ProdigalFrog

joined 1 year ago
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[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

If your state salts the roads in the winter, it's strongly recommended to undercoat your vehicle with a coating to preserve it from rusting and shortening its useful life. Fluid Film is one of the better coatings, and is based on sheep lanolin, so it's not toxic to the environment.

4wheel drive is nice, but tires are EVERYTHING. You absolutely cannot rely on all season tires, you MUST get proper Winter tires if your region snows heavily, or you will have a bad time.

There are now fabric snow 'socks' for cars that act like snow chains to get you out if a bind, which would be worth having in the trunk.

In the winter, ALWAYS bring winter rated clothing in the car along with water, a small amount of food, heavy duty blanket, and a small liquid paraffin candle for heat in the event you get stuck in a storm, or go off the road from ice.

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 26 points 1 week ago (2 children)

There's so many good options now: Eternity, Raccoon, Voyager, Jerboa, I'd give the competition a look and donate to the one you settle on.

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Alas, Simon Clark is a youtuber. If you don't mind the lack of context, all the links to the different sources of climate news and science journals he uses are in the description.

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

One version of the recipe was accidentally leaked a while back. It's not the exact formulation they sell today, but apparently it's damn close.

Also @JusticeForPorygon@lemmy.world

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 2 points 2 weeks ago

I believe to ping someone, you need to put an @ symbol before their name instead of /u/. Depending on how you're interacting with Lemmy (web or app) it should provide some means of auto completing the ping.

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 2 points 2 weeks ago

LPT for anyone who uses a traditional bank: Switching to a Credit Union that purposefully doesn't invest in fossil fuels can reduce the climate impact of your money.

(Links courtesy of @silence7@slrpnk.net)

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

FreeTube is a client that runs on your own computer, it's not a host I can link to like Invidious was, because google effectively killed that method.

Sorry to hear his humor wasn't to your liking.

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 7 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I think it's more for the neat factor than anything. It'd be a cool spice rack if mounted on a wall in a pantry.

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Eyyy! Glad to hear it man :D

Were they more beefy and less noticeably not meat compared to the grill? Because if yes, then I'm starting to wonder if maybe beyond beef would be better in the air fryer too, since I only ever tried frying those in a cast iron pan.

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 5 points 2 weeks ago (6 children)

I'm probably up to, like, 90% vegetarian these days (it's been a long road lol).

You're way ahead of me, I've been kinda stuck trying to find a good homemadd alternative to impossible, but it's been tough to find something that passes the good enough mark.

I notice the difference with Beyond meat as well, which has a slightly unpleasant aftertaste for me too. Overall just OK. Usually don't seek it out.

I'm surprised people at those cookouts can notice with impossible though. I haven't tried to grill them, so maybe that makes it more pronounced? But out of my airfryer, I genuinely cannot detect anything unmeaty about them, which blew my mind the first time I tried em.

I tend to get them as a treat since they're so much. I rarely see them on sale around here :/

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 13 points 2 weeks ago (10 children)

The meat industry is always trying to greenwash themselves somehow, they cannot be trusted.

With how intensely serious and rapid global warming is becoming, we really don't have time to try and make meat lower emissions, we need to move away from it now.

Though unfortunately expensive, impossible burgers and ground 'beef' are virtually indistinguishable from the real deal already, and IMHO taste better than real, and truly are a guilt-free-ish alternative that exists right now. I only hope demand increases so they can scale up even harder and bring prices down to the same cost as cheap beef.

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 7 points 2 weeks ago

Apparently in many highschools and middle schools, literature classes will only make students study an excerpt or article on the subject, not the entire book. When they get to college and their professors drop a book on them, it's unexpected, because they thought it would be more articles and excerpts.

 

I played this while I was growing up on the PS2, and being a huge fan of the film, I had an absolute blast every time I rented it.

The video rightfully points out how damned clunky it was, but I really appreciated how different it was from most other games I'd played up to that point.

 

More info on their About page. But essentially, they take a small cut to cover operating expenses, and the rest of the profit from the book sale goes to whatever local bookshop you choose, as long as it's participating.

They also operate in the UK here.

They appear to be pretty legit, though one downside I've read is returns are more clumsy than other storefronts.

 

Consider watching this video with FreeTube, a nifty open-source program that lets you watch YouTube videos without Google spying on your viewing habits!

Combined with Libredirect, which automatically opens youtube links in Freetube, it becomes really slick and effortless to use.

