BertramDitore

@BertramDitore@lemm.ee

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Frostpunk creators cancel "Project 8" and lay off staff amid concerns that "narrative-driven, story-rich games" don't sell⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Just look at most of the winners of Game of the Year. I’d argue most of them fit in the category of narrative driven story-rich games.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Frostpunk creators cancel "Project 8" and lay off staff amid concerns that "narrative-driven, story-rich games" don't sell⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  If they actually believe something so patently ridiculous, then it’s probably best that they cancelled it. So I guess this is good news. Those are the only kinds of games I want to play. FFS.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I wish there were more people here, too. But I don’t think it can ever realistically be, nor does it need to be a competition. As long as there are a default millions of people willing to spend their valuable attention contributing to corporate ad-powered social media companies, the more socially responsible platforms like Lemmy and Mastodon will always be a niche corner of an aspirational web that at least attempts to trust and respect its users. I’d flip it around: the smallness of these mostly positive communities on Lemmy reflects how content the huge crowds at reddit, meta, twitter etc are at being surrounded by utter shit. If the last few years haven’t shown them that there are better places to spend their time online, I’m not sure what will. I hope I’m wrong, but I’m also starting to be okay with the size and scope of things over here.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Wallace & Gromit fans appalled by the AI upscaling on new 4K UHD release⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  This is exactly how I feel. I want the highest possible original quality, without upscaling. There are a ton of 1080p Blu-rays out there that probably won’t get real 4K scans because of lack of demand or being niche content, and that’s totally fine. Just leave it at 1080p, which is still pretty solid for movies made more than 5 or 10 years ago. But if the movie was shot on film, there’s really no excuse for not rescanning it at 4K imo. I’m sure studios/distributors would continue to cry poverty, but screw that. I’m even okay with them leaving any original special effects untouched, especially if redoing them is what hikes up the cost. It can be distracting, but I care more about live action quality.

  I go back and forth on animation, it’s the one time I feel kind of okay with upscaling. But I recently compared an upscaled 4K Blu-ray anime with a subsequently released native 4K scan Blu-ray, and the increase in quality was quite obvious.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Exactly. I disappear quite often, just like my colleagues with kids do. We all trust each other to get our work done, so nobody cares what we actually do all day. More widespread work from home has helped normalize this a bit (it’s an amazing privilege that I enjoy, that not everyone can, to be fair), but just don’t be late for meetings, meet your deadlines, and otherwise enjoy your life however you choose, kids or not.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  First part: 100% agree. The problem is that the empathy and compassion isn’t directed at everybody, not that parents get something extra. Everyone should get that extra empathy, and as long as you get your work done, who cares what responsibilities you have at home?

  Second part: Hard disagree. There’s simply no way you can know what’s really going on in your coworkers’ lives. People also experience stress very differently, it’s quite relative. I think it’s universal statements like this that are part of the issue. Everybody deserves empathy, compassion, and the flexibility to live a full life while having a job. Parents don’t deserve that more than non-parents.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨how do you separate your clothes and linens to avoid fabric degradation and bleeding?⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t think I do it correctly tbh, but since I have to drive to the laundromat to do my laundry, and pay out the ass for it ($12 per fucking load!!), all I want is to get in and out of there as fast as humanly possible. So I have two piles, one for all my clothes regardless of color or material, and the other for sheets and towels, regardless of color. I haven’t noticed any colors bleeding or extra degradation, and my clothes generally look pretty undamaged and crisp. I also typically use the hottest cycle for everything, which again, probably isn’t great, but it seems to work for me.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Outer Worlds 2 no longer exclusive to Xbox, is now coming to PS5 – WGB⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I really wanted to like it, but just couldn’t get into it. It was completely forgettable for me, and I like nearly every game that has a sci-fi setting. My bar is very low for that genre, but this one was not engaging at all for me.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Amazon is allegedly canceling orders for the "Megalopolis" Blu-ray release.⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  This is a great interpretation. I guess the nice thing about the movie is that you could have this totally believable read on it, and I had essentially dismissed the time stopping thing as an unnecessary surrealist gimmick that was never resolved or necessary for the plot. I like your take better, it fits the cerebral tone.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Amazon is allegedly canceling orders for the "Megalopolis" Blu-ray release.⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  This is weird, but I’m sure it will get a full Blu-ray release pretty soon. It’s a divisive movie, and frankly I really struggled to get through it (the dialogue was so contrived and stilted). I found myself frustrated and yelling at the screen more than once, but I’d likely grab a 4K Blu-ray whenever it comes out so I can give it another chance and see if I somehow totally missed the point.

