redhorsejacket @ redhorsejacket @lemmy.world

Posts

1

Comments

222

Joined

2 yr. ago

I heard mixed things about The Outer Worlds. My recollection is that people were somewhat disappointed by it, but I can't remember any real specific critiques (other than it's scope being more limited than some people were expecting). Anyone have a take on the game they'd like to share?

Yes, I believe the figure they cited was that Google earns 73% of their revenue through ads. I imagine what they would have to do is bust up the ad services in addition to the various departments of Google. Each new entity formed gets to keep revenue from ads shown on their platform maybe? E.g. YouTube gets spun off into its own thing separate from Google proper. They get to keep ad revenue from what is shown on their platform, but they don't get to touch any revenue from sponsored search listings, or from banner ads on other websites, etc.

That's an approach that makes surface level sense to me, but I am neither a lawyer nor a business bro nor a tech bro. So, I don't actually have the faintest idea if my idea bears any resemblance to reality.

I'm speculating, but perhaps the thought would be that separating Google Search from the rest of the company would deprive them of the alternative revenue streams they used to maintain their market position? If I remember the ruling against them correctly, one of the key pieces of evidence cited by the judge was that Google spent like 30 billion dollars a year to have 3rd parties use their engine by default.

While I agree with the spirit of your comment, I'm not sure I'm on board with Predator being outclassed by works influenced by it. Admittedly, I've not watched Prey, so grain of salt and all. I hear it's quite good, but with it being put in a historical context rather than contemporary, I think it's a bit of a different animal.

I am curious to hear examples of films you think improve upon the og Predator's formula. If nothing else it will give me some new movies to watch.

I mean, the article states that the victim did suffer some symptoms, so I wouldn't say they were totally unaffected. If the article is accurate, would it be possible that she was inhaling vapor from the spill? The victim is quoted as saying she had to be at that board for 5 hours, and the Wikipedia article indicates that the primary danger of elemental mercury is inhalation of vapor (it claims 80% absorption rate via respiration, as opposed to the 1% via direct contact). Unfortunately, I am pretty ignorant of chemistry, so I've no idea if my speculation is plausible. How much room temp mercury would need to be sitting in front of you before you felt the effects of the vapor. Or even if you would at all, since the CDC website says the vapor is more dense than air.

Additionally, I noticed that one of the symptoms of mercury inhalation is cognitive impairment. Obviously this is more speculation, but perhaps the intent was not to kill, but rather to sabotage the victim's play? After all, it seems like the perpetrator and the victim were rivals. Could be a Nancy Kerrigan-Tonya Harding situation, just more classically Russian what with the use of poison rather than brute force.

I disagree with your assessment. To an average user, whatever winds up saved in their browser cache is there mostly unintentionally. Yes, it's saving info from sites they choose to visit, but after that initial choice, the user is out of the loop. The browser saves what it needs to without user notification or input. I might even wager that most users are unaware of their browser cache, or don't know what's in it or how to access it. Therefore, I believe your metaphor perhaps confers too active a decision-making process on something that most people are completely unconscious of.

To be clear, the strawman average user I'm using here is me. I know I have a browser cache, I know vaguely what is stored in it and why, and I know how to clear it if I'm having certain issues. That's about it. I sure as heck don't treat it as an archive.

For what it's worth, having a lower retirement grade shouldn't actually affect his pension at all, at least in so far as I understand it.

Walz joined up in 1981, which was the year after the "High-36" retirement system was adopted. Under that system, the army looks at your career and plucks out the 36 months where you earned the most money. In the vast majority of cases, these are the final 3 years of your career. These are averaged out, and then multiplied by a percentage (2.5% per year of service, e.g. 20 years of service = 50%) to determine your monthly payment.

All of which is to say that his pension calculations do take into account the time he was an E9, even if his paperwork and other privileges rflect the lower pay grade.

Caveat: it's been several years since I retired, and it's a very complex process. I could be off base as it applies to Walz's case specifically, but what I've described is generally true.

Hmm, so, last month I began to have issues with my Chromecast for the first time. I have an old 3rd gen Chromecast attached to my bedroom television (not a smart tv) for the purpose of casting obnoxiously long video essays to fall asleep to. After like a decade of essentially hassle free operation, it suddenly stopped being able to maintain a connection to my phone. I cast a video, and after approximately 10 minutes, the cast disconnects and I get a message on my phone saying "this video cannot be played in the background". I've tried ever troubleshooting technique I can think of.

I know I shouldn't attribute to malice what can be explained by other causes, but boy, seeing this news today sure makes me think about things like planned obsolescence.

Alright, I'll bite, what distinguishes a hot dish from a casserole? Tater tot crust?

I think you're implying Andre aged the worst, considering his present situation, but, hell, out of the three I think he might have "aged" the best. In the foot notes of history, Andre will be remembered for being a pretty avuncular fella. Those other two? Not so much.

While it's possible that a different reviewer applied that hypothetical headcanon to the Burnout series, I believe you're actually thinking of Ross' Game Dungeon. Specifically the Trackmania Canyon video, not Burnout.

You're making the same points as the article (and the devs), hence OP stating that what he posted is not the "clickbait journalism" that you appeared to accuse it of being originally.

If you were saying the other articles referred to in the headline are clickbait journalism, then I'm pretty sure we're all on the same page. Your phrasing was just a little ambiguous at first.

Apologies, I'm currently in a storm shelter waiting for the weather to pass, so I've naught to do but unleash the unsourced head canon fire house.

