Blog

“this work is problematic because of how it handles [subject]”: reasonable premise for media…

cantotallyeven:

palant1r:

“this work is problematic because of how it handles [subject]”: reasonable premise for media criticism

“this work is problematic because it depicts [subject]”: do not pass go do not collect $200 this is, as a general rule, a functionally reactionary and conservative argument

I think even more importantly:

“this work is problematic and you should be critical of the viewpoints it presents while engaging with it”: reasonable premise for media criticism

“this work is problematic therefore everyone who engages with it is evil”: do not pass go do not collect $200 this is, as a general rule, a functionally reactionary and conservative argument

Toots

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    Zack
    Zack
    Starfield common advice re: NG+

    @tekniklr thank you for gifting us with the phrase “loot goblin sociopath”

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    👻™ Lil Guy Advocate 🐊
    👻™ Lil Guy Advocate 🐊

    Muppet Lord of the Rings, keep Ian McKellen

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    Starfield common advice re: NG+

    @microwavenby don’t forget to mention the same copy pasta abandoned facilities with the same corpse, loot, and slate locations spread across the galaxy

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    Transcendental (Friendly)
    Transcendental (Friendly)
    Starfield common advice re: NG+

    @tekniklr Not to give glib gamepinions, but I feel like loot goblin sociopaths have steadily become Bethesda’s core market. Which I’ve always thought was so weird, because the loot isn’t even that good!

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    Starfield common advice re: NG+

    @pizzapatch exactly! It’s just rng with the hopes of getting more rng to no other end! the rng loot doesn’t even reliably get better than the previous rng loot you already had!

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    Starfield common advice re: NG+

    ALSO, anyone who gave the advice to rush through #Starfield to the ending and NG+ is a loot goblin sociopath
    
That’s TERRIBLE advice if you approach Bethesda games as I do- from an RP/exploratory angle. As this thread has shown, NG+ retroactively made everything in an otherwise enjoyable game feel trite and pointless to me
    
But, you do you, I guess

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    @zenhob I think I might be a bit older than you so got a different story- also, my grandfather (who was in WWII) was mostly Belarusian (which at the time was part of the USSR/“Russia”)

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    @zenhob they taught me in elementary school that Russia was originally allied with Germany but switched sides; is that not what happened?

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    Derek Powazek 🐐
    Derek Powazek 🐐

    Cleaning up after the Tump administration is going slowly, but at least it's going.
    arstechnica.com/tech-policy/20

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    Starfield ending complaints

    I am shocked that this video game is so nihilistic- absolutely nothing matters in any universe because you can always just say "fuck it" and leave to a new one.

    What is the point?????

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    Starfield ending

    On the bright side, after yeeting myself to a new universe my game crashes infinitely less often.

    Guess that implies it was crashing because Bethesda was keeping track of every state change I made on every pointless planet I pointlessly visited in my original universe!

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    Starfield ending complaints

    The NG+ progression in #Starfield only makes narrative sense (if you are playing a character who has bonded with companions) if your primary companion/romantic interest is dead.

    Why would a happy person who has found love deliberately and permanently ensure they would never see their loved one again?

    If their partner has died though, hopping universes in the hopes to meet another version of them makes total sense.

    It feels like typical Bethesda heavy handedness.

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    George Takei :verified: 🏳️‍🌈🖖🏽
    George Takei :verified: 🏳️‍🌈🖖🏽

    The Former Guy is out with a rant accusing networks like NBC and MSNBC of “country threatening treason.” And yet the media continues to act like he is some kind of normal candidate, and that there is an equivalence between his 91 criminal counts and 4 indictments and Biden’s age—which is just three years more than his own. It’s time for media to stop making this about a horse race and start making it about our democracy and our civil liberties. /1

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    Laura Helmuth
    Laura Helmuth

    In the U.S., you can order four free COVID tests here starting today: special.usps.com/testkits (which also has info on updated expiration dates for older tests)

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    br00t4c
    br00t4c

    As always...

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    Avi 🦝
    Avi 🦝

    thanks Sony for this very cursed captcha

    Captcha which wants me to rotate a frog to match the angle of a hand.
On the left side, there’s the hand pointing forward a bit to the right.
On the right side, the frog is pointing in the same direction so it looks like the hand wants to finger the frog’s butt.

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    Yellow Flag
    Yellow Flag

    We are currently witnessing the fallout from monopolization in the browser space. Back in 2007, Internet Explorer received much criticism for its phishing protection mechanism which transmitted all visited websites to Microsoft servers. Mozilla paired up with Google and designed a different system which performed most checks locally and preserved users’ privacy. That’s what healthy competition looks like.

    Fast forward to 2023. Almost all web browsers in use are either Chrome or based on the Chromium browser engine. With the competition pretty much eliminated, Google is now pushing its “Enhanced Safe Browsing” down everyone’s throats – which is a nice sounding name for “every website you visit is sent to our servers.” The Internet Explorer approach from 2007 all over again, only that now it’s Google getting all this data. And they certainly won’t do anything evil with it. Yeah, sure.

