jdreyer wrote on Feb 28, 2021, 19:23:
Vagus nerve stimulation- How it works and why it's a breakthrough

So basically, what happens in Vagus stays in Vagus.

this is bad. you should feel bad.

MoreLuckThanSkill wrote on Feb 26, 2021, 19:49:
That's funny, I would have thought one of the main problems in the USA would continue to be data caps, which haven't fucking gone anywhere, in spite of 4k video streaming, in addition to all of these game streaming attempts.

Even if Google had given the utmost effort and support to developers, done millions of dollars worth of ads, Stadia still would have failed because people would start cancelling as soon as they hit their data caps for the month in like 3 days.

my ISP's data cap was 250gb a month until the pandemic when they generously doubled it to 500gb (they've been trying to walk it back ever since). i've had to download AAA steam games at my fucking office for years, one 60gb download would do me in for the month.

stadia and these other services were just not on my radar at all and i always wondered what kind of service the people who were super-enthusiastic about stadia had. "it's going to change gaming forever!" i guess if you don't live in flyover country, sure.

i was actually going to check out the TV series for fun in tribute but its not available anywhere.

guess i'll just watch Falling Skies.

the diablo 2 remaster has kind of made it look like merely a bad-looking modern game and therefore kind of charmless.

i guess opinions vary on what a remaster should accomplish but in in my books, for a 20+ year old game, this ain't it chief.

Parallax Abstraction wrote on Feb 8, 2021, 23:30:
They are so profitable right now, they don't need to go public, unless it's so that Tim Sweeney (or probably more to the point, Tencent), can cash out.

tim sweeney, certainly, but generally chinese firms are playing the long game compared to western counterparts. that's why the next century belongs to them, they don't generally seem to think solely of exit plans or quarterly revenues.

epic has definitely innovated and locked down the "free games dispensary" market segment, but i'm still waiting to see if they can ever compete as a storefront or platform.

MoreLuckThanSkill wrote on Jan 19, 2021, 21:11:
I swear, the headlines these days... you couldn't pay most people to believe this shit would be happening, 10-15 years ago. Not that the world was in that much better shape, but holy fuck has it gone sideways in the past 4-5 years.

it all started when leonardo dicaprio got his oscar. he wasn't meant to have it. when mankind defies fate, there are consequences.

wouldn't be surprised to see them end up with valve when gabe or who succeeds him wants to cash out/retire.

Cutter wrote on Nov 14, 2020, 14:46:

Burrito of Peace wrote on Nov 14, 2020, 14:05:

Cutter wrote on Nov 14, 2020, 13:05:
That sub vid was interesting. Do those people not have any healthy food to eat? Everything looks like it's super processed and exceedingly high in sugar and salt.

Let's play "Spot the person who has never been on a deployment of any kind."

Oops, I already won.

Hey, you know what else comes frozen that aren't chicken fingers and hot dogs? Fruits and vegetables. And Americans wonder why they're the most obese nation on earth.

sitting on a 1 in 4 obesity rate north of the border there chief

El Pit wrote on Nov 13, 2020, 14:10:
Techno is music, German court declares.

Not, it isn't. Never has been, never will. It is just a classic soundloop of death of an old Atari game when the Atari 2600 crashed. This is not arts, this is not music - it is an unexpected accident. You don't want that to happen.

AND NOW GET OFF MY LAWN, YOUNG GERMAN JUDGES!
Damned law punks.

another bigot oppressing techno-americans.

Greentiger wrote on Nov 13, 2020, 06:30:

Nucas wrote on Nov 12, 2020, 22:53:

eRe4s3r wrote on Nov 12, 2020, 16:45:
Wow, the CDC is like 20+ years late on that one...

i was talking to a conservative friend about this a couple days ago and he told me masks don't do shit to protect you from diseases.

i went back to dustin hoffman in outbreak. "come on dude, you know that shit was based on real life. how do you think we're working with deadly diseases every day if masks don't work??" i couldn't believe it, it actually gave him pause.

I tell people that if they really believe that they should start telling their dentists and doctors that theyre ok with them not wearing masks. Most of them just look at me all confused. I wonder if they even make the connection at all or realized just how stupid they are and chose not to say anything. My guess would be the former.

i went there first and he just bit that bullet immediately and said its all for show anyway, but the movie argument got some purchase hahahah

eRe4s3r wrote on Nov 12, 2020, 16:45:
Wow, the CDC is like 20+ years late on that one...

i was talking to a conservative friend about this a couple days ago and he told me masks don't do shit to protect you from diseases.

i went back to dustin hoffman in outbreak. "come on dude, you know that shit was based on real life. how do you think we're working with deadly diseases every day if masks don't work??" i couldn't believe it, it actually gave him pause.

