cerebralhawks

@cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Christa Pike at 18 years old when she was sentenced to death. She is now 50 and they are supposed to kill her this week⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  If you’re fine with the double standard, just admit it and own it. Nobody’s perfect, and in fact, perfect is the enemy of good. If that’s your position, defend it. If you can’t, you should look at why that is. It’s fine if we disagree, and disagreement is good to advance the discourse. We shouldn’t be a hive mind online. But defend your position. Explain why it’s okay for men to be put to death but not women. Or whatever your point of view is — I don’t want to put words in your mouth. Or maybe you don’t think it’s a double standard. Just explain your position better and defend it. It’s also fine to be “wrong” and own that, too. Like, I like pineapple on pizza. I know most don’t. But I own it. I’m not gonna convince someone who’s never had a great Hawaiian pie that it’s pretty good. I don’t need to, I like what I like and if that’s wrong… I’m not perfect.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Christa Pike at 18 years old when she was sentenced to death. She is now 50 and they are supposed to kill her this week⁩ ⁨⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s sad but world people have as much sympathy for a man on death row? Would they even care to read how bad his childhood was? Most people wouldn’t care. Let’s see if somebody takes up for a condemned man and how much social media attention it gains.

  That said, I’m not strictly in favour of the death penalty. No matter what the penalty is, people will commit crimes. But we have to do something. I’m not sure what, though.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Reddit is putting more limits on Old.Reddit.com⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  Let’s be absolutely clear, they didn’t just kill third-party apps.

  And to be fair, third party apps often bypassed their ads. So Reddit had a legitimate grievance there. The apps were contributing nothing, were collecting money from Reddit users, and the app I’m going to talk about, Apollo, actually had a recurring subscription if you weren’t one of the first ones to buy it.

  So Apollo was kind of the big dog and so Reddit basically went after them primarily. After the conversation did not go well for Reddit, Reddit’s CEO started telling everyone that the Apollo dev tried to extort Reddit. The Apollo dev did make a joke about money changing hands, but he absolutely did not extort Reddit, and he brought the receipts. He transcribed the call… for those who didn’t have time to listen to the actual recording, which he also shared.

  With a big pie in their face, Reddit reacted by killing third-party apps entirely. And it was mostly based on a lie.

  Reddit is run by the Epstein class anyway. Heck, I was banned just for suggesting longer prison terms for people who prey upon children. I guess they took that as a threat against their leadership? And/or certain politicians who they support (or who support them)?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨With all the bad stuff said about AI can it actually better humanity in some ways or another? Or is it just doom and gloom?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  It possibly could but the people running it are doing so for profit.

  Okay, say an AI cures cancer. That’s not just going to be free. They’re only going to sell it to people who can afford it, and price it out of reach of working folks.

  Stuff like that.

  It can be used to solve problems, but it’s not going to share the solutions. The person running the AI will get to choose to share it or not.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  Depends on your definition of nudity. Plenty of people post “nude” or “naked” in the NSFW subs and they are wearing underwear.

  There’s a certain definition that these people subscribe to that describes nudity as wearing less clothes than you’d be comfortable going out in public. That it’s a form of vulnerability. I always thought it meant completely nude, like not a thread on them. Others disagree.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  This kind of thing is fairly common in gaming. I stopped giving my Skyrim kids new outfits because, the way the game would handle it, the character would unequip their previous outfit and then equip the new one. On a fast PC, it happens instantly, or near enough that you would not notice. However, on the Xbox 360, or a potato PC, there are a couple of seconds where the character appears “nude” for a second or two.

  To qualify the “nudity”, all Skyrim kids have the same body and face. There are hair types and they are gender-specific, and that’s how you get boys and girls. Both have painted-on underwear. “Panty” style with a tube-top “bra” for girls and “boxer briefs” style for boys. The child outfit comes in four colours (IIRC) and is also gendered. It’s a dress for girls and a shirt and pants for boys. In both cases, the top is coloured and the bottom is grey, IIRC.

