Dude, they flubbed this so damn hard by over reaching. A few years ago, when they mentioned there would be a button in word that you could use to make a slide deck of your word dock, I was so excited. The teams meeting part where it will summarize meetings is honestly fantastic in doing Roberts rules of order type stuff. My response was “I hate what this means in terms of privacy, but godamn that sounds useful”.

In turning into an everything all or nothing they massively screwed up. I have a self hosted instance of llama-gpt that I use to solve the “blank page” problem that AI was actually great at.

I have a lot of issues with AI on principle, like a lot of folks. But it blows my mind how hard they screwed up delivery (and I don’t just mean the startups, that’s to be expected). There’s plenty to be said about uber at a principle level, but it’s still bloody convenient. The entire roll out of a AI-ecosystem reeks of this meme: “but we made plans!”.

So, ditto. Something is different about the pre packaged “tajin”.

CDPR is still on my “probably pass” list after cyber punk. I read the launch news, stayed faraway. I picked it up this year, after all the patches and work and… yeah it’s still fundamentally broken.

Not in terms of balance or bugs, but it didn’t have the magic. To start, I really don’t like fantasy games. They’re just not my thing. Witcher 3 had bad combat mechanics, could be terribly grindy and YET is one of my top five games. The story telling, from the plot itself the tiny immersive details in the world, hooked you. They nailed the big things, but it was the little things like sometimes you’d free someone, and realize they murdered a bunch of dudes who were minding their own business, and none of this was mentioned in or affected any other plot line, it was just a random detail in the universe.

Cyberpunk has a semblance of the big stuff, but exactly none of the soul. I cared about some of the main characters (emphasis on “some”) but exactly none about the world. It never felt like more than a backdrop.

A loss and misstep is ok, particularly given a growing studio, the problem with CDPR is they think they fixed cyberpunk. With that mentality I’m giving their next game a huge berth.

And if you liked cyberpunk, enjoy. There are parts to be enjoyed. There are some neat plot threads, some nifty side quests, if you enjoy it don’t let people ruin it for you.

Or just… Don’t make a launcher?

I really dislike that kind of animation style, just isn’t my taste. But in Ghibli, I love it and the stories. I run a plex server for my family and had to warn my mom. My 3 y/o niece doesn’t need to see “grave of the fire flies” just yet.

Trees actually do a lot of this on their own. If you want an absolutely fascinating read check out “the hidden life of trees” by wholleben.

The tl;Dr is that a forrest is an organism unto itself. Trees literally use each other for support, regulate the temperature, and terraform the ground around them (pine being the most visible example). The natural cycles and interspecies communication is jaw dropping.

Right, said Fred.

You are right, it is incredibly use dependent. In a weird way, EVs kinda of outline a lot of the cultural divide in America right now. The majority of America is freaking BIG. If you live on the coast, and are road tripping on the coast, odds are 300 miles seems like a lot because it was settled by horses, but that just doesn’t work for a lot of people. At least 3-4 times a year I do 400+ miles one way.

So EVs do make a ton of sense for a LOT of people, but it’s definitely not all people. From what I can tell, most of the people that have that need for that range are also 2 car families, in which one EV and one ICE works perfectly. It is so close to almost there, and in many, mannnny use cases it already is. But adding 20% to my travel time was not acceptable when I was shopping for a new vehicle.

This was sort of my impression to. Like I loosely liked him, but couldn’t really tell you what he’s directly responsible for. Which isn’t a bad thing on its own and doesn’t mean he wasnt doing a good job, just that I don’t know much about him.

So the road trip item you’re talking about is incredibly subjective. I just had an ev for a few months, yes I was able to find CCS on the highway, but you’re looking at ~1hr charging per 3 driving (give or take). That’s a deal breaker for a lot of people.

But youre right, leaving every morning with “a full tank” was wild.

1. Yes: you absolutely want the outdoor rated PVC if you’re getting sun exposure. You can cheat, it’s not like the white stuff will be immediately destroyed, but if you want something that will last a bunch of seasons, the “grey” stuff is the way to go. Double check that it’s UV rated though, and doesn’t just happen to be grey.

