blindsight @ blindsight @beehaw.org

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6

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753

Joined

2 yr. ago

I just read the top review on Steam and it answered this question well: TL;DR it's a shame this is a F2P game since the seasonal cosmetic FOMO is diametrically opposed to the message/spirit of the game, but if you can ignore the cosmetics, then it's a fantastic experience that's completely free.

1. Yes. Many people budget the most they can afford in mortgage payments to identify how much to pay for a home. Lower interest rates -> lower mortgage payments per $100K -> more money they can offer for the house -> house prices go up.
2. Not just "people", either. Interest rates are the main cost of expanding business activity. Lower interest rates means it's cheaper to start or expand a business.
3. Yes. Borrowing $100K just became $500 cheaper for each year the loan is held. With interest compounding over time, this has a much bigger impact the longer the term of the loan (mortgages and business loans are the biggest and longest, generally).

I think the building restrictions parent poster was referring to are density restrictions.

As an example, there are narrow strips of Toronto along major roads that allow skyscrapers, a lot of it a block away from single-family-home zoning. So all the demand for multi-unit housing bursts up in narrow corridors.

If, instead, quad-plexes became universally allowed, and lot height limits were increased to 3 (or 4? idk) stories, then single-family homes could be torn down or renovated to make room for up to 4 families to live comfortably on the same land.

Rosedale shouldn't exist. Single-family homes a short walk from downtown Toronto is a big part of why people are commuting from Barrie.

West Van is just as bad. Even small towns in desirable areas are seeing density restrictions causing a missing middle in housing.

Or if you can't pull off the humour, just be honest: "Sorry; I remember you [from place, if you remember], but my blinky ADHD memory is terrible with names. Can you remind me your name? ... Thanks, [NAME]. And apologies in advance if I forget it again. It's not personal!"

“CO2 is presently at around 420 ppm, near the lowest level in over 1,000 years.”

what now?

One of them is a literal fascist who has publicly stated they will become a dictator. Pretending they're at all equivalent is lunacy.

Interesting seeing Hotline Miami make the list since I just watched a short video essay the other day explaining how OTXO is just a better game in basically every way.

I'm still in the 80s working my way down the list, but I searched and OTXO doesn't appear to be on the page.

Edit: Conversely, I'm pleased to see Portal included instead of Portal 2. The Portal 2 goo was unnecessary and led to more boring puzzle solutions. Portal is a more pure, timeless game. And it has a lot of amazing mods... I should probably look into how to install Portal mods on the Deck...

I wonder:

1. How many of those YouTube comments are posted by bots paid for by Russia/China/Iran?
2. How many of those YouTube comments are posted by people who have been radicalized by Internet echo chambers?
3. And how many are getting most of their news from alt-right, conspiracy theories, and Fox?

It's a cesspool.

For visual novels, it depends how you play them. If you're happy with getting a single story/ending, then yeah. But if you want to 100% them, then there's a lot of backtracking.

Portal Pro I remember being great. So good that Portal 2 was a disappointment for me when it landed.

I needed to cheat (watch the YouTube solution video) on a few solutions, iirc, too; not because they're badly designed, just because I couldn't wrap my head around the solution.

It should be noted that a couple of the portal solutions need reasonably quick portal placement, so I don't think it would be as good without KB+mouse. It took me a few tries to nail one of the techniques.

A protest vote does nothing. The system sucks, but with an election this close, a protest vote is a half vote for fascism. Project 2025 makes it very clear that a Republican victory might very well be the end of democracy in the US. Literally—not speaking hyperbolically.

As a non-American, it's very disturbing to see how few Americans seem to take the rise of fascism in their country seriously. There are so many parallels to the Third Reich it's deeply unsettling.

It's also becoming abundantly clear that Russian/Chinese/Iranian interference in elections is pushing for fascism, and their anti-democratic rhetoric, memes, and talking points are being shared widely.

