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6 votes
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The California man who hid for six months in a secret room inside Circuit City
53 votes -
US v. Google: As landmark 'monopoly power' trial closes, here's what to look for
21 votes -
Early tests of H5N1 prevalence in milk suggest US bird flu outbreak in cows is widespread
63 votes -
David Byrne - Hard Times (Paramore cover, 2024)
9 votes -
Canada bet big on immigration. Now it’s hitting the brakes.
31 votes -
Take-Two publishes WARN notice about seventy layoffs and studio closure in Seattle, possibly affecting Kerbal Space Program 2 developers Intercept Games
Take-Two posted a legally-required notice that it is laying off 70 workers and closing a studio in Seattle. This is part of mass layoffs announced across Take-Two. This has also been mentioned by...
Take-Two posted a legally-required notice that it is laying off 70 workers and closing a studio in Seattle. This is part of mass layoffs announced across Take-Two. This has also been mentioned by Games Industry.biz, although without much more details than what I have here (at time of writing).
The only Take-Two studio in Seattle is Intercept Games, who have been making Kerbal Space Program 2. We also know that Intercept had about 65-70 people working there (half of which were on KSP2, half of which were on an unannounced project).
Various KSP2 devs have also posted on social media that they have been impacted by layoffs (not sure about the rules re: linking social media profiles, so I'll hold off).
We may or may not have more news in the coming days. It's hard times in the industry right now, and my heart goes out for everyone affected.
EDIT: From Game Developer:
When approached for comment by Game Developer, Take-Two wouldn't confirm whether Intercept Games has been impacted by the cuts–despite multiple Kerbal Space Program developers indicating they recently left the studio, with one expressly stating they were "laid off." A company spokesperson did, however, explain that its Private Division publishing label will continue to support Kerbal Space Program 2.
...
When pushed again on the current status of Intercept Games, Take-Two told Game Developer it has "nothing further to note."
31 votes -
Colorado lawmakers approve broad, nation-leading Right to Repair law
22 votes -
What does “going with your gut” feel like to you? How did you learn to “trust your gut”?
As the title indicates, I am curious how folks have “gone with their gut intuition”, especially in circumstances where they are faced with tough decisions or life-altering changes. Some...
As the title indicates, I am curious how folks have “gone with their gut intuition”, especially in circumstances where they are faced with tough decisions or life-altering changes. Some thoughts/prompts for discussion:
- What does your “gut” feel like to you?
- How do you reconcile differences between your “gut feeling” and what your brain is thinking/telling you?
- How do you get to the point where you decide to “go with your gut”?
- Can you share examples of when you went against your brain, and followed your gut, and it turned out to totally be the right decision for you?
- Do you have any examples of when you followed your gut intuition, instead of what your brain/logical mind was telling you, and it came back to bite you?
- How have you learned to “trust your gut”?
- What tactics or steps have you learned to take when trying to parse between what your “gut” is telling you and what your “brain” is telling you?
Curious how other people listen to their gut and use that intuition to make decisions or choose which direction to go in (concerning life stuff, career stuff, relationship issues, etc.).
20 votes -
Turns out the Rabbit R1 was just an Android app all along
25 votes -
‘The science isn’t there’: do dating apps really help us find our soulmate?
31 votes -
The state as blunt force - impressions of the Columbia campus clearance
11 votes -
Confused about headphone impedance
I have a guitar multi effects that has a headphone out with 47Ω I want a budget somewhat neutral headphone to use with it and I am getting confused with the answers I found so far. The AKG K240...
I have a guitar multi effects that has a headphone out with 47Ω
I want a budget somewhat neutral headphone to use with it and I am getting confused with the answers I found so far.
The AKG K240 mk2 (55Ω) seems to be a popular choice with people who own another multi effects (HX Stomp) with a different impedance (I think it's 12Ω).
This headphone is within my budget, but it seems too close to the 47 output of my multifx.
