MudMan

We do “my dick sweats”, for the same thing, which I now realize sounds super gross.

Yeah, I keep hearing the “you don’t get how big it is” thing, too.

I get how big it is.

European agriculture workers just reversed EU-wide policy as recently as last week by blocking major roads throughout the continent with tractors. They didn’t even agree with each other (half those guys are pissed at the other guys for being too competitive), and the regulations they opposed were climate protection regulations, among other more reasonable things, so this isn’t necessarily a feel-good story.

But they won.

They didn’t even have to try that hard, honestly. Besides mild traffic jams and some tense standoffs with police it was all pretty mild. And yet politicians across the entire continent, over multiple countries, were terrified of the optics of working class people protesting in loose coordination, especially with right wing parties trying to co-opt their anger.

I get how big it is. The size is not the reason.

Yeah, ok.

I don’t want to speak for the OP, but… I’m guessing that’s what they’re saying.

I mean, this issue is not on the ballot elsewhere. Even conservatives who are actively trying to dismantle public health care won’t dare suggest that they want less public health care. At most they’ll tell you they found ways to invest more and then turn around and give that money to private managers. You certainly broke through the propaganda. I don’t think I’ve spoken to an American anywhere who has made a case for the current health care system. Polls suggest this issue, among other “aren’t Americans weird” stuff are wildly impopular with the actual population.

But I also constantly hear from Americans that it’s impossible to turn it around, that candidates who support these common sense moves are unelectable and that there is nothing they could ever do about it.

That part is what I don’t get. I mean, I’m familiar with elections not going my way, it happens to everybody, but holy crap. There’s a reason why this is not on the ballot elsewhere. You wouldn’t need an election to figure this out. Even in countries with the bare minimum of democratic guarantees and no money you would have the mother of all endless riots under these circumstances.

Me, personally, I’m not so much judgemental of the American public as I am baffled at their defeatism and conformism.

Honestly? The real feeling I get from this is being scared for the future. I do know that there are powerful forces seeing a business opportunity in that status quo that can be exported. And you can see the impetus towards eroding the safety nets here following marching orders from the far right, anarchocapitalist mothership all throughout the world. In some of the countries I’ve lived in there is already a push towards this model, just moderated by the existence of some sort of universal health care. Sure, even the bare minimum of public service care takes a TON of the edge off. Those ER bills are what some of my friends in those places paid for, say, having major surgery or good care while having a baby… but it’s a slippery slope.

Best guess, the left of the democrats in the primaries, for a start.

It’s not that you lack politicians who agree with the changes that are needed, it’s that they are seen as less electable than the guy who did tons of fraud and at least one confirmed rape, somehow. I don’t know that Americans are “bad people”, but the fact that these common sense positions aren’t the default, centrist view across both major parties is baffling.

It’s a clumsy way to put it, but it’s not wrong that the lack of universal consensus around these things in the US is confusing and unreasonable.

Hi, yes, I’m here. The user. Of both, in fact.

Both Bluesky and Mastodon have their quirks and their different cultures. The feature sets of their protocols may also be different, but they sure aren’t relevant to the experience at all, because federation is not a user-facing feature for the vast majority of the social media experience.

Stop cheerleading for social networks. Social networks are not your friends, including Mastodon or the rest of the “fediverse”.

I’m not sure about the digital-only stuff, but the OP is specifically talking about yt-dlp as an alternative to ripping the BRs, and I have to agree that ripping the disks will be easier and yields better results.

Hardware availability is the trickiest part, especially for UHD, but if you have a drive that will deal with the disks you have I certainly wouldn’t bother with the stream rip.

But hey, as a fallback, it’s good to have the option.

I don’t really know what this conversation was meant to be about at this point, and after re-reading the thread in order a few times I think you don’t either.

You haven’t changed my mind, but now I’m mildly concerned about you and I’m here if you need help.

If the risk is that I’ll have an upset stomach for two days like a toddler coming down from a sugar rush and my knees will also hurt for some reason, then yes, the WHO is right.

I mean… alcohol? You can already buy it easily prepared in all sorts of delicious ways.

Am I not in the spirit of the thing?

Quit drinking if you haven’t. The cost/benefit analysis on that one probably broke a few years ago and you just hadn’t noticed.

Otherwise, meh, do your own thing.

I mean… it depends on what you mean, I guess? Even if I hadn’t spent the pandemic lockdowns comfortably holed up in a small apartment, it’s worth noting that big-ass houses typically have yards while small apartments do not.

I guess if you mean “having shops, bars and restaurants within walking distance” that can maybe work, but otherwise that doesn’t seem to track.

AAAAAAH, it’s happening again!

Let me speedrun through this: I’ve never seen a pickup truck and I am in a rural place where people move stinky stuff all the time. Vans can be purchased with sealed off cabins, and with all doors open can be hosed down easily. It’s fine. Nobody here has pickups. I haven’t seen a pickup or known anybody to have one and everybody is fine. This is a strictly American thing and the US isn’t the moon, there really isn’t a unique need to use a truck bed for school runs.

You’re doing the thing the man said: drive a tank to buy groceries in case you have to haul manure once a year.

I had to use a unit converter, but I’ve lived in places housing up to seven people that weren’t that big. Comfortably.

This is a conversation I had here recently as well when I pointed out to a car thread that for the money Americans pay for pickup trucks you can also buy a hatchback and a proper van, cover most use cases and not drive a tank to take kids to school. They did NOT like that.

In fairness, the headlines written around this were generally atrocious, save a few (shout out to IGN and the original reporter, which may or may not have been techradar). Sure, in most of those you could read a more complete quote inside, but… staying at the headline isn’t just a gamer thing. Clickbait is dangerous for a reason.

And also in fairness, the point he’s making is still not great. I mean, he’s the guy in charge of their subscription service, so I wouldn’t expect him to be too negative on the idea, but he’s still saying that it’s a future that will come. Not that all models will coexist, but that a Netflix future for gaming is coming.

But yeah, gamers can be hostile without justification and often default to treating every relationship with the people making the games as an antagonistic or competitive one, which is a bummer. In that context, letting this guy talk was clearly a mistake.

Oh, it makes sense. I think there’s a place for subscription services, absolutely.

I don’t think a transition to subscription as the default model for gaming makes sense, though. Which was the point of the question and the implicit goal in the answer. And even if it did make practical sense (if people “got used to it”) it’d be bad for the art form and the industry on the aggregate.

Alright, I was only gently pointing it out because what he actually said is still a pretty bad take, but at this point it’s just annoying.

No, he didn’t say that.

He said that gaming subscriptions won’t take off UNTIL gamers get used to not owning their games. Wihch… yeah, it checks out.

The all-subscription future already sucks, can we at least limit our outrage to the actual problem? I swear, I have no idea why gaming industry people ever talk to anybody. Nothing good ever comes of it.

So far I don’t know of any services that will just hand you a digital file of a movie outside of physical media.

I say that’s a damn fine business opportunity, because I’d be all over it, but hey.

This basically, which at that point rolls all the way back around to piracy, so hey, if you find an easier way to access a comparable file maybe it’s all shades of grey anyway.