  A simple solution would have been for the “nude body” to include the outfit in white. But hey, what do I know? I am not a programmer.

  Another solution would be to stop using the adoption system entirely. Nothing forces you to have kids in the game. Of course, we’re all still going to adopt off-brand Aerith, right? (If you don’t know, just keep an eye out for a girl in a red dress selling flowers. She’s in Windhelm, where the Stormcloaks operate out of.)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Some communities don't have actual mods, and you can request Lemmy World admins to take them over⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  To clarify, the mod would need to be on your instance to request to mod a community on your instance, right? Or no?

  Something I’ve always wondered.

  Like I’m sure I can only create a community on dbzer0 (and have done). But what about adopting a community?

  I don’t have any in mind, I’m merely curious.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Realistically, what do people plan to do on the Moon and Mars that requires a permanent, or long term human presence there?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s just a number that is way lower and more sustainable. It’ll grow back but it’ll take time. There’s probably someone better equipped to tell you the Goldilocks zone for world population.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Realistically, what do people plan to do on the Moon and Mars that requires a permanent, or long term human presence there?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  The cynical answer is “charge for air”.

  So imagine you’re someone like Elon Musk, you’re invested in space exploration and you’ve just told the world you’re going to build a colony on Mars. What’s the benefit? Sure, it’s land, you can charge rent. It’s going to cost a lot to get appliances and other “creature comforts” there, so that will be a service as well. But look at what else Mars lacks that we have? Air. They will charge for air.

  Building a colony on a planet that does not support life doesn’t have many obvious short-term benefits. I think the biggest long-term benefit is, you do it to show it can be done, then when you discover a planet that does support life, you take what you learned from the Martian colony and you send people there. After a couple generations of scientists and engineers and others have made it a place worth living, you can start sending regular people.

  Now if we could get Earth’s population back down to about 3 billion, we might be able to reverse some of the damage and keep Earth much longer. One way to get rid of 5 billion people is to colonise them on other worlds.

  But, all that’s pretty optimistic. What’s to stop these space companies from flying settlers into that planet’s star rather than landing them on the planet? Not the sun because people would notice. But if those people take a decade to arrive, and messages take months to get back to us, well, easy coverup.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is it okay to have more than one account on here?⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I think it’s okay to have more than one account on Lemmy as long as you only have one per instance. Many communities have rules against multiple accounts, but each instance is its own community. They’re just federated. Just don’t use them dishonestly. But that’s up to each user to decide.

  I made a second account on another instance, but I haven’t found any use in using that account over this one. I have been banned from a few communities, but not because I broke rules, because a mod saw me in another community and thought I’d be a bad fit for their community. I say a bad thing about generative AI, I’m risking a ban from generative AI communities. I say a good thing about AI, I risk a ban from anti AI communities. Dammed if you do, dammed if you don’t. So I don’t let others influence what I say. The truth is, I’m neither entirely for nor against the tech. I just think it needs to be regulated and used responsibly. That’s just one example. I don’t believe in ban evasion. But if my other account sees something in a community that banned my first account with zero interaction, that isn’t ban evasion, it’s just normal use of the service. Mods banning people who never interacted with their community are the abnormally behaving ones. But it’s not a big deal. Just a grey area.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨PlayStation Reportedly Sending Game Developers Massive Survey With Question Asking About Physical Discs⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Both platforms will be discless for their next generation. PS6 and Helix will both be digital only.

  The problem is, PlayStation does not have the infrastructure in place to implement a proper disc to digital system like Xbox has. Xbox’s still half-arsed though as it only covers XB1 and Series games. Like PlayStation games, Xbox and 360 games are not individually license-coded. So they both need a mail-in programme where you can mail in your discs and get a code to redeem the game on digital.