Voting for a third party, with what the Republican Party is saying they'll do if elected, is voting for fascism being an acceptable outcome.

The fact the polls are in a dead heat is disturbing.

I don't think you're understanding how trivial this is to detect:

Set up an open WiFi network in an area without any other open WiFi networks. i.e. almost anywhere outside of dense urban areas. Then you don't even need to inspect traffic, just look at connected devices in admin controls. No devices should be connected aside from your monitoring device.

There's no way the TV manufacturers are going to risk the legal quagmire that would come from this when there's no plausible way to keep it remotely secret.

... Or pay them for it!

There's a prolific open-source dev that makes many plugins and themes for a widely-used OSS platform. He's quite open when asked for new features if it's something he's already planning on doing anyway (with no guaranteed timeline) or if it's not. But if it's a reasonable ask, he'll always mention that he can prioritise its development if they fund it. He even posts his current contractor rate; it's quite transparent.

I think more OSS devs should be more open like that. "Yes, I can do that feature request. Sounds like about 2-3 hours work. My hourly is $120 for contract work. Email me here if you're interested and I'll send a contract."

Super easy. Anyone who knows networking could detect new device connections on an open network they set up. I know next to nothing about networking and I could set it up in 10 minutes, 5 of which would be finding my old router in the basement.

So I'm not going to give this a moment's thought until someone brings receipts. It's not hard to check if this is happening.

Fake news, as far as I can tell. Lots of claims this is happening, but nobody has brought receipts. Considering how easy it would be to catch, and how likely illegal it is to connect to and use networks without permission, this is definitely an urban legend.

I wish STV came up in articles like this. I feel like it's the perfect system for Canada since it fits so naturally with our constitutionally-required geographic restrictions on seats for the provinces.

In short: all ridings are merged to have 3-5 seats* (same number in total as now). Parties can run as many candidates as there are seats. Cheers can give ranked votes to individuals or to parties. If someone gets 20/25/33% of the votes, they get a seat. If nobody does, the person with the least votes is eliminated, and their votes are distributed to the next-highest-ranked option. There's a bit of extra math for fractional votes to ensure fair splitting of next-choice votes that are "extra" beyond what's needed to win a seat.

No party lists/corruption by being beholden to the party. No regional shenanigans about representation from listless MMP. Roughly proportional representation locally so most Canadians will have an MP that represents their interests well, while still keeping fringe parties from fracturing things too much.

And it's been done successfully in Ireland for over a century, too, so it's well tested.

*The territories would effectively just get ranked ballot (= STV with 1-seat ridings) to ensure they retain 1 seat each.

The author of the article is under the mistaken impression that bundling the "smart" features into the TV increases the price. It's actually the opposite.

By injecting ads and bloatware into the TVs, the manufacturers earn more money, by far, than the cost of the features. A dumb TV would cost more.

The best solution is to decouple them; get the cheapest TV you can with the video quality/size you want, then attach your own device to stream content. I use a modified Fire Stick due to price, mostly with Stremio/Torrentio/Debrid, but there are lots of options.

Fake news. Harris had a high conviction rate for nonviolent drug offenses because she was allowing them to complete a program instead of serving time for a guilty plea. She had great results for reducing recidivism rates.

Sure, the war on drugs itself is a problem, but Harris wasn't locking people up for nonviolent drug offenses; that completely flips and mischaracterizes her work as a DA.

But you're just sea lioning anyway. I look forward to seeing how you move the conversation to another Russian/Chinese talking point in your inevitable reply.

Edit: 4 autocorrect fails

You still aren't "purchasing" it.

For example, you don't have right of resale the same way you would with physical goods. You're buying a license to the game for personal use, regardless, you just don't have DRM limiting your access.

It looks more like a ladle ("dipper") than a bear ("Ursa major") to me. Always made more sense to me.

It's a stretch to say a pair of quadrilaterals with sticks look like a bear family, imho.