And I am the skeleton in that crypt that turned to dust just now. (58 y.o.)

My e-book reader (Tolino).

As I got older and had problems with my eyes, this was a game changer. I had basically stopped reading books and now I do it daily. I can choose the font and letter size, background color, and backlighting based on what works best for my eyes that day and the light where I am.

Being able to hold a very light device with a big screen when I would have to balance a heavy weight as a paper book is also great, and I take the reader with me everywhere, whereas a big book would stay at home most of the time.

The reader has a bigger screen than my phone and the battery lasts longer.

The reader works flawlessly with my library, so I don’t have to buy books, which keeps costs down, and I don’t have to leave the house to get a new book.

Calibre helps us share books in our family, which is one reason we’ve stayed away from Amazon’s Kindle, so we’ve all gone to “.epub”.

I tried to replace Twitter by Mastodon but, in the end, I just left Twitter and don’t use Mastodon at all.

This is me, I left Twitter, Facebook and Reddit. I reduced my online time a lot and it is better for my mental health and I have more time for my hobbies.

Mastodon made it clear to me how much algorithms steer me and keep me online, when I don’t need that, don’t profit from it. When I had to search for content on Mastodon that was for me it felt not worth the effort while being fed by an algorithm on Twitter /Facebook / Reddit kept me endlessly scrolling.

So I am very thankful to Mastodon for opening my eyes, but I will not use it anymore. Tchncs (world news, tech news and cat owl pictures) , Grouvee (gaming forum, keeping track of my games) and German Tagesschau ( tv news of my country) is enough to stay up to date and I feel freed from a burden that social media became for me.

Also my phone stays in my bag now and I am more in the moment wherever I am - I have used it 99% less than before and my next smart phone will be a cheap one with the only must haves being the newest Android version and a replacable battery so it will last me for long.

The Sexy Brutale

Such a good game and such a weird name for it. I highly recommend it.

As long as they don’t do it on real humans nobody is hurt.

Living out the fantasy of having sex with children (or other harmful sexual practices and fantasies) wit AI or alike can strengthen the wish to actual do it in RL. It can weaken the strength to abstain. If you constantly have fantasies where for example “the child AI wanted it too” then it can desensitize you and making it harder and harder to push that thought aside when in a tempting situation. Instead of replacing the real thing with a fantasy you are preparing for the real thing. Some pedophiles already interpret children’s behavior as sexual that isn’t at all, but the AI might be told to act in that way and strengthen these beliefs.

This is still something that is and has to be studied more to fully understand it. Of course this is difficult because of the stigma. There might be differences between people who only are attracted to children and ones that are attracted to adults and children and there is just not enough data yet, but even the communities in which pedophiles who do not act on their attraction discuss coping strategies this is heavily discussed and controversial.

If you are interested in the subject a bit more, this is a start: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8419289/

In the first region in the midst of the first small village two neighbors are arguing. They are not giving a quest, they just talk to each other and listening gives such an insight in how war can turn people against each other that have been living peacfully and been friends for years.

Do the side quests and take your time with the dialogue. Some of these stories are impactful, mostly sad and worth your time. If you are told that you should talk to people to find out more about your contract, do it. Some of these quests can be done with only talking to one person but you want to get the information from everyone and especially their side of the story.

Do not look up the outcome of decisions. Make your decisions and live with them at least at your first playthrough. Most decisions have impact and seeing the outcome unfold makes this game special and yes often there is no “good choice” - that’s war for you.

Last: Buy every Gwent card you can get your hands on and play with everyone you can. If you can’t win just come back later with better cards and obliterate them - it will feel goooood!

The DLC’s are a must.

Try out difficulty settings - there is a sweet spot for most people somewhere but what it will be for you no one can know, but it would be a shame if you play through the game not having found the difficulty that fits you best because you “always play on <insert difficulty>”.

Have fun, I wish I could play this game for the first time again.

Unhinged AI will solve anything human made by getting us killed. That will work very fast because there is no “human made” climate change when there is “no human”.

I also hate how they went from “human made climate change does not exist so we can keep everything as it is” to “we can’t meet the goals anyway so we can keep everything as it is” and how many people fall for it.

They want to keep their money and power at all cost and at this point I question more and more if we can take it from them peacfully. We have to take it to make a better world possible or even survival possible, because they will not be helpful ever.

I am now 58 years old and something happened and I wake up at 6 in the morning every day for 6 months, if I have to get up or not. I was never a morning person, but now I am and I have no explanation for it. I like it, but I try to not bother others with it.

That … could work.

My autism isn’t going away. Professional help resulted in the advice of: “Take time off from people when your social batteries are depleted, because otherwise you burn out and fall into a depression (that was the constant circle I was in until I got my diagnosis and started to accept what I can and can’t do).”

There is no solution that doesn’t deplete my social batteries, while neurotypical people load their batteries when being in contact with other people mine do not and never will. I still see friends and have conversations with a lot of people, I need that I am not a hermit but carefully planned and spread out and if possible online and not in person because that makes it less straining.

I would have to pull the lever late to save only the last 10 people, sorry for the others. /s

Years ago I had fun with “what if the US never actually went to the moon”. I did not believe it, it was just a nice plot idea, we even made a pen & paper oneshot about it. Nowadays I have no whatsoever fun in thought experiments like this, because the real threat of someone believing it to be true. I want to enjoy “birds aren’t real” or “giraffes do not exist” or … the worst is flat earth. It started out as a joke and now idiots try to proof the earth is flat, proof by accident it isn’t and then question rather their methods than their belief system. We just can’t have nice things.

