I'd love to mind my own business, but I'm currently melting in a historic heatwave caused by assholes billionaires and petrochemical executives continually adding gasoline to the fire that is the climate crisis

I have only bought stardew valley once, because I only game on PC, but I definitely would buy it for multiple systems if I used them; it's already such good value that I feel like I'm stealing. I do love a passion project.

I wonder if ConcernedApe has a proper desk yet

Line Khan made incredible headway in actually enforcing the (actually pretty good) antitrust legislation that already exists, but alas, she's not in the role anymore (since Trump entered office, I think)

Despite this, I have no doubt that we'd see some pretty efficient antitrust stuff against Steam if they did subsidise the Steam machine, due to the efforts of the competitors to Steam.

The thing is, I do think that Steam has a monopoly, in that if they suddenly turned evil, it would have a disproportionately large impact on the overall gaming ecosystem. However, they only got to this position because they understood that piracy was a service issue, and did legitimately better than most of their competitors

I get that the official body probably didn't have the resources to be able to clean it up, but imagine if there had been a compromise solution in which volunteers could have done this work but with the guidance of a professional, sanctioned by that official body. That seems like it could have been the best of both worlds. It's a shame that this ended up as it did

I have a chainmail dress I made for a party once. I don't get much opportunity to wear it, but it's great.

Edit: behold, my silly outfit.

The gap has been crossed many times in the 50+ years that the barrier has been in place. These crossings aren't failures, but inevitable when trying to wage war on a flying insect with an average lifespan of 21 days. Keeping the screwworm at bay requires constant effort and monitoring. Here's an excerpt from the 2020 article"America's Never-ending Battle Against Flesh-eating Worms"

"To get the screwworms out, the USDA to this day maintains an international screwworm barrier along the Panama-Colombia border. The barrier is an invisible one, and it is kept in place by constant human effort. Every week, planes drop 14.7 million sterilized screwworms over the rainforest that divides the two countries. A screwworm-rearing plant operates 24/7 in Panama. Inspectors cover thousands of square miles by motorcycle, boat, and horseback, searching for stray screwworm infections north of the border. The slightest oversight could undo all the work that came before."

"The slightest oversight could undo all the work that came before", huh? Shame DOGE didn't give a fuck when they slashed screwworm monitoring programs.

The failure we're seeing isn't a failure to keep the screwworms out of the US (which any administration would inevitably fail to maintain perfectly), but a failure in monitoring and proactive preventative efforts to maintain the barrier. Fuck knows how long it's been spreading before it was noticed, given that it's already affecting multiple states.

The blame for what happens now lies solely with Trump and his cronies.

"I made a mod that replaces cliffracers with Thomas the Tank Engine. [...] I am incapable of learning lessons whenever it involves corporations, because I fundamentally do not view toy company CEOs or media CEOs as people.

In between working on my game and dying of various accidental injuries, I sometimes feel like I need to milk a particular joke until its inevitable demise. I will do this no matter how many legal threats, actual threats, black vans with the Mattel logo on them, or severed Barbie heads are mailed to me.

This is because I have issues with authority, particularly authority derived from intimidation. I kicked a lot of bullies in the nuts when I was a kid.”

Idgaf about silly mods like this, but this is iconic

I had a girlfriend who had the inverse of your problem — her feet were far too large for shoes aimed at women. She ended up becoming friends with a bunch of drag queens, and finding that the specialist store they got their shoes from was the best place for her

Holy shit. 5 years for "conspiracy to cause public nuisance". Holy shit.

Oh my God, I fucking love this. I mean, I absolutely hate that this is the optimal way to pack 17 squares into a larger square such that the size of the larger square is minimised. However, I love that someone went to the effort of making a waffle iron plate for this. High effort shitposts like this give me life

There's actually a pretty large ea-nasir meme-posting culture, it's one of my favourite internet things.

Basically it originated from this cuneiform tablet from 1750BC, the oldest known written complaint.

Translation of the complaint: (source: 1967 Book "Letters from Mesopotamia"

Tell Ea-nasir: Nanni sends the following message:

When you came, you said to me as follows : "I will give Gimil-Sin (when he comes) fine quality copper ingots." You left then but you did not do what you promised me. You put ingots which were not good before my messenger (Sit-Sin) and said: "If you want to take them, take them; if you do not want to take them, go away!"

What do you take me for, that you treat somebody like me with such contempt? I have sent as messengers gentlemen like ourselves to collect the bag with my money (deposited with you) but you have treated me with contempt by sending them back to me empty-handed several times, and that through enemy territory. Is there anyone among the merchants who trade with Telmun who has treated me in this way? You alone treat my messenger with contempt! On account of that one (trifling) mina of silver which I owe(?) you, you feel free to speak in such a way, while I have given to the palace on your behalf 1,080 pounds of copper, and umi-abum has likewise given 1,080 pounds of copper, apart from what we both have had written on a sealed tablet to be kept in the temple of Samas.