    Reminder: Firefox and Safari are the only remaining browsers worth noting which are not using Google’s browser engine.

    #Chrome #Google #Mozilla #privacy

    bleepingcomputer.com/news/goog

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    Eric Meyer
    Eric Meyer

    BREAKING: wind

    That’s it, that’s the toot.

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    today a woman complimented my tattoos, and after I thanked her she added "that was a bold choice!" I guess to clarify that the first compliment, wasn't.

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    #Starfield has sweet rolls, ripe for stealing

    A screenshot from Starfield showing sweet rolls for sale, “the tastiest treat in any universe”

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    Josh "cortex" Millard
    Josh "cortex" Millard

    Starfield showing off some shockingly apposite emergent simulation behavior here: my current crewmate, seeing me spending easily the next five minutes wandering around picking up everything not nailed down in this random facility, has just decided to sit the fuck down

    NPC party member sitting, unprompted, in a chair in a future-industrial space dormitory

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    Marcus Hutchins :verified:
    Marcus Hutchins :verified:

    Personally I'm ok with X getting a banking license because society would be much safer if Elon Musk stans didn't have any money left.

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    evacide
    evacide

    Everybody go update your iPhones.

    The new 0-click vuln exploited by NSO Group is sent via a malicious image in iMessage.

    citizenlab.ca/2023/09/blastpas

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    @raccoon I only understand some of this explanation but the faster than light travel being possible but faster than light communication not being possible instantly made sense to me when it was dropped in game; like a spaceship can go through a bespoke wormhole, but that doesn't make sense for light beams or radio waves

    did my original post make it sound like I thought it was weird for there to be faster than light travel but not faster than light communication?

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    So an interesting bit of #Starfield lore I found out in game yesterday is that humanity has discovered faster than light travel but NOT faster than light communication.

    Which both gives plenty of opportunities for questing hither and yon; and raises interesting sci-fi questions of how that might be true in physics, and also how humanity would try to work around it with like a space drone pony express or something.

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    Another Angry Woman
    Another Angry Woman

    what fool called it fetlife instead of kinkedin

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    A future where a silenced shotgun makes sense
    #starfield

    A screenshot from Starfield showing a shotgun in a rack with the ‘suppressed’ attribute

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    today I broke someone's brain by pointing out that candy corn made from high fructose corn syrup is literally candy corn

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    Anyway, I am really appreciating how much #Starfield feels like #the_outer_worlds in small ways, and like #no_mans_sky in big ways

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    I just thought of a mnemonic to keep The Outer Worlds and Outer Wilds straight -

    The Outer W*o*rlds - made by *O*bsidian

    Outer W*i*lds - *I*ndie

    Hope that helps

    #the_outer_worlds #outer_wilds

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    In general Starfield does a good job with character creation and gender/pronoun options, BUT while your character isn’t voiced as such the pitch of the vocalizations you make (punches, grunts, coughs, etc) seems to be entirely based on pronoun.

    I was wondering why my macho beardy muscle thembo was coughing and punching like Minnie Mouse, and this is why!

    Luckily, you can re-enter the character creator and change all the options at a shop (Enhance!) in town.

    #starfield

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    Eric Meyer
    Eric Meyer

    Clearly this is what the Shapiros and Rowlings of the world and their associated lampreys mean by “go woke, go broke”.

    Headline: “Barbie Becomes Biggest Warner Bros.
Movie Ever at Global Box Office, Beating Final Harry Potter' Pic”

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    Eddie Roosenmaallen
    Eddie Roosenmaallen

    Excuse me?
    Google now moderates your synched bookmarks? The hell?

    To clarify: this is a Google Save Collection, which is one of the mechanisms Google syncs bookmarks via. They're not the default in Chrome (but accessible), but they are the only bookmark facility in the Google Search app, using the standard bookmark icon.

    Email from Google; moderation of an item in my saved bookmarks. 
The email indicates a bookmark I had saved violates Google’s policy and they have hidden the bookmark from me and other users.

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    lol, my cat cared naught for the thunder but when the rain started dumping buckets he did a double take at the window and fled across the apartment 😂

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    Biking to work this morning I saw someone commuting on a tall bike, which used to be a pretty common sight in Portland like ten years ago but isn't something I've seen in years.

    Love to see it.

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    Baloo Uriza
    Baloo Uriza

    Every #NYT story lately.

    I have no idea where this image originated and take no credit.