  I think the movie is probably good from a technical perspective, and the message it tried to communicate was worthy of the attempt, but the plot was incoherent, the dialogue was impenetrable, and the gorgeous visuals were completely out of step with the overall narrative.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨USA President term limits⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  US Presidents are limited to two terms, it doesn’t matter if they are consecutive. Grover Cleveland is the only other president who has served two non-consecutive terms.

  Term-limits are a relatively recent addition though, the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution was only ratified in 1951 after Franklin Roosevelt served four terms.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is it expected to tip for furniture deliveries?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  If it’s coming via FedEx, UPS, or USPS, I’d say no, unless for some reason they come into your house to help, then yeah if you’re generous. Moving company 100% yes tip. Normal corporate delivery service I’d say no unless they did something extra.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there any, any takeaways at all from the next 4 years that's about to happen?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I appreciate the question, and like many Jews I love questions like this. It is never hateful to be curious.

  Like many/most identities, being Jewish doesn’t mean just one thing to everyone. First and foremost, Judaism is a religion that is passed down through the matriarchal side of the family. So if your mother is Jewish, you’re Jewish. You’re Jewish particularly to other Jews in this instance, even if you don’t necessarily consider yourself Jewish.

  Judaism is not a race, full stop. Just like Christianity is not a race. There are white Jews, black Jews, Latino Jews, South Asian Jews, East Asian Jews etc. There aren’t a lot of us as a whole, but we do exist in most racial groups. But Judaism is often correctly linked to ethnicity, which is a set of shared traditions, culture, language, and norms.

  There is a huuuuge range of ‘orthodoxy’ under the umbrella of Judaism. Different ‘sects’ holds fundamentally similar values (for example: you won’t find very many anti-abortion Jews), but people inside these different groups will observe their traditions at differently levels/extremes or not at all. Most Jews in America don’t keep Kosher, for example, but most Orthodox Jews do.

  Judaism also has a rich tradition of questioning everything (which is why we usually love these kinds of questions). It is not considered heresy to question beliefs or authority, in fact it’s usually encouraged. You’ll find many Jews who openly identify as atheists, and yet most still fully consider themselves to be Jewish. This usually doesn’t bother anyone, Rabbis included. Atheists even hold a place of honor in some Jewish communities, because atheists get their morality from their own values or other people, not from a fear of god or some external force. This is part of why it is pretty common to find Jews (observant or not) who consider themselves atheist.

  All of that is to say you don’t necessarily need to believe in god to be considered Jewish.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[Même] Which movie was this for you?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Have fun: https://variety.com/2024/film/news/will-smith-farted-men-in-black-set-evacuated-three-hours-1236166286/