Will I have a problem with this?
I read somewhere that the headphone impedance should be much bigger than the output impedance, but another text I read somewhere explained that they should match closely.
I'm really confused about this.
5 votes -
Let’s go whaling: Tricks for monetising mobile game players with free-to-play
9 votes -
What would you recommend for a single, minimal, "overview-of-the-world" news source?
I'm getting ready to try a long-term media fast, at least a month or two. That means no Social, no general forum talk (I have a couple of task-specific groups I have to stick with), no general...
I'm getting ready to try a long-term media fast, at least a month or two. That means no Social, no general forum talk (I have a couple of task-specific groups I have to stick with), no general Internet browsing, and minimal news.
But I don't want to completely divorce myself from the major news events of the world. In case Russia invades the EU, I want to know about it before Russian soldiers are knocking on my door. If a new global pandemic kicks off, or they fix global warming ... you know, Big Ticket items.
So that's the question. If you only get one news source, that provides objective (-ish) reporting focused on actual news (not sports, not pop culture, not click-bait-y diet-fads and vitamin recommendations) ... news of the state of the world (preferably including the world beyond the United States).
I realize there probably isn't a single source that hits all my bullets, but that's okay; I just need one that's close.
Danke, y gracias.
Edit: For now, my first pick is AP News' World News section ( https://apnews.com/world-news ). So, that's sort of my baseline; anything better than that available?
Edit #2: So, apparently, AP News has either handicapped or completely eliminated their RSS feed(s); I'm getting some results, but all old and suspiciously incomplete, and the 'Net is full of "here's how to cobble together the equivalent of a real AP News RSS feed" tips. So, unless I figure this out quickly, I'm just about to lose interest in AP News.
Anyone have any tips on this?
43 votes -
A lawsuit argues Meta is required by law to let you control your own feed
30 votes -
The youth need your help
21 votes -
Small movies, big profits: Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell’s rom-com, horror hits among overachievers in Deadline’s 2023 most valuable blockbuster tournament
5 votes -
US Supreme Court leaves in place a Texas law requiring pornographic websites to verify users' ages
33 votes -
Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of April 29
This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate...
This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.
This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.
3 votes -
Opinion: The many US campaign finance violations divulged in Donald Trump’s hush-money criminal trial
25 votes -
TV Tuesdays Free Talk
Warning: this post may contain spoilers
Have you watched any TV shows recently you want to discuss? Any shows you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.
Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.
7 votes -
How many clicks does it take to get to the center of Diablo? [A franchise retrospective]
8 votes -
Who lives in a pineapple under the sea? A SpongeBob 25th anniversary retrospective.
14 votes -
London Drugs closes stores until further notice due to cyberattack
22 votes -
Paul Auster, the patron saint of literary Brooklyn, dies at 77
15 votes -
Ferrying voting machines to mountains and tropical areas in Indian elections is a Herculean task
13 votes -
‘Red One’ down: How Dwayne Johnson’s tardiness led to a $250 million runaway production
22 votes -
Tildes Book Club - Voting thread 2
As soon as Deimos graciously adds the nominated book titles, we will be voting on the next set of books to read for the book club. Voting will close end of day Thursday May 2 Pacific time. If you...
As soon as Deimos graciously adds the nominated book titles, we will be voting on the next set of books to read for the book club. Voting will close end of day Thursday May 2 Pacific time.
If you plan to read with us, please upvote as many as five titles. We will select at least four, possibly more if there are books with solid support. Each voting thread requires Deimos to work, and I am going to have less availability for a few months so we want to select books to read for the next few months.
I look forward to reading and discussing with you all.
23 votes -
GDP per capita vs. the federal poverty rate over the years (observation and discussion)
Fair warning, I'm a dummy trying to talk about stuff I don't fully understand, but I wanted to see others' thoughts on this. In the 1960s, America's GDP (per capita) was $3,000. Also, in 1960, the...
