Hey, deep fakes are awesome. They are a necessary step in the evolution of the technology that leads to holodecks.

I want holodecks, I bet you want holodecks, practically everyone wants holodecks, so we have to go through this stage of the tech to get there.

No, but they should be public to everyone, and not hidden unless you jump through hoops.

That would be hilarious if someone prepared a bunch of little clips of things Hitler said that Trump also says very similar things to, and then anytime he says one, just respond by playing a clip of Hitler saying basically the same thing, and giving a ‘Do I need to say more?’ look.

They aren’t using it, no, but that doesn’t mean the scientific method can’t study what they do and come to an understanding of it - probably a better understanding of it than they have, since as you say, they aren’t using it. It’d just take a few decades of study probably to have a much stronger understanding of how it works.

My point is just that people draw this weird line between ‘science’ and ‘magic’ as though they were incompatible. In a world in which magic is real and useful, science can study it.

Their reality doesn’t defy understanding by the scientific process. It has reliable, repeatable results, and therefore can be studied and empirically catalogued. The only way something could not be studied by science is if it’s totally random, if actions do not correlate, even slightly, with results. Of course, such behavior would make it completely useless as a tool, because one could never get desired results from it. Magic in the setting is very reliable and repatable, and as long as you do it right, results can be studied, so it’s easily catalogued by the scientific method.

Odd to me is Her Majesty’s instead of His, considering Charles is now King.

Do these places just retain the gender of the ruling monarch at the time of their construction?

Yes, as long as people keep focusing on fighting the technology instead of fighting capitalism, this is true.

So we can fight the technology and definitely lose, only to see our efforts subverted to further entrench capitalism and subjugate us harder (hint: regulation on this kind of thing disproportionately affects individuals while corporations carve out exceptions for themselves because ‘it helps the economy’)…

Or we can embrace the technology and try to use it to fight capitalism, at which point there’s at least a chance we might win, since the technology really does have the potential to overcome capitalism if and only if we can spread it far enough and fast enough that it can’t be controlled or contained to serve only the rich and powerful.

I bet some people flashed that one and such too, but I could find no indication that it was shut down because of that.

It feels like society has backslid tremendously on some freedoms in the past 15 years, particularly where it comes to prudishness.

These days we even have otherwise progressive people jumping on the prude bandwagon along with hyper religious controlling anti feminists and it just makes for such strange bedfellows.

If it is solved it will definitely be through technology of some sort. While I agree it will not be one brilliant scientist, technology will be the solution.

That technology may come in the form of a way to produce more energy without fucking up the climate, and the engineering and logistical capacity to roll out the change at a breakneck pace.

It may come in the form of simply developing a way to control the global climate directly.

It might come in the form of some technology to control the behavior of humans so that we can actually respond appropriately.

Or it might come in the form of the singularity, when self improving machines grow so far beyond us so fast that they can just do what is needed whether we like it or not.

But one way or another I guarantee that if it’s solved, it’ll largely be a technological solution, because getting humanity to just…stop using energy at our current rate…is just not going to happen.

I don’t understand the complaints about the expansions for these games. Ok, there’s a lot of them? But they’re generally good. And if you don’t want them, just…stop updating and stay on whatever version you liked?

And unlike most, they make it easy to play an older version. Did I like a particular patch better and hate all that’s come since then? Easy to roll back to it. What do people want…for them to not put out expansions?

Metroid is an interesting example. In some of the games she definitely counts as having no personality or character, but overall in the series she’s been given a story and characterization with personality. Zelda games are in a similar boat; Link shows little personality in most of them but does have an established overall story and personality.

In cases like those two I’ll consider them, but the lack of personality in game is a point against them regardless of the gender involved and honestly that’s discouraged me from playing many games like that (including both those series) for a long while.

Way I see it, modern games have no excuse not to either let me create my own character or give the predefined character a strong personality that shows throughout the entire game.

When the protagonist’s character, personality, and story is significant, then that’s fine. If I’m playing a game like that I’m not playing a generic character that could be either and therefore should absolutely be a choice.

I’m fine playing a game like the Witcher, Red Dead 2, etc, cause those are the stories of that guy.

Where I won’t play is games that give you a generic protagonist with little to no personality but restrict you to male only, or even I suppose female only, although this is incredibly rare and I haven’t run across it myself.

That’s awesome. I have played Deus Ex, since I give old games that leeway, whereas there’s absolutely no excuse for new ones, but it might be enjoyable to give it another run with that mod, so thanks!

Nice to hear. I just don’t play games that don’t have female character options, unless the character actually matters and has a personality that is a major part of the game, like say, Geralt. I leave old games some leeway, but nice to hear they’re fixing that in this old one, means I’ll probably give it a try just based on that alone.

More like 1997, or even 1983, when the UK handed them back to China, or the earlier date, when they decided to prevent them from having British citizenship.

If everyone in Hong Kong had the right to emigrate to any British territory, China would have to be a lot lighter touched there, or there might be a mass exodus.

That company was so odd, cause usually companies that mismanage their money into bankruptcy don’t also make a great game, and yet Kingdoms of Amalur was amazing.

Odd comparison, and internally inconsistent. They criticize KOTOR for having only one decision that affects the overall story, but fail to consider that SWG had zero decisions that affect the overall story.

It is true that as a multiplayer game there are theoretically more opportunities for roleplay in SWG, and if they’d focused on that it would make more sense and be more consistent.

Only if no one challenges it, which is a big problem.

Patents are supposed to be given for new ideas, and also a certain degree of non-obviousness.

In the event that something has been done before by others, it should be open and shut to challenge the patent, but it still costs money. So it’s often easier not to, and the patent doesn’t get challenged.

The mods made under these rules seem guaranteed to be shittier than others.

Appearance and armor mods are out - no Bodyslide. Vast amounts of mods are dependent on SKSE, so those are out. A lot of the coolest stuff these days is possible only with SPID and other such frameworks for mods to use. Those are out.

So, either this will cause a significant decline in mod quality if modders actually try to build for it (to say nothing of the cost - even at $0.50 per mod some of my installs would cost $500+)…or most modders will ignore it, and it’ll go unused, cause it’s too hard to make good mods under these limits.

If it was me in their place, I’d try giving up as little as possible then seek some sort of binding defense agreement, whether NATO or something else. And if necessary do it in secrecy so Russia doesn’t hear about it until the agreement is fully in force.

Honestly I just think the US is simply not reliable, and with Ukraine seemingly relying heavily on the US, they need to be looking for the quickest exit strategy they can come up with at a moment of strength.

Hopefully, if Republicans prevent continued US support, other countries will still provide enough…I just fear it may not be, and that seems like a worse outcome for Ukraine’s people.