  The only real issue I have with that, aside from the possibility they can take your game from you, is that at this point, we don’t need a next-gen console. GTA VI is the big release this year (though I personally don’t care about it) and IMO it doesn’t look better than Cyberpunk 2077 from nearly 7 years ago. Okay, the faces look better, but the world? Hell no. I just got Pragmata and it in no way pushes the envelope of what XSX/PS5 can do. Hell, the 360/PS3 era games are still peak, IMO. I don’t need PS6 or Helix.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨PlayStation Reportedly Sending Game Developers Massive Survey With Question Asking About Physical Discs⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  They do that. They still sell PCs, as far as I know. Consoles are subsidized because you have to buy from them.

  Those PCs just don’t run PlayStation games (unless they have a PC version).

  I always felt like if you bought a PC, you should be able to buy a license to play Xbox and/or PlayStation games on it. Just have to pay the piper. Sadly it didn’t work like that. They all make money if you buy multiple machines, so they will push you in that direction if you want more diversity in your gaming.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  If you’re talking about the truck drivers, they were just never aware of it. Global politics aren’t their concern. Getting brown people out of the pool of possible competitors was, and they voted accordingly. Papa Trump told them that Iranians are brown and therefore have to go, and they backed him. They’re also Muslim, so, you know, guilt by association for 9/11, at least in the minds of the uneducated masses. To be fair, these people also believed the president they voted for when he said he could beat Iran in a few weeks. They thought Trump would control all the oil by then and sell it to them cheap. They thought they were his people because they waved the same flag and carried guns. But they got to keep a brown woman from becoming president, so they still consider that a net win… even with diesel having nearly tripled in price. It’s like that quote by former US president Johnson about giving white Americans a brown or Black man to look down upon. And they’ll vote all the way down the Republican ticket in November, too. Because, they will tell you, eventually that cheque will come in. (And they still believe they’ll get the $1776 for the America 250, the $2000 DOGE cheque, the $3000 tariffs cheque… and they believe the Trump phone was made in America…)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Castlevania: Belmont's Curse Hands-On Preview: What a Wonderful Night to Have a Curse⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I think the ideal would be if we could italicise titles, but we can’t.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Castlevania: Belmont's Curse Hands-On Preview: What a Wonderful Night to Have a Curse⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Articles and game titles both use title casing though, so it’s grammatically correct. They could have at least put the game title in quotes to make it clearer, though.

  The game is called Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨DSP clears Wolverine's motorcycle section without player input⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Eh, as long as Soulslikes remain popular and win awards, I’m fine with this.

  I don’t mind a little challenge as long as I can learn the game and master a skill. I don’t like QTEs at all, and that includes dodge/parry mechanics. It’s like playing Guitar Hero on Expert with a controller, but you can’t see the notes. If you’re doing what the game wants but you’re a second or so off and that napes you lose, that’s a game I won’t complete… or shed a single tear if anyone pirates it or the studio closes. Games that punish gamers shouldn’t exist. If gamers want the challenge they can have it, but it should be optional and not required to complete the story. I’m fine with achievements being disabled for lowering the difficulty, just make the game accessible to differently abled gamers.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why doesn't windows in detail mode show the size of a folder unless you hover over it? They will show the size of files but not a folder unless you either go to properties or something?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  This. macOS does do folder sizes. It rarely shows because it takes forever. Maybe if the drive was formatted APFS it would be faster? Not sure though. My drives are NTFS and exFAT.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon is a dungeon master⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Everybody missing the point of green text: it probably didn’t happen. It’s also 4chan. So yeah.

  But, DM clearly set a timer on when apocalypse would happen if certain goals weren’t met. Players sought other goals and thus, lost the campaign.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What is the most common stupid question you hear/see?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  “How’s it going?” I’m at work. You’re at work. Both of us can name five places we’d rather be without a second thought. The fuck you think it’s going? Same as you, so let’s quit lying to ourselves.

