Sex scenes in games… makes me think of Mass Effect and the “Sex Box” controversy the Karens made up after that game was released.

I finally got through Mass Effect and saw the sex scene for the first time yesterday (Female Shepard, and Liara, the blue-skinned alien, if it matters) and wow, that was PG-13. You don’t see anything! It’s all implied! Might as well have been a fade-to-black sex scene.

I wonder what those Karens would say about Cyberpunk… full frontal nudity male and female, and actual explicit (R-rated) sex scenes (penetration isn’t shown but is heavily implied).

Honestly you’re not missing much. There are good things in Invisible War, but the software was just bad.

The problem with Deus Ex was, they made a great computer game, but it could not run on Xbox and they had to struggle to get it on PS2. They had to basically remake the thing. They developed Invisible War for the Xbox first, PlayStation never (AFAIK), and the PC port was a bad port that suffered the problems of the Xbox version. (This was OG Xbox, not even Xbox 360.)

If you get a chance to play Human Revolution (the third one/reboot/prequel), definitely do so, it’s very good. Came out on the 360, but plays well on Series X and PC. Had a yellow tint to everything (like the Underworld films and their blue tint). A Directors Cut came out later removing the yellow tint (though you had the option to bring it back) and integrating the DLC. Great game.

What I liked about Invisible War was, it didn’t care what ending you picked in the original. It assumed you picked the Helios ending, but explains that you couldn’t contain Helios, so the New Dark Age (destroy the compound) happened anyway, and the Illuminati moved in (so Illuminati ending is canon, but so are the other two). Invisible War’s Helios ending is awesome and terrible at the same time. You basically invent the Borg from Star Trek. The Illuminati ending is creepy, but seems like the most reasonable. Another has all the leaders killed, and I also remember an alien invasion. In short, there are no good choices. What was cool was the rival coffee companies and what you learn if you do all of their quests. And the Britney Spears/Taylor Swift chatbot.

And the ugly? In the original, though they never come out and tell you, the human race is a couple generations from extinction as the youngest woman in the Deus Ex universe is in her late teens. There are little boys, but little girls are extinct. They’ve all grown up. And once the youngest one hits menopause… no more boys will be born either. Invisible War flips this around. Now the only children in the world are female. (And you can still kill children in Invisible War, just like you could in the original.) Humanity is still doomed, but we got a reprieve of maybe a decade when girls were being born who, when they got older, could be used to continue the species. Of course, neither of these things are actually canon to the world of Deus Ex. It’s just technical limitations. It would be years before Skyrim would figure out you could use one body for both boys and girls, and just give girls longer hair.

Yeah, same. It sounded cool in concept. Like something in a video game. But like, what happens if you drown? Seems a real possibility. You would not be able to get insurance on your place if they knew you had that. I feel like secret tunnels in general would make liability insurance very hard to come by, or very expensive.

Yes, I know about GrapheneOS and their loyalty to Google. So you still have to pay Google for the device and then you can install GrapheneOS on it.

I also used CyanogenMod (and the others, AOKP and Paranoid Android and many of their derivatives) back in the day. Tickled fucking pink to see that Paranoid Android still exists. That fork was fun.

I also used a phone where everyone wanted a certain custom ROM for that phone, so bad, that they got together the money and actually bought this guy the phone. He said “suckers,” flipped it on Ebay, and that was that. I don’t recall if he ever promised to build for us if someone bought him the phone or that was just hopium. I also did not donate to the endeavour. So a phone has to be actively supported by developers, or a developer, and as they themselves get newer phones, they tend to drop older ones. So you’re not getting new versions of Android, new features, or even security fixes. Needless to say, I don’t trust custom firmware.

Trash. I mean, in some ways it’s better than Apple’s keyboard, but what makes Gboard so damn good on Android is, it does things iPhones don’t allow. Gboard on Android associates your typing with your account and how you type and the kinds of things you say. Apple does not allow Gboard for iOS to get that information, and it doesn’t run as fast or as efficiently as the iOS keyboard. I don’t feel comfortable using any third-party keyboard. It’s like using a keyboard on top of another keyboard. I feel the delay.

As a religiously neutral person (I don’t fit with either atheists or agnostics), I like the idea of this.

There is a finite amount of information about Jesus… and a lot of speculation. There are also other books that are not part of the Bible because those who curated the Bible chose not to include them. The first five books of the New Testament for example, the Gospels of Luke, John, and the others, are the stories of Jesus, but they differ slightly due to each disciple’s interpretation. You may ask why Judas didn’t get a book? He wrote one. But it was not included because he was the traitor who betrayed Jesus. So he doesn’t get a say. But, what if he did?

