I started Trails in the Sky on PSP and haven’t been able to stop playing trails games since. Not the best in the series, but definitely where you want to start.

It’s too late for Apple to close off macOS (and they’ve tried), so I think the goggles are meant to replace it altogether with an inherently closed platform. I hope Apple ends up having to open that platform up as well before it’s too late.

I’m probably just getting pessimistic with age, but corporations just see dollar signs with subscriptions and reduced expenses with digital distribution. Then they will outlive you and me.

It may be objectively better for players to have physical copies of their games installed on hardware they have dominion over, but we are unlikely to be around to prove that to our great grandkids. We can’t even guarantee even our own children will care enough to try to tell theirs. I’m almost certain owning physical copies of digital content is going to be for niche hobbyists in the future.

As inclined I am to agree with you on a personal level, kids these days are trained to think games just come with MTX, and all bonus content in a game that isn’t a loot box is just paid DLC. All Microsoft has to do is just make this the easiest way to get Xbox games, keep it going long enough, and people eventually won’t know any better or even care anymore. Then they ratchet up the price to make it feel like they’re still profiting from console sales as well.

Japanese people love their handhelds. I suspect it had a bigger impact than others think.

I honestly wonder if the advertising industry is just a house of cards, with everyone so far up their own asses that they couldn’t possibly realize how much energy, resources, and dignity is just getting wasted.

I can’t help but feel sorry for whoever thought their “targeted advertising” worked when I just accidentally picked up my tablet and clumsily landed a finger on a banner, or let an entire video ad play because I was preoccupied and not physically able to skip it. The only ads I genuinely pay attention to are the promotional newsletters I actually sign up for out of legitimate interest from those sites, not out of pride or anything, it’s just the only instance where actually find myself interested in what’s being advertised. Everything else out there in the “targeted” web is just white noise to me, and people think it’s a gold mine.

Yeah, I might be an idiot on this, but imo Nintendo and whoever judged this case have committed a far more egregious crime. Nothing Bowser did hurt a single soul anywhere near as much as Nintendo and that judge has decided to hurt him in retaliation. Some numbers were slightly less high as some people might speculate they could have been. That’s it. Fuck Nintendo. Fuck their inhumanity and the same of their judge.

I would argue this is exactly why this article is not pointless. If AI is not for fact finding, people need to be made aware of that.

The PS4 allowed people to choose between frame rate and graphical prowess. The PS4 Pro basically eliminated the necessity to choose. We’re seeing games on PS5 that give you similar options, so I assume a PS5 Pro will also render those preferences unnecessary.

Is having ray tracing at 60FPS important enough for you to wait? Furthermore, do you have patience if PS5 pros are hard to come by for the first 3-6 months of availability?

Well how about consent at the very least?

Monster Hunter World, again. Had been playing Sunbreak together until a friend wanted to prove world was the better game for some stupid reason. I genuinely like both, but SB was so much better for multiplayer.

Oh. Well then I guess that just makes it completely okay for ads to just be in games now. Good thing you cleared that up.

Absolutley! Even more “interesting-ly” than that straw-man of yours, friend! ;)

FYI, calling out Apple’s anti-competitive bs is not at all a problem. In fact, many Apple users are plenty happy to do that themselves. The problem is with how haters behave toward the users of Apple products, rather than the company itself.

My reply was meant to bring attention to the behavior of some community members, not Apple the company. Sorry if there was a misunderstanding.

Feel free to not buy Apple products if you don’t like them. It’s your choice and I really don’t care.

Sweet!

I’d say the cult Apple haters are generally more toxic in their language and aggressive in gate-keeping.

Agreed. If it’s a big patent troll against a startup, I get the criticism. Apple’s a big corporation with a lot of clout that can easily be abused. I think it’s best that the courts are handling this.

Times where I’ve found myself pleased with my smart watch:

• Keeping discreet timers.
• Discreet taps on the wrist when a delivery is arriving or someone important is trying to call me.
• Quick replying to texts from my SO.
• Pinging my misplaced phone.
• Directions to places via cryptic taps on my wrist (and having a little map if I want to check).
• Remote camera view-finder and shutter button for group photos where everyone can be in them.
• Having a money conversion calculator on my wrist when traveling.
• Audio controls from my wrist. (Really nice if you like walking around without a phone in front of you.)
• Paying through a subway turn-style with a tap from my wrist instead of needing to dig something out of my pockets.
• Keeping track of my health, which I wouldn’t have otherwise.
• Less general dependency on my phone itself, resulting in better battery life.

Not saying you should or shouldn’t get one. These are just reasons I’ve found myself happy with mine.

I think this is the way to go. Rather than paying every random app a subscription to jerry-rig AI into their programming somehow, I’d like to have my own personal, and private, AI that plugs into a framework that each app offers. I’d also like to be able to purchase curated extensions to privately enhance my own AI.

