😭 the only thing worse than an animal going extinct, is being the last member of the species who still has a life left to live. Jesus, that’s some profoundly, cosmically depressing shit. And I’m not sure if it’s better or worse for the animal to be aware that it’s the last of its kind. Fruitlessly calling for a mate, or knowing there’s no point bothering.

When you’re 100 words short of a 200-word essay.

The author:

I actually played a wee bit of 1983’s Crystal Castles (Atari 2600 version) earlier this year when I was trying out emulators 🤣 I loved that game when I was a kid, I get a major nostalgia hit when I play it. I’m sure some of the other games I tested were older still, but that’s the one I remember because I was born in that same year.

I remembered it being one of the first games I ever played. As I fumbled my way through those first few sessions, I could physically feel my neurons flowering and blooming and creaking to life like a bunch of microscopic mind-rhubarb. It was the beginning of a life-long love of gaming.

If they had added fast travel, it would have been a really solid game (to me, at least). The excruciatingly-long driving sessions were interminable, and it was this that made me abandon the game in the end, even though I was already about 2/3 of the way through it. The characters, acting and story were really good.

It’s quite repetitive, but no more than any other middling open world game. I happen to enjoy stealthily murdering people with a giant combat knife, so the repetition didn’t bother me. The constant criss-crossing around the map to go to/from objectives bothered me a lot. 90% of the checkpoints in each quest could have been a phone call.

I wonder if there’s a mod that lets you teleport to map markers 🤔 If so, I would play the game again.

Is it supposed to? I mean, a Jaguar doesn’t look like a jaguar either 🤔 But if they market it as being designed around a nautilus’ shape, then yeah it sucks haha

The screenshot is from an amazingly-funny short film called Kung Fury. You can watch it for free on Steam:

https://store.steampowered.com/video/watch/374570/

Congratulations, completing a game and getting it out the door is no mean feat!

I’ll be in high demand for people with calculators 👀

I see Big Kiwi is at it again.

It’s the paper cut law.

Having your leg wrenched off at the thigh by a syphilitic alligator: 8/10

Banging the back of your head on the corner of the open cupboard door as you stand up from a crouch: 11/10

Every pig they feed in this manner is absorbing the combined knowledge of every pig that preceded it. I look forward to being treated fairly and kindly by our new superintelligent pig race overlords with decades of memories of human depravity and cruelty pre-wired into their brains from birth. I look forward to my very kind and gentle treatment indeed.

bebé: i should not be!

Damn, sorry you have to make such efforts, and for so little return. Maybe you can just be straight with him? Not sure how receptive you think he’d be to that. Like “I’m not trying to change your opinions, but you don’t need to bring up cancel culture and wokeness in every conversation, just like I’m not trying to convince you to start transitioning into a lass every time you bring up last night’s football game. Even if I agreed with you 100%, this shit is exhausting.” Or words to that effect.

I’m already anticipating a possible response: “Just because I’m not a sheep like everyone else, content to live in their own little bubble while the world burns around them, doesn’t mean I have to be.” To which I would respond “well, I hope you enjoy being ‘right’ on your own as you eventually push away everyone who has your back in this life, because even the most vicious conservative doesn’t spend 24 hours of his day talking about this shit in conversations that don’t call for it. They have other hobbies and interests, and they have enough self-preservation to know when to stop pushing their beliefs on family and friends.”

Or “yeah, I’m a sheep in a bubble, so can you show me the decency to let me do that in peace? I wanna have a relationship with you, I don’t care that you disagree with me politically, because there’s more to you than who you vote for or what cultural bullshit you’re currently obsessed with. Why can’t you see the same breadth of character in me?”

Sorry for the wall of text, your post may have triggered a few memories from my own life… 🤣

Hair shape (curly or straight or somewhere in between) is determined by the follicle, which is itself determined by genetics. Nothing to be done about that, I’m afraid! At least not currently; I’m sure one day in the future we will be able to alter our genes on-the-fly, but until 2077, we’re stuck with our old hair-straighteners.