@Thalestr@beehaw.org
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Thalestr

@Thalestr@beehaw.org

Hello!

I’m a nonbinary Canadian Blender artist! You can find my work here: Galleries, commissions, prints, and more!

she/her

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Thalestr,
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I mostly avoid major world news now for the most part. I prefer to read hobby-specific news and local news, such as my municipality.

Thalestr,
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Forgive me for the pessimism, but I sincerely doubt that they honour any opt-outs. Meta has shown time and time again that they’d rather just pay fines as business expenses instead of abiding by law(s).

Car makers BMW, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) and Volkswagen (VW) used parts made by supplier with links to Chinese forced labour, U.S. probe says (www.bbc.com)

BMW, Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) and Volkswagen (VW) used parts made by a supplier on a list of firms banned over alleged links to Chinese forced labour, a US congressional report has said....

Thalestr,
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This. Numerous industries in the US make use of forced prison labour.

Thalestr,
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Goddamn, I wish we could act like our own independent country for once instead of just puppeting whatever the US does.

Thalestr,
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Appeasing shareholders and investors.

Thalestr,
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Microsoft has so many spinning plates up in the air right now and they have no idea how to handle them all. Eventually they’re all going to come crashing down and smash on the floor and it’s not going to be pretty.

Thalestr,
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Most of the beloved Arkane team had left long before the closure.

Thalestr,
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When the money stops flowing.

Thalestr,
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I do not have hope that this developer will make another good game let alone one that respects the TES IP or in any way lives up to expectations.

Thalestr,
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Still about $20 short of what the minimum living wage is for my city. Fantastic.

Thalestr,
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Which is exactly why they want people wearing smartwatches to sleep.

Thalestr,
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I don’t know if this is hilarious or pathetically sad. AI has become the current “must have” craze in the tech world and it’s baffling watching every company try and find a way to shoehorn some form of it into their products and then try and justify its existence.

Cerence Chat Pro from technology partner Cerence Inc. is the foundation of the new function, which offers a uniquely intelligent, *automotive-grade *ChatGPT integration.

Why the hell would I want this?

Thalestr,
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Cool. I’ll just piss along the exterior wall of your building then or on the fence at the back of your parking lot.

Tumblr sheds Post Plus subscriptions as the platform downsizes (www.theverge.com)

TL;DR: Tumblr is discontinuing its Post Plus feature, allowing creators to charge for content, starting December 1st. This decision follows a leaked memo about downsizing due to struggles in meeting usage and revenue targets. Post Plus, introduced in 2021, didn’t meet expectations, leading to its discontinuation. Existing Post...

Thalestr,
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This gets asked every time Tumblr is mentioned online. It’s still around and has a large, thriving userbase. It’s one of the last slices of old-school internet that exists today and, because of that, is very resistant to modern monetisation tactics and enshittification which makes shareholders cry in their sleep.

Thalestr, (edited )
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The title made me think they were responding to users that needed customer support, but no. This:

Meanwhile, when another user lamented the amount of loading screens, the support team replied imploring the reviewer to “consider the amount of data for the expansive gameplay that is procedurally generated to load flawlessly in under three seconds”.

is just pathetic. This is nothing more than low-effort damage control. Which, funnily enough, is rather fitting for Starfield in general. It’s not a terrible game but it absolutely fell flat on its face on its biggest selling points. Procedural exploration will always have drawbacks but No Man’s Sky absolutely smashes Starfield in this department and it came out nearly 8 years ago and made by a team a fraction of the size. And I don’t expect Bethesda to put in the same effort as Hello did and make Starfield live up to its promises

Thalestr,
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They’re cheap. That’s as far as some people think about it.

Thalestr,
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Yes. Especially when it’s only like 2 or 3 years after first release. It’s just double dipping at that point.

Thalestr,
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I feel like

Thalestr,
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I feel for those who have had Twitter be such a part of their income but the writing is on the wall for the platform and it’s time to start looking for alternatives. Xitter is going to be circling the drain soon if it isn’t already and there is nothing Muskrat will do to correct that.

Thalestr,
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Gotta double-dip for more profit.

Thalestr,
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This is a taste of what you can achieve when regulatory bodies actually have the guts to stand up to megacorps.