How have you treated me for that copper? You have withheld my money bag from me in enemy territory; it is now up to you to restore (my money) to me in full.

Take cognizance that (from now on) I will not accept here any copper from you that is not of fine quality. I shall (from now on) select and take the ingots individually in my own yard, and I shall exercise against you my right of rejection because you have treated me with contempt.

Most of the humour of the various memes and jokes (some examples found here) seems to stem from the fact that Nanni's salt and rage has endured thousands of years and now we know about it. Ea-Nasir will always be remembered as a shitty copper merchant, and there's just something inherently hilarious about that, to me.

I think Larian's response is them leaning into joke — by replying at all, they're boosting the original query, but they're also drawing a line on how far they're willing to indulge that side of things (officially). I refuse to believe that Larian are actually shocked or perturbed by this question, as their reply suggests, because bear sex is within the game itself, so they've definitely fed the fire. Pretending to be confused is part of the joke, I reckon

One of my favourite ever jokes was told to me by a German friend.

"How many Germans does it take a change a lightbulb?

One. We are very efficient"

His fairly strong accent, perpetually furrowed brow and deadpan delivery really made it

Heads up to anyone that might not know, but you shouldn't say "the Congo", because referring to it that was is a remnant of colonialism. Instead, just say Congo. E.g. "there's a war in Congo".

I realise that I'm being peak buzzkill politically correct leftie here, but I only learned this relatively recently, and I want to help out others like me. It still sounds weird to me to say "Congo" rather than "the Congo", but that's part of why it feels important to make the effort to change

I'm an autistic woman, and I've found great success in leaning into my autistic tendencies. By that, I mean just being blunt and upfront. One of my favourites is that if I've got chemistry with someone I don't expect to see again, before I bid them farewell, I'll give them a note with my number on and say something like "I had a great time hanging out with you tonight, would you like to go on a date with me sometime?" And then I hand them my number and scuttle off like a crab because I can only put on a cool face for so long before I crack under the anxiety.

I often find Americans abroad to be quite charming in how American they are. Certainly, there are some that are obnoxious (and even their friendliness can be obnoxiousness in a way), but it can be quite endearing; Americans (especially the ones you meet while travelling) are so outgoing, and they're so keen to make connections with people. Like, is it cringe when an American says "oh my great great grandfather was Scottish", as if makes any difference at all that they are 1/16 Scottish? Yeah, somewhat. But after a friend explained to me that she sees it as coming from a deep desire to connect with other people, I began to see it as quite sweet.

It's part of why I grieve for what's going on in America right now. "American-ness" is a messy, mixed concept, and it would be unreasonable to ignore how much of that concept is deeply problematic. However, I feel that there is goodness within that concept, and the people in power at the moment seem hell bent on destroying or undermining what goodness exists there.

The datasets they are trained on do in fact include CSAM. These datasets are so huge that it easily slips through the cracks. It's usually removed whenever it's found, but I don't know how this actually affects the AI models that have already been trained on that data — to my knowledge, it's not possible to selectively "untrain" models, and they would need to be retrained from scratch. Plus I occasionally see it crop up in the news about how new CSAM keeps being found in the training data.

It's one of the many, many problems with generative AI

Equally, I've hooked up with some guys who struggle to get off during sex itself (which may be because the grip one uses while masturbating may be firmer than what one experiences during sex).

Having slept with both women and men, I feel like the pressure to reach orgasm seems like it's bad for everyone. One dude I knew felt super insecure about not getting off, which stemmed from a previous partner taking it personally. It's certainly the case that for some men, it can feel uncomfortable to have sex and not reach orgasm. However, I think that everyone would have a better time if people decoupled satisfaction from orgasm.

If I wanted to be certain that I'd get off, then the use of a vibrator helps a lot. That's not necessarily my goal though; some of the best sex I've ever had didn't result in me reaching orgasm, and I find it frustrating when people don't understand that this is possible (I find this problem more common with men). Of course, that's just personal to me — some people may consider reaching orgasm to be an essential part of "good sex", but that's why good communication is the best skill one can develop for better sex.

In the Spring, you can help man the fish doorbell. It's good fun for the second monitor, if you have one.

Context copied from the linked page:

"Every spring, thousands of fish swim through Utrecht’s canals and waterways, searching for a place to spawn and reproduce.

In the heart of the city lies the beautiful Weerdsluis, a manually operated lock. When the lock gates are closed, fish are forced to wait, wasting valuable time and energy – making them easy prey for birds and predatory fish.

To help the fish, an underwater camera is installed at the lock. If fish appear on screen, you can press the doorbell! This alerts the lock keeper, who will open the lock when many fish are waiting. You can “ring” the Fish Doorbell from early March to late May

People do so enthusiastically every year. In 2024, the Fish Doorbell attracted around 2.7 million viewers, from America to Brazil! The project has gained global recognition, helping people worldwide learn about fish migration and Utrecht’s underwater world."