Interesting, although the Japanese one was originally justified in that they weren’t allowed to have a military after WW2 and the US wasn’t quite as threatening so the bases were a pretty good deterrent to invasion.

Even more interesting is they’re looking to build up their military, even prior to Trump 2.0 (and there’s been an effort for a while). It’s weirdly good timing, although I’m married to an Okinawan and can say a majority of them haven’t wanted bases for decades because of the rape and abuse soldiers cause.

This has been around for a long time, before Netflix. My dad and much of his generation get lonely when the TV is off, so he leaves it on at all times on whatever, while working or watching sports. Network TV does this with predictable crime dramas and sitcoms, cables got Hallmark movies and reruns of family guy, etc. Half-tune is a popular format for pretty much most age groups.

I explicitly don’t do this, but I do have podcasts for my second screen in a sense-- only I won’t do them unless it’s a grindy game or Minecraft or something, and usually the podcast is taking my cognitive attention. It’s disruptive if it’s a thoughtful activity, like scrolling social media (though I guess the fediverse is a little more engaging than slopbook or whatever).

In my case, it’s because people don’t like all my pictures of the wall behind my computer screen.

I think we’re all kinda beat down by life, so I don’t really judge people on it. I just am not one of them, haha. (But I don’t even watch TV or movies much so I’m admittedly a weirdo).

My dad entered in codes for me when I was really little, but that’s kind of another thing entirely. I don’t think little kids have an achievement oriented sorta version of play, so anything goes with them. Once you’re older, that dopamine rush just hits differently, though.

In education you could also consider it a form of scaffolding. Enabling someone to do something they normally can’t do is a form of development, like giving handicaps in games and stuff can foster the skills to not need them eventually.

I actually thought about that after my comment and summoning a tank from nowhere was fun. At least for a little bit… but maybe mostly for the novelty of it all. Also I was like, 12.

I suppose. When I’m referring to cheats, it’s more in regards to invulnerability, infinite resources, etc., which seem to sap the point of having a game in the first place. Like making the fun parts into a grind, rather than the other way around.

That said, I’ll also say sometimes part of the challenge is the grind, so it depends. You have to pick your own poison, right?

Like, take Silksong for example. You lose out on the full experience if you mod out the annoying run from bench to boss, it’s like a 40 second annoyance built in punishment. But I get why you’d do that-- it’s technically there for a reason but I get it. Hell, even the difficulty adjustment mods I can understand.

But making the bosses die in one hit or making yourself invulnerable? Now you’ve lost me, that’s like a core element of the game; you might as well just watch someone else play it because what’s the point.

Y’all laugh but there are way too many people into idle games, not to mention people who prefer watching a stream (even without commentary) over playing a game itself.

I cannot comprehend why, though, just like I can’t comprehend how cheating (particularly single player) can be fun.

That’s also how you hacked old consoles back in the days. Early as Dreamcast, lol

Thank you, I’ll look into it. Mine is probably too updated for the easier methods so this helps

My webos keeps wanting to update to add AI shit and I keep saying no but it won’t take that as a permanent answer, so every time it turns on it’s required (and if I turn it on with my one and only button on the thing, it takes a while before the prompt goes away and requires remote input).

I’m looking into ways to jailbreak it or something, just family won’t exactly let me do that randomly.

You could get into Dragon Quest games, if you want old school JRPGs. Complexity might be a bit lacking given the era, but doing the old NES ones without a guide is excruciatingly difficult and you can lump on RetroAchevements to add more pain. RA generally adds additional challenges to any older game so you have to play a little min maxing to accomplish them.

I mostly thought of it since RA is beta testing multi sets with DQ9 and getting every accolade might be one of the most insane things I could ever suggest.

Ugh.

At least Arial exists. And Helvetica. But Times New Roman? What is this, English class in the early aughts? 12pt font, double spaced with one inch margins?

Hell, if you want wanna make America great again make it Courier; tech bros’ll think you’re coding but we know you really just want to take us back to late 1800s when typewriters and bad economic policy were in. Or maybe something appropriate for this administration, like Wingdings.

Ah, my teenage hero. Good chance I direct downloaded something; the Internet was so much better back then, lol.

This actually happened to me. I still had to look busy so I mostly just studied more or worked on a second job I had grading papers. I also spent a bit of time writing stories and designing things. Adding in something creative can help your brain balance things out.

Actually, even if you go national, very few people like our system (something like 20% iirc?). And in NY? Fat chance.

You’ve got Citizens United, so both parties are pretty much in the pockets of insurance. They’ll just ignore that desire until more Luigis show up.

You telling me those images of Trump swimming through flood waters to save people in a hurricane haven’t already swayed voters? Lol

Your mention reminded me of a false pretense game from Adult Swim called Glittermitten Grove. I would consider that itself a fake game in the way a storefront might be a fake cover for a drug operation, except the drug in question is Frog Fractions 2.

Aight, if there are no wrong answers I wanna mention a real old one I’ve had a soft spot for since childhood: The Dreamcast-like music video Californication by Red Hot Chili Peppers.

There aren’t a ton of examples from pre-social media, I wonder if there are any others that people can think of that’re even older?

Edit: Actually reading a few there are some from the 90s, like Simpsons. I forgot all about them, lol.

Sure enough the vast majority are Republican shithole states, although Virginia and Arizona are a surprise.

It’s not that it’s immortal to want IDs for porn (although GOP generally is immortal), it’s just so… technologically stupid. The red states are stupid states.