  Ironically, the best way to answer a Christian (or, I suppose, any member of any Abrahamic religion), works here. “He woke me up today,” and they say something like “yeah any day above ground is a blessing”. Like yeah, that is literally the best thing I can say about my day. I woke up. I had coffee. Good coffee. I had a good breakfast. I am “blessed” in the kitchen. That was the best part of my day. THEN I CAME HERE.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What is the most common stupid question you hear/see?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I have a QR code on my fridge that says “Scan for WiFi”. I’ll give you one guess what YouTube video it opens.

  If you ask me, I’ll show you a QR code on my phone. Different code. For some reason. only Android can make the QR code natively. iPhones can scan them and they work. So, I generated the QR code on my old Android phone (which is WiFi only) and sent it to my iPhone. I can show you the code on either phone. It will connect you to my WiFi. Scan the one on the fridge and we’re all going to be hearing a popular 1980s song…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What is the most common stupid question you hear/see?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  My honest response to that is, I have a limited amount of social energy, and I will absolutely bend over backwards for someone who cares about me just a little. The company will post my job tomorrow if I keel over and die, so no, I don’t spare a thought for them. You get what you give. Next. Question.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Your Favorite Movies Are CIA Propaganda⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Movies cost a lot to make. They’re all pushing someone’s agenda. The question is whether you can recognise it for what it is and still enjoy it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The town and HOA only have two settings for a holiday: Jesus and Troops. I guess Labor days is a "Troops" holiday.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Flags on Labour Day tells me the people don’t know the difference between Labour Day, which is in September, and Memorial Day, which is in May.

  Memorial Day is not a day for celebration, it’s a day for paying respect to the ultimate sacrifice made by soldiers. Labour Day is about celebrating labour, i.e. workers. Of course most people do celebrate both days, especially if they have the day off of work, but grilling burgers on Memorial Day and knowing the meaning behind the day is not as egregious, IMO, as waving military flags on Labour Day. Just sounds like someone is confused or not educated.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anon reads Don Quixote⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I read that book. I don’t remember a single thing about it.

  I still recommend it, albeit begrudgingly, to people who might like it. I think it was better than I received it. Maybe I shouldn’t have just listened to the audiobook, but rather, read it at my own pace and re-read certain paragraphs, rather than having them read to me one after the other. Because there was something more in that text. Some books are better in audio, and some are better in text. I can’t imagine an audiobook exists of House of Leaves, but it wouldn’t surprise me. So, maybe one day I’ll go back and actually read This is How You Lose the Time War, because it probably deserved more attention paid to it, and it probably deserves a second look.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Nerf for Girls Was Beyond Ridiculous⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I also only watched a minute and a half before losing interest, like the other poster.

  I once went to a birthday party for one of my nieces. I think she was about five? Her mom said she wanted LEGO stuff. So, I went to the store and carefully picked out a LEGO set that I thought she might like. It had a treehouse and a stream. I did notice that they had a whole section of LEGO marketed to girls, with pink and purple pastel colours. I considered these, but they didn’t fit the kid I was buying for, even though she was a girl.

  When it came time to open presents… Mine was the only one that didn’t have a pink and purple box. Two people bought her the same set. Three people bought her a different same set. She looked at all of them, seemed to appreciate all of them, and then set them all aside, opened the one I got her, and asked me to help her assemble it. She didn’t want it done for her, she just wanted adult supervision. I’d go to reach for a couple pieces and try to put them together, and she’d remind me of my role. When she got something wrong a couple times in a row, I nudged her in the right direction, and she got it built in about an hour or so. Time well spent.

  As for Nerf, I’ve never seen a little girl or teenage girl not pick up a regular Nerf gun and foam darts because it wasn’t pink or purple. Ditto for any other toy weapons, like plastic melee weapons like what used to be popular around Halloween. I have a couple foam cosplay swords (the main guy’s first two swords from Sword Art Online) and kids who want to play with them don’t lean to one gender or the other. Girls want to play with the swords just as much as boys do. In fact, as someone who’s been around dozens of kids at varying ages, girls will actually be a bit quicker to fight a grown man or older boy (just playing) with bare hands. Girls can be fierce and girls can be mean.

