largepanda's recent activity

  1. Comment on Humble Choice - September 2025 in ~games

    largepanda
    Link Parent
    Destiny 2 isn't really F2P, it's more accurately a free demo that you then need to buy at least some of the DLCs to get a remotely full experience.

    Destiny 2 isn't really F2P, it's more accurately a free demo that you then need to buy at least some of the DLCs to get a remotely full experience.

    3 votes

  2. Comment on Donald Trump Department of Justice is looking at ways to ban transgender Americans from owning guns, sources say in ~lgbt

    largepanda
    Link Parent
    The NRA also tweeted opposition against the proposed ban, both themselves and retweeting a post explicitly against a "Tran Ban" (both Nitter links). I don't like the NRA, really at all, but they...

    The NRA also tweeted opposition against the proposed ban, both themselves and retweeting a post explicitly against a "Tran Ban" (both Nitter links).

    I don't like the NRA, really at all, but they did show up almost immediately in response to this news.

    8 votes

  3. Comment on WinRAR zero-day under active exploitation – update to latest version immediately in ~tech

    largepanda
    Link Parent
    Yes, tons and tons of people don't know about 7-Zip and are still using WinRAR.

    Yes, tons and tons of people don't know about 7-Zip and are still using WinRAR.

    14 votes

  4. Comment on Remedy is "unsatisfied" with the sales of its live-service shooter FBC: Firebreak, as the game underperformed on Steam in ~games

    largepanda
    Link
    I've put 16.2 hours in FBC: Firebreak, playing right on launch day and launching it back up after every patch. The game is fun with two friends, but only for so long, because it's an unfinished...

    I've put 16.2 hours in FBC: Firebreak, playing right on launch day and launching it back up after every patch. The game is fun with two friends, but only for so long, because it's an unfinished mess.

    There are 5 missions: Hot Fix, Paper Chase, Ground Control, Frequency Shift, and Freezer Duty. Each mission has 1-3 rooms (depending on difficulty), you complete an objective to unlock the next room, then once you've completed all the rooms, you have to book it back to the entrance in room 1 before the enemies overwhelm you.

    Room 1-2 are always the same objective, just on different maps. Room 3 is a different thematically-related objective, except for Frequency Shift where it's the same. Every map is identical, with only pickups for the objectives and health/ammo stations shuffled. The objectives themselves, saferooms, and layout are always the same.

    Paper Chase and Hot Fix are the best missions, but would still be B tier Payday 2 heists at best. Frequency Shift and Freezer Duty are both alright, though they could definitely use some refinement. Missions still have key pieces that aren't relevant, like Paper Chase's electricity attack in the final boss room doing borderline nothing, and you should only worry about the water pipes. Freezer Duty takes way too long to dispatch frost specters, and moving the heaters feels bad.

    My friends and I would have sessions where we'd do one run on each mission on high or max difficulty. After a few nights of this we cut out Ground Control, as the first two rooms feel like an unrefined first draft, which is especially a shame as GC's final room, the titular ground control to launch a rocket, is actually pretty decent.

    There are 3 character classes in the game and Splash is wildly more important than the other two. Jump and Fix are both useful at times, but without a Splash (who basically has to play a medic role) you're screwed. For a game called "Firebreak", having only one class able to easily extinguish fires is an insane design choice.

    To earn the secondary upgrade currencies, you have to play missions with the corrupted difficulty slider turned up. This will spawn 1-3 corrupted items in the level to make things harder, except the corrupted items aren't balanced well at all. A few items (riot helmet, stapler, snare drum) make the game wildly difficult, to the point of being unfair if they spawn in before you have good weapons and upgrades, or if you're not playing with two similarly experienced friends. The rest are easily managed or even beneficial to you.

    Taking the black rock rounds upgrade trivializes disposing of corrupted items, and not having it makes dispatching them a nightmare, having to find a black rock launcher somewhere in the level. Some items, namely the stapler and crowbar, have such small hitboxes they're not fun to try and shoot, especially with the amount of rounds you need to dispatch them.

    While I was playing it with friends, we were constantly comparing it to similar co-op games that do this better. Payday 2 has small fixed maps, but avoids monotony with randomized objectives in randomized locations. Left 4 Dead 2 has massive maps with randomized weapons, so even though they're the same they take so much longer that they stay interesting. Helldivers 2 has randomized maps with randomized objectives, and an overarching story to keep things fresh.