Fair warning, I'm a dummy trying to talk about stuff I don't fully understand, but I wanted to see others' thoughts on this.
In the 1960s, America's GDP (per capita) was $3,000.
Also, in 1960, the federal poverty limit was $3,000 for a family of four.In 2023, the GDP (per capita) was $82,034.
The federal poverty limit for a family of four in 2023 was $30,000.This can't be good for the American people. Unless I'm drawing comparisons between two completely unrelated things?
People who are barely in poverty today would have to earn ~2.7x the amount they earn to stay consistent with those who were barely in poverty in the 1960s if GDP and FPL were still equal to each other. So what about the families caught in the middle? Too high earnings to get help and too low to thrive? They just suffer, I guess.
Out of curiosity, I calculated what the thresholds would be if the percentages of GDP to FPL were swapped between 2023 and 1960.
1960s numbers adjusted if FPL matched 2023's percentage:
GDP=$3,000
FPL=$1,1111960s numbers adjusted if GDP matched the percentage comparison of 2023:
GDP=$8,100
FPL=$3,000Please let me know if it actually matters that the GDP per capita is 2.7x the federal poverty limit for a family of four. Also, let me know your thoughts.
8 votes -
How (and why) the right stole Christianity
22 votes -
Enzymes open new path to universal donor blood
12 votes -
US drug control agency will move to reclassify marijuana in a historic shift, AP sources say
75 votes -
AI video throwdown: OpenAI’s Sora vs. Runway and Pika
3 votes -
Philips agrees to pay $1 billion to patients who say they were injured by breathing machines
31 votes -
Alan Wake 2 still hasn't earned back its budget
28 votes -
‘Ideal’ movie running time is ninety-two minutes, poll claims
18 votes -
Weak demand, new model ramp up hit Europe's automakers
5 votes -
How ECMO is redefining death
22 votes -
Telegram creator on Elon Musk, resisting FBI attacks, and getting mugged in California
7 votes -
UK becomes first country to outlaw easily guessable default passwords on connected devices
37 votes -
Cassava: The perilous past and promising future of a toxic but nourishing crop
6 votes -
Climate policy is working – double down on what’s succeeding instead of despairing over what’s not
48 votes -
Utah cat found safe in California after sneaking into Amazon return box
36 votes -
Calendar types in watches
13 votes -
Viral lost song ‘Ulterior Motives’ found in obscure ‘80s porn flick
59 votes -
New products collect data from your brain. Where does it go?
4 votes -
Summer box office pines for $3 Billion: ‘Garfield’ could scratch ‘Furiosa’, ‘Beetlejuice 2’ might see best opening just outside of season, and other zany forecasts
4 votes -
Mufasa: The Lion King | Teaser trailer
15 votes -
How to end a level 20 D&D campaign with a bang
-----UNDERMOUNTAIN SPOILERS----- -----HALASTER BLACKCLOAK SPOILERS----- I've been playing and DMing D&D since the late 70s. Most of my campaigns have been homebrew worlds with my own rulesets. But...
-----UNDERMOUNTAIN SPOILERS-----
-----HALASTER BLACKCLOAK SPOILERS-----
I've been playing and DMing D&D since the late 70s. Most of my campaigns have been homebrew worlds with my own rulesets. But as with many of us, the pandemic became a personal golden era of online gaming with friends around the world, especially with the old classic modules and Roll20.
This campaign began simply enough. It was called Thug & Thugger, and it only had two players. I told them they were thieves who stole from other thieves, interrupting the thefts and taking what they wanted for themselves. And it worked fine for the first 7-8 levels. But then we got ambitious and I sent them on a Spelljammer ship into the Phlogiston. There, they found the protection of an elder goddess who had been imprisoned and needed them to rescue her. But in the course of their rescue, things went sideways and instead of being murdered by Nalfeshnee and Hezrou demons, the elder goddess in a last gasp to save her heroes sent them "somewhere random."
