Well, seeing that Insurgency: Sandstorm was on a sale, I just picked it up for him (and myself). Seems to have a lot in the map making scene, and that's a really important factor for him.

It also helps that the prior Insurgency game has the most hours on his profile, by far. Gave me a good hint that he should enjoy this one.

Thanks so much!

EDIT: My dad just got back to me, and loves the gift. Apparently that's where most of his online buddies went and still are. Nailed it!

Well that's pretty compelling!

Ever since the failure of Windows mixed reality, there hasn't been many non-Meta HMD's worth buying. At least with inside out tracking.

Maybe this will finally pressure Valve to lower the price on the venerable Index? Probably not. But one can hope!

I used to subscribe to YouTube premium as of just a few days ago. Even without the ads. There was something very seriously wrong with the suggestion algorithm.

I was getting cartel violence videos, and dead animal videos. Never watched one before in my life. Yet. YouTube seems to think that I should want to watch this crock of shit. This started coming up about 6 months ago. Until now I've been reporting each video as they come up. But that doesn't seem to help at all.

At this point I think YouTube is a danger to society - if it's recommending cartel violence videos to me unsolicited, what are they suggesting to my nieces?

I have completely nuked it from my life. Almost all of the YouTubers I like are on Nebula or Floatplane so it doesn't feel like I'm missing much.

Yeah, we suspect my sister is either Borderline or NPD. This is exactly the post she might make equating acceptance for neurodivergent personalities with her own traits that actively hurts others.

And it's to the point that many posters fell for it. I saw this thread much earlier and just couldn't view this as a good-faith statement to even start from - so I didn't engage.

Kinda wish the rest of the fediverse didn't engage with it - I certainly don't view it as an "important conversation" it's laughably manufactured and in bad faith. I have a sense that Beehaw's admin response artificially inflated the importance of this as well.

Quick question, who in the heck is benefiting from this discussion? To me it looks like the trolls are getting the most out of it.

I guess I didn't really see the pressure that they were under.

I hope they heal! But it's a bummer that such an excellent resource will be taken down.

I wish more creators were willing to hand their creations to someone who wishes to continue it. But oftentimes, I fear that it's far too entwined with a person's identity for that to be common occurrence.

I agree. My instance is locally focused so I can just ask rando's off the street here in Tucson. Turns out people don't like feeling controlled very much and want to be able to talk to friends that are on other platforms, and that's why we won't be defederating from meta/threads.

I have a sense, though, that Blahaj is mostly not real people. Sometimes I wonder how easy it might be to give someone like Ada a false sense of support by loading up the instance with LLM bots that all act like Her. (It's her, right? God please don't dox me)

Ive just grown skeptical that people actually operate like this in real life, or rather, enough people to actually matter. And that makes me further question the authenticity of entire instances like Beehaw or Blahaj as "lefty safe spaces". Seems to me that they function more as a way to provide reasons to dismiss the progressive movement rather than join them.

No kidding, my Pixel graveyard is too damn big... I wish other phones had nearly the AI/Assistant features that Pixels had because I definitely don't want to switch to the Apple ecosystem and found the OnePlus experience flawed, while the Samsung experience feels bloated.

I'd go with a Fairphone, but for some reason it's impossible to get "officially" here in the U.S.

Ya know, I forgot that was an option. I guess I'll schedule a visit. I could use the same mold for custom iems too right?

I don't get it either. My brother-in-law is like this. And he refused to take his kids to see Buzz Lightyear because of its "political" nature. I was a dumbfounded when I heard that. To think that representation is just some nebulous political aim.

At this rate, we should just consider any media with a kiss in it "political media."

And I even grew up with this dude in the early 2000s. He didn't seem like this before.

I try to forget about the guy, but it's kind of hard because he won't let me see the nieces because I'm too "liberal".

A safe food is anything that an Autistic person can eat when they are experiencing a sensory issue flare up. These foods will usually have a person's preferred textures and flavors. I've seen folks on other threads say things like "Bread and Butter" or a PB&J - usually things like that.

I think most people have "safe" foods, but don't realize it. Example - Chicken Noodle soup is still popular with folks who come down with a cold even if they never get sensory flare ups.

So I suppose the question for those who aren't sensitive to sensory information (like myself), it's - "What do you eat when you feel sick and don't want to eat anything?"

For me it's still a broad range of things. Sometimes it's Japanese Curry and Rice, other times its Indian Sambar (Reeeaaaally clears the sinuses).

I do tend to steer clear of oily dishes like Szechuan Eggplant (and a lot of other Ameri-Chinese dishes as well) when I'm feeling sick or sensitive, though.

Forever GM's unite! (But like, once we get the schedule finalized /s)

Yeah, this is probably the best D&D game in existence now. It definitely has some pretty fun mechanics and a lot of depth that other D&D vidya games just lack.

Dang it!

I have a business trip to Portland next week and I was looking forward to cooler temperatures than here in Tucson, but alas, it'll only be 5-10 degrees cooler.

Gee thanks climate change!