As a game? Astrobot is a VERY solid and polished platformer.

But mostly it is the nostalgia and target demographic. If you ever had a PS1 or PS2 growing up then you will have insane amounts of nostalgia for all the costumes and easter eggs while not realizing most are from the late PS3/early PS4 anyway.

So… it is basically a modern Nintendo game. Others do platforming and level design better. But only this has the excessive amount of references to nu-God of War and rare reference to Jumping Flash that makes your heart remember the happy times.

And… even though I see it for what it is, I am not gonna pretend I am above it.

For what it is worth? I think it IS the better game than Balatro (one would hope so since it had a full major studio and platform holder behind it…). But I still think Balatro was THE game of 2024 just for how much it pervaded everything and everyone.

Not sure if it was optional (I THINK I missed it my first playthrough at launch?) but as part of TW3 you put someone through the trials as an adult. And it basically liquifies their body and causes immense suffering so that magic can be used to turn a pile of Clarence Boddicker back into the person’s real form.

It wouldn’t be the first retcon or outright ignoring of lore in the CDPR series (or the author’s books for that matter…) but it just feels particularly egregious because Ciri very specifically is NOT a Witcher and her choosing to live that life was her rejecting destiny and taking control of herself. But also? She can never truly escape that destiny.

(I remember a quest where Geralt feeds a normal human a small dose of one of his potions.

https://witcher.fandom.com/wiki/On_Death's_Bed

Sadly, none of this denoted a happy ending. Though the wounds on Lena’s body healed, the toxins in the witcher’s brew had melted her mind. This was not the first time a cure had proven worse than the disease

The witcher potions are RIDICULOUSLY toxic

Well, obviously it was flawed. This kind and honest working class CEO didn’t get the healthcare he required while he was bleeding out like a kindergartener at nap time.

Don’t worry. United and all the other murderers are going to make sure they raise our premiums so they can afford a permanent trauma team to follow all the hard working execs around and ensure this tragedy never has to happen again.

And if some poors need to have even more basic human rights taken away to keep the investors happy? That is a risk we are all willing to take to protect those hard working execs.

REALLY annoyed that Ciri is quaffing potions since I thought a big deal was that she never had the witcher mutations since Triss (?) realized it was a really bad idea to give a menstruating young girl all those mutagens. So those should basically leave her in horrific pain on the ground after she chugs them.

One of the things that made her segments Work so well in TW3 was that she very clearly was NOT Geralt… she was something simultaneously less and massively more powerful. Which is why her wandering off to become a Witcher in all the good endings was so powerful. She is not a Witcher but she IS someone who can fight like one and who can do some good in the world.

But very excited. I think there is a LOT of room for Ciri to call out the misogynistic bullshit of the average medieval-ish fantasy culture (and we saw shades of that). Not entirely sure I trust CDPR for this though. Sometimes they do real good and sometimes it feels like the joke is that that woman has a dick. Time will tell.

But a few people noticed that Bluesky has Austin Walker listed as part of CDPR Boston (?). I suspect that is just an anomaly or maybe some contract work but… I trust Austin to speak Truth and convince people just how much power they have to write a ridiculously powerful female character in medieval-ish Europe.

Also, I assume CDPR is reading this because of course they are. So here is something free. Ciri is not the Butcher of Blavikan like her father. She is the “Butcher of whatever fucking town this is” if people don’t get out of her way and let her help people.

Heh. The moment chat figured out it was Naughty Dog I lost most of my interest. Don’t get me wrong, I liked TLOU1 a lot and mostly liked TLOU2 (even if I wish it was like 60% as long). But I am REAL tired of Sony’s “prestige telivision” gaming bullshit.

Then we got like 5 seconds of gameplay and it is bright action game fun and I am all for it.

It really depends.

When it is someone who just shot up a school? Whatever. Who HASN’T accidentally unloaded a few hundred rounds into a kindergarten class?

But when it is politically or socially motivated? Obviously they can’t hid everything but you’ll find that people ike thomas matthew crooks don’t actually have their photo in most news stories (and to the people who are going to go find a single article to prove some point that trends don’t exist because of singular exceptions? Go fuck yourself). That obviously doesn’t stop people from googling (or going to wikipedia at this point) but it is a conscious effort by major media outlets.

