Tried to view an article that looked interesting, but:

* In Chromium, there's a huge banner that takes up way too much vertical space. Combine this with modern tvs/monitors having so little vertical space, and it made the site unreadable.

* Tried to open the article in lynx (to avoid the banner), and I got a 403 error. Webmasters, *don't do this*!

Really, if you're building a website, make sure it doesn't use up precious vertical space, and make sure it works with web browsers like lynx. In particular, don't serve errors to less common user agents; it's very hostile design.

Related, but recently, while browsing with lynx, I followed a link to what looked like an interesting article, and got a message like "you need to enable JavaScript to run this app". There are a few issues here:
1. I do not want to run an app; I just want to read an article.
2. Enabling JavaScript is not an option (lynx doesn't have that feature).
3. Even if I could enable JavaScript, why should I? I consider JavaScript to be one of the biggest misfeatures of the modern web (the other main ones being autoplaying animations that can't be disabled and autoplaying audio), and it tends to be misused a lot. It also consumes a lot of CPU resources, and is why many web pages take so long to load.

Road Rage. Trying to take a nap now.

I love games and have done since childhood, but people have built these weird ideological constructs about gaming. Many other gamers view gaming as part of their identity, which I do as well to some extent. Because of this an increasing presence of women playing games gets perceived as an attack against the identity of other gamers in an utterly bizarre fashion. The inclusion of queer and non-white characters in games is perceived as an existential threat. None of it makes any sense and it just seems like a bizarre and reactionary response to change.

I just wanted wish talking with other gamers didn't mean having to hear about how me getting to play or interact with a character who looks like me is pandering or political or anything like that. It's very depressing.

I just want to enjoy playing games and talking about them with people. Games are supposed to be fun.

They are,it's just some gamers are not.

Is it not a good thing how you cannot see the colour or gender or anything of others on this forum :-)
:-D

Physically wiped out and somewhat mentally deflated. A customer had bought a crap-ton of parts from an auction several years back, not quite realizing what they were buying. They got stuff for the same brand but the parts were for the really big machines. After sitting around for several years, they contacted me and asked if I wanted the stuff for free + shipping. Okay, sounds good. For free stuff, not going to ask too many questions. Probably should have.

Stuff came in yesterday, 7 shipping skids (think of 48x48x16" crates), and I started tearing through it. Most of it - like 80% - is going straight to the metal recycler. About 5% is in the trash. If I'm lucky, I'll get 5% of it usable after checking each remaining part individually. Not the numbers I was hoping for. Half of the stuff is for models about 30 years old, with none of those remaining in operation that I know of. Over half of the entire shipment was used. After shipping cost, local truck rental, and the time spent so far, it'll be a scrape to break even - I saw only a couple pieces that I KNOW I can sell. The rest? Ugh.

Dammit. And this after spending about $3,000 on storage equipment and a full 10 days of time, to make space for the shipment. Most of it goes right out the door again to the recycler, which means more time and money spent to get rid of it. Can't really blame the customer for this, not for doing a good deed.

Can't win them all, I guess.

Point them to the deer yard.

they turned out to be okay. Lightened up a little.
I think a lot of people are apprehensive when they first get here because we are so secluded their first thought is "Deliverance". :P

Now, I don't doubt there are parts of the north woods like that, but we have two Universities up here, countless museums, and an epic historical society. That's not typical inbred banjo player.

Any wendigos?

Are you by any chance close to Arkham?

  

Many opinions are best left unsaid.

The pandering is real, and it does happen. On the flip side, is it necessarily a bad thing? Was anyone really offended by Samus Aran being revealed as a woman? To top it off, she was in some sort of swim suit. Clearly, there was pandering to women and/or feminism (strong female character) and the swimsuit was to be kinda edgy to please men. Honestly, i thought it was cool. Whether or not something is pandering to be political or to make a statement, well, you have to ask yourself what dominates the character? Samus being a woman wasn't in your face every second, except in Other M, which was Team Ninja being Team Ninja. Strong female leader, not a big deal. Now if the fact she is a woman is brought up every 5 minutes, dominating all other things known about the character, then it's politics and the point of the character is politics. A small part of a game or something can be political, too (Beyond Two Souls had plenty of politics to it, but wasn't primarily political), but you should judge the whole as a whole and the parts as parts.

Take Geralt of Rivia: he's a witcher. He's constantly being harassed by people for being the no-good, dirty witcher. Most of Geralt's game is going around hunting stuff, but he's clearly hated by the average townsmen until he does them favors, and often even then they're quick to turn on him. These are messages, it's no accident, but that's the point of the interactions with the towns and other characters. The Witcher is clearly about being an apolitical man of a man in a political world, and dealing with the shit sandwich that is life and all the liars and cheats in it willing to screw you over for their own goals. Are there politics in the games? Absolutely, but it's more than just politics, which is why it often lets you take sides.

Skyrim has got alot going for it. It's political, no doubt. The whole game isn't, but the game itself relies on alot of political tropes, from the races being strong stereotypes of real races and political groups, to the stormcloak storyline, the influence of religion on the world, to really everything. Sure, it tends to lean one way in the political spectrum, but it's not necessarily one-sided by any stretch of imagination, even though there's a ton of pandering.

When you see people doing this, call it out. Call out the truth. If there's pandering, admit where it's at, and point out where it isn't. We need to be honest that games are another medium of political messages, now that storylines are important for the modern game. Dead or Alive has sex appeal, but it's a fighting game (i wonder how many people commenting on the game realize that). Whatever conversation dominates the game affects how people see the game. Juri Han is a sleezebag, Poison has become transsexual, Ken is an all american family man. You can also see Juri Han as the queen of kicks, Poison as the character of distraction, and Ken as the secondary beginner character. In circles i'm in, Hakan is the 関西弁 speaker, not the oil wrestler. You can affect these conversations. Believe in yourself, but don't kid yourself.

   

Due to worker strikes at our national electricity utility Eskom the entire country is facing load shedding this winter. The power cut off for an hour yesterday and today Eksom announced that there will most likely be rolling blackouts from 5pm to 10pm. And the springboks are playing england at 5pm!
The workers are demanding a 15% pay hike, which won't happen, so even if they can be reasoned down to a reasonable increase before the end of winter, it looks like we'll be facing near daily power cuts for the next month or two :\