I will be surprised if the DLC isn’t paid this time around.

Not even remotely, but it does need one from Hello Games!

Are they not obligated to refund? They’re basically just throwing out their customers’ shit without permission.

I sincerely appreciate you taking the time to type all that up. I feel like I better understand your perspective, and I generally agree with it.

Just curious. Why do you think young men turn to violence when they feel like they’ve lost control of a situation? Do you think they do it because it’s just in their nature, or because many might have found themselves in situations where discussion gets ignored, pleading makes things worse, running inspires pursuit, and aggression made it all stop?

I’m not saying this to diminish the problem of domestic violence against women, or as an attempt to argue against any of the statistics. I just think angrily blaming men for violence rather than attempting to understand how such a problem manifests in the first place will not make anything safer for anyone.

(I hope I don’t regret jumping in on this discussion.)

Is there a way to read without the invasive trackers? I’m fine with ads, just not the cookies.

For older games that are difficult to install or run by modern means., I think remakes and remasters are completely justified. Upgrades for older games to support newer technologies is nice, but something like TLoU Part 1 getting two remasters on a platform that has no issue running the first remaster already seems more exploitative and a waste of resources than conservational. If it sells like hotcakes, though, who am I to judge?

two cars

Imagine being able to afford just the house first…

Taxes are stupid complicated. I imagine it’s perfectly possible that this guy just didn’t know he was supposed to do something with taxes when doing charity. I’d wait for the investigation to wrap up before jumping to conclusions on this.

Why do people care about blue bubbles?

16gb is always better, and I usually recommend it to people looking to buy a Mac, but they aren’t wrong about Macs handling RAM more efficiently. They still sound arrogant af when using that as their excuse, though.

Finally reached trails of cold steel II. Been playing every game accessible to me from the series by order of release. I think this is the halfway mark.

I wonder how business owners feel about their advertisements being weaponized to push people toward subscription plans that eliminate advertisements.

I’m not disagreeing with you by saying this, but I can imagine Apple sweetening the prospect by adding an AppleTV “Pro” to the ecosystem that will play intensive iPhone games like this with controller support. Tack-on MacOS playability as well and 1 purchase could mean you can play your save no matter where you are, across any platform within the ecosystem. Again, not saying this will happen. Just imagining how it could go.

I installed all 100+ gb on my PS5, played 2 or 3 matches with a friend online, laughed a lot at how gruff-guy, teenage edge-lord it all was, then promptly deleted it in order to see if Destiny 2 was any better. (We’re still playing Destiny 2, but have all but given up on ever understanding what the hell we’re supposed to do in that game or how to even go about doing it.)

I wouldn’t be the faithful Final Fantasy patron I am today had it not been for a ROM of FF VI my old room mate put on my computer back in college. Now I own nearly ALLLLL of them (the ones available on modern platforms). I’ve also started investing in the Trails series for a similar reason and I don’t regret it.

I suddenly started to get a bunch of connection attempts from the FBI.

How can I observe connection attempts like this?

Thank you for the detailed answer. I’m surprised more people aren’t talking about using tor browser, considering how privacy-minded the community tends to be.

What effect would using Tor browser to access a non onion site have over using a different, privacy-focused browser? Honest question. I assumed Tor browser was no different than other browsers in that aspect.

It’s really worth reading the article.

Tor can be used for any internet browsing you usually do. The key difference with Tor is that the network hides your IP address and other system information for full anonymity.

The company behind a VPN can still access your information, sell it or pass it along to law enforcement. With Tor, there’s no link between you and your traffic, according to Jed Crandall, an associate professor at Arizona State University.

I don’t know if it’s even possible, but it would be cool if I could use the fediverse over TOR just for the sake of supporting TOR. Not sure if there would have to be specific .onion instances, if normal instances could just be mirrored with a .onion address, or if a .onion instance would even be able to federated in the first place. I just don’t know how it works.

Other use cases may include keeping the identities of sensitive populations like undocumented immigrants anonymous, trying to unionize a workplace without the company shutting it down, victims of domestic violence looking for resources without their abuser finding out or, as Crandall said, wanting to make embarrassing Google searches without related targeted ads following you around forever.

I’m certain an all-out legislative war would be waged against TOR if it were to become popularized for most of those reasons, under the more convenient guise of “criminals and children!”

They still haven’t? I bought the game on Mac years ago. I had the latest MBP at the time, the last intel machine before they announced the M class chips, and the game just couldn’t run. I contacted squeenix and they refused to refund me. Basically said it was wine’s fault my computer wasn’t supported despite advertising Mac on their website.

I ended up playing through the game in PlayStation, but I had assumed they would have got it working on the m class chips by now.