Where they landed was the seventh level of The Dungeon of the Mad Mage in Undermountain. Not only that, but the demons had been compelled to be their familiars and... once they figured out their scale issues... all of them were no more than nine inches tall. The characters discovered that they couldn't go up any floors, only down. If they were going to survive this, they would have to conquer all 23 levels of the dungeon. Now, I'm well aware that this plot sounds like it came out of the diary of a 12 year old, but ultimately what we wanted was a campaign that finally took players all the way to the end and allowed them godhood after level 20.
With all our play these last few years, the schedules of daily life had defeated nearly every campaign. That was why we only had two players. And that was why we shoe-horned our narrative arc into the only module we could find that would get the players to 20.
The first five floors or so were an absolute bloody blast. They were immensely overpowered, despite being only nine inches tall, and they went through entire hordes like a buzzsaw. After the near-death challenges of the Phlogiston it felt like a victory lap. And as the DM I was fine with it, knowing their bully ways wouldn't last. At a certain point, one of their foes banished the Nalfeshnee (which was a massive loss--those things are stupidly powerful) and they regained their former physical height.
Then it was a fight. The two characters were a warlock/bard and a ranger/monk. Both fought well in the magical dark without disadvantage. That was their main strategy: cast darkness and then wade in. It worked for most of the levels and against a wide variety of enemies, especially since the vast majority of spells require you to "see" your target. But then the monk started spamming stunning strike and they got back to running the table on me. Dungeon of the Mad Mage was written before stunning was a thing, so not a single foe had resistance or immunity to it. He would burn through the legendary saves of nearly any bad guy and still have extra ki points left over.
They leveled and leveled again. They also became clerics to appropriately worship the elder goddess. Their bag of holding filled with gear and each action or attack became as convoluted as a Disney contract. The number of saves, reactions, buffs, etc. that needed to be accounted for on every move was something I won't attempt again without an AI assistant. As they approached the final battle, I realized that I needed help.
One player had told me that another friend group of ours had tried the year before to take on Undermountain but that campaign had fallen apart. So I secretly texted the DM of that group with a proposal: Since you know this campaign so well, I need some assistance for the end. He happily agreed.
On the day of the final battle, the players were locked in combat with Halaster's most senior minions. Suddenly, the Mad Mage himself arrived. That's right. On the Zoom channel, someone new joined. Someone named Halaster. He appeared in a wizard robe and fake white beard, wielding a scepter he'd bought on Amazon, with a screen behind him generated by AI to look like Halaster's lair.
My players lost their minds. They thought I was just going to put on a corny voice and be Halaster myself. No no no. But this wasn't to be just a cameo. I told the new player to legitimately have Halaster kill them. I wasn't looking for a happy ending. And as the DM I wasn't going to be anything but the referee, adjudicating what had now become a PvP situation. Two players against the Mage. My two players finally realized what I had in store for them. This was a serious no-holds-barred fight to the death.
The Halaster player is also a legendary game designer in his own right, a video game designer turned executive who has worked on many games we all know. He called in several other legends of the industry to help him figure out his moves. I even handed him the gift of cursed gloves I'd tricked the monk into putting on several levels before, which made his stunning strikes against Halaster something he needed to roll on the wild sorcery magic table.
And they still beat him and won their freedom and the freedom of their elder goddess. But man was it a battle. They withstood his meteor storm and made saves against his most potent spells. At the end, the bard only had 3hp and nearly everyone else was dead.
But we did it! We finally finished a level 20 campaign. And now we know we never need to do that again, lol. It became so unwieldy and slow after about level 15 that it felt more like work than play.
We look forward to starting over with simple characters who do simple things. The monk will be the DM this time, leading me and the other player in the Lost Mines of Phandelver. And each of us will try playing two simultaneous classic characters this time: me a dwarven cleric and elven illusionist, he a half-orc fighter and wood elf rogue. At least we know our schedules work.
24 votes