Oh interesting! Yeah some classic fediverse weirdness lol.

This is the response I was referring to, if that’s at all helpful

But yeah, tough topic in general. It doesn’t help that everyone you meet will confidently proclaim that they know the real truth and everyone else is wrong (much as I am doing now, lol). But ultimately the important thing is finding something that you can happily continue doing for the rest of your life

I was planning to write up a longer response but the other one you got is very detailed and accurate. But yeah basically cutting carbs just makes you miserable and makes it harder to exercise. The reason it’s a popular recommendation is because it often causes a very dramatic (but very temporary) drop in water weight. So people torture themselves for a month, lose 20 pounds on the scale, and are forevermore convinced that they have “cracked the code” on weight loss. They rarely mention that they instantly regained all of the weight when they inevitably quit the diet lol

It’s sadly very difficult to find good information because of how much noise and misinformation there is out there. I apologize if this sounds conspiratorial, but even primary care doctors are a pretty poor source of info as they receive no special training in weight loss. Whole situation is just a mess tbh

Something cool to check out is the national weight control registry, which is the largest study of people who have lost significant amounts of weight and kept it off.

http://www.nwcr.ws/Research/default.htm

We can see that most people who are successful don’t rely on some sketchy elimination diet, but rather build a lifestyle around more simple things. Such as having breakfast every day, prioritizing exercise, and keeping an eye on their weight by weighing regularly

Carbs are not bad for you at all btw. Just something people say a lot without any basis in reality. On the contrary, eliminating carbs is going to make achieving fitness goals prohibitively difficult for 95% of people

Bro is holding bees. He’s the bee holder. Red circle is over his eye, indicating where the beauty is (in the eye of the bee holder)

I’ve had some life changing sandwiches for sure

Probably just a lot of bloatware. When I’ve been in this situation in the past, I did a completely fresh install of windows. Much smaller. Linux can free up even more space.

There really isn’t anything necessary from HP, but it also depends a lot on your comfort working with the computer so ymmv. I don’t know what’s gonna happen if 3 months down the line you need to call customer support for something. If it were me, I’d be thinking “worst case scenario I can just factory reset”, especially if I had everything important backed up somewhere.

The soy/estrogen thing is 100% proven false, sadly. It’s absurdly healthy for you tho so you should eat it anyway

I would also add that weight training while you are actively losing weight can be a good idea, as it will bias your weight loss towards fat. Otherwise you will likely lose just as much muscle. That may or may not be what you want, depending on your starting point

Christmas has come early!

Well, the bullets had the motive written on them in sharpie, so I don’t think there’s any chance this is a random murder, right?

Now this is a list! Thank you, based on the few I have played here I can’t wait to check out the rest

Yea! An all time favorite, but I played it a long time ago. I wanted to keep my little list just to recent games. Irl I am very annoying about recommending OW to everyone, as well as its dlc which continued to blow me away

Lots of people have replied with similar experiences.

But personally? I’m having the time of my life currently playing tons of new games. I love trying new ones and getting surprised, and maybe falling in love with a genre I hadn’t considered before.

I feel totally contrary to what others are saying: as I’ve gotten older, I find myself enjoying games way more. My time is more valuable to me now than ever before, so I want to fill it with things that are joyful and meaningful. Often those things are art. Games to me have always been very special in the way they can deliver a powerful artistic experience.

I think they also have a special power to be blatant disgusting soulless cash grabs, to be fair. As the years go by I feel like many aspects of the industry have become particularly unpalatable. But many studios are still releasing good games, and so far I’ve continued to find joy in seeking them out.

Not too many people on this post are actually listing games. So, in no particular order, here are some games I absolutely adored that I played recently. Games from the last ~year that have touched and moved me in some way. Experiences I don’t think I’ll forget.

Sable
Chicory: A colorful tale
Manifold Garden
Signalis
OneShot
The Talos Principle
Night in the Woods
Citizen Sleeper
Webbed
Rusted Moss
Armored Core VI
Iron Lung
Slay the Princess
Ghostrunner
Mundaun
Crosscode
Eastward
Animal Well
Pseudoregalia
Dave the Diver
Nine Sols
Patrick’s Parabox
Cocoon
Smushi Come Home

Not to imply that I expect you or anyone else to take a deep look here or to try any of these games. Just wanted to throw my perspective out there, and to show the games in concrete terms that have left an impression and continue to motivate me to keep looking and keep trying more

Man why are we fantasizing about this. What’s the reddest state you can think of, Texas? 42% blue. Florida? 43%. Even in ridiculous places like North Dakota, 1/3 of the people voted blue. What happens to them when blue states form their little utopia?