Mostly because of the same reason that suicide notes and manifestos tend to not be published. There is the concern that it may lead to copycats who “just want to be heard” and so forth.

Now, if there were some reason that media outlets that are largely owned by the ultra wealthy would be concerned about a sympathetic (and attractive) face being associated with treating them like kindergarteners getting ready for nap time? Why, that would just be crazy…

He did not say “the” evidence was planted. He said “that” evidence was planted. As in a subset.

And, as I pointed out above, said evidence makes sense. The “faraday bag” is just an intentional misinterpretation. As for the foreign currency? People very much underestimate how much loose cash cops have due to civil forfeiture and it is a really easy way to argue that someone is a flight risk and should not be granted bail.

Considerably less than that.

“The 1%” is, ironically, a way to protect the elites and keep us divided amongst ourselves. But that ignores the wealth inequality issues and how many people aren’t even “middle class”.

In plenty of states? Making low six figures is already enough to put you as a “one percenter” for your demographic. Especially if you have a partner who makes a similar amount of money. And that scales with cost of living. A couple years ago (during the pandemic) I saw a really good breakdown that basically showed “if you can afford to live on your own, you are probably at least a top 5% earner”

And those people are just as vulnerable to an illness that insurance doesn’t cover.

No. The people benefiting aren’t even the “1%”. It is a ridiculously small percentage of the population.

Because the population of the US is 346.3 million people. One percent of that is about 3.5 million people. You are almost guaranteed to know some “one percenters” and they are probably actually great people who are having a lot of the same struggles as you. Maybe they can afford to buy fast food but they are still only one or two bad days away from being destitute. Which tempers anger and rage and protects the people who actually have the vast majority of the wealth in this country.

Because, as many of us pointed out, he was never some super meticulous hitman. He exhibited basic knowledge of firearms and got his stalker on like the ceo what got got was a pretty girl who asked to borrow a pencil that one time in biology class. The rest was taking a bus and wearing a face mask most of the time. It was inevitable that he would be caught unless he fled the country.

Mostly this just highlighted how incompetent cops are. And… might be used to further efforts to just use computer vision and rudimentary “AI” to process security camera footage in the future.

As for why he would keep his gun on him? The manifesto kind of says it all (and, to my knowledge, Luigi has not disputed THAT aspect of it). He wanted to get caught. Probably after making it clear he could have escaped if he wanted to (because getting on a flight out of the US would have been trivial).

To be clear. If he were to have disputed the gun and manifesto I would VERY rapidly be on the side of "cops are planting shit yet again’. But the fact that he hasn’t (to my knowledge) while disputing other potentially planted or misinterpreted evidence puts the kibosh on that.

A LOT of yesterday’s arrest is REALLY suspicious. Dude who could easily have fled the country (for a lot of reasons) and had done such a great job of covering his tracks is sitting in a mickey d’s with his murder weapon and a manifesto.

But… a lot of his social media history (which is not impossible to fake but…) kind of suggests he was very mentally unwell. Which… uh doy? And he is mostly focused on the money (super easy to plant) and the “faraday bag”.

As for the faraday bag? A LOT of dry bags (an internal bag you put electronics and valuables into if you are going to hike in the rain or go rafting/boating) have a metal mesh. Because they need to withstand abrasians either from being near other gear (you would be shocked how much jagged metal is in a backpack when you go on a proper alpine overnight) or just being able to survive falling overboard and bouncing on the end of a rope in rapids. And guess what a metal mesh does?

So he presumably got a dry bag of some form to stash his personal shit in while he stashed the second backpack. And I know plenty of hikers and climbers who learn the fun way that the phone they carried “in case someone needs to get a hold of me” had zero signal the entire time it was protected from the rain.

The one silver lining of our next 4+ years of hell is that musk is inevitably going to piss off trump as more and more people decide that musk won the election for him and musk is the one in charge.

And since musk is hated at ted cruz levels… we might get an Official Act.

