Communick News

It beeps when it's done.

It beeps when you press the button.

It beeps when you place it on the base.

It beeps no more.

I classify this as a repair.

Today’s game is some more Halo PvP. I took some friends with me into 8v8 lobbies. We had a friend who’s never played a PvP lobby before and was confident in his skills. We weren’t sure he could but didn’t want to dampen his enthusiasm so we joined him for some matches. Kudos to him, he did pretty good. Nothing crazy but he did well for having only stuck to a private lobby before. It makes me feel a shred of pride, knowing in a way I’m partly responsible for training him to be that good.

Besides that, as always with Halo it was a blast. The round was at a stalemate the entire time and both sides barely kept up with each other to achieve a draw. We nearly got a push at the end but failed to make it in time. The entire game I got to dominate with a sniper too which was awesome.

We switched to 4v4 after that and we were dominating in that one too. We admittedly may have gotten a little too cocky though as we stopped killing the enemy team really and started chasing each other round. Like for example I stopped sniping to run from my friend with the Energy Sword who was chasing me with it. I got a few kills while running but they were less strategically planned and more so “oh shit. There’s an enemy in my way. I better kill them so I don’t get killed”. I feel like that’s what really captures the magic of Halo for me. It doesn’t just come out like a generic shooter. It has a cohesive balance of cool and moments of just fucking around with friends. It’s a blast.

Our last game that’s worth mentioning was fairly quick. I got to dominate with the sniper again in the watch tower and held that position almost all game. Our opponents were fairly skilled but they made the mistake of not watching for grenades.

I suppose our commupance though was due anytime. The next two matches after that we got absolutely destroyed by the enemy and it was as funny as it was frustrating. Still. That’s how public PvP games go I guess. I’d like to get friends together for a private PvP lobby again soon. So hopefully that’s something that will happen.

I run a price tracker across ~25 EU hardware retailers (pricesquirrel.com). Same 153 GPU models, tracked daily for 90 days straight, no swapping products in or out.

For two months, basically nothing happened: €735 -> €750. Then over about 4 weeks, it jumped to €967, and it's been sitting there ever since, €972 today, three months later.

Everyone's talked about the shortage/price increases, I've read the same posts and articles as everyone else. But watching my own data confirm it, day by day, in real time, still doesn't make it feel any less like the market just decided this is the new price and moved on without asking anyone.

Methodology, since someone will ask: "price" here is each product's average across whichever 3+ retailers carried it that day, not the single cheapest price, not a shifting basket of whatever happened to be in stock. Same 153 SKUs tracked from day 1 to today

This is a common carbrain argument

"I already pay the gas tax"

The problem is that it's false.

In a recent study, researchers Stefan Gössling, Jessica Kees, and Todd Litman calculated the social costs of driving. They found that the social cost is about 30-40% higher than what car owners are actually paying

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800921003943?via=ihub

That cost is paid by non-drivers.

Original Bloomberg version behind paywall ...

• Berlin is crafting a sweeping economic-security plan to shield strategic industries from China, targeting cabinet sign-off on Oct. 14 before seeking EU backing.
• Among the ideas on the table are fresh levies targeting hybrid electric cars, mandatory joint ventures, more stringent checks on both inbound and outbound investment, and a tighter export-control regime.
• Beijing has also criticized the EU’s proposed Industrial Accelerator Act, which would favor European-made products in public procurement and support schemes would create investment barriers and discriminate against Chinese companies.
• The European move comes amid a growing trade deficits with China.
• Some of the potential European measures discussed now mirror Chinese trade and investment policies, e.g., mandatory joint ventures (non-Chinese companies must not found a subsidiary in China as they need a Chinese partner that holds the majority of the venture), and exclusion from public procurement over security issues.

Archived

Georgia’s youngest mayor, Jayden Williams, 23, was impeached over allegations of misusing $4,000 in city funds and sexting an 18-year-old.

If you are in the USA and rely on an international pharmacy for more affordable medication, the US government will soon be blocking all shipments on our around Oct. 22, 2026.

This is due to a revocation of the "de minimis exemption" for goods under $800 that were previously allowed. The rule actually went into effect in June, 2026, but enforcement was suspended while the public comment period was completed, making the "compliance date" this October 22, 2026.

The law is 19 CFR 145.12(a)(2)(v) and (vi). The link provided is to the CPB notice with all the dates included in plain language.

This change was instituted by President Trump under Executive Orders 14324, 14193, 14194, 14195, and 14257.

cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/tech/p/1402217/how-cops-are-treating-mass-surveillance-as-a-joke-cops-search-flock-database-typing-reas

I was at a public lecture and later saw photos of it. In one photo I held my index finger across my lips. A guy sitting before me, whose face I couldn't see at the time, did the exact same gesture, and the resulting photo looks pretty funny, as if we're all consciously posing to signal that we're thinking real hard.

There are other poses of this sort, the thinking monkey meme, Rodin's Thinker statue... even the sidebar of this very sub has a picture of a lemur whom we recognise as "thinking" because it has its hand on its mouth.

Are these gestures just culturally conditioned? But regardless of whether they're just cultural or universal – why do they exist?

Video link

• Twitch
• Youtube
• Bilibili
• Nicovideo

cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/tech/p/1401393/xcancel-service-is-suspended-until-further-notice

Hacker News.

Source: Xcancel.

cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/shit/p/1401605/no-linkedin-no-alarm-no-boss-no-traffic-no-meetings-no-job-another-week