I’ve loved tingle, I’ve read most of his Asexual stories (which do a great job of both portraying ace and satirizing/joking around with it) and also Straight. I gotta say though, while Straight was an enjoyable read, it wasn’t really good as far as being a horror novel went. But that’s fair for the guys first try, and I’m interested to see what his next “serious” offering reads like

Living under capitalism is living under the yoke of devils. You cannot escape them, and you sometimes make deals with them, whether because you have to, or you think the deal will work out for you. But that doesn’t mean you should love the devils, and if you can get away from them you should.

Yeah, most people’s phones or shoes or whatever probably have some dirty pasts, but that doesn’t mean we should just give up on making any kind of good or moral choices. We’re locked into capitalism, and we will have blood on our hands whether we are aware or not, but using that as an excuse to give up on trying to do better is not a coherent moral position.

I think there’s a significant difference between “any shoe I try to buy is shady, and if a wholesome option even exists it is incredibly hard to find/buy/pricey”, and “sure Amazon workers literally die in warehouses, but next day shipping on my random knickknacks is soooo convenient!”

There exists real and valid use-cases for prime, as several other people in this thread have expressed. But just shrugging and saying “eg whatever” because you want to save $1 on random junk isn’t one of them.

I was making an account to play Command & Conquer: Renegade. The NOD team had a unit called the Chem Warrior that shot liquid tiberium like a flame thrower, thought it was super cool. Don’t remember how I ended up on Slayer instead, but it stuck

+1 for connect, I was originally on Jerboa but it crashed so dang often. I like that switching accounts is easy, makes it a breeze to have my general interests Beehaw account and my niche interests account and swap between them

I love RimWorld, and I love DRM-free, but RimWorld on GoG is a mistake.

Instead, buy RimWorld directly from Ludeon. Then you get both DRM-free files from them (to enjoy in the fallout bunker), AND a steam key (so that you can easily enjoy the metric boatloads of modding content on the steam workshop).

Slay the Spire is a classic, it’s all turn based, playing is easy but mastering it is a deep skill if that’s something you’re into.

Divinity: Original Sin 2 is a cool CRPG, the exploration is real-time and it switched to turn based for combat. Very big and large, and you can spend a lotta time running around learning lore rather than fighting if that’s what you like.

Persona 5 Royal is a dream, again turn-based fighting, cute characters and story, very anime. Also long (took me like 90 hours) but never feels drawn-out.

If you like board games, I’ve recently got the Aeons End digital adaptation, and that’s a lotta fun. It’s co-op, but you can play “two-handed” (aka control 2 people) and it works pretty flawlessly, and the app is very good. If you really wanna be ambitious you can even play up to 4-handed, but I feel like that’s too much brainpower for any sane person lol

I’d hope so. Unlike digital implementations, TTS is literally just the same board game, but on a digital space. Scripting etc can help, but it’s still the same at the end of the day. I don’t count digital apps in my board game tracking app, but I do count plays on TTS, as they really are just the same thing, different place

IMO two different things can make a game heavy, and having either is enough even if you don’t have both.

First, is complication of decisions. This is the classic “heavy” angle, how much thinking you have to do each turn to execute your strategy.

Second, is the actual meta aspects, such as rules, or pieces, or setup. A game that is literally heavy by weight is highly likely to be heavy, especially if combined with lots of rules or pieces or exceptions. Even if the turn-to-turn is relatively simple, the act of setting everything up and having to learn & remember a whole slew of rules can make a game heavy

Oh man, this takes me back. I’m going to share my favorite GW2 memory, because I can.

I was playing my main (a thief), wandering around some zone or another. I happened upon a cool looking elite and tried to take it, but it was too powerful and I had to retreat. After I did so, I noticed another player arrive and also go for the elite, and decided I could jump in with him and get the loot too.

We killed it, I don’t remember the loot, but what I do remember is the strange portal opening…

We enter, and are teleported to a bizarre other region. We regroup, and spend some time exploring before accidentally finding a portal out of the place and being teleported to random spots in the region.

We immediately /pm each other and regroup at the elite, both eager to find what’s really in that other place. Cue 2+ hours of exploration, solving jumping puzzles, and just camaraderie with this stranger I’d never met exploring a beautiful and mystifying area. Finally we reach the prize, a big chest of loot and an achievement, and teleport out.

I never saw them again, and I don’t need to. It was such an amazing experience, just raw human connection and exploration, happening by pure coincidence in a game I played exclusively solo. I enjoyed a lot of things about GW2, but that one memory will always stick in my mind, and I haven’t found an experience like that since

Maintenance and Repair, regular batteries, etc

I don’t think you understand how simple E-bikes are, they are essentially just bikes, and their maintenance and repair vs any car is miles away, even if we only consider the savings vs oil changes, not to mention things like car batteries or tires.

I ride an e-bike exclusively to get around, usually several hundred miles a month, for the past 3 years, and my battery is still at near the capacity when it was new. I don’t think a new battery every 10 years (if that) counts as “regular replacements”, again comparing to the amount of waste involved in automobiles.

Yes, comprehensive public transport would be better overall, but that requires large amounts of public coordination and money, and still takes away agency from the commuter. An e-bike is relatively cheap, and can be a switch made on a person-to-person basis, so you don’t need to fund a billion dollar train to make progress, you just need to get as many people as you can on bikes.

And, crucially, if the batteries all die and we’re in the apocalypse… It’s still a bicycle. You can still pedal around like normal

Heck yeah! Got my first one recently too (Ace), since mines fairly invisible I wanted a big ol flag to let people know what’s up haha

I’m a big fan of replayable games, esp things like Roguelikes. I usually have one “main” game at a time, and sink in about 100 hours or so until I feel like I’ve got the “meat” all eaten and transition to something new. Multiplayer games also serve a great role for me since they are naturally varied, and I’ll easily put 200-300 hours in my initial kick, and occasionally come back for shorter stints over time.

Occasionally, a game really grips me. I’ve got ~700 hours in RimWorld, I was depressed and unemployed and it kept me going. I’ve also got about that much in Binding of Isaac, IMO still the greatest Roguelike made and has metric tons of content. I also have like 800 in Stellaris, but that’s because I used to play it full time during my WFH call center job, I never play it on my own time haha

Honkshoo lookin’ mf

Going to have lunch with a friend on Sunday, so he can draw me a custom token for my commander deck! Then gonna cook house dinner for my co-op that evening, since it’s so dang hot I’m thinking something cooling like a quinoa salad

Modena, very walkable, cool architecture, and so much delicious and cheap food!