I mean, it is pretty obvious they care less about using the shoes and more about building a Brand for whatever reason.

I’ll also add that this is going to chafe like hell. And even if OP has perfect orthopedic health… they won’t after wearing these for an extended period of time. All but the cheapest of crocs put a bit of effort into the footbed to cushion things and a layer of rigid TPU ain’t it.

Except that was absolutely not true the last time I flew. Let me guess, I used the wrong kind of noise canceling headphones.

Apparently

Really? It’s a normal thing to demand that I get the comfortable seat and my wife and daughter don’t?

Nobody is telling you to fly first class. In fact, I specifically mentioned an aisle seat because I am cheap as hell. If you rae buying three adjacent seats you probably have one of those anyway

And, apparently, the solution you’re offering me is to make them uncomfortable at my expense.

Yes. I am specifically telling you that you must put your child in a shirt made out of human hairs to flight

Why do you care if I don’t like flying anyway?

I don’t give a fuck what you do. In fact, it amuses me that you are the kind of miserable sad sack who has to complain that the entire world is conspiring against you.

But I also think you’re spewing nonsense and it is fun to highlight that so that nobody takes you seriously.

I’ll just ignore my family with noise-cancelling headphones

Have you ever tried noise cancelling headphones? They are great for background noise and conversations that aren’t right next to you but you’ll have no problem actually talking to your precious family during said flight. In fact, it makes it a lot easier to hear the person next to you

demand I sit in a specific seat

Yeah? That is a pretty normal thing if you aren’t buying the most budget of budget tickets. And you wouldn’t subject your family to Ryanair, now would you?

and make my wife and child sit elsewhere.

You do you. But generally speaking, seats come in 2s and 3s. So you should be fine to sit with them. Or not. Up to you.

So… what is next on the docket to establish why your suffering is unique and the entire world should reconfigure to make you happy?

It still baffles my brain that arguably the best puzzle game ever is by the Serious Sam devs.

Seriously. Even if you aren’t huge on puzzle games, The Talos Principle is a great experience. They do a spectacular job of introducing new mechanics so nothing ever feels unfair and you naturally realize how to find the secrets in past rooms. And there are enough “endings” that you don’t need to 100% it.

Super curious who these people are. Calling the cops on someone at a McD’s because they look like a pixelated CCTV photo.

Look at all the people who insist that the murderous leech of a CEO is a real person and we are all monsters for taking joy in him… well, I would say “getting a taste of his own medicine” but his whole schtick was denying medicine.

Probably a self righteous college kid trying to prove a point about how if you show compassion and love for everyone then the world will be a better place.

Could we not use ableist slurs when mocking the gun nuts?

Because that would be sanders actually accomplishing something rather than just talking a big game while not getting in the way.

That has been his entire career. He talks shit but doesn’t accomplish much. And the few times he DOES actually act he mostly just shoots himself in the foot and pisses away any influence he has left.

Also: The world is catching on fire at an alarming rate and china is trying to intimidate Taiwan again. The last thing sanders wants is to be the guy stopping a military/intel funding bill when that war goes hot.

Airplanes are loud,

Active Noise Cancelling headphones (earbuds if you only fly short hop domestic) are your friends. Failing that? Consider earplugs but those tend to exacerbate pressure issues.

the seats are cramped and uncomfortable

Anything short of a car (and even then) in the US is going to be uncomfortable. Buses are somehow worse and even trains aren’t great for extended periods of time unless you pay out the nose. Hell, even a Japanese train gets bothersome after a few hours.

What works for me is to sit in the aisle seat. For short hops it doesn’t matter. For longer flights? Being able to just get up and walk to the bathroom (or just pretend you are) once an hour goes a long way.

and the passengers are often obnoxious.

See above regarding anything but a personal car (and even then). But also? ANC Headphones help with this too

Maybe you’re okay with unpleasant loud noise, discomfort and annoyance, but considering how much people hate those things in general, I think you’re in a small minority.

Nobody likes the above. But we tend to like the places we are going a whole lot more. And we are willing to put up with a bit of discomfort in exchange for seeing the world.