$2.75 at the vending machine at work.

Thank you

er, sorry

Care Thank you

Thank you is always the right answer.

I would have completely missed the joke if that circle wasn’t there.

The borderline pedophilia in so much anime is what turns me off. So many popular series are lolicon degeneracy but heavens forbid you try to call it out, or the anime fans come out in droves to tell you that you’re an unappreciative normie who just doesn’t get the themes and how profound they are.

I still watch some series, but I simply cannot engage with an anime community ever again.

If an indie game can’t rival the best AAA experience for a cost of no greater than free to $5, it’s garbage. It also needs to be lengthy to keep me entertaned for an indefinite period but also not too long. And there can’t be any DLC or microtransactions, but I need free content updates for at least 10 years.

If I don’t get all of these, I’ll give a review of “zero stars, trash game, do not recommend (550 hours played)”

This is also the art used for the cover for Edward Said’s book Orientalism. A good read, even if newer postcolonial scholars have improved on his ideas since then.

It made me happy, and then sad at myself for having to question if this was AI generated or not.

I have so little trust these days, I had to watch it 15 times through to confirm that there was visual consistency with the background objects and therefore the video is probably real.

I had no idea this happened, and now all I can think is that the writers of the HBO series Succession were coming from a very real place. I know the family in that series was inspired by the Murdochs but I didn’t think it was that faithful to reality.

I mean he’s not president yet, but I doubt that would stop him anyways. Hell, he’ll give himself retroactive presidential immunity for the last four years by continuing to insist he rightfully won the 2020 election, too. And then have anyone citing the 22nd amendment sent to the gulags as an unimpeachable “official act”.

It won by being a well-made, fun game. That’s really all there is. Exclusivity limits audience but it doesn’t affect quality.

Vendors use parts and designs from other vendors all the time.

As another example, Apple still uses displays made by Samsung and cameras made by Sony for the iPhone.

I’m just going to say Nightcore.

I get that Nightcore has an audience, but what makes it annoying for me is when I am trying to search for an obscure song and think I’ve found it, only to realize that it’s yet another low-effort nightcore remix.

I used to live in China, where socialized medicine was in theory available for everyone, but in practice most everyone who had a decent job had private insurance from their employer not unlike in the US, which was my situation. It was…fine, but I was a healthy young adult and didn’t have much going on medically. I’ve heard some horror stories from others about the degree of care they received, and had one experience where my doctor simply attributed my migraines to my “unhealthy American lifestyle”, but I never had to worry about coverage.

When I moved back home to Massachusetts a few years later, I didn’t have a job lined up right away, but I did gain immediate coverage through MassHealth (the system the Affordable Care Act was based upon) and it was very cheap. I didn’t have to pay for coverage, but did have a couple copays here and there which weren’t anything crazy.

I started up one job, was laid off after just a couple months when the pandemic happened, and MassHealth was still there to give me some peace of mind. It’s not a perfect system, but it beats running the risk of suffering a health episode that leaves you financially destitute for years and years. I don’t know how well I would have managed elsewhere.

I eventually landed a more stable-long term career and get employer-provided insurance through Tufts. And it’s okay, but I recently had to fight a months-long prolonged battle to get a prior authorization approved for a med I had been taking for years that they just decided out of the blue I didn’t need to take anymore. And it took a lot of back and forth from my doctor to really stress that I needed to stay on this med before they eventually caved and gave me a 1-year approval, but now I’m worried I’ll have to go through this whole song and dance again when that time elapses in a few more months.

I think it’s just a bit ridiculous that the insurance company can simply decide they know my health situation better than myself or my doctor who I’ve been seeing for years now, and out of the blue make life-changing decisions without even having spoken to me or my doctor first.

Sadly, though, this may not be helpful for much longer.

Some films are beginning to completely forego physical release in favor of digital only, and we’re veering back towards “You need a dedicated set-top box for movies” territory with computers and game consoles trying to do away with disc drives.

The “good ol’ boy” excuse.

• “He’s got a promising life ahead of him!”

• “It’s just how things are done, that ain’t his fault!”

• “He just didn’t know any better!”

• “We’ve all done stupid things before, who are we to judge?”

• “He’s a pillar of the community, think of all the good he’s done!”

Meanwhile I guess my place in the hierarchy is “None of the above”, haha

Two kids were stabbed in NYC, one fatally, just a couple days after the UHC CEO was killed. But those suspects remain at large.

Might have been a different story if the murdered kids were white.

You mean that very legal and factually-suppprted facet of the American justice system that every juror should be informed about before making a decision in court?

Yeah, it’s hard to keep track after they quickly abandoned the numbered naming scheme after 2. And I think that was partly because people were confused anyways by the un-numbered prequel featuring the same setting and cast of characters, while the numbered sequel was almost entirely separate.

(Caveat: I have not played Double Exposure yet so I am not sure how directly connected it is to the first game) The titles are disconnected enough that anyone can basically just jump into the series with any title at any time, the only exception being the first game and Before the Storm, since they’re directly connected. I’ve heard it said that those two can still be appreciated in either release order or chronological order, but would probably be best served played one right after the other either way.

The only other connections I know of are:

• Life is Strange 2 - A character from the original game and Before the Storm plays a minor role in the story, but context is not required to understand the plot.

• Life is Strange: True Colors - A character from Before the Storm features prominently in the story, but context is also not required to understand the main plot. However, this character has a DLC story that I haven’t played, so I don’t know if that ties in more to Before the Storm than True Colors alone does.