Thalestr,
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This. Twitter is now under ownership and control of a spoiled fascist richboy and this is absolutely 100% transparently clear. This is how the platform is now and it is not going to change. Twitter as we knew it is gone. It’s dead and not coming back. Move the hell on, people, please. Stop supporting this absolutely wretched waste of oxygen.

Thalestr,
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I stopped playing ESO years ago after around 10,000 hours of playtime. It’s nice (or perhaps unsurprising) to hear that they still haven’t addressed how badly they messed up the story structure and pacing. Rather than have the expansions be an accessory to the main story and tutorial - they acted as replacements. A game design choice I’m 99.9% sure was made by management and not by any actual dev team. It was a confusing, convoluted mess with only a few expansions but I can’t imagine how bad it is now with even more.

What is something (feature, modes, settings...) you would like to see become a standard in video games?

I’ve been thinking about making this thread for a few days. Sometimes, I play a game and it has some very basic features that are just not in every other game and I think to myself: Why is this not standard?! and I wanted to know what were yours....

Thalestr,
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  • The option to skip puzzles and not get punished for it.
  • Independent difficulty options for things like exploration, combat, crafting, etc. Whatever the game has.
Thalestr,
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I cannot trust any publication that “reviews” a product like this without taking at least a little time to go over the legitimately harmful business practices against the customer.

Thalestr,
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People with lots of money want even more money. Less employees means less money that has to be paid out which means more money in the short term. Makes line go up for a while. Makes suits happy.

YouTube is axing its ad-free Premium Lite subscription plan - The Verge (www.theverge.com)

I was happily using this for a year or so now. Feels fairer than using an ad blocker. But now they apparently want more money out of people. Feels like some sort of internet video apocalypse is happening, where the services become extremely fragmented and expensive, like YouTube, netflix, hbo, Hulu, Disney+ and whatnot. Each...

Thalestr,
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I think we’re starting to see the beginning of YouTube’s end. The algorithm is actively choking the life out of the platform, they’re forcing viewers to pay fees that seem to keep getting bigger and bigger, and they’re making life miserable for creators while also paying them less and less.

Once another platform comes along that ticks enough boxes to satisfy people then YouTube will be absolutely screwed. The only reason we all use that wretched site is because there is no viable alternative. More and more creators are moving to premium platforms like Nebula that offer better deals for viewers and creators alike. I’m likely to jump ship myself once more people I watch also join up.

Thalestr,
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You can hit the big round turn-based button in bottom right of your HUD to activate turn mode at any time, even outside combat. This effectively pauses the game. The game even makes a sound effect of a clock slowing down and stopping.

Thalestr,
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I played through Spider-Man 1 with the puzzles enabled for a few hours before turning that crap off. I’m very glad they gave the option to do so because they are annoying and tedious at best and downright frustrating at worst. They absolutely grenade the pacing and flow of the gameplay. There are numerous puzzle games out there I could play if I wanted puzzles; I don’t want half-assed, janky, pace-destroying puzzles in my action games.

Thalestr,
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7gb inflated to nearly 40gb. That’s absolutely absurd holy crap

Thalestr,
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Good. I wish more games went back into the oven for more time instead of being forced out.

Thalestr,
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Rat maps! Those were so fun back in the day. Some real good ones for CS and HL1.

hybridhavoc, to gaming
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Microsoft wins FTC fight to buy Activision Blizzard

https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/11/23779039/microsoft-activision-blizzard-ftc-trial-win

From the article, quoting Judge Corley:

... the Court finds the FTC has not shown a likelihood it will prevail on its claim this particular vertical merger in this specific industry may substantially lessen competition. To the contrary, the record evidence points to more consumer access to Call of Duty and other Activision content. The motion for a preliminary injunction is therefore DENIED.

@gaming

Thalestr,
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On one hand this just means further consolidation of an already oligopolic industry. On the other hand, Activision is a terrible company run by a terrible man, so it’s not like things could get much worse.

Thalestr,
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Damn, this has been a trip down memory lane.

Thalestr,
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And it's not going to get any better with Microsoft at their helm now.

Thalestr,
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In general: Modding. But more specifically, I find mods that allow you to skip/avoid major questlines (like the main one) really helpful. Playing as a bandit, pirate, lowly vampire, etc instead of the Chosen One every time can really spice things up from a role-playing perspective.

Thalestr,
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Very curious to see how this turns out. Q2 was a childhood game of mine.

Thalestr,
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Heck yeah! Always fun to revisit the classics every so often. 😁

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