 

Consider watching this video with FreeTube, a nifty open-source program that lets you watch YouTube videos without Google spying on your viewing habits!

Combined with Libredirect, which automatically opens youtube links in Freetube, it becomes really slick and effortless to use.

 

Consider watching this video with FreeTube, a nifty open-source program that lets you watch YouTube videos without Google spying on your viewing habits!

Combined with Libredirect, which automatically opens youtube links in Freetube, it becomes really slick and effortless to use.

 

Consider watching this video with FreeTube, a nifty open-source program that lets you watch YouTube videos without Google spying on your viewing habits!

Combined with Libredirect, which automatically opens youtube links in Freetube, it becomes really slick and effortless to use.

 

Consider watching this video with FreeTube, a nifty open-source program that lets you watch YouTube videos without Google spying on your viewing habits!

Combined with Libredirect, which automatically opens youtube links in Freetube, it becomes really slick and effortless to use.

 

I've never been a fan of Visual Novels, or at least, of the ones I'd always come across. But I'm also a sucker for good cyberpunk, and a good story. When I saw that Snatcher might tick both those boxes, I decided to give it a shot.

Snatcher (nice use of negative space on that cover) is one of Hideo Kojima's earlier titles, originally released in 1988 for the MSX2 and PC-8801 over in Japan. It was only years later in 1994 that it was updated, ported, and localized for English speaking countries, exclusively for the Sega CD.

Kojima's now famous insatiable desire for lengthy cutscenes and dialog lends itself to VNs. As with many of his works, it's heavily inspired by whatever western movies he'd seen at the time. In this case, Snatcher is heavily inspired by Blade Runner.

You play as Gillian Seed, an ex-scientist with amnesia that's now working as a Junker (the equivalent of a blade runner) in Neo-Kobe, a cyberpunk metropolis that's not quite as dark and dreary as Bladerunner's, feeling more like something out of Akira.

The game features a surprising amount of voice acting, some of it actually pretty decent for a game of that era. It also has a particularly fantastic FM soundtrack courtesy of the Genesis' soundchip, and even some redbook audio for the intro (I'd recommend listening to the soundtrack even if you have no intention of playing the game).

The story for the game can get surprisingly dark and gruesome at times, though the overall atmosphere has a more 90's anime up-beat vibe. As an interesting anecdote, the gore in the Sega CD version is actually far more visceral compared to the Japanese versions, but the small amount of nudity that was in the Japanese versions is censored in the English localization.

Unlike some of his other games, this is one of Kojima's more linear and coherent tales; The characters are pretty fun to talk to, and the writing was compelling enough to make me push through some of the more dated design decisions (you sometimes will have to click the same action/dialog 3 times or more, despite the lack of any new information, before something unlocks to progress the story).

The gameplay is a bit more involved than a standard VN, sharing some attributes with an Adventure game.

In addition to being able to move around the city and various buildings (skillfully drawn with some of the finest pixel art of the era), the player has access to an inventory and can investigate various parts of a scene. There's a small combat mini-game that will sometimes spring up that was designed for use with a lightgun (The Konami Justifer), but thankfully the combat works just fine with a standard controller, and is used sparingly enough that it doesn't overstay its welcome.

In fact, I'd say the combat is surprisingly well integrated into the story, adding a bit of tension since you never know when it'll pop up (I imagine it would've been quite immersive back in the day with the lightgun, since you'd have to quickly drop your controller and physically 'draw' the pistol to defend yourself).

Snatcher is a short game, usually averaging about 4 or 5 hours for most people, but that's all it really needs to tell its tale, and by the end I was thoroughly satisfied.

The Sega CD version, or indeed any version, is no longer legally available to purchase anywhere. With physical copies being rare and demanding a premium ($200 or more), I'd recommend emulation to experience it.

In conclusion, I'd have to say that Snatcher changed my views on what a Visual Novel could offer, and opened me up to being willing to try more. I haven't spotted anything that has appealed in the same way Snatcher did, so if you have any suggestions, I'd be interested to hear them!

If you were like me, and generally glossed over this genre, maybe this write-up will convince you to give it a try as well. And if you do: good luck, Junker!

 

Consider watching this video with FreeTube, a nifty open-source program that lets you watch YouTube videos without Google spying on your viewing habits!

Combined with Libredirect, which automatically opens youtube links in Freetube, it becomes really slick and effortless to use.

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