@muddrox: found the fishing article (about animal crossing). The author apparently disabled comments too (nice how he gets a platform where no one can question his dogma).
1st) in those games you almost always keep the fish so its not really "sport" fishing if you eat it. We are omnivores, so eating fish is just life. Its almost like the author has never actually interacted with wildlife. Nearly all fish are omnivores and cannibals. If it fits in their mouth they eat it. Humans are animals too. If we can eat other animals in a humane and sustainable way, its fine (ocean fishing at an industrial level has become unsustainable and needs modified, and soon. I won't argue that).
And the egg comment? Lol. I had chickens for years growing up and my best friend still has them. They lay eggs constantly. You pick them out of the henhouse and eat them. They were never going to be baby chickens (since most of us don't keep a rooster unless you raising the chickens for meart) If the animals are treated humanely they have a vastly better life then if you "free'd" them to be predated and starve.
@muddrox: ill have to find that fishing article! I agree with most of what your saying, sadly online journalism is dead, and journalism as a whole is well on its way. The problem is its virtually impossible to find truely unbiased news anymore. Even if i wanted to subscribe and pay for a news source my options are: hard left, hard right, or centrist that's actually left to hard left (but bills itself as centrist), but "just the facts ma'am" isn't an option anymore. Activist journalism is the new "thing".
As for fishing, ive changed how I fish as I've gotten older. If I'm doing catch and release ill only use circle hooks or lures, not live bait. Using only circle hooks and lures I do the absolute minimum damage to the fish and can often free them without even touching them or removing them completely from the water. If im keeping them to eat (even more rare then me fishing nowdays) ill kill them quickly and toss them on ice. It always really bothered me to catch a fish I intended to release and it swallowing the hook and being seriously injured, so its why i switched from live bait to lures, or in some limited scenarios using a circle hook and live bait. Its nearly eliminated swallowing of hooks.
As for religion, most commentors fail to see their own hypocrisy in their statements condemning people who practice X religion. Most people seem to recognize at this point that we shouldn't judge an entire segment of people based on their skin color or sexual preferences, yet the same people will happily judge entire individuals of many religious groups because current culture says its "ok". As if its ever ok to make blanket judgements of individuals based entirely on what group they might be part of instead of their individual actions or words. Some doctrine is outright vile and evil (see parts of catholic doctrine and parts of islam) but that doesn't make all catholics or muslims monsters. Some of both political parties have members who spew vile things, and both parties have members and leaders who want the best for themselves and their country and communities. Because someone is pro-life doesn't mean they want to see all women subjugated, and just because someone is pro-choice doesn't mean they want to club babies a week before birth. Life is far more nuanced and conplex then that.
If we can't manage to see each other, and hear each other and realistically deal with each others fears, needs and desires then we are doomed to fail. And considering all the good the US has done over its short time that would be a sad thing. Sure its hands are far from clean, but show me anything built by humanity that isnt stained with someones blood. The best we can do is to try and ensure each successive generation spills less blood, and does more good then the last. Labeling each other as enemies and redemptionless won't get us there.
@Avenger305: so i can watch the same movie over and over again? I can only think of a tiny selection of movies or tv series id watch a second time, much less more than twice.
Now games i can agree at least from a resale perspective. But i worry modern consoles will not age nearly as well as older ones. An old console doesnt expect to find a master server or updates or patches.
@keb: trumps trade war was trying to fix a glaring issue that had been allowed to happen over the past 20 years. We allowed american companies to outsource everything to china and we even subsidized *mail* using the USPS from china! It was/is cheaper for a chinese ebay vendor to send a small package from china to new york using usps than it is for a US citizen to send the same package from ohio to new york!! How insane is that?
We put all our eggs in one basket and then the virus came along and we ignored it while china stopped export of n95 masks and put their network of Chinese nationals in the US to work buying up retail stocks of n95 masks and shipping them home.
China discovered in 2020 that they can loose a virus on the world and because they are a authoritarian government they can handle the virus vastly better than democratic free countries. Their GDP *increased* in 2020! So now they know they don't even need to use conventional or nuclear weapons against nato or the US. They can win using cyber attacks, social media manipulation and biologic attacks.
