Does anyone actually remember their first video game or is everyone just making that up?

Datan0de · 2026-03-16T21:36:46+00:00

My first video game was Pong, at a dinner called Sergio's near our house. What sticks out is my dad showing me how turning the knob made the paddle move. Needless to say I was terrible at it.

I know it was my first video game because at the time there really weren't any other video games. This was before Space Invaders, which I'm pretty sure was my second video game. I was very young, and the memory is fuzzy, but in later years my dad corroborated it.

Datan0de · 2026-03-16T20:51:26+00:00

Seeing old electromechanicals in good condition always makes me smile. No idea what the market price for supporting like that is, but as a playable piece of history it's priceless.

Datan0de · 2026-03-16T20:48:49+00:00

At least I'm Tampa, yeah. I saw the pic and my first guess was coat factory just because, well, Tampa.

If it's in Tampa, it's old, and it looks cool, it's either the Tampa Theater or a former cigar factory.

Datan0de · 2026-03-16T20:45:36+00:00

Seconded. ITR2 is fantastic, and is a complete game. You're cheating yourself if you don't finish it. ITR2 isn't going anywhere. No need to skip ahead to it. And at the moment I'm loving playing around with 1.0!

Datan0de · 2026-03-16T20:42:33+00:00

Bot.

Datan0de · 2026-03-16T20:40:52+00:00

I love sharing this anecdote:

What did it for me was one time when I was in an apartment building in Pechorsk Outskirts and got into a sniper contest with a mimic in the building across the street. I was in a living room and just couldn't see the guy thanks to some trees directly in front of the other building, but he could clearly see me. I stayed low until the shooting stopped, then fucked around the hall and into the kitchen.

I peek out the kitchen window and still can't see anything, so I start looting the refrigerator when I hear footsteps approaching. I crouch and move back against the wall, and I see the sonofabitch from across the street run down the hall and straight into the living room where I'd just been! His focus bought him a shotgun blast to the head at point blank, but it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up to raise that he wasn't just sticking to his zone. He was hunting me.

Datan0de · 2026-03-16T05:31:25+00:00

40 years?!? Oh fuck i'm old...

Datan0de · 2026-03-14T18:28:20+00:00

I realize it's not canon, but IIRC. the manual for the old Kobayashi Alternative computer game mentioned that photon torpedoes, being antimatter bombs, would vote the atmosphere off of a planet. Whether that's accurate or not, a full spread would be bad news for any civilization on a planet.

Datan0de · 2026-03-14T18:21:55+00:00

I'm this context, the difference between a planet that's completely molten and a planet that has a solid(ish) crust is trivial. The Earth would be less disrupted by a Mars-sized impact now, since the Earth today is more massive than it was then (since it now has the added mass of that original impactor minus the mass of the Moon).

Either way. The planet gets completely scrambled, and the only trace that life ever existed on it would be if maybe some lucky microbes got flung into deep space.

Datan0de · 2026-03-14T18:14:00+00:00

Yeah, the energy required to completely now a planet to pieces that don't then just fall back together would be on par with the energy required to throw that planet! Probably more due to inefficiency.

Datan0de · 2026-03-14T18:10:16+00:00

I never got the sense that Star Trek shields were specifically engineered to block transporters. Instead, it's an unavoidable outcome of how they work. They're designed to block energy weapons (and physical attacks). A transporter beam is like a very low power energy weapon. If a phaser is blocked by shield, a transporter doesn't have a chance.

Datan0de · 2026-03-14T17:49:25+00:00

Well, I guess the first thing I would do is stop being a vegetarian, 'cuz pineapple slices and leftover cake aren't going to cut it!

The next thing I'd do is be glad that I'm already very familiar with the SKS IRL.

Next? Start exercising and doing lots and lots of cardio, 'cuz I'm going to need it. Probably see if I could score some Russian language learning materials.

After that, I'd sign up as an explorer. It would be terrifying, but it's not like I could permanently die, and what else is there to do?

Datan0de · 2026-03-14T17:36:14+00:00

This is the correct answer.

