That makes a lot of sense. Katamari Damacy is also an excellent game with such a bizarre story. I’m guess I’m a fan of absurdity.

My favorite game in the series was Super Mario 3. I first played it on the SNES when it was part of the Super Mario All Stars cartridge. I really liked the levels, especially the variety of landscapes and the secrets you could find if you had the right powerup.

Super Mario World is just as good imo. Everything I liked about 3 and more, plus the star road levels, that was a good game.

The most recent game I loved was Yoshi’s Wooly World on the WiiU. Excellent art style and super fun levels, especially the unlockable bonus levels.

Oh and let’s not forget Legend of the Seven Stars. That was a fun and bizarre story.

That being said, does anyone else think the Mario universe is just fucking weird? How did the creators come up with Italian plumbers who can jump really high saving a Princess from an oversized turtle in a fantasy land with walking mushrooms? Who thought that was a good idea? What inspired them? I think the only reason it became popular was because Super Mario on the NES was one of the first decent games, and most players were kids who didn’t care about the game’s universe and narrative beyond saving the princess.

If Mario wasn’t the first popular platformer in the 80s and was instead introduced today, nobody would take it seriously. Since we all grew up with Mario, it’s a thing we accept as is. Of course high jumping Italian plumbers discovered the mushroom kingdom and rescued their princess from Bowser, again and again and again. Of course little dudes with mushroom heads are ruled by a blond haired human. Of course giant pipes are a normal mode of transit. Of course goombas and koopa troopas are the baddies.

Seriously, how did this universe come about?

Did this leak happen before or after NYT published an investigation detailing how Israeli forces were raping and torturing defenseless Palestinian detainees brought in from the Gaza Strip?

Civ6 has districts. Instead of having all of a city’s buildings existing in the city center tile, the city builds specialty districts that occupy a hex near the city. For example, a science district placed near some mountains will house the city’s library, university, and research lab.

I think the districts are a fun addition because it exposes a civ’s infrastructure to attack. You can pilliage an opponent’s districts to temporarily cripple them and you get some decent loot in the form of gold, science, culture, or faith.

The gestures are awesome! The best part of my old moto was turning on my flashlight just by shaking the phone. So convenient. Turning it on with any other phone is a whole process that takes forever.

Kiwi farms?

About 6 montha ago I wanted to replace my S21 battery and checked with Samsung, who redirected me to iFixit. The only genuine Samsung S21 battery they had was only sold with the screen, which cost ~$130 or something. I didn’t need the screen…

Last month I checked again and saw they had a third party replacement battery for ~$30, same capacity. I bought it and popped it in. It’s been working fine.

Was it Samsung’s requirement that the battery only be sold with the screen? At the time, I would have rather had the genuine Samsung battery and would have paid a bit extra for it, but not $100 extra.

Water can move freely across the membrane, but the stuff that’s dissolved in the water cannot move across the membrane.

No? Water can’t carry anything across the membrane.

We don’t know what molecular mechanism creates the pressure.

No one really knows how osmosis works.

Evolution and natural selection never stops, we’ve only changed what the selective pressures are.

It’s like we’re going back to the pre-internet era but it’s obviously a little different. Before the internet, there were just a few major media providers on TV plus lots of local newspapers. I would say that, for the most part in the USA, the public trusted TV news sources even though their material interests weren’t aligned (regular people vs big media corporations). It felt like there wasn’t a reason not to trust them, since they always told an acceptable version of the truth and there wasn’t an easy way to find a different narrative (no internet or crazy cable news). Local newspapers were usually very trusted, since they were often locally owned and part of the community.

The internet broke all of those business models. Local newspapers died because why do you need a paper when there are news websites? Major media companies were big enough to weather the storm and could buy up struggling competitors. They consolidated and one in particular started aggressively spinning the news to fit a narrative for ratings and political gain of the ownership class. Other companies followed suit.

