And, accordingly, how large Brazil actually is, which is not quite as distorted for its location touching the equator.

It wasn’t defederation, just migration. But they never asked the community whether they agreed with that or not.

It was a disagreement between a couple moderators and an instance admin, with the users caught in the middle left wondering “wtf is going on?”

The part that was most abrasive to the users, I think, was that they initially closed the 196 community on Blahaj, ostensibly to not confuse people about which community was now in use, but causing the exact opposite reaction (since again, they never consulted the users before making this move).

A large popcorn is about $12 at AMC, according to thr article. So you’d be saving about $6 on every purchase. 5 large popcorns before breaking even.

Popcorn used to be the cheap trash food used to feed people during the Great Depression who couldn’t afford normal concessions. Now we’re charging a subscription for it.

Why fix it?

The ones that seemed more explicitly prayer-like appeared to be referencing Islam more than Christianity, too.

Caiman on a…layman?

Yeah that [insert your username here] is a real character, right?

Not a Photoshop though, but an AI redraw. Notice how it interpreted background elements similarly but wrong as well, like the Chinese text around the red part of the wall just being turned into decorative little divots for some reason.

But what is TИAИƎVƎЯ ƎHT

Not many options in the area that were:

1. Accepting new patients

2. Accepted my insurance

It was basically down to 2 options at that point and I chose the closer of the two. They’re fine, no complaints, but I know others who have had bad experiences with other providers at that practice. But then I’ve heard worse about the other place, so…

Guar

Seems that is more Africa-specific and may not necessarily be what folks from the African diaspora are looking for, though.

Yep. Not to say that people who struggle with games aren’t valid or there shouldn’t be accessibility options to cater to them, but when writing professionally about games, you should be a near-expert in how to play those kinds of games, at least at their baseline difficulty.

It’s fine to say “I don’t quite get this game, but I’m sure there are people who do and who enjoy it.” But that can’t be a “review.” When you’re a reviewer, you’re supposed to be an authority. If you admit to not being an authority, then you’re not quite qualified to review it.

It shouldn’t honestly matter, but knowing how many publishers tie aggregated review metrics to their developers’ wages/bonuses/raises (or even if anyone gets to keep their jobs at all), it’s crazy for a publication to have journalists who don’t actually know how to play games just reviewing them on vibes alone. It’s too easy to run the risk of not understanding a core part of the gameplay and just assume it’s the game that’s wrong instead of me (because I want to continue getting paid to review games). So I assign it a negative score because my lack of understanding made the game feel bad, and then a level designer somewhere loses their bonus because the aggregate score was half a point lower than the total stipulated in their contract.

Reminds me of the first time I booted up Elden Ring. The title screen started up and I heard some music, but it was so quiet. I turned up the volume and then a second later thought I almost blew out the speakers on my headset.

Context for anyone who has not heard the title music for Elden Ring.

I’d also make that complaint about adjustable difficulty, but to speak to the game progression, I have to agree.

Games should be teaching players what they’re getting into from the very beginning. The tutorial should be “When you do everything right, this is how easy the game is. When it’s not this easy, it means you’re doing something wrong”. That “wrong” thing could be messing up a mechanic, not upgrading your character enough, or you’re trying to go to a later area too early. It’s a teaching moment.

So many games today, at “Normal” difficulty, will throw players into combat encounters where they just basically kill everything in one hit. So players in the tutorial think “This is a bit too easy, I’m going to up the difficulty to Hard”, but then they don’t realize that everything gets harder when you exit the tutorial, and then over the course of the game the difficulty keeps outpacing your progression.

As far as the difficulty slider goes, I think it’s always better when harder modes just make you easier to kill, rather than enemies being more difficult to kill. There’s often a good balance that can be struck between the two, but too many games just opt for just making enemies tankier and tankier, which ends up turning the “difficulty” slider into a “time/resources waster” slider.

This is my peeve, over-tutorializing.

I know there are folks out there who are profoundly bad at games, and that’s who these things are made for. I’m reminded of that one gaming journalist who gave Cuphead a bad review because he couldn’t figure out how to double jump and never got out of the tutorial.

But just make it a quick selection when starting a new game. “I’m new here, show me guides” and “I’m an expert, skip tutorial content”. Or even just make the tutorials an optional object interaction in the game that you don’t have to touch if you’ve already figured it out.

But the best games are the ones that teach players how to play organically. Level 1-1 in Super Mario Bros is the common example. Setting the camera controls in the older Halo games was also a work of genius. Newer games are a bit too dense to be able to cover everything quite as quickly and organically as Mario, but you can still offer some similar diegetic hints and just add a little “Help” button for anyone who can’t figure it out on their own.

I thought Halo CE’s system of shields plus health was a neat innovation. Shields regenerate, health does not. Health is basically a buffer for survivability when shields go down, but you can survive combat at low health as long as you’re watching your shields.

The sound cues for shields low/down/regenerating provide a lot more feedback, too.

Unsweetened Iced Tea.

Can choose pretty much any variety of tea you like and just drink it with ice and no sugar.

Around here (not Australia), it’s normally black tea, lemon optional for mild sweetness. Unsweetened green tea (not matcha) is also common. Not good if you’re looking for unsweetened, but the Arnold Palmer is also a popular drink, which is 50% iced tea and 50% lemonade.

Anywhere boba tea is served, you’ll find varieties of matcha iced tea available. More of a cafe drink, but probably good if you’re a matcha person. Milk tea is also common in boba shops and is just any variety of iced tea plus dairy, so if you like your tea with cream, that’s still enjoyable as a cold drink.

In Japan, barley tea is pretty commonly served cold and unsweetened, along with other popular tea varieties like oolong and jasmine. If you’re in Australia, it might not be too difficult to get Japanese imports (or even to just learn to make your own, they’re easy).

I can smell it from here.

Not baseless, I explained my reasoning. If you say it’s not the case, that’s fine.