1bluepixel

deleted by creator

deleted by creator

Yep. There’s a tendency to single out China’s bad behavior for stuff other world powers (including the U.S. for sure) also do.

A great example is China’s meddling in Canadian politics these last few years. An ex-RCMP official pointed out that a lot of other countries do it, including allies. He singled out Russia and India, but also the U.S. (I mean, how could the U.S. not try to influence their neighbors’ politics.)

But China makes the headlines, every single time.

Made the switch to Aegis a little while back. I like it a lot.

Haha, he nearly passes out when he realizes he crashed the game. That kid is amazing.

Anyone who expected Starfield to win Most Innovative Gameplay, are you offering divination services to the public?

It was an easy call to make. Steam Awards are voted by the public, so it’s all about name recognition.

The other finalists in that category were Shadow of Doubt, Contraband Police, Remnant II, and Your Only Move Is Hustle. Of all these, I had heard about Starfield and Remnant II.

I’m sure some of these games are awesome and I want to check them out by virtue of being finalists, but it was pretty clear Starfield was gonna win on brand recognition alone.

Steam Awards, like any publicly-voted award, is a name recognition contest.

It also reminds me of crypto. Lots of people made money from it, but the reason why the technology persists has more to do with the perceived potential of it rather than its actual usefulness today.

There are a lot of challenges with AI (or, more accurately, LLMs) that may or may not be inherent to the technology. And if issues cannot be solved, we may end up with a flawed technology that, we are told, is just about to finally mature enough for mainstream use. Just like crypto.

To be fair, though, AI already has some very clear use cases, while crypto is still mostly looking for a problem to fix.

We gatekeeping liking the Fediverse now?

Money. The answer is money.

I wouldn’t say we speak in people’s faces, but we make comments to each other about random stuff. I would never say something rude about somebody in their faces, but my spouse might go, “Can we go back to the hotel, I really need to take a shit” or something silly and unfiltered like that.

My spouse and I lived in a bunch of countries over the years. We speak Quebec French, English, and Spanish, as well as a smattering of Chinese, Bulgarian, Korean, and a few odds and ends here and there.

We basically speak whatever we think people around us won’t understand. Very colloquial Quebec French in non-French-speaking countries, Chinese around white people, Bulgarian around non-white people, or even a cryptic mix of everything when we’re not completely sure.

We figure anyone who understands is probably someone we want to know… Hasn’t happened very often, but it does happen. So far we weren’t saying anything overly embarrassing when we got caught, but we sure as hell have no filter between us because of this!

That was my experience as well. Very prevalent in Sichuan, but less so in Shanghai. Still, even in Shanghai, they were leagues ahead of Canada.

You kid, but yes!

I found this article from last year showing some interesting models. You’ll see the most popular EVs range from more classical designs to weird and retro-futuristic.

Some of them also make futuristic noises when they drive around… The noise isn’t needed at all because the motor is pretty much silent, so they’re added by manufacturers so you hear them coming. I swear they sound like something out of a '90s sci-fi flick.

I was in China two months ago and the use of electric cars is honestly changing the feeling of big cities. Delivery motorcycles and service vehicles are all electric now, and with the number of electric cars on the road, streets are a lot quieter now barring the frequent honking. Less air pollution too.

What I love about Chinese electric car manufacturers is that they’ve fully embraced the cyberpunk aesthetic from the chassis design to the car sounds. Made me feel like I was walking around a cyberpunk movie set.

In Quebec French, people sometimes say of someone who’s not particularly bright:

“His mom rocked him/her too close to the wall.”

It’s just so… vivid and random.