This, paired with the thousands of available narratives online, weakened the credibility of the major media companies. Anyone could find the other side of the story or fact check whatever was on TV.

Now what is happening? The internet is being polluted with garbage and lies. It hasn’t been good for some time now. Obviously anyone could type up bullshit, but for a minute photos were considered reliable proof (usually). Then photoshopping something became easier and easier, which made videos the new standard of reliable proof (in most cases).

But if anything can be fake now and difficult to identify as fake, then how can you fact check anything? Only those with the means will be able to produce undeniably real news with great difficulty, which I think will return power to major news companies or something equivalent.

I’m probably wrong about what the future holds, so what do you think is going to happen?

Yeah what happened to that one out of South Korea?

It’s just a ship dropping out of warp a safe distance from our system. While inconvenient, it’s considered best practice to drop out well away from the system’s center to shed the particles you’ve accumulated in your warp bubble during transit. They are extremely energetic and can cause immense damage if released irresponsibly close to an inhabited planet. This is especially true when visiting a primitive world that hasn’t set up any sensible warp safety systems.

Here’s a reason why he was so pro-Israel, or at least pro-Netanyahu: https://www.thenation.com/article/world/trump-israel-collusion/

And if that isn’t enough, here’s why the US congress bends over backwards to give Israel whatever it wishes: https://theintercept.com/2023/11/03/deconstructed-israel-aipac-squad-primary/

tl;dl: If a politician says something critical of Israel, pro-Israel lobbying groups will fund their opponents’ campaigns

I really think you should stop arguing and start listening.

I think your worries are misplaced. I work for an employee owned cooperative with about 60 employees. I think half of the employees are also owners. There’s still a CEO, chosen by the board of directors, who are elected by the employee-owners. Day to day operational decisions are made by whoever is in charge of the relevant department, just like a shareholder-owned corporation. Bigger decisions, like long term strategy or how to distribute profits among employees, are voted on by all of the employee owners instead of shareholders. It’s been in business for about 20 years and makes enough money to share profits with all employees regardless of their ownership status. So essentially this business operates like any other, but the profits are shared with the employee-owners and employees instead of going to shareholders or insane CEO salaries (compressed pay structure).

It seems particulate matter was reducing the impact of increasing CO2. The rate of warming increased as countries around the world cleaned up their air.

There are a number of factors driving the acceleration of warming. While the world has made real progress in slowing down the growth of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions, they have yet to peak and decline. And on top of this, we are reaping the results of what the climate scientist James Hansen calls our “Faustian bargain” with air pollution. For decades, air pollution from sulfur dioxide and other hazardous substances in fossil fuels has had a strong temporary cooling effect on our climate. But as countries around the world have begun to clean up the air, the cooling effect provided by these aerosols has fallen by around 30 percent since 2000. Aerosols have fallen even more in the past three years, after a decision to largely phase out sulfur in marine fuels in 2020. These reductions in pollution on top of continued increases in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations mean that we are encountering some of the unvarnished force of climate change for the first time.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/13/opinion/climate-change-excessive-heat-2023.html?unlocked_article_code=MV7Te-BwrX01dDW9YN2x5i4liJ_txffN-7pATpfGL_WC8zVhXtr_JU-6g0GzGtHkwJeXVpDva6LsJulzgYNYhtdocm3bYx2f2XAZ0iWJjBCyuN4rCK-ilrHccUS9yD90VAfe156hv2dsKig2GNAQPOhRtemftQpsWoEH2Do5wbpAOsqFKLoslF2XMTbUm78egNN-0FWwIBPLwOENIXjyug_r5oR-nhVVtAf-8J0wx5YrL8AWd4rg7GXODDSQDCdU8evFlOL5djqlpOaS-AdjgmdK5m_CHhrblDdn1-GI1Rc4TKJhiSOLP-2Vmu-0YGPWZmyWiqnVV09PU3MubJzdXWI09rKmvYW5dvsL