Stovetop

Until they change the name and voice and have a whole fleet of elderly AI chatbots.

Microsoft had a lineup of games this year?

80's'n't

I think Kamala could have been the perfect candidate and she still would've lost.

The economy being in the shitter under the Biden-Harris administration killed any possibility of either of them winning another term. The economy ended up being the single biggest issue for American voters. Way bigger than bodily autonomy for women, LGBT+ rights, or Palestine.

It is a couple extra presses, but when I receive an inbox message and press it to view the parent comment thread, there is usually a little toast button on the bottom of the screen to view all comments. Do you see that when you click a reply in your inbox?

TSMC hates this one easy trick!

I realized this idea long, long ago, when Rare made Banjo-Tooie.

Banjo-Kazooie was a fun game. You unlock worlds, go to the world, collect 100% of all there is to collect, then continue.

Banjo-Tooie, its sequel, wanted to be bigger and better in every way. Sprawling open world hub, much larger worlds with more sub-zones, interconnectivity between worlds, more things to unlock, more things to do, etc. etc.

And I think, despite having so much more, it was a worse game for it. You go to a new world but find there's a lot you can't do yet because you didn't unlock an ability that comes later on. You push a button in one world and then something happens in another, but now you have to backtrack through the sprawling overworld and large world maps to get there.

And this was just a pair of games made for the Nintendo 64, before the concept of "open world" had really even taken off.

But it demonstrated to me that bigger was not always better, and having more to do did not make it a better game if it wasn't as enjoyable.

Early open world games were fairly small, and the natural desire for people who have seen everything becomes "I wish there was more," but in practice it ends up typically being that they take the same amount of stuff and divide it up over a larger area, or they fill the world with tedium just for the sake of having something to do.

When looking at the collectibles and activities on a world map like Genshin Impact, it's basically sensory overload with how much there is to do.

But almost all of that is garbage. And this is just a fraction of one region among several. Go here, do this time trial, shoot these balloons, follow this spirit, solve this logic puzzle, and then loot your pittance of gatcha currency so you can try to win your next waifu or husbando before time runs out.

And don't forget to do your dailies!

If a game has a large world, it needs to act in service to its design. It needs to be fun to exist in and travel through, not tedious. It needs to have enough stuff to do that keep it from feeling empty, but not so much stuff that it makes it hard to find anything worthwhile. And it needs to give enough ability for the player to make their own fun, to act as the balance on that tightrope walk between not-enough and too-much.

Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom are the most recent games that seemed to properly scratch an open world itch for me. While they weren't perfect, the way they managed to really incorporate the open world as its own sort of puzzle to solve, in ways that Genshin Impact failed to properly emulate, made them more enjoyable as an open world than most other games in that genre I've played in recent memory.

But then those sorts of countries usually have law enforcement that likes taking large amounts of "financial incentives" to do whatever a company like Nintendo wants them to do.

It's a good reminder of how things were the first time around, as we anticipate similar results coming in the next administration.

I'm skeptical she would have done anything differently than Biden in terms of Gaza.

Likewise, but I also think there is a reason why we are seeing Israeli politicians talking about potentially annexing North Gaza and the West Bank now, after the election, and not 6 months ago.

Despite the multiple "lines in the sand" that have been crossed, I feel like Harris and Biden still had a breaking point with Israel, and maybe that breaking point could be moved closer to reason with continued pressure. I don't know, I hate working in maybes.

But there aren't even any maybes with Trump. He simply couldn't care less what Netanyahu wants to do. Had he not been elected, and had Israel felt their ongoing support was a bit more conditional, I'm not sure we'd have these same sorts of plans being made by them. At least not so overtly

Taking a look at their website, I don't think so (thankfully).

It's an all-boys center based on how it's described, but it doesn't seem to make any mention of conversion therapy in explicit terms, nor does it imply that it is a type of program they offer. It doesn't seem to display any overt religious messaging, either.

I see that they are also accredited by the Joint Commission, which is more reassuring on that front. Not to say there might not be some hidden skeletons they keep from the accreditors, or that they don't have rogue staff who might try to push their own agenda anyways, but it means there are industry standards they are following well enough to pass accreditation, which most conversion camps would not even put in the effort to attempt.

Given that it's a mental health facility for troubled teens, I'd guess this was most likely a tragic but otherwise unsuspicious suicide.

Well...you're not wrong.

It's the specialized tools you'll also need to do all of that that'll get you, though.