HipPriest

It depends on the game, character etc. I mean I suppose it adds to the escapism slightly?

I play all sorts of different games though, some where you’re not given the choice (Life Is Strange for example) and I don’t feel like it’s that big a deal

It’s the b-plot from what I recall, it’s not the main focus of the episode.

It was written long before his TERF days and so it’s not exactly hateful, just ignorant and it’s comparable to a lot of other ways comedy treated trans characters from the era - The League Of Gentleman was much, much worse than the IT Crowd imo, and that was a recurring character in every episode.

It’s rather the issue that while Matt Berry has distanced himself from the episode Linehan actually still defends it as pro-trans.

I’ve only slipped over in my current pair once in 4 years or so - but I’m in the UK so winter boots for me are more about warmth and rain resistance than snow!

I’ve always had Doc Martens boots for casual wear in the winter. They’re really comfortable as long as you break them in by wearing them around the house for half an hour a day for a week or two before going outdoors with them.

Getting cushioned insoles might help?

Still use Google search, but switched out Chrome for Firefox recently and it’s working out well. I do still use their calendar, docs apps but I’ve never been a big one for YouTube. I do have some Google speakers though and use Maps all the time - so I guess out of big tech Google is the one I’m suckered into the most…

Stopped using Facebook around 2016 and deleted my Twitter account a few years before that, basically when the novelty had long gone and it all seemed to be more toxic.

In the UK around that time it was just everyone going on about Brexit on Facebook but even before then people weren’t sharing stuff about themselves (with good reason) so it was just low effort memes). Use Facebook once in a blue moon to get in touch with really old friends

Didn’t miss either, although I recently signed up to Mastodon more just to see how the fediverse worked over there.

Then Reddit - probably the social media I was most invested in just because it was so granular in it’s There’s A Sub For That ability to cater for virtually all interests. But the utter disdain they held for their own volunteers and the contempt they seem to hold virtually everyone in was a bit of a wake up call. I do go back and check on it but I’m finding that I check on it less. Fedi has less content so I am reading all those eBooks I should have been reading instead!

My son is 7, I’m interested in how things are looking in 5 year’s time when he’s an early teen. He’s already got bored of watching YouTube videos, tiktok isn’t really a thing with us or anyone we know yet… time will tell I suppose. The main thing will be constant reminders that porn isn’t real and cyber security lectures

What you stand to when I tell you to soldier, if you’ve quite finished asking questions!

What if they realised they’d made a very stupid decision and if there’d been some more checks and balances that decision could have been avoided?

The Third Reich, I think we can all agree was totalitarian. Hitler wanted to plunge into a war on two fronts against the USSR drunk on victory against France and expecting to beat Britain. Most of his military advisors weren’t keen. But being a Dictator he could just do it and hey presto war against Stalin. As time went on he got more erratic, made more random millitary decisions overruling his generals and made a pigs ear of things but whatever decision he made on a whim happened straight away anyway.

That’s just a famous and obvious example of a totalitarian leader rushing into things and getting where he wanted to go faster which didn’t end well for the leader.

I use dark mode late at night, especially using amoled screens under artificial lights or with all the lights off in bed. I don’t like using it when I’m outside, it seems off somehow.

Breakfast has always been my least important meal of the day… I’d rather have an extra 10 minutes in bed.

I use Surfshark but I expect most of the quality ones offer something similar. Nord and Express often get mentioned as the best VPNs but Surfshark as the best cheap VPN - I’m impressed with it, would recommend. You can even use Chrome on Android and most sites seem like normal, though I’ve switched to Firefox anyway

(If you are thinking of using a VPN just don’t use a free one because they’re probably dodgy)

I use a VPN which has an excellent ad & bs blocker. But occasionally some sites need me to turn it off to pay for things or whatever and I forget to turn it back on and end up browsing the internet in its normal state.

And wow… welcome to commerce central. It’s not that all the ads are obnoxious though some are, but the quantity of them is out of control on some websites.

To be fair, I’ve found it’s a good rule of thumb that the quality of a website is usually proportionate to the less amount of ads they have.

I also reviewed mobile games for a while and had to play without a VPN to get the same experience most players would get - game ads are the worst. Unrepresentative of the games they’re trying to sell, but also often sexist (veering towards misogynistic), obnoxious and with false endings.

The Precession To Calvery was hilarious from beginning to end.

You beat me to it because this game is genius!

Someone else mentioned Procession to Calvary - an adventure game set in a cut and paste world of renaissance art with a very surreal plot and sense of humour. Pythonesque.

There Is No Game is pretty hilarious, the voice acting always makes me crack up.

Agatha Knife is a funny point and click adventure game where you’re a 7 year old girl who’s a butcher and needs to set up her own religion sacrificing pigs in the basement for… Reasons.

Yeah I’m a man but I have a wife and quite a few friends with medium to large chest extensions and I do not envy them - the inconvenience looks like a right pain in the hole. I find running for a bus bad enough in the morning without having to worry about things getting out of control up there. Unless you’re planning on being stationary a lot (basically not doing day to day activities) you’re going to need support for those things.

My wife keeps trying to arrange a free bra fitting at M&S but it seems like that’s a high demand service…

The Guardian and BBC for home news and then links here, Mastodon or wherever else seems interesting. I have Google News installed which is shit but points me to some good quality American or Australian sites. And if I switch my VPN to a different country that can be interesting although it means relying heavily on Google Translate

I never really believed in ‘the one’, but I met my wife when I was 27 and without being cheesy there was definitely something different between us from the get go compared to previous relationships (serious and otherwise) I’d had.

The definition of ‘monogomy’ is just ‘being in a relationship with one person’ though. What you’re talking about is an idealised version of Romance which I personally don’t buy into. It puts too much pressure on the idea of everything being perfect which nothing ever is.

I think the best thing is just to chill. Meet people you like. Meet people you don’t like. There’ll be fallow periods where you don’t seem to be getting dates or anything for months or longer (my record - 3 long years…)

But whatever you do don’t start looking up at statistics and things, because that does start to look incel. Do not become incel, or any of the other manosphere stuff. That’s the best advice.

Nah that was me being a bit off handed and it’s not my place to tell anyone where to post what to. My apologies, it was badly phrased and looks rude. You’re good

This has been spammed in a few communities in my subscribed feed apart from this one and I avoid anything like philosophical debate communities… Because I’m stupid. 😛

I mean I think this is why it’s an interesting scenario - that’s very much the view losing side of things but I don’t think the politicians have fully grasped that yet. I don’t know whether that’s because they think the tech companies will ultimately ‘come round’ - in which case they’re badly mistaken - or whether they’re really that badly informed.

But politicians organise everything by WhatsApp as we’ve learned… I honestly don’t think they understand the consequences. But I’m just a poor humble member of the electorate, what do I know compared to intellectual titans like Jacob Reece-Mogg and Suella Braveman (who presumably as home sec has an interest in this?)

UK person here - my concern is that the opposition haven’t clearly stated that they would repeal the law if they were voted into power (to my knowledge, I’d be delighted to be corrected on this front!)

So letting voters know about it is great but if none of the main parties are actually against the law coming into effect - which is being sold as an anti-paedophile/child abuse measure, which framed like that would be popular with a lot of non-techy voters who don’t trust an unregulated internet - a few little messages saying ‘yay encryption!’ aren’t going to do anything.