Cutter wrote on Nov 11, 2020, 21:58:
Herd immunity is already kicking in along with the virus getting weaker as it mutates.

you need like 70% of the population to get infected for that to happen, we're at like 3%. no one credible in the medical community is advocating for this. maybe doctor sally who went to homeopathy school thinks this is the way to go?

the world is laughing at us. this is the covid death capital. new zealand, south korea, australia, posting deaths in the double, triple digits? we're getting 2 or 3 9/11s every week.

trebek really seems irreplaceable. i heard someone float the idea of ken jennings, i could kind of see that if he'd be interested but they'd best choose wisely.

Mordhaus wrote on Nov 7, 2020, 22:33:
If they did so to further their career, yes. If a site that is well known for posting factual data to debunk conspiracy theories is not proof enough for you, I can't help you.

have you noticed that you're filling in the blanks here?

a guy she was dating appointed her to positions in medical assistance and unemployment benefits. 8 years later, she decided to run for public office.

what you are bringing to your reading: she wanted those positions, and she used sex to get them. this interpretation is not supported by the facts, this is coming from inside your head.

from that snopes article you keep talking about: "At the time, Brown had a reputation for filling many openings with his personal associates and inner circle; when Harris vacated the Appeals Board gig, he replaced her with his longtime buddy Philip S. Ryan."

do you think philip used his body to get that position? i know you don't, so why is it different? i'm super curious! (you're going to have to write mental fan fiction and i'm really looking forward to reading it)

Mr. Tact wrote on Nov 7, 2020, 22:42:

RedEye9 wrote on Nov 7, 2020, 22:25:

Mr. Tact wrote on Nov 7, 2020, 21:55:
Quick question for the two Senate seats in Georgia -- I'm guessing each candidate (except the incumbents) had to state they were specifically running for seat A or seat B. Is that right?

Interesting question.
I don't even know how to properly phrase it on the googler.

Other things I'd like to know, I'm assuming one is a "special election" after an appointment, is that right? (I realize I should probably know this, but I don't) And also, how were the two seats differentiated when people spoke about them? Perhaps by the year the term is over?

senators are differentiated by time in office. purdue was the senior senator, loeffler the junior senator.

RedEye9 wrote on Nov 7, 2020, 08:07:
It's cruel taking sucker bets, even Vegas had Biden favored.
You're buddy must be a founding member of the low brow brain trust because he believed and repeated everything Cucker Tarlson, Sean Blammity and the dotus spewed verbatim.

And statistically Vice President Joe Biden is still not president elect. Only an idiot would pay a debt when he hadn't lost yet.

i read a book by the poker player annie duke called "thinking in bets" in the days before the election about thinking in probabilities (didn't want to play myself interpreting the polls) and one of her suggestions to make people put aside pre-existing beliefs and engage with decisions critically was to ask them to put money on it — so that became my new meme when i'd encounter trump voters trying to "trigger the libs". i mean they may as well give their money to me, they might do something stupid with it, but usually the response was crickets.

and lets be real, joe biden won the election, even trump death cultists see it. i don't think there's any path to victory even through the courts.

1badmf wrote on Nov 6, 2020, 23:19:
a little bit of branch prediction (cuz i play chess and it's fun), almost certainly trump will run for president again assuming he's not thrown in prison at some point. his amoral sociopathic ego won't allow him to just accept a defeat. he is psychologically compelled to fight on so that he doesn't have to accept being a loser.

i doubt he'd make it out of the primary. no one wants to back a loser.

i've been joking about the timeline on him breaking ground on trump tower moscow (what do you think, over/under 2 years?), but really what i think is concerning is what secrets he was briefed on as president of the united states — he'd absolutely sell them out to whoever might be willing to help with his 400 million dollars of debt, or even just start blabbing to impress people.

1badmf wrote on Nov 6, 2020, 23:22:

Nucas wrote on Nov 6, 2020, 22:52:
i'll be up 210 dollars on this election, hopefully. so far i've had one trump voter acknowledge reality and call me to pay his 50 dollar bet.

in the last weeks of the race it was super rare to get any of them to bite when i'd ask if they wanted to make a friendly bet on the outcome.

what were your bets, if i may ask? just that trump would win? this election was way closer than i ever guessed it would be, but still almost statistically impossible for trump to win. he would've needed to flip almost every battleground state to pull it off, and how likely is it that if you flip a coin 10 times, it'll all be heads? that's what he was up against. not a bet i'd ever take, but trump supporters aren't known for their deep understanding of statistics.

yeah, just that trump would win.

on monday i made some bets with friends (biden finishes at 295 EC votes, ~10 million popular vote, results known by friday) but it was never necessary to go that sophisticated with trump voters. one guy talked to me for 45 minutes about how big tech and media were hiding the truth, the polls are bullshit, china owns joe biden, hunter biden's laptop, his taxes will go up, the works. interestingly he was the one who called me thursday to admit defeat before it was officially called.

i'll be up 210 dollars on this election, hopefully. so far i've had one trump voter acknowledge reality and call me to pay his 50 dollar bet.

in the last weeks of the race it was super rare to get any of them to bite when i'd ask if they wanted to make a friendly bet on the outcome.