Making my way through FF16. According to the PS5 dashboard completion percentage I'm at about 70% complete right now. So I might be able to finish over the weekend, but having a six-year-old at home might make that harder to accomplish.

Either way, I'm really enjoying it despite it being absolutely archaic in terms of its actual game design. It's really carried by its presentation, soundtrack, and decent story. They've arguably stripped away too much of what typically defines a Final Fantasy game here, but I'm still having a great time by just choosing to appreciate what it does do well.

It's B all day. Close the polls because it ain't even close.

Daaamn. The lighting and thick atmosphere in this picture are sublime. I want to go there.

They absolutely did. So much more room for air/sound to flow through those speakers in CRTs. That's why most people resort to sound bars at a minimum to get halfway decent sound for today's flat panel televisions. You just can't fit powerful speakers into them.

I've tried them all, and as of right now Connect feels the most polished and feature rich. So that's my recommendation.

Another hot tip: don't refer to people as "normies."

Nostalgia is really interesting in that it's inherently bittersweet. It's nice because it grounds us in a shared timeline and focuses on mostly positive aspects of some past point in time, but it's also sad because it means thinking back fondly on a time that will never be again.

So maybe it's the bitter half of that bittersweet feeling that you're subconsciously averse to? Either that or maybe your past/childhood was mostly negative or even traumatic? I'm no psychologist, so really I don't know what I'm talking about.

An empire that we lived in and got to experience when it was thriving. That's why dead malls in particular have a distinctly bittersweet feeling to them. Those of us who frequented malls in the 80's and 90's can vividly remember when they were filled with people, commerce, and social activity. They were such lively social spaces back then, so seeing them slowly succumb to the ravages of time and fade into irrelevancy is both sad and fascinating.

Nah. It's morbidly interesting IMO.

Yep. Still have my black one with AmberElec installed. I love everything about it other than the display's somewhat muted colors and mediocre battery life.

We're so fucking cool, aren't we?

Phew.

Lol. I read this in an entirely different context, like you were implying that they'd go to hell for this.

This is exactly what I was going to say. The feed on Threads is absolutely abysmal. Just an endless stream of bullshit that I don't want to see. That might improve in the future as they continue to update the app and its feed algorithms, but as of right now it's pretty terrible at showing the user content that they're interested in.

In my opinion the cheapest, simplest way to experience a significant jump in quality from what you're currently doing is to buy an Aeropress.

You can get one new for only $30-40, and after trying a few times you'll likely be blown away by how much better the coffee it produces is than what you've grown accustomed to with the Keurig.

An electric kettle is another good purchase to go along with your Aeropress, and it generally comes in handy for plenty of other uses too.

If you start getting into making better coffee at home with the Aeropress, then the next step on your journey would be to invest in a grinder and make the switch to whole beans. That's really the last thing you'll need if you're trying to max out coffee quality at home.

As for drinking it black, that's totally up to you. Personally I like a little cream and sugar in my coffee, and I'm probably seen as a coffee snob by my friends. Don't let anyone tell you that black is the preferred way to drink coffee. It's all preference, and I like the heavier body that cream/milk gives the brew.

If you end up taking any of this advice, then here's my go-to recipe for the best Aeropress coffee:

• Set the Aeropress up inverted (you can Google this)
• Between coarse and fine grind (two scoops)
• Heat water to 195°F
• Pour water in until it just covers the grounds to let it bloom, then wait 30 seconds
• Fill the Aeropress up to the top with more water
• Stir for ten seconds
• Let brew for one more minute
• Press slowly into mug
• Add cream/sugar to taste

I hope that helps. Just be warned... Once you go down this path, you'll likely no longer be able to tolerate K-Cup coffee.

That is, indeed, interesting as fuck.

That's really cool that someone thought to preserve this and put it on display in a museum. It's like a modern historical artifact from the golden age of computing.

"Shouldn't we wait for reinforcements?"

"I am the reinforcements."

• Vagrant Story, PS1

We're done here. That's the one.