German, only having been there once some years ago, so no idea if it still is that way:

Not knowing what I will have to pay in the grocery store until the cashier tells me what to pay. Here the price on the shelf is THE price. I might have a voucher that reduces the price in the end, but nothing is ever added only subtracted, all prices on the shelf are easily comparable, because no matter the weight of one package there is also given the price of 1kg or 100 g for everything.

No kids on playing grounds without parents standing around. No kids just playing on the side walk (often there is no side walk anyway), no kids walking to school. It made me aware of how much freedom kids have in Germany, how independent even 6 y.o. are in Germany compared to kids in the US. They walk to to school alone or use public transport alone, they buy groceries alone, they visit friends by foot or public transport, three y.o. already having a bike and cycling besides their parents to kindergarden…

On the other hand seeing so many very young people having a job, like a really hard job for many hours besides school. It broke my heart, they should be free to be young and having all the time, working comes fast enough and goes on forever. Also I saw very old people doing jobs that should be able to retire because you could see them being in pain and barely able to function, definitely not a “choice” for them.

The amount of medication, especially pain medication, people take in the US compared to Germany and how much of it is freely available while it is needing a subscription from a doctor here. Every time I was feeling unwell I was offered pills that I found to be numbingly strong and switching my brain off? Hard to explain. I found them scary, but was told that they take them on a daily basis and they are harmless … nope.

I also love Ryukishi07’s VNs, “When They Cry” series. The art is admittedly ugly, but the stories are very intricate and convoluted in the best sense of the word.

The first of the “When They Cry” series are the only VNs I have ever played clicked through and it was surprisingly good, even for someone like me who isn’t into anime and kept me hooked through all the episodes. I highly recommend it.

An ex-Sony exec said laid-off employees should ‘go to the beach for a year’ or ‘drive an Uber’ Lian Kit Wee Sep 11, 2024, 7:15 AM MESZ

Chris Deering Sony Former Sony Entertainment president, Chris Deering, told recently laid-off employees to take a break for a year and wait for opportunities to return. Reuters

Ex-Sony Entertainment president Chris Deering said laid-off employees should take time off. Deering said that he doesn’t believe the recent Sony layoffs result from corporate greed. In February, Sony said it would lay off 900 employees from its PlayStation division.

Former Sony Computer Entertainment Europe president Chris Deering has a blunt message for recently laid-off game developers: They should “go to the beach for a year” or “drive an Uber” until the job market improves.

Deering, who led Sony’s European PlayStation division during the launch of the iconic game console and its successor, PlayStation 2, acknowledged the pain of Sony’s recent cuts.

The company said in February it would lay off about 900 people globally and close PlayStation Studios’ London studio, amid a slowing gaming market. Deering dismissed the notion that the layoffs were purely driven by corporate motives.

“I don’t think it’s fair to say that the resulting layoffs have been greed,” Deering said on journalist Simon Parkin’s “My Perfect Console” podcast. "I always tried to minimize the speed in which we added staff because I always knew there would be a cycle.

Fluctuations in consumer spending and recent games’ diminishing sales impact the company’s ability to “justify spending the money for the next game,” making some staffing cuts inevitable, said Deering.

Deering offered some unconventional advice for game developers affected by the layoffs. He suggested workers take time off or find temporary work, like driving for Uber, while the industry stabilizes.

“It’s like the pandemic,” Deering told Parkin. “You’re going to have to figure out how to get through it, drive an Uber, or whatever. Find a cheap place to live and go to the beach for a year.”

His remarks come at a time when layoffs have hit the gaming industry hard.

Other game developers, including Microsoft and Unity, have similarly downsized their studios this year, cutting over 3,000 jobs at the start of the year, BI reported in February.

This series of layoffs in the game industry stemmed from slumping game sales and a shrinking gaming demographic, BI previously reported. Revenue from video game sales in the US in 2023 fell by 2.3% from the previous year, and the average time spent gaming fell from 16.5 hours to 13 hours from 2021 to 2022. Related stories

However, Deering seemed optimistic about the prospects for game developers. He told Parkin that laid-off workers should take advantage of the time off to recharge but keep an eye out for any opportunities to return to the industry.

Game development skill is not going to “be a lifetime of poverty or limitation. It’s still where the action is,” said Deering.

Deering is currently an advisor for Cudo Ventures, a company specializing in monetization applications.

Sony Interactive Entertainment and Deering did not respond to a request for comment from BI sent outside business hours.

Why this expression? This guy just needs to spent a year homeless on the beach or so, if being fired: https://www.businessinsider.com/chris-deering-playstation-sony-laid-off-staff-beach-uber-2024-9 It definitely isn’t greed on side of the CEO who earnes millions for nothing while so many get fired, right? RIGHT?

Patrick’s Parabox - Single developer, unique idea, mind bending - think outside and inside the boxes inside boxes.

Not if you have kids or cats or you will be always out of toilet paper.

It is NOT an “early access period” it is a “late access punishment” for not be willing to overpay for a game. Journalists should call it that and nothing else.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxAJEHZDIEw Crazy Baby - Joan Osborne

It is more “stuck for a lifetime”, because this song saved my life and will stay on my “emergency playlist” forever. She sings out of my soul, when depression has me and at the same time sings hope into my soul, if that makes any sense, because it is so hard to describe.

I wish that for every human a song exists that can do that for them!