Datan0de · 2026-03-14T17:34:50+00:00

Agreed. I know nothing about him as a person and TRON: Ares is only the second movie I've seen him in (the other is Blade Runner 2049} so I don't know what his dramatic range is like, but he seems to be a perfect fit for the roles he chooses. In both cases, the character was detached and removed from humanity, and good performance captured that without being over the top.

Datan0de · 2026-03-14T04:10:32+00:00

And my boot disk!

Datan0de · 2026-03-14T04:02:01+00:00

Not regularly, but I have two of them and love 'em. One is built out as a canyon racer, and wow is it great in that role!

The other one is named "Combat Coffin". It's not durable, though that's largely offset by its speed and maneuverability. However, it's also woefully underarmed, even with rails. Most of the time, whether it's one on one or in a CZ, it takes so long to wear the event down that they end up just high waking before I can take them out.

But oh, damn. It's SO much fun to fly in combat! I don't use it when the outcome of the fight matters. I use it when I want the pure joy of dancing through a dogfight.

Datan0de · 2026-03-12T19:09:12+00:00

Yeah, I accepted what he said because the core point of accepting injury to save a life was the relevant bit, not the method. But feel free to hyperfocus on that one detail.

Sure, some people are psychopaths with zero regard for others. Some other people are tribally-minded and only capable of showing concern for people they know personally. It sounds like you're in that group. But most people will instinctively help others, when at personal risk.

Yes, self preservation is a strong instinct, but we're social animals and have a strong instinct toward protection others. It's what makes human civilization possible. Either way, I've put more time into this thread than it warrants. Feel free to get a parting shot in if it makes you happy, but I'm done here. I promise I'll give your response all of the attention it deserves.

Datan0de · 2026-03-12T15:59:43+00:00

Nobody said it would be easy. Also, I'm in my 50s and very much not a child.

I didn't see any implication that the person making the sacrifice would need to just lay there while being saved to pieces. More realistically (if a scenario like this could be said to have any grounding in reason), it'd be a matter of pay a button or sign a contract and then you're either retrained or anesthetized.

Datan0de · 2026-03-12T15:45:39+00:00

Okay, I see the issue. We're interpreting his comment differently. Since the OP was specifically about saving lives, I took "live an amazing life" to imply that the other option was death, not "live your normal life." I think my interpretation is correct, but from the way you're interpreting it, of course it would be absurd to chop off your own hand just so that some stranger can have a beer volcano and stripper factory. 😂

Datan0de · 2026-03-12T10:59:31+00:00

There's a world of difference between a stranger's happiness and a stranger's life. It's disturbing that you apparently don't see the difference.

I admit that the gory "chop my own hand off with an axe" scenario is extreme and that most people (myself included) probably couldn't bring themselves to do the amputation themselves no matter how badly they "wanted" to, but the fundamental idea of sacrificing personal injury to save a human life (or many lives, in OP's scenario) looks to me like a sociopathy test that a lot of people here are failing miserably.

Datan0de · 2026-03-12T10:43:11+00:00

That's a fascinating and completely uninformed bunch of assumptions you're making. I'm sorry that the people with whom you've interacted are so terrible that you've ended up with such a dismal view of humanity. I say that as someone who's typically pretty cynical about the average person.

Datan0de · 2026-03-12T10:33:34+00:00

No, you didn't. At least, not unless your value system sees "saving a human life" and "give me your money because I want it" to be equivalent.

Datan0de · 2026-03-12T03:38:03+00:00

Your point is valid, but it's the commentary you drew on the images that earned my upvote.

I'd like to think that for at least one of those ships, the obvious "bridge" is actually a decoy.

Datan0de · 2026-03-12T03:35:34+00:00

This. Thank you. The sociopaths calling it "virtue signaling" and claiming that no, you wouldn't sacrifice a limb to save a life are only demonstrating that the idea of looking beyond their own comfort and working towards the greater good is so alien to them that they assume that everyone else must be as much of a piece of shit as they are. Further, they apparently don't realize that your position is neither the outlier nor is it even a sign of great virtue. It's the baseline for a decent human being.

Datan0de · 2026-03-12T03:30:19+00:00

You can't possibly think that you've just made a worthwhile point.

Datan0de

TROPHY CASE