We need to rebuild US manufacturing and R&D, and we need to work closely with a set of solid reliable allies like Japan, the UK and hopefully the EU. I like the idea of "made in america" but think a new "made in free, democratic nations" is probably the better tagline. We could go it alone, but we will have a much better chance of success by roping in our friends. Give mexico favored nation status. Tell them to become our new china. Have them start building motherboard factories, and the mexican equivalent of Guangdong.
India is another good one, though we rely on them too much for medications at the moment. We need a sustainable local supplier for more of those products simply from a national security perspective.
I'm just glad the dems didn't come in and immediately try and make friends with China again. They have hopefully woken up to the global threat they pose to all free nations.
If people think the USA throws their weight around in unfair ways, just wait until China takes the seat as the world powerhouse, the world reserve currency, or the world largest military power.. it won't be pretty, and if they don't like what activists have to say about it they will just silence them.
@thecupidstunts: the older I get (im old) the more I want to try psychedelics. Your not helping.. ;) Probably not LSD though (it doesn't have a perfect safety profile, and anything that has a profound effect when measured in micrograms worries me).
@P00DGE: hitman 3 is the one that pissed me off. It is a multi platform game but only has a vr mode on the PS. Meaning they specifically disabled it for on PC. Why? The only reason I can think of is that the major player for VR on the PC is valve and steam, and hitman 3 is a epic game store "exclusive". Which reminds me, i need to "claim" this weeks game on multiple accounts. I assume they pay the developers per copy claimed so I try and claim as many as possible to hopefully transport as much of that fortnite cash out of epics wallet into developers wallets. Yes, I'm petty.
@thomaswmak: it really can't "hurt" your eyes but can and will expose eye issues that already exist. The thing that seems to mess with most people is they think that since its close to their face they wont need their glasses, not understanding that it tricks the eyes into to focusing at something like 6-12 feet away (depending on the headset).
Thats actually one of the things that causes eye strain, the constant focus distance. Even though your looking at things both "near" and "far" your eye is focused at the same distance for both things and it can mess with your brain, in addition to straining your eyes by staying at the same focus distance for long periods.
Honestly the science behind all of it is really interesting. When it was first developed I figured, how hard can it be? Some multi axis accelerometers and position sensors and a really nice screen jammed onto your face, done. But its vastly more complex than that to get right.
@mooglestar: you will. I got a teather that connects to the ceiling for my PC valve index headset. It works great. It was like 30$ for the really nice set on amazon.
@bat725: i think im going to have to make my own. I want a 4 player cabinet that supports gauntlet 1 and 2, xmen and tmnt games, and both the golden axe games. SF2-2T and MK2 would be perfect as well. A few older titles like rampage to fill it out.
Im surprised no one has seen the opportunity to put out a 2 player and 4 player cabinet with a steam-like store-interface and then license and sell the software. The actual hardware to emulate these titles is super low end and cheap. Toss in a wifi connection and make. Simple UI/store and sell people the original games. I'd be shocked if the game makers didn't jump at the idea (since they could easily double dip by selling SF2, then next year releasing SF2 turbo, etc).
Unfortunately since no one is doing that ill probably just build my own cabinet and go the DIY route.
@hannibalmath: you guys really fail at market dynamics. Scalpers are only making money because of the volume of consoles not meeting current demand. Why would sony or MS lower production to "make more money!"? Both companies sell those consoles at a loss in the beginning. They don't do that for the fun of it. They sell at a loss to compete with each other to lock in customers. Because its not the sale of the console that makes them profit long term, its the 20-30% they make off every game sale online, the licensing fees they get so people can release stuff at all on their system, and the monthly fees they get for their online services.
It is absolutely not in MS or Sonys interest to lower production on those consoles, regardless how much people might pay for them. If they did that then way less people would buy them and gamers would just give up and buy PCs, and developers would see much lower sales on their games on that system and prioritize their game for systems with larger marketshare and im a short period of time those consoles wouldn't have much value at all because hardly any games would be on them.
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