West by God Virginia. I spent a lot of time there reminding people we fought for the north.

I mean, in context that verse is about being aware one’s belief in Jesus may cause strife with their family/community, and how Christians are meant to endure this strife without denying their faith. The choice of working makes sense in the context of the time it was written, when affirming Christ is God would have absolutely caused some major animosity with those who don’t believe. It’s assuring the reader that the division and pain that will come from those disagreements is not lost on God, and also not something we can turn away from and ignore.

The Christians that everyone is up in arms about all the time are close to the worst representation of the faith as possible, and you can easily point out their lazy interpretations as well as scripture that, more often than not, outright rejects their twisting of the faith. Modern day Pharisees all the way. Unfortunately the church on a national level is inundated with them, and has done a poor job of separating from them.

You know what, I’m here for it. Anytime I hear about the cicadas coming back it’s always over the top dread. People freak out, and there’s so much acting like seeing a cicada is going to grind life to a halt. Everyone seems to lean into the bit.

The fact that the growing answer to the cicadas this year is a wildly different “fuck it, we’ll eat them and then they can’t get us” could not be more beautiful to me.

This was the biggest adjustment for me with my last program. I was one of those annoying people that tested super quickly, and I developed some bad habits such as picking out the key parts of the question and immediately moving on as soon as I hit an answer that checked the right boxes. When I came up against “they’re all technically correct, but you need to choose the MOST correct answer” it was a goddamn brick wall. I adjusted and grew because of it, but holy shit do I have a new button to push when it comes to multiple choice (and trick questions, but that’s a whole soapbox).

I say all that to add that there is something to it. It made me learn the material in a more applicable way. I stopped trying to just retain lecture based on what seemed likely to be tested, and starting understanding concepts as a whole. It kind of forces you to work abstractly with what you’ve learned. I still hate it, but I won’t deny that kind of testing had a positive impact.

Not sure if they had the same issue as me, but maybe. I loved the game, but the last act had the typical crpg feeling of all the possible storylines condensing into a few. Not a major failure, but it really stuck out to me because of how well the rest of the game handled it. They did a phenomenal job of making me feel free to tackle each previous act however I wanted. The world reacted pretty well, and there were a few points I was actually surprised to see characters react specifically to some weird solution I came up with. At the end it felt like my choices mattered much less, and I was on this track of betray/kill one Big Bad or the other with the only difference being who goes first and what flavor of help comes along.

I think this is an issue all crpgs will have (it’s just too much work to have many wildly different endings), but the amount of discussion around BG3 being the new standard for the genre makes the issue stand out. At least for me.

we’ve also seen people who used to spend a considerable amount of money on games stop doing so, because the market doesn’t cater to their preferences.

I have to wonder how significant this is. Anecdotally I agree with it, but I wonder how many people are like me. I used to buy at least a few new/full-price games a year, but now I might buy 1 if the stars align (last two were BG3 and Elden Ring, prior to that I can’t even remember…maybe Deep Rock?). I have more expendable income than I’ve ever had these days and still love to play games as a pastime, but I’m buying fewer games. I 100% attribute that to the shitty practices the industry has picked up, because 9/10 that’s what turns me off from buying a game until it’s 5 bucks on Steam or free on Humble.

Come on, man, it’s “water under the bridge”. I want to contribute but it felt like we were drifting into malaphors there for a second, so I’m gonna play it by year and just see what comes next.

The way nasa puts it in layman is if Earth was a nickel, Pluto would be about the size of a popcorn kernel. So not quite as small as this picture makes it seem, but still tiny compared to the other planets.

I like Pluto though, let the little guy play planet.

How do you factor in the overabundance of cheap, nutritionally fucked food, and how that may affect those living paycheck to paycheck? It feels odd to recognize it’s a problem, but then also claim obesity is an absolute failing that should be universally shamed.

Side note, as a nurse I’ve seen patients who are obese because of circumstances and medical issues. Someone who has to work two jobs, has a kid, and newly discovered hypothyroidism is not obese because they don’t care. They have a medical issue and no extra time/resources to compensate for it with a refined diet and exercise (especially considering one of the most common symptoms of hypothyroidism is fatigue). You’re not even factoring in the undiagnosed, or those who don’t have access to sufficient healthcare.

My overall point is if you’re targeting obese people specifically, you’re not on the right track.

I think it’s just something people are sensitive about, and understandably so. Most obese people (by choice; i.e. self admittedly just have a bad diet and sedentary lifestyle) I know are never really offended by memes and consistently express a desire to do better. Fact is fixing the problem is genuinely difficult once you pass a certain point, as it requires a dramatic lifestyle change. Anyone who says that is easy is full of shit.

I avoid jokes like that mostly because it feels like punching down on people who are not happy with their health/weight and struggling to fix it. Especially when it’s the typical low hanging fruit, it’s just not fun when the joke makes me feel like kind of an ass.

Well, you can definitely narrow it down to what you want to read and talk about. I’m interested in doing that with politics (US), and I’m very far away from any kind of PR or marketing person. People can genuinely want to talk politics, it’s not always a corporate conspiracy.

On the bright side, I’m relieved it wasn’t any crazy shit and the dude just likes milfs. Still a dangerous idiot, but good for him.

yeah man, just like you go scuba diving oo-nderwater.

it’s a dead end. We can’t pretend that “g” can’t also be pronounced as “j”, or that the words making up the acronym matter. It’s all preference and since GIF’s dad called it “jif”, I’m gonna call it “jif”. At least that’s based on something beyond my own hubris.

This is why I’m a pesca-pescatarian. I only eat fish that eat other fish.