to do it only every so many years, to maximise its efficiency. Also, false positives (negatives?) would be problematic. You’d just want it to keep working regardless.
EMTs probably have a way to shut it down, though. It’s probably impossible or really difficult to do it accidentally, but I’m sure there’s a way. Good question for an EMT if you happen to meet one. They aren’t squeamish. It’s just a matter if they feel like talking to you or not, I suppose.