Yeah, this sums up the situation quite nicely. I have nothing more to add other than saying it's one more reason why it sucks to be a Floridian right now. We already had it bad enough with the oppressive summer heat and lack of seasons here, but now we've got some of the worst state leadership in the country to add a nice cherry on top of the shit sundae.

I do remember Lost Souls, yeah.

And that Papyrus font... I can feel the 90's-era PC gaming vibes radiating off of it. Love it.

Jeez. What a pathetic loser.

This was my first reaction to the article as well. The only one around me suddenly vanished a few months ago.

I'll be keeping an eye on this thread because I would also love to know if I'm missing out on some good games journalism out there. Sadly, sites like what you've described are increasingly rare in the modern era. Nevertheless, here are a few that come to mind:

NintendoLife is pretty great for this if you're looking for Nintendo-related news, reviews, interviews, and feature articles.

One of their affiliate sites, Time Extension, is also really good for long-form articles and retrospectives about retro games.

And while it's mostly just news, like you said, Polygon will sometimes surprise you with some really excellent feature articles that have a lot of thought and research put into them.

Oh hell yeah they are. I'm a tech enthusiast, myself. Don't even get me started on Wednesdays because I'll never stop.

Because it's just an incredibly small userbase made up mostly of tech/privacy enthusiasts as of right now.

Oh, DLC. I thought this was a full-blown sequel out of nowhere.

This is sadly still the case and one of the main reasons I use Samsung phones today instead of Pixels. One Hand Operation gives me more ergonomic and easy to use gestures while also playing nicely with third party launchers.

There's just no way in hell I could use the pixel launcher as my daily driver. It's too simple and lacks the bare minimum customization options that I would need to be able to tolerate it.

That's a comfy-ass picture right there.

As a Floridian currently enduring 100-degree weather and 90% humidity, my jealousy knows no bounds.

Haha, yeah. I think that's the intent of those first two panels.

But then the last two subvert expectations and reveal that it was about data modeling all along! 😲

I just mean I can relate to the comic.

In my line of work it's not uncommon for the people requesting data visualizations to ask the data engineers/analysts to simply remove data points that don't suit whatever narrative they're trying to construct with the visual. We have to push back against that whenever possible because, you know... that's bullshit.

This looks like it could be some rad concept art from an unreleased 90's car combat game à la Twisted Metal. Love it.

He's just that good at business. Acting like he wants to bang his own daughter has always been a 4D Chess move. /s

Not yet, no.

Is this an assumption or can someone else confirm this? I just started using Connect, so I'd love to know for sure.

Data Architect/Analyst here. I felt this comic.

It is already pretty great. The one thing that annoyed me enough to stop using it (for now) is that it displays two refreshing spinner animations whenever you pull down to refresh the feed. It's a small thing, but it irked me enough to just stick to using the mobile app for a bit longer.

UPDATE: Nevermind, it looks like this was fixed in a recent update. I'm back on Connect now, and it's pretty great. Probably the best Android app for Lemmy right now.

Adguard is the best option for system-wide, rootless ad blocking on Android IMO.

It's the best because it also performs cosmetic filtering to reclaim the empty space that most other blockers leave behind after removing an ad from a web page. This makes web pages look much cleaner and is something that I value in any adblocker, mobile or otherwise. The free version works across any browser or embedded webview instance within apps, and the paid version filters all ads within apps as well. I can't recommend it highly enough.

Completely negligible impact on battery life as well.

One UI has been crammed with features for years now, many of which would be very nice to have in Pixel phones. Maintenance Mode would be good, I guess, but I can think of several others that would be far more beneficial to have merged into AOSP in some form.

For example, One Hand Operation + is the best implementation of gesture navigation in all of Android IMO. It's quicker and more efficient than traditional gestures, more customizable, and plays well with third-party launchers. It's one of the killer apps that makes it hard for me to consider anything other than a Samsung phone these days, especially since Google has made no attempts at fixing the wonky behavior of the native gesture navigation and third-party launchers.

Haha, wow. This is a perfect metaphor. Well done.