    All those listed games have better team cohesion, better gunplay (you have a primary and a secondary!), more varied levels, and just generally are more fun once the novelty of "discount helldivers in the oldest house" wears off. I'm hopeful the game will get to a better point with future patches, but until then I don't see myself reopening it.

    11 votes

  5. Comment on Reddit will block the Internet Archive in ~tech

    largepanda
    Link
    This is just depressing.

    This is just depressing.

    67 votes

  6. Comment on Why won't the Wayback Machine archive my page? in ~tech

    largepanda
    Link
    There's a delay between a webpage being saved by archive.org and it being accessible via the wayback machine. It's generally only 10-30 minutes, but can sometimes take longer if you get unlucky in...

    There's a delay between a webpage being saved by archive.org and it being accessible via the wayback machine. It's generally only 10-30 minutes, but can sometimes take longer if you get unlucky in the processing queue.

    7 votes

  7. Comment on Did a fictional character from a show/movie influence your life? in ~talk

    largepanda
    Link Parent
    Socially acceptable in high school now? No. Less socially unacceptable? Yeah.

    Socially acceptable in high school now? No.
    Less socially unacceptable? Yeah.

    2 votes

  8. Comment on What are some cross-media adaptations/tie-ins that you'd recommend? in ~talk

    largepanda
    Link Parent
    You can't mention Avatar and Korra mixed media without mentioning the novels. I've only read the two Kyoshi novels so far, but they were fantastic storylines that expand the world of Avatar,...

    You can't mention Avatar and Korra mixed media without mentioning the novels. I've only read the two Kyoshi novels so far, but they were fantastic storylines that expand the world of Avatar, introducing new characters and retaining the same charm as the original shows. I'm very excited to read the Yangchen novels by the same author (F.C. Yee) and the Avatar Roku novel (by Randy Ribay) that was recently released.

    1 vote

  10. Comment on [SOLVED] Anyone know of a site that tracks if a series is "done"? in ~tv

    largepanda
    Link
    TheTVDB is an online database of TV and movies. You can think of it sort of like IMDb, but without the corporate influence, and with a functioning API. The site tracks a show's "status", if the...

    TheTVDB is an online database of TV and movies. You can think of it sort of like IMDb, but without the corporate influence, and with a functioning API. The site tracks a show's "status", if the show is expected to get more episodes.

    For example:

    • Breaking Bad shows Status: Ended, since the show is not expected to get any more episodes
    • Ruri Rocks shows Status: Continuing, as it's currently airing, with episode 2 releasing next Sunday
    • The Rookie also shows Status: Continuing, even though it finished its last season, because the show hasn't been cancelled and is expected to get another season
    • Akira shows Status: Upcoming, as it's releasing in the non-immediate future

    Note that, because available information is imperfect (and creators'/studios' decisions change), the status might change from Ended back to Continuing, e.x. Cyberpunk: Edgerunners was set to Ended for two years, then suddenly a new season was announced a few days ago, so it's back to Continuing.

    Importantly, TheTVDB is the backing database for many people's automated media libraries (via a tool called Sonarr), which means a large populace of nerds who like updating databases (hi!) are very invested in keeping it up to date and accurate.

    30 votes

  11. Comment on Why is Cloudflare trusted with encryption? in ~tech

  12. Comment on Colorado deputies investigating after $1.4 million of Nintendo Switch 2 consoles stolen from semi-truck in ~games

    largepanda
    Link Parent
    Yes and yes. Though more likely they'll be flagged as stolen, allowed to function normally, then when an end user puts in their details they can be contacted to find out where they got the console.

    Yes and yes. Though more likely they'll be flagged as stolen, allowed to function normally, then when an end user puts in their details they can be contacted to find out where they got the console.

    7 votes

  13. Comment on How can I organize and store my cables? in ~life.home_improvement

    largepanda
    Link
    Back when my cable collection was smaller, I would store mine using ziplock bags labeled with what kind of cable they were. Some cables would get nested categories (e.x. microUSB bag inside the...