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there any, any takeaways at all from the next 4 years that's about to happen?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Atheist Jew here. They really hate me.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[Même] Which movie was this for you?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Me too! I saw it in theaters and cracked up the whole time. Haven’t watched it again since then, but I did listen to an interview with the director who essentially disowned the movie. He said something to the effect of: “the couple of moments that were cute were not worth the overall quality of the film.” He said Klein and Smith had no chemistry. He also basically confirmed the Will Smith MIB fart rumor in the same interview.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨IT'S BEEN EIGHTY FOUR YEARS⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Thanks! I was afraid you were going to say that…but it makes sense. Think I’ll go for it. Also means I can wait a while to buy Veilguard while I play Inquisition.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨IT'S BEEN EIGHTY FOUR YEARS⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve been needing a new big game to sink my teeth into, but I haven’t played any of the other Dragon Age games. I watched the glowing euro gamer review for Veilguard and it looks amazing to me (the slightly stylized look doesn’t bother me at all). Do you think I’ll enjoy it without much context? I don’t usually buy full-priced, but I make the occasional exception for games I know I’ll play for a while…Baldurs Gate, for example.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Marvel's Midnight Suns is criminally underrated⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I loved this game! I got like 6 solid months of fun out of it. It took a really long time for the card combat loop to get old for me. I had never played an x-com style game before this (though I loved their meta callouts to x-com), so the mechanics were brand new to me, but it all just made intuitive sense. The card design and animations are top notch, and some of the fights can be super-challenging, but there’s always a way, and there’s nothing quite like the satisfaction of finally finishing a fight after 5 different tries.

  Agree on the story and voice acting, it’s all excellent. There are a couple very recognizable voices in there too.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Your anger is entirely justified, and I share it. This whole licensing issue is a massive problem and shows how little publishers care about their customers. That said, this has always been the case, they’ve just covered their legal bases by updating their TOS.

  But to answer your question, there’s no reason to keep using steam, other than it’s one of the easiest ways to legally game. It’s totally your preference if you want to keep supporting their business. There are lots of ways to illegally game, or pay way more for some DRM-free games that you can actually own, but then you’ll be extremely limited in your selection. I’ve invested so much time and money in my steam library, that I’m basically locked in (they count on this, of course). Sure I own a bunch of games on GOG, but they represent a tiny fraction of my overall library.

  This is a totally unsatisfying answer, but your only actual recourse, if you want to keep using steam, is to reach out to them and express your displeasure at their updated TOS and its implications. But it’s an industry-wide problem, so I think we’re out of luck until Congress gets involved and changes how digital ownership works.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Let him go!!⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  It does:

  …the paper was reviewed, and its appropriateness for the journal’s publishing criteria was rated as “excellent” by the journal’s peer-review process. It was accepted for publication with minor editorial changes. The paper was not actually published, as Vamplew declined to pay the required US$150 article processing charge. This case has led commenters to question the legitimacy of the journal as an authentic scholarly undertaking.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Has "Self-Driving" devolved?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  In general I think you’re right about the tech just being shitty, but a slight correction: LiDAR was not developed for self-driving, it’s just a relevant application of the technology. LiDAR has been around for quite a while, and was initially best known as a remote sensing technology. It is effective at remote sensing because it can penetrate certain solid materials, most importantly foliage. So when an aerial LiDAR dataset is collected for a forested area, since the light can penetrate through most of the foliage, one can essentially ‘delete’ the vegetation from the resulting point cloud, leaving a bare earth model, which is a very close approximation of the landscape’s actual topography if there had been no trees. This can be especially valuable for archaeological research, as foliage is often a significant obstacle for accurately mapping large sites, or even finding them in the first place.

  All of that to say, yeah, self-driving buzz made LiDAR well known as tech, but it wasn’t developed for that purpose.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨‘Joker: Folie à Deux’ Makes $7M In Thursday Night Previews, Receives 36% Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score – Box Office⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Well I just learned from this article that the movie is a musical. And I love musicals, but that’s weird.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sucker Punch is planning ‘other spin-offs’ beyond Ghost of Yotei [VGC]⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I think I’m okay with this. Ghost of Tsushima is one of my favorite games.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨'The Texas Chain Saw Massacre' 50th Anniversary 4K Collector's Set includes the original classic on VHS!⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I know that physical releases are having a moment, but a VHS? Really? That’s one format I’m happy to leave in my childhood.