    A New York Times opinion column.  Image is nothing but newsprint-style text, and reads as follows

Opinion
Heres Why It Would Be A Mistake To Do Anything That Inconveniences Rich Assholes 
by Some Rich Asshole

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    mcc
    mcc

    "At first we believed that programmers were latently sexist/transphobic, and due to their demographics had never thought about the fact that minoritized communities might need to change their name or gender marker. However with further research, we discovered the problem was larger: Programmers have never thought about anything, at all"

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    Abandoned America
    Abandoned America

    The abandoned Packard Plant in Detroit

    Gallery: abandonedamerica.us/packard-mo

    Boxy brick buildings with large, empty spaces where windows used to be stretch off down a long, overgrown alley

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    @matt remember to shut down your computer on or before December 31

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    lol

    a screenshot of a tweet from elon musk saying "block is going to be deleted as a feature" with the built-in twitter fact checking pointing out that he cannot do this because it would violate app store policies for social media apps

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Games

  • Baldur's Gate 3 (Playstation) Roleplayer

    yesterday

    Earned Roleplayer in Baldur's Gate 3 on Playstation

    yesterday

  • Starfield
(Xbox)

One Giant Leap

    5 days ago

    Earned One Giant Leap in Starfield on Xbox

    5 days ago

  • STAR WARS Jedi: Survivor
(Playstation)

A Place You Could Call Home

    about 1 month ago

    Earned A Place You Could Call Home in STAR WARS Jedi: Survivor on Playstation

    about 1 month ago

  • Fallout: New Vegas
(Xbox)

Eureka!

    about 2 months ago

    Earned Eureka! in Fallout: New Vegas on Xbox

    about 2 months ago

  • FINAL FANTASY XVI
(Playstation)

Falling Star

    3 months ago

    Earned Falling Star in FINAL FANTASY XVI on Playstation

    3 months ago

  • Diablo IV
(Playstation)

Estuar Sightseer

    3 months ago

    Earned Estuar Sightseer in Diablo IV on Playstation

    3 months ago

  • Horizon Forbidden West
(PS5)

    5 months ago

    Played Horizon Forbidden West on PS5

    4 months ago

  • The Elder Scrolls Online
(PS5)

    5 months ago

    Played The Elder Scrolls Online on PS5

    5 months ago

  • Need for Speed Unbound
(PS5)

    6 months ago

    Played Need for Speed Unbound on PS5

    6 months ago

  • Fallout 76
(PS4)

    6 months ago

    Played Fallout 76 on PS4

    6 months ago

Books

  • Uzumaki

    6 days ago

    Uzumaki

    6 days ago

  • Shiver: Selected Stories

    9 days ago

    Shiver: Selected Stories

    9 days ago

  • Gyo

    16 days ago

    Gyo

    16 days ago

  • If This Book Exists, You're in the Wrong Universe

    3 months ago

    If This Book Exists, You're in the Wrong Universe

    3 months ago

  • The Diamond Age

    3 months ago

    The Diamond Age

    3 months ago

  • John Constantine: Hellblazer Vol. 2: The Best Version of You

    4 months ago

    John Constantine: Hellblazer Vol. 2: The Best Version of You

    4 months ago

  • John Constantine: Hellblazer Vol. 1: Marks of Woe

    4 months ago

    John Constantine: Hellblazer Vol. 1: Marks of Woe

    4 months ago

  • Scorn: The Art of the Game

    7 months ago

    Scorn: The Art of the Game

    7 months ago

  • Pwning Tomorrow

    about 1 year ago

    Pwning Tomorrow

    about 1 year ago

Music

  • Spandau Ballet - Gold - 2003 Remaster

    3 days ago

    Spandau Ballet - Gold - 2003 Remaster

    3 days ago

  • Earth, Wind & Fire - September

    3 days ago

    Earth, Wind & Fire - September

    3 days ago

  • Aretha Franklin - I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)

    3 days ago

    Aretha Franklin - I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me)

    3 days ago

  • Paul Simon - You Can Call Me Al

    3 days ago

    Paul Simon - You Can Call Me Al

    3 days ago

  • Annie Lennox - Walking on Broken Glass

    3 days ago

    Annie Lennox - Walking on Broken Glass

    3 days ago

  • Wham! - The Edge of Heaven

    3 days ago

    Wham! - The Edge of Heaven

    3 days ago

  • Roy Orbison - Oh, Pretty Woman

    4 days ago

    Roy Orbison - Oh, Pretty Woman

    4 days ago

  • Tina Turner - The Best

    4 days ago

    Tina Turner - The Best

    4 days ago

  • Barry Manilow - Copacabana (At The Copa)

    4 days ago

    Barry Manilow - Copacabana (At The Copa)

    4 days ago

  • Dolly Parton - Islands in the Stream

    4 days ago

    Dolly Parton - Islands in the Stream

    4 days ago

  • Four Tops - Loco In Acapulco

    4 days ago

    Four Tops - Loco In Acapulco

    4 days ago

  • Billy Ocean - Love Really Hurts Without You

    4 days ago

    Billy Ocean - Love Really Hurts Without You

    4 days ago

  • Billy Joel - Piano Man

    4 days ago

    Billy Joel - Piano Man

    4 days ago

  • Robbie Williams - Candy

    4 days ago

    Robbie Williams - Candy

    4 days ago

  • Elton John - I'm Still Standing

    4 days ago

    Elton John - I'm Still Standing

    4 days ago

  • Queen - Hammer To Fall - Remastered 2011

    4 days ago

    Queen - Hammer To Fall - Remastered 2011

    4 days ago