    Back when my cable collection was smaller, I would store mine using ziplock bags labeled with what kind of cable they were. Some cables would get nested categories (e.x. microUSB bag inside the USB bag), and some specific cables got their own dedicated bag. Digging through plastic bags is very quick, especially compared to digging through tangled cables.
    Cables within the bags were either bagged themselves or were coiled up, sometimes with a velcro tie around it.

    I also can't recommend a USB cable tester enough. I've spent far too much of my life fighting unreliable cables and I'm just done with it. All USB cables I get are tested, if they don't have their data pins wired or have flakey connections (e.x. connection lights flickering when the connector moves around), they're immediately cut in half and put into the electronics recycling bin.

    20 votes

  14. Comment on Nintendo Switch 2 screen punctures ruin launch day for fans due to store receipts stapled into console's box in ~games

    largepanda
    Link Parent
    The Switch 1 had a plastic screen, with Nintendo citing safety concerns over shattered glass, so I would suspect the Switch 2 has the same.

    The Switch 1 had a plastic screen, with Nintendo citing safety concerns over shattered glass, so I would suspect the Switch 2 has the same.

    12 votes

  15. Comment on How Red Hat just quietly, radically transformed enterprise server Linux in ~comp

    largepanda
    Link Parent
    OP went down a weird path. The most likely thing a user would've found would've been Homebrew, and a brew install mono would've had them up and running. Alternatively, they'd find rpm-ostree,...

    OP went down a weird path. The most likely thing a user would've found would've been Homebrew, and a brew install mono would've had them up and running.

    Alternatively, they'd find rpm-ostree, which installs normal RPM packages and layers them onto your immutable root.

    So the process would've been rpm-ostree install mono, reboot, and Mono is installed just like a normal Fedora install.

    3 votes

  16. Comment on Using Rust backend to serve an SPA in ~comp

    largepanda
    Link Parent
    I'm a Rust developer and I occasionally get dragged into doing web dev as needed. This post could've been interesting to skim as tangentially related to my area of expertise, instead of...

    I'm a Rust developer and I occasionally get dragged into doing web dev as needed. This post could've been interesting to skim as tangentially related to my area of expertise, instead of frustrating, with a single added definition.

    1 vote

  17. Comment on Using Rust backend to serve an SPA in ~comp

    largepanda
    Link
    What the fuck is "an SPA"? Nowhere in this entire post is a definition provided. I'm guessing it means "Single Page Application"? You really need to provide some context here.

    What the fuck is "an SPA"? Nowhere in this entire post is a definition provided. I'm guessing it means "Single Page Application"? You really need to provide some context here.

    1 vote

  18. Comment on Personal inventory management software in ~comp

    largepanda
    Link Parent
    Grocy doesn't know what anything is OOTB, you define all the types and units you want.

    Grocy doesn't know what anything is OOTB, you define all the types and units you want.

    2 votes

  19. Comment on Android phones will soon reboot themselves after sitting unused for three days in ~tech

    largepanda
    Link Parent
    Forcibly enabling it by default is the correct move from a legal perspective, actually. If it required a consent popup, or especially if it wasn't enabled by default, it could be argued that the...

    Forcibly enabling it by default is the correct move from a legal perspective, actually. If it required a consent popup, or especially if it wasn't enabled by default, it could be argued that the person who set up the device was intentionally impeding law enforcement by enabling it.

    23 votes

  20. Comment on Nintendo Direct: Nintendo Switch 2 – 4.2.2025 in ~games

    largepanda
    Link Parent
    Switch OLED was likely delayed by around a year due to the pandemic; also OLEDs have only gone down in price. The time delta between regular and OLED should be smaller at this point. The Steam...

    Switch OLED was likely delayed by around a year due to the pandemic; also OLEDs have only gone down in price.

    The time delta between regular and OLED should be smaller at this point. The Steam Deck OLED came out less than 2 years after the regular Steam Deck. However, Valve is generally saner and less user hostile than Nintendo, so who knows what the delay will be.

    I'm honestly befuddled that the Switch 2 isn't OLED from the beginning. Every mid-range (and up) smartphone is. Nintendo pushed HDR in the announcement but it'll look like shit on the LCD screen they have in there, especially if it doesn't have local dimming zones like the specs page implies.

    5 votes