My impression from the movies was that the ring WOULD grant power to someone who sought to use it for that purpose, if for no other reason than to make itself even more precious (ha) to the wielder. In the case of Isildur (who, as a Man, is implied to "above all else, desire power"), the Ring knew it was in a bind. Sauron just got yeeted into the shadow dimension, and it was in the one place it could be destroyed. It NEEDED Isildur to get him out of there, pronto. So, if Elrond decided to force the issue, my assumption was always that it would lend Isildur some fraction of the power Sauron put into it as matter of self-preservation. Furthermore, by granting Isildur a taste of its power, he could fall even more under its control because power is what he wants. More self-preservation from the evilest bit of jewelry ever forged. Finally, by the time this hypothetical confrontation between Isildur and Elrond would occur, Isildur has already fallen to the Ring's temptation and rejected the call to destroy it. So, the Ring may not have any qualms about strengthening Isildur, as doing so would not endanger it at all.

Now, to contrast with Frodo (and Bilbo, to some extent). They do not desire power, and so the Ring's biggest bargaining chip is rendered useless. Additionally, for 99.9% of the journey Frodo maintains his resolution to destroy the Ring. Granting power to Frodo at any point prior to those last few steps would be a risk to it's existence.

It's been a very long time since I read the trilogy, so I don't know how much of this interpretation conflicts with legitimate explanations Tolkien gave in the text or in his correspondences, but it works for me within the context of the films.

Reporting in that I did, in fact, want to listen to it, and did so. Thank you for sharing your work!

Wow, today I learned! Thanks for the info. It turns out a half remembered episode of Schoolhouse Rock seen 30 years ago is not the authoritative source on the legislative info.

Unfortunately, that is not stopping me for hearing, "I'm just a bill, sitting on Capitol Hill" ad nauseum in my head lol

Bills start in the House before they are passed to the Senate. My guess would be that she championed it through the House, and then passed it off to the Senators mentioned to continue shepherding the legislation to the President's desk.

Whatchu mean your Bible ain't got the Gospel accordin' to Charlie? You one of them freaky-deaky Catlicks? Come on down to the First United International Church of the Resurrection of the Lost Cause and we'uns gonna show you how to praise the Lord CORRECTLY!

OP described something which conflicted with my direct, personal experience with that thing. I offered up my perspective. You responded with your perspective, based on your own anecdotal evidence. Yes, I could have run off to Google to fact check you and learn of all of the types of BFA that are out there. I chose not to. Why? Because we're in the comment section of an article that has NOTHING to do with blank firing adapters. I assumed, and I guess you're just going to have to forgive me for not researching in advance enough to not make this assumption, that, in responding to my post, you might be interested in further expounding upon the statements you made and answering questions I had about how your devices worked since they were clearly of a different design than what I had experienced. On the topic of assumptions, I was very clear that I was making an assumption so as to make it painstakingly obvious that I wasn't trying to say you were WRONG ON THE INTERNET, but just that I wasn't clear on how the device you were describing could be functional, given my previously stated understanding. I even attempted to reinforce that I wasn't trying to invalidate your assertions by stating I was certain that wood tipped blanks were a real thing, I just had no personal experience with them.

So, I dunno what to tell you man. I tried really hard to be as non-confrontational as possible in my comments. I'm tempted to say that I clearly failed in my ambition there, but no, I don't think I will. You responded like a dick, and I think you ought to ask yourself what you're doing in a discussion forum if your first response to a comment asking for you to clarify some of your statements is "fuck you, Google it."

I'm a little confused by your response. Everything in my post was written from the perspective of firing the type of blank I described (no bullet, balsa wood or real) with the BFA attached. While I have had that type of blank cycle the weapon without a BFA attached, it's the exception to the rule.

Furthermore, would you clarify the use of these balsa wood bullets for me? Because, given my understanding of BFAs and what you described, I don't see how those two concepts would work together. As you said, the principle behind BFAs is plugging the barrel so more gas is directed to the action, rather than our of the system. If you had a BFA fitted to a weapon that was firing blanks which were tipped with wood or some other fake projectile, my assumption would be the debris would collect in the end of the barrel behind the BFA post. Hell, that's why we always hated training with blanks, it was always a nightmare to clean out the carbon buildup in the weapon after since none of it was expelled in the firing process like it would be in normal operation. Compacting a shit load of debris in the barrel of your weapon does not seem like it would be the intended outcome of a training event, but dumber shit has happened.

I am sure that there are blanks (especially in the context of a Hollywood armory) which are designed in such away to more closely resemble real ammunition, I've just never worked with something of that ilk, and it doesn't jive with my (limited) understanding of how firearms work.

You might be getting confused with the circumstances around Brandon Lee's death on the set of the Crow, which makes sense since that has been a hot topic when discussing the situation on Rust's set. As I understand it, in the case of Lee's death, they had taken live rounds and "converted" them to dummy rounds by removing the bullets, dumping out the gunpowder from the cartridge, and then reinstalling the bullets. However, they did not remove the primer from the cartridges, because they wanted the bottom of the cases to look pristine for shots where the revolver was loaded.

At some point, one of these "dummy" (but still very much not inert, thanks to the primer) rounds was accidentally fired. Because they had removed the propellent, only the primer detonated. This provided enough force to dislodge the bullet from the case, but not enough to expel it out the barrel. No one checked the barrel before a blank was loaded into weapon for the scene where Lee's character was shot. Blank detonated, dummy bullet is dislodged, Lee is killed.

So, while both productions are staggering examples of safety protocol failures on film sets, the circumstances are differ in the details.