Oh, the mechanics are superb. I also didn’t see it from the trailer, and originally got the game based on the art alone lol.

But the gameplay feels absurdly good. The main hook I would say is the talisman system. When you parry attacks, you build up charges of what is essentially an explosive that you can then use an another offensive option. Not only that, but it’s applied via a dash, which is a movement option (and can be used to do some cheeky sequence breaking outside of combat, if you’re into that sort of thing in these games). There’s an upgrade tree with several options for it that affect gameplay in a huge way as well.

Other than that I mean, I just like everything about the game. The story was well constructed and emotional. The characters are well designed, especially the bosses who are not just enemies but important characters in the story. The boss fights themselves as I mentioned. Music got me going. Environments are jaw dropping.

To give voice to the other commenter who bounced off the game after 4 hours, it has overwhelmingly positive reviews on steam but even among the good reviews a common complaint is that the game takes a fairly long time to spin up. There’s a lengthy linear section before you get some more freedom of exploration, and even then it never becomes the game’s strongest point. It also takes a long time to get certain essential upgrades. I think this is a good thing in terms of boss design, but can feel like somewhat of a slog if you’re experienced with metroidvanias and really just want your basic dash and double jump etc.

It’s a long game, took me around 40 hours. But I enjoyed it very much in the beginning, and continued to enjoy it more as I progressed and unlocked things. I went in with no expectations however, and was surprised as the game organically developed from “cool little project I’m supporting because I like the genre and the cat is cute”, to “possibly my favorite action game since sekiro”. I hope I’m not doing a disservice by setting expectations too high! But in the end, yes I was left feeling like it was that good

This is purely conspiratorial but I think given the studio’s notable previous controversy, they probably excluded it because Wukong has such a prominent presence this year.

Other than that, yeah it just doesn’t make sense to me. Nine sols has better sales and reviews than other games being honored

My GOTY personally. Left a really strong impression. Combat is an absolute joy, and the boss fights are my favorite since Sekiro. Story and atmosphere are incredible, you can at times really feel that this is a studio accustomed to making horror games.

They totally nailed it, in other words. Great post-release support as well. Can’t wait to see what they do next

We could dissect why “manly” translates to “being worthy of respect”, but that’s a tangent from your question.

I think this pretty much gets to the root of the friction I experience when this topic comes up. I wouldn’t mind digging into it.

You likely have already guessed that I would think of it this way, but isn’t it just that “good people are worthy of respect”? Because it seems to me like if you try hard to take care of your family and do right by others, you’re a good person deserving of respect.

You know what I mean? If there’s no need for the trait to be exclusively masculine, then why do we do it? Translate “manly” into “worthy of respect”, that is. Is there some benefit to thinking about it in terms of masculinity rather than just in terms of goodness?

However, the phrase “manly” is referring to societal measures

they should have favorable societal traits and behaviors

Also, I do acknowledge this side of things. I wrote some thoughts about it in a reply to another comment in this thread, if you want to check that out. It’s an important point, and I don’t want you to think i’m just ignoring it. In summary, I think it’s kind of a bummer if in the end, manliness is just a tradition people feel compelled to participate in

I appreciate your breakdown. In other words, what you’re saying is that a man’s feeling of manliness is most often rooted in how closely he resembles societal expectations.

I think it’s pretty much the most reasonable explanation. But it still strikes me that men generally do not themselves think about it in those terms, and in fact consider it to be inherently emasculating. Masculinity viewed through this lens in essence becomes an act of submission to an outside force, which stands in contrast to many evident directives of masculinity such as independence and inherent drive.

Indeed the OP touches on this, implying that masculinity simply must be secured from within, with brazen disregard for the way others perceive you.

So if it does really come down to matching expectations, then it seems to be, as you said, frankly impossible

I guess what confuses me about all of this is why these things are in any way manly?

Like being reliable and following through on your commitments. Is it masculine when someone who isn’t a man is like that?

Or if I’m told someone is manly, have I now learned that he is in fact dependable?

I don’t mean to try and excessively pick apart what you’re saying, it’s just something I’ve always really struggled with understanding. People always seem to say things that strike me as being ungendered character traits when they’re asked about their gender.

Thank you for proving me correct!