2. To get around all of that, you can bury it. Because you’re just doing it for the garden, you don’t need to dig down to the frost line. Just make sure you clear the line at the end of the season. Another advantage is that you’ll minimize the amount of water that’s been baking in the sun idle in the pipes. If it’s a heatwave and they’re in direct sun, that water can get downright hot to the touch. I’ve never lost a plant because of it but frankly I’m kind of surprised by that. If you do bury, you might consider running some electrical conduit at the same time, even if you don’t put wires in it (DO however include a pull cable for later use). What you do at either end of that is a whole other project, but you can always just cap it and get it to it when you get to it. Solar + Battery usual works great for garden automation stuff, but being able to run an ethernet cable can simplify a lot.

3. Plastic will hold up fine, but as others have mentioned you might want one of these.. The union allows to remove it. You could do a more simple threaded system IF you are able to completely and freely rotate everything “down stream” of the valve. I’m just going to say the stupid part out loud because I learned pipe stuff the hard way: A ball valve threaded on both sides cannot be loosened from one side without tightening the other (again, unless that other side can freely rotate). Edit: alternatively unions are sold separately, and sometimes you can eek out some flow advantages that way but it’s in no way worth thinking about at garden water flow rates.

4. Finally, a last alternative I’ve seen done well for gardens that sort of “wrong done right” is putting posts up and stringing a hose over head. It kind of seemed like as much work/expense as burying it, but I guess they had the posts, it came out really sharp in the end. You need a pretty high quality hose though. Baking in the sun and sagging under the water weight can end badly.

That’s the part that people don’t get and is intentionally hard to find numbers on. The entire appeal was on it not being an influencer centric space. The entire value was always at odds with monetizing that value beyond it’s upkeep and paying the people (who apparently aren’t that many) a reasonable salary. It is the worst growth case you could have ever had.

Literally means “have you eaten”, except it doesn’t really require an answer.

Grandmothers in every culture

Little bastards are why I now know you need to hide your grass seed beneathe staw. Lazy little fucks.

Yeah agree. They’re kind of sold as a cure all, which they’re not, but if you have a very specific problem they’ll help. I think the thing is a lot of times people use them without addressing the root cause. But it’s definitely saved me a deep clean before.

I think that’s exactly the point though. “We didn’t mark it up to mark it down, the price is just the price”. As a chronic patient gamer part of me hates that (I love finding older classics for like $10) but I don’t mind shelling out for a good game. The biggest expense is my time, and if a bunch of years later the price hasn’t moved it’s probably worth my time.

oh yeah, I didn’t want to be dismissive of the mtx stuff. It’s absolutely predatory and awful, but I don’t think it fully stands in the way of developing good games.

Which is related to what you’re saying about indies going under even after success. Game development takes time, and you need money to underwrite that time. I just think there’s going to be a split; right now AAA studios are shitifying their games, turning them more into CandyCrush skinner boxes. But the demand for good games hasn’t gone away, there’s just less financial upside than making CandyCrush. My point is, even though it’s less money, there’s still a good amount of money to be had there. Eventually the gaps going to be filled. Microsoft cant fill it because on the balance sheet, things like COD and anything from King are where they should be focused. And it sucks right now because they sucked up a stupid amount of talent and thanos snapped them, but thats not a sustainable practice.

But yes, it’s going to be painful. It’ll suck seeing really nifty indie stuff have to struggle so hard. Like I said I’m also going to miss the polish that comes with AA stuff. I’m going to miss the hell out of Arkane. Their games weren’t perfect, but they had so much soul. They didn’t deserve to have Redfall be their epitaph.

I love letterkenny! I also just binged corner gas lol

I’m US but grew up near the boarder (and now don’t)… I miss my CTV and Mr.Bigs… also Canada figured out how to keep making solid ass rock music.

Oh I’m well aware lol. The game is a godamn miracle. But thats the thing, Bethesda has been on this trajectory for a good lonnnnnng while. Like the whole “obsidian good bethesda bad” thing isn’t quite right, but what is true is Bethesda has been incredibly strategic about shittifying their games: there’s always just enough there to keep you going “ok… one more”.

Starfield is the first one I just didn’t even bother with.