  I don’t know where these toy companies are getting the idea pink and purple are a factor. I think what is a factor is that boys aren’t supposed to like pink and purple things (I never had a problem with them, or dolls, or anything feminine). So I think they just wanted parents to double dip. That’s the real issue there.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨4K Blu-ray Players Are Becoming Harder to Find in 2026 as Prices Quietly Increase at Major Retailers⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t buy movies on iTunes/Apple TV (name change but most people know the older name) unless it’s 4K and $5 or less. Setting aside the “it’s just a long-term rental”, if physical media wants me to pay over twice as much for the disc (also setting aside its higher bitrate and removal of the “rental” threat), they aren’t winning me over by raising the price of the player.

  Not when the other source of video vying for my attention is torrents over a VPN. I could pay Apple $5 for a 4K movie or I can get it for free… or I can pay $20 for a movie and pay what for the player? And it won’t play on my iPhone, either? Huh?

  I mean, for a guy with so much tech, I don’t need a 4K Blu-ray player, I need a 4K Blu-ray external drive for my Mac so I can just put the MKV on Plex. Still, those aren’t cheap either.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Woman refuses to pay restaurant bill⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  My wife is addicted to this type of video. I think most of them are skits that people act in to make a point. And they stretch it out longer than it has to be. Woman is trespassing, give her a set time (say, 60 seconds) to vacate the property. If she does so, take her information so the restaurant can bill her. She doesn’t pay, they sue her in small claims court and win, plus she pays legal fees. So “buy now pay later” with more steps. She doesn’t, it’s criminal trespass and they’re in the right to sit her in a jail overnight. And the restaurant still sends her a bill for the meal. Not rocket science. Not a cop, not a lawyer. Certainly not a rocket scientist.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is the m-word a slur for people with dwarfism? If so, what are more appropriate terms to use other than dwarf?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  My wife doesn’t like any of the terms and would rather not be called by her size.

  I do it anyway.

  I’ve never heard of the word you’re referring to being a slur, and only won’t post it out of respect for the possibility that someone might take it that way. “Treat others how they would like to be treated” and all that.

  Then it was “little person,” but that was always kinda demeaning.

  Dwarfism is the medical term, but then again “the R word” is a scientific term to mean “to slow the flow of” and we’re definitely not allowed to say that. Remember when the Black Eyed Peas nearly got canceled for the song that is now known as Let’s Get it Started? Never mind that the original song was not very good, in addition to being in poor taste. Anyway, as it turns out, “the scientific term” isn’t always the most friendly term to use for marginalised groups.

  The most modern way of addressing any disability or difference is to start with the person, so, that is to say, “person with dwarfism.” But, by the same token, “person who is little” just seems demeaning. So, we loop back to my first statement. From which, inevitably, is followed by my second — but, that’s my wife. Someone else? I’d just call them by their name.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Paywalls on local news sites⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  All kids are potentially in danger from any stranger, regardless of whether they’re an RSO. Assume there is a danger until proven otherwise.

  Sex offender information is public information in most places. The local newspaper is charging you for their journalism and reporting, but their source is free, public information you yourself can access.

  You can be placed on the sex offender registry for public urination. RSO doesn’t mean they’re a paedophile. But until proven otherwise, keep a close eye on your kids.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I either want to learn French or Italian. Which should I learn in your opinion?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  From my perspective, they’re about equal. As someone who doesn’t know either, I would tackle Italian first. Both (as well as Spanish) are based on Latin, so learning one should help you learn the other. I think there are more French speakers in the world, though, but since Italian and Spanish are (or at least seem) closer, learning Italian might also help with Spanish learning. With regards to LGBTQ+, I think France is a bit more liberal than Italy, but I’m really not sure.

  I know next to no French OR Italian. I dabble in Japanese, Spanish, and German (in addition to English and bad English), but I only know ~50 words in each. A bit less in German. I am by no means multilingual, but I will greet people in four or five different languages just to be a smartass.