I’d like to see this chat bot be very transparent about its sources. By default it should limit itself to what is in the Bible, but it should also be possible to add other sources as well. If Christians are truly serious about the command by God to not add anything to the Bible, a Jesus chatbot should be more trustworthy than some Biblical scholar’s book about Jesus. The latter is speculation while the former should only be sourced from the Bible. Sure, it might be sacrilege, but if it’s done right, I think it could be an invaluable tool for priests who want to run their planned sermon — since a lot of them now are writing them on a computer anyway — by “Jesus” to have “Him” tell them if anything goes against the Bible and how they could improve it.

I’d just be curious what it says about certain controversial topics, especially if it goes against the Christian grain, and can source its reasoning with Scripture. To avoid blasphemy, it should also tell you straight up that it is not pretending to be Jesus, but rather, is only using the entire Bible (+ whatever sources you add) to help you understand what Jesus, as portrayed in those sources, would say. I imagine it would be against abortion, for example, since the act of a married het couple is an act of God and the fetus would have a soul. It would be less sure if the parents were not married, but I think it would still be against it. That said, it would probably be for immigrants and the poor. It would point out that homosexual sex is considered an unclean act, but the actual love and relationship itself is not and that a pious life would counteract that, and it could also point out that everyone sins and lives unclean lives, and that’s the whole point of John 3:16. But, what do I know, I’m not a Christian. I’ve just read the Bible. A long time ago. But I feel like I got the message.

Yes and they’re free. At least the ones I’ve used. I started with Voyager on iOS and Android. I still have it on Android. I now use Mlem on iOS, but I still have Voyager installed.

My problem with Voyager is that if you’re browsing /all and you block a community, it penalises you by returning you to the top of the feed. I don’t think that’s fair. There are some things I just don’t want to see, but Lemmy is small enough that sometimes I want to see everything. It’s how I find new communities. So I use Voyager to browse subscribed communities, and Mlem to browse /all.

Everyone saying they’d be for it, wouldn’t be for it if the 22 year old was your lil sister and the 28 year old was the guy, and he wants to fly her to other states and maybe out of country. You’re rightly concerned that she is being coerced into certain sexual acts to earn her way back home (if she’ll be allowed to return to her family) and that these acts will be recorded and held over her so if she tries to advance socially, financially, or politically, they can be weaponised against her. Financial abuse 101 with a side of trafficking.

As the guy you think you have the power since the one with more money is female. You think that evens it out. But she has friends. She could get a rich man and probably already has. Maybe it’s the rich man playing you, he just wants to control you via proxy. You think she’s holding your leash but it’s really him. Maybe she doesn’t even have the six figure job, maybe she’s another victim, but she’s the bait.

I’m fine with age gap. When I was 19-20 I was good friends with a woman in her early 30s and a woman in her late 40s. They both had decent money. I was trying to hook up with the older one. The one in her 30s was bipolar and had a long-term boyfriend who could kick my ass, but he worked long hours and she wanted me as her side piece. The older one was a widow who wasn’t ready to get back into the game, but she was very kind and accommodating and often took me out to lunch or dinner or back to hers for drinks, but wouldn’t let me take her back to her room or even get a hand up her shirt. Not that I was pushy, but I did let her know the option was there, and didn’t press when she left it on the table. The other woman on the other hand… well, she’d also take me out, take me back to hers, and next thing I know she’s naked, touching herself, and all but saying “come get me.” Maybe I was a fool to say no and nope on out of there, maybe I was wise, who knows. She was a good friend, a fun friend, but maybe a little dangerous. She ended up leaving that guy, got another guy, got married, settled down… and moved away. All for the best I think.

Now I’m the age the older of the two women was. Ain’t no way in hell I’d mess with a girl as young as I was then. I guess it’s different, but then again, it seems like a lot of men my age would go for someone that young. “She’s legal,” they’d say. Legal doesn’t matter to me. “Legal” is too young. Hell, 30 is too young. I have friends now, ironically, who are in their early 20s and mid-30s. They’re too young for me. We get along, I’d love to hang out with them more, but they both feel too young as far as attraction goes.

The coin it made is nickel (silvery)? Not bronze/copper? Most of those machines take two quarters and a penny, and then they smash, stretch, and stamp the penny. The two quarters is the cost of the souvenir penny. They used to have those machines everywhere. Not sure, maybe they still are in some places.

君の名は。 in Japanese with no subtitles. I don’t know Japanese. It just hits different and I know what they say regardless. (Movie is called your name. in English.)

Invisible War. The controversial sequel to Deus Ex. The PC port ran like shit on the best PCs, but I have Macs. Xbox might be the best way to play it but it’s still gonna suck. The game itself was good but the tech was complete trash. Literal downgrade in every way from the first one. And yet it was still a gem.

We just gonna ignore Symphony of the Night like that?

That doesn’t look like it’s running on a PlayStation emulator…

More water.

My dream house when I was a kid had one. I didn’t have the whole floor plan laid out, but this was a feature I wanted.

