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    11. Microsoft brought me back into their ecosystem with Game Pass

      ~games Text 253 words
      I'm primarily a PC gamer with a library slowly approaching 1,000 games on Steam. While I have sometimes bought games through the other storefronts like Blizzard, GOG, Uplay, and EA Origins, I...

      I'm primarily a PC gamer with a library slowly approaching 1,000 games on Steam. While I have sometimes bought games through the other storefronts like Blizzard, GOG, Uplay, and EA Origins, I never really invested significant time in them to the point where I don't keep track of what is in those libraries. Suffice to say, I thought that I was so entrenched in Steam that I couldn't possibly play in another storefront for any meaningful amount of time.

      This has changed for the past year. I hopped on one of those deals that gave me access to Game Pass since Microsoft added all the Bethesda games and partnered with EA Play. And I gotta say, I'm invested now. Invested so much that I bought a Series X despite having zero interest when the new generation of systems was announced. Game Pass on Xbox is an even better deal than Game Pass on PC. The library is larger and for the games that are Play Anywhere, I can continue my save file on my PC when my living room TV is unavailable.

      I really think that Microsoft has a winning strategy with Game Pass this generation and it really surprised me how my attitude to the Xbox ecosystem changed this year. While I think both Sony and Nintendo have great exclusives, the value proposition for me of convenience and a rotating slate of quality games will likely keep me invested and subscribed, moreso than Xbox Gold or PS+ have in the past.

      14 votes

    14. BlizzCon 2021 announcements/trailers/etc

      ~games Text 170 words
      Figured I'd start putting together a thread as the flood of announcements and articles start coming out from this year's BlizzCon. The site, where you can pick which streaming "channel" to watch:...

      Figured I'd start putting together a thread as the flood of announcements and articles start coming out from this year's BlizzCon.

      The site, where you can pick which streaming "channel" to watch: https://blizzcon.com/

      Full schedule: https://blizzcon.com/en-us/schedule

      Opening ceremony: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyApQc-ZmSA

      Diablo IV

      Diablo II: Resurrected

      World of Warcraft

      Overwatch 2

      18 votes

    34. Do Nazis deserve electricity?

      ~talk Text 228 words
      I'm reading about the latest Gitlab shakeup, about (not?) filtering customers on moral grounds. Yesterday, it was Github's decision to continue to support ICE. There's Twitter's decision to allow...

      I'm reading about the latest Gitlab shakeup, about (not?) filtering customers on moral grounds. Yesterday, it was Github's decision to continue to support ICE. There's Twitter's decision to allow politicians to (somewhat?) violate its own rules about threats and harrassment. Blizzard banned a star video game player for speaking out about the Hong Kong protests.

      I'm on Mastodon, and while it's faded from the headlines a bit, the Gab-war still rages there, with the Tusky-v-Fediverse debate over apps blocking domains, and instances blocking other instances over their support for yet other instances.

      Yada.

      I'm thinking a lot these days about the "slippery slope". Mastodon, Twitter, Facebook, Github/lab, etc ... these are all business(-like) entities, privately controlled, which are nonetheless approaching the status of public infrastructure ... at least, sort of.

      PG&E intentionally shut off power to millions of Californians last week, to prevent hypothetical fires. You see where I'm going with this.

      When/As smart capabilities for power grid, ISP, etc emerge, do racists, white supremacists, get Internet? Electricity? Hospital/Ambulance service? Where is that line?

      Is reverse discrimination appropriate? "We don't rent to racists..."?

      Not sure what I'm expecting here. Just starting the thread, see where it goes.

      ETA: A really interesting, thoughtful 2-minute excerpt from a Rogan podcast

      Edit #2: The Hacker News thread that prompted me to start this thread.

      16 votes

    37. Worst weather experience?

      ~talk Text 582 words
      Since it's the peak of tropical storm season again, this thread is open for all to share stories and thoughts about weather experiences. Not necessarily concerns about climate change, but the...

      Since it's the peak of tropical storm season again, this thread is open for all to share stories and thoughts about weather experiences. Not necessarily concerns about climate change, but the incidents you've had personally, and whatever you've learned about preparation, resilience, and recovery.

      I'm no longer a Florida resident, but my contacts are blowing up with concern over Hurricane Dorian.

      I've been watching the storm on this nifty site, which has great tools and visualisations to satisfy the most avid weather geeks.

      Dorian is likely to be another devastating, small-region, high-intensity buzzsaw, like last year's Hurricane Michael, which practically erased towns in the Florida panhandle, or the 1935 Labor Day hurricane. [I'm not really a good person - I'm having more than a little schadenfreude that Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort is near the center of the storm's predicted path. But I'm not the only person who thought of that.]

      According to the Insurance Information Institute, Florida has nearly $600 billion dollars of single family housing at risk from a Category 5 hurricane, leaving aside loss of life and injury.

      My stories, compressed for those who've read this before

      Some of my friends and colleagues have families still recovering from the impacts of 2017's Hurricanes Irma, Harvey, and Maria.

      While I had to deal with these storms' impacts to infrastructure professionally, the hurricanes didn't have enormous personal impact. I was mainly supporting friends or covering for colleagues struggling to help family in Texas, Puerto Rico, and the Caribbean Islands. Our house was eight miles from the coast, so we only dealt with a downed tree and other cleanup, a few hours without power, and some blocked roads.

      Because I have dumb hobbies, the most extreme weather dangers I ever encountered were while kayaking and canoeing. Five years ago, I was on a guided ocean kayaking trip that ran into an unpredicted storm squall. Perfect blue skies and calm one minute; near darkness, huge waves, practically solid rain, and 40-knot winds the next. The party got scattered all over half a dozen of the 10,000 Islands. I struggled to get off the windward side of a long isle, so the wind banged my kayak into mangroves for an hour, then I was paddling furiously to avoid being swept into the Gulf of Mexico. But we all survived without major harm, the guide managed to reconnect us without calling for rescue, and we arrived at our destination with good stories. I can only imagine what it's like to be exposed to worse conditions in a hurricane.

      Up to that time, the most dangerous weather I'd run into was snow and ice storms. When I was a kid, the Blizzard of 1978 left my family stranded, without phones, power or heat, for five days. We had a fireplace, plenty of hardwood, and an ample store of dried and canned provisions, so it felt more like a rustic adventure than the dire situation it could have been. My brother and I thought 10-foot snowdrifts were the greatest fun ever - we spent more time outside than in, "helping" to dig out by making snow forts and tunnels with the neighbors' kids. Of course, it was followed with a spring of chores like putting up half a kilometer of snow fences, learning to drive a 40-hp farm tractor, and setting up a ham radio antenna and generator, as my city-raised parents had come to grasp what rural life really entailed.

      14 votes