graymess [none/use name]

Valve only strongly supports Linux because Gabe has like a personal vendetta against Microsoft. Not complaining. I think it’s great that Steam has broken the Windows lockdown on gaming. It’s just funny.

I recently had to digitize dozens of photos from family scrapbooks, many of which had annoying novelty pattern borders cut out of the edges. Sure, I could have just cropped the photos more to hide the stupid zigzagged missing portions. But I had the beta version of Photoshop installed with the generative fill function, so I tried it. Half the time it was garbage, but the other half it filled in a bit of grass or sky convincingly enough that you couldn’t tell the photo was damaged. +1 acceptable use case for generative AI, I guess.

I don’t know about 10x, but I’ve started deleting my comments before finishing them more often than I used to. This mostly comes from me questioning halfway through typing it out if my perspective contributes anything new or if it’s worth the time I would need to fully cover what I want to say. If either answer is no, I’ll delete.

??? Have you been living under a rock or something? That aged like milk over a year ago. Its just stinky cheese now.

Apparently I have? I pretty much stopped paying attention to this story since it seemed as thoroughly poked into as it was gonna get unless some upcoming lawsuits would change anything.

And it’s been a while since I watched it, but I remember a bunch of the interviewed ZA/UM staff agreeing that Kurvitz and the other two were fucking things up a bit and needed to go. That doesn’t mean I side with the fucking shareholders and new leadership. It just means it’s not as simple as the investors screwing over all the workers.

But if you don’t mind, I’d appreciate your perspective. I finally finished DE only this past summer, so I also missed this news unfolding in real time. I probably have some blind spots on the story.

I like the People Make Games investigation, but understandably no one’s got time for that shit. It’s like 2 hours long.
TL;DW: It’s complicated, but I don’t think it’s right to say the workers got stiffed. A lot of people worked on the game, not just the three who were forced out (though those three were considered the core design team). At this point, though, what’s left of ZA/UM is probably an empty office and half a dozen scrapped projects on hard drives. There’s nothing left to support even if you side with the company. I say pirate it.

Edit: The good news is there are like 4 recently announced projects from multiple former Elysium devs that promise to carry on the spirit of the game.

There wouldn’t be much left.

That Pikmin boss is real!

Protagonists siding with royalty by default is a big reason why I haven’t enjoyed much fantasy media lately. I could see myself playing the hell out of Metaphor Resomethingorother, but I’m so put off by the royal quest of the central storyline that I’ll probably end up skipping it.

Joined!

I finished The Beginner’s Guide literally like 20 minutes ago. It’s a 90 minute “experience” more than a game, by the developer of The Stanley Parable. Seems that a lot of people get something profound or personal out of it. Can’t say I did, but I’m in the minority here. Could be just what you’re looking for.

I appreciate the thorough write up and feel bad now that I’m probably not gonna play these lol. It sounds a lot like the kind of art that I categorize broadly as thing I admire and respect from a distance and value those that love it, but will never, ever experience personally for one reason or another. Is there a better way to describe that?

I’m the kind of person who bounces hard off discomfort in my comfort spaces, and games are one of those comfort spaces. Not that everything I play needs to be easy or perfect, but if a game asks more from me than I’m willing to dedicate casually, I’ll probably end up turning it off. It’s very fun to see others get excited about their complex things, though, so thank you for sharing.

I kind of wish I knew WTF you both are talking about because it sounds interesting.

I’ve also found that the vegans I know in my personal life are mostly nonjudgmental. Militant veganism feels like a stereotype or an anomaly of online spaces. Get to know some vegans at work/school/mural aid groups/activist orgs and you’ll probably find some friends who don’t need you to be 100% vegan all the time. Personally, I allow myself to slip into a vegetarian diet on my birthday, my partner’s birthday, and our anniversary. I’ve never received criticism for this, but I’d understand if other vegans had a problem with it.

Not being useful to your question at all, but if you find or start a community, I’ll join. I’ve been various stages of vegetarian and vegan over the last 6 years. Never felt like I needed to talk about my specific, contextual exceptions, but I’m guessing it wouldn’t be well accepted among hardline vegans.

I think it’s BYD’s responsibility to know such things. This feels like the argument Hershey’s made when they got caught using slave labor to source their cacao.

Unreal. Gonna read the whole series over the holidays. Also I really appreciate the TF2 website layout. I miss this era of web design.

No fucking way. No actual fucking way. Nuclear fusion, unlimited clean energy, the potential to save the planet from climate disaster, made possible through the power of gamers gambling on big titty anime girls there is just no fucking way this is reality.

49, but many more I’ve tried and bounced off of after a few hours.

Thank you for the thorough recommendations. Adding it to my read list.

Never read Earthsea (generally not into fantasy), but I loved The Dispossessed and been wanting to read more LeGuin. Would anyone recommend this?