There would be a standard above-ground pool, except there would be a waterfall, built into a rock structure. Pumps would take the pool water to the top and send it back down. However, the rock structure would extend back into a hill or something, and if you swam to the bottom of the pool, there would be a sliding door. You would swim down, slide the door back, flooding the chamber inside, and pull the door shut. The water would then drain (and maybe be fed back into the pool somehow?) and then you’d crawl into a hidden cave under the rocks/hill that would have a secret area, possibly including a pool. Though, that would be more of an “underground” pool rather than an “underwater” one. There would also be another entrance to the bunker… which would totally not be a fallout shelter, just a hidden lounge type area. There would be a “cargo entrance” to back a truck up into to bring furniture in, as well. But the idea is, after moving furniture/other big stuff in, you could close a door and seal it back up with dirt to hide that entrance.

If this were my child, I would take her out for a burger and milkshake (or whatever she wanted) and buy her something nice. A toy, a game, something like that.

Because the fight itself is an inconvenience for the school. Also, they figure you probably asked for it at some point.

The name of the crime would be assault. Would you like a definition? ;)

100% agree she should not be charged as I believe it’s 100% justified here, but to say you don’t know what they would charge her with when it’s pretty clear… That said, it should be understood that when someone does something that deserves a slap or a punch or a kick, while the person might be guilty of the crime, the justification means you do not pursue it. Like the father who catches the guy messing with his kid and he kills the guy. Yes it’s Murder 2 but you don’t charge him if there’s a decent bone in your body. You help him get the body off his property so he can tend to his child.

I also agree the focus should be on the actual crime, the guy making CP of a minor. Even if he used technology to fake it. It’s still portraying a child; ergo, it’s CP. The focus should be on him being placed on a sex offender registry for however many years. But, it’s Louisiana so who knows. The girl would have no rights, especially if she has dark skin.

ETA: First part is meant to be funny, not argumentative. Apologies if it came across that way! Agree with you, was trying to be funny.

I got tired of Windows pulling this shit with my 4th gen Xeon and 6th gen Core i7 (laptop) that, when they died, I replaced them both with Macs. Always wanted to be a Mac user. Now I am.

I know, “Apple isn’t much better,” but at least I can say I voted with my wallet. Just buying another PC, even if I could find one without a Windows license, and installing Linux, would not have been enough of a shift. Plus I feel I would have just came back to Windows anyway.

I think we should get the focus away from the “phone.” Most people justify buying a smartphone by saying they “need a phone” but the phone app becomes the least used thing on it.

I like the term ‘cyberdeck’ from the Cyberpunk game. It’s a bit… punk… but it more accurately describes what a phone is these days. It’s more accurate to say it’s a handheld personal computer. The iPhone is the easier example. It’s a handheld Mac with a custom launcher and a cellular modem. It can be used as a phone, and it’s a good one because it has FaceTime to fall back on. This is interesting because, technically speaking, an iPhone without a cellular connection can still call other iPhones over WiFi, via FaceTime. Of course, with Android as with iPhone, you can do the same with a lot of other networks. WhatsApp/Facebook can do it. Telegram can do it. I think Instagram can do it. I think Google has a platform that can do it. But you need a cellular network to call your grandmother’s landline, though there are apps for doing that over VOIP (Voice Over IP) as well, so even then… not really.

So my dream Linux phone isn’t a Linux phone, it’s a handheld Linux PC that can make and receive phone calls.

Well, a couple days ago there was a post about how Hitler may have had a micropenis and only one testicle. I don’t think it made anyone more sympathetic toward him.

I don’t think it would matter one bit if Trump’s sexuality was anything but hetero. He’s still a fascist and will be judged accordingly.

Who couldn’t access PC gaming before? Best Buy has always had a few “gamer PCs” on the shelf, with a lot of LED lighting and flashy parts for people who don’t know any better. My brother in law is a car guy, does gaming on an Xbox. Got a little extra cash, so he bought one of these. Wondered why he wasn’t getting good performance. He had his HDMI cord plugged into the motherboard — he wasn’t using the 5060 it came with at all! I moved the cable down and his performance shot up. He said he’s since replaced it with a 5080. He gets 120FPS in Cyberpunk at 1440p with high settings and ray tracing on high.

He reached out to a friend of mine who does custom PC building and my friend helped him upgrade a few things. He’s got 64GB of RAM, which he definitely doesn’t need, but it’s nice he’s future proofing. I think his CPU is a 9800XD or XP or something like that. It’s AMD. Nothing at all wrong with his setup. I’m just saying, a gearhead can get into PC gaming pretty easily with a prebuilt rig. Valve isn’t inventing shit with the Steam cube thing. They might be making PC gaming a little more accessible to console gamers, but I think the limitations, the tweaking, will put people off.