Sylveon

I also gave up after reading AFFC about a decade ago, with the intention of picking the series back up once the next book had released.

But at this point he’d have to finish the entire series before I’d even consider going back. And I doubt he’ll ever do that. I think eventually they’ll just get someone else to finish it.

!desire_paths@sh.itjust.works

No, I hate DST. Getting up an hour earlier sucks. I also prefer the darker season in general because I feel like I sleep better.

I don’t think people are saying you shouldn’t protest the genocide. You should! But it’s stupid to not vote for Harris over it because letting Trump win doesn’t just throw women, LGBTQ people, etc. under the bus, it also makes the genocide of Palestinians even worse.

Good point. A candidate from a party that doesn’t really have a presence in any level of government and especially zero seats in congress will probably never have a realistic chance of winning the presidential election, barring some exceptional circumstances. If you like a third party, trying to make it viable at the local level and moving up from there seems to be the only realistic option to me.

Either Harris or Trump are going to win the election. Not voting for Harris is voting for Trump. Yes, it fucking sucks, but especially if you’re a woman or a queer person, really think about whether you actually think it doesn’t matter which one wins.

Voting is not an endorsement of a candidate. It’s a tool. Don’t let them take away your rights while you’re waiting for the perfect candidate that will never come.

The Steam Deck is just a Linux PC, you can absolutely mod games on it!

I’m playing modded Slay the Spire a lot on mine.

It’s also ridiculous that they suggest that people are influenced by social pressure or even marketing to become trans. Not only does this not happen, if it did happen it would not work. Conversion therapy does not work. You can’t make people trans just like you can’t make people cis. If people who are actually cis transition they get gender dysphoria and become miserable.

This is just conservative fearmongering with no basis in reality.

So what protections are in place in the US to prevent surgery being done for the same ‘wrong’ reasons?

The difference is you’re not forced to get it under the threat of death. And I’m not American, but as far as I know you also need a psychological evaluation to get it.

If the healthcare system was actually brainwashing people into getting surgeries they don’t need that would be a general issue, not specifically a trans one.

In reality the regret rates for gender affirming surgery is usually found to be under 1%, which is extremely low and lower than almost any other type of surgery. See e.g. A systematic review of patient regret after surgery.

The Silmarillion is one of my favourite books, but I totally get this. Unless you’re really into Tolkien’s world as well as this style of book it’s not a fun read.

Like SpaceX. However, when people gush about reusability, they seem to forget the 135 Space Shuttle missions (2 fatal failures , yes.). All done with 5 vehicles. Yes expensive etc, but truly amazing.

The Space Shuttle was a marvel of engineering. But while it was reusable, it wasn’t actually good at it. Reusability was supposed to bring down cost and turnaround time and it did neither. And not just that, it was actually much more expensive than competing expendable rockets. Plus, it had lots of other issues like being dangerous as fuck. You couldn’t abort at all for major parts of the ascent and there was the whole issue with the fragile heat protection tiles, both of which caused fatalities.

I think part of the reason why people aren’t impressed by the Shuttle anymore is because it flew 135 missions. It’s 40 year old technology. And it’s not like SpaceX are just doing the same thing again 40 years later, they’re reusing their rockets in a completely different way, which no one else had done before. And in doing so they seem to be avoiding most of the disadvantages that came with the Shuttle’s design.

Also, I really don’t find anything SpaceX is doing revolutionary. Impressive? Yes, but it’s essentially incremental engineering, made possible by ginormous funding, including NASA money, and a private company doing things that NASA can-t politically afford.

Sure, I wouldn’t say that no one else could do this with a similar amount of money (and the will to actually do it). Whether you want to call it revolutionary or not is subjective, but they’re definitely innovating a lot more than any other large player in spaceflight. The Falcon 9 is a huge step forward for rocket reusability and SpaceX have also been the first to fly a full-flow staged combustion engine as well as the most powerful rocket ever. They’re making spaceflight exciting again after like 40 years of stagnation and I think that’s what resonates with people.

I guess the level of scariness is subjective, at least from what I’ve read not everyone seems to agree that it’s very mild :P But I’ll definitely play it eventually, the base game is one of the best games I’ve ever played.

My backlog and my library are huge so I’ll choose a few (in no particular order):

• Baldur’s Gate 3
• Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood
• Inscryption
• Hades
• Hollow Knight
• Outer Wilds DLC (I’ve been putting it off because it’s supposedly scary)
• Stray
• Little Kitty, Big City
• Monster Train
• Moonstone Island

Settings -> Apps -> Phone -> Silence Unknown Callers

Might make it more bearable if you’re not already using it. But it’s still annoying even then.

First time seeing this but you got me, now I really want to press that button. Why am I so easily manipulated?

I was also thinking of NecroDancer. For most players (including myself) the game is already difficult without these extra challenges.

If you have an iOS device and AirPods you can actually do this.

On another related note, I wish I could use my earbuds to listen to two devices at the same time. Like my phone and my Steam Deck.

Can’t listen to music while watching a video or listening to a podcast.

It’s so much fun to watch other people figure things out. It’s the closest we can get to playing the game again.

I’ve never used Twitter a lot and I’ve mostly stopped using it, but Mastodon is just not a viable alternative for most people. I used Twitter to keep up with things. I made a Mastodon account like two years ago, but almost none of the people or organisations I care about are on there. And most of the ones that are on it aren’t posting. So I’m basically never using it. The same is true for Bluesky. Threads may be better but I’d rather avoid anything from Facebook.