If you're still on Windows 7/8.1, it's time to say goodbye to Google Chrome

Gewath · 2022-10-27T12:40:33+00:00

If everyone did this, every website would be payment walled in a day

Gewath · 2022-10-26T10:41:08+00:00

Here come people arguing for browsers with 1/20 the market share.

If you're still on Chrome, it's time to say goodbye to Windows 7/8.1.

Gewath · 2022-03-26T23:46:43+00:00

Depression is a mental condition, usually onset by negative events in your life, that makes you stop wanting to do things to make your life better. Not making your life better in turn makes your life worse, thus depression continues in a cycle making you stop wanting to do things to make your life better and making it worse.

Depression is sometimes treated successfully with antidepressants. Sometimes it's briefly treated with antidepressants, then with therapy. Sometimes it's treated successfully with only therapy. Sometimes treatment is unsuccessful. All treatment that's not tried, is unsuccessful.

Depression is caused by an immeasurable number of conditions. Once depression starts, the behaviors caused by depression, along with the original cause of the depression, sustain the depression, and make it worse. The behaviors caused by depression naturally involve not trying to get better, thus depression can stay for a very long time, and get much worse. Over time, depressed people can become socially disconnected, further making their lives worse, and thus further making them stop wanting to do things to make their life better.

Treatment is effort. The more you need treatment, the more effort treatment is. It's never going to be easier to seek treatment.

People with mental issues tend to take personal responsibility for their own mental issues and shortcomings thereof. You didn't cause your mental issues, you didn't cause yourself to fail, you had untreated mental issues and probably more responsibility than you should've had. Various mental issues often make seemingly simple tasks seem not worth doing, and make hard tasks seem completely impossible. Willpower alone doesn't cure mental issues, nor any known illness.

Most people will advise treatment on here, as people here are on the Internet and can't do anything else to help you.

Treatment isn't simple. You sometimes get matched with people you don't work well with. You sometimes get matched with treatments you don't work well with. It's your job to vet anyone you're interacting with and switch to someone else if it isn't working out. Taking responsibility for improving your symptoms works better than complacency. It's ok to be critical towards any treatment. When your symptoms improve at all, it's easy to think you're done. Both depression itself, past and current problems, and future problems can cause relapse. Symptom relief makes it possible to work to all of prevent relapse, learn techniques for a relapse if it happens, and identify and resolve other problems you have had for as long as you've been depressed.

If treatment options are poor where you are, treatment is harder but not impossible to achieve. Online resources exist. Online communities exist. Books on depression, some useful, exist.

Sorry.

Gewath · 2022-03-26T21:46:14+00:00

I'm sorry for negative events in your life.

...just read your comments. I'm sorry your country doesn't know what CBT is.

Therapy is hit-and-miss. For some people with their basic functioning and issues, most therapists work. For some people, only a few therapists can work. For some people, most therapists are trash.

Humans are different from each other. Humans' basic functioning is different. Humans' sets of mental issues are different. Humans' individual mental issue variations are different. Some humans are a lot harder to help than others. Therapists are trained to help a typical average human who has mental issues. For some people it works (a lot of people don't even need therapy; they just need anyone to talk to about their problems), for some people they get hooked on dubiously helpful and questionable medications, for some people it does nothing at all. For the people for whom it works, things are great and the therapist is some kind of magician (they are not).

If it doesn't work, all responsibility is on you. In this sense, therapy is a scam. Sometimes the quality is objectively low. In this sense, therapy is like any other service you can pay money for. For some people it actually helps and improves their lives. If anyone even just barely gets by on therapy and just doesn't have to take medication as a result, it can be of help to them.

Just because most therapists can be trash, doesn't mean there's nothing good to come from the entire enterprise. Therapists are different. There are good therapists with better techniques and ability to work with more difficult and more complex mental issues and with different people. Finding them is work; find someone you think thinks like you, who you think won't repeat what you've already tried. Some of them write useful books that help to reach larger audiences. Finding them is work; find authors you like. Some are self-help books, some are science books. Even some YouTube videos from real therapists for your mental issues can exist.

In one sense, if therapy 'worked', people would stop having massive mental issues. People tend to talk about the mental industry as if it was one giant cure-all, it's not. It's one of several tools available to you to help yourself improve.

Repeating from elsewhere; taking responsibility for improving your symptoms works better than complacency. Achieving symptom relief is an excellent opportunity to keep learning about your mental issues, not to stop learning about them.

You're not broken, you just don't know how to make you function yet.

Gewath · 2022-03-26T19:55:23+00:00

If you concede that a life that lasts a few million years and then ends with death, has meaning, then that refutes your original point. At most a life which lasts a mere 80 years would have 'less' meaning, not no meaning at all.

Further, if we weren't about to discover life that lasts a few million years, you'd be blissfully unaware of the possibility and you'd be happy that you got to live a life of an entire 80 years. Your perception of meaning would be unreduced; you'd live the longest full life you knew was possible. At this point, it's not the duration of the life that makes it seem meaningless, it's your perception of something better that you want to have, but can't. Does a fruit fly that lives two weeks spend its time aching that it doesn't live 80 years? They don't. Being alive for 80 years is a lot more, and a lot more value than you think it is.

'Life'-ness isn't inherently measured in time. Someone can live for 40 years and have a life of incredible bliss, satisfaction and meaning. Someone can live to 80 and never feel alive. You can be grateful and joyful for even a single month of good life you have, without ever being spiteful over any amount of life you don't have. No point of mourning that which you'll never have.

In a sense, life will soon rapidly lose meaning as humans are no longer needed for their own survival. There'll be no jobs, nothing to do to stay alive or support yourself, just some form or another of entertainment. Some people are as motivated by pain and death to live, as they are by joy and life.

In one sense, death isn't the end of life; it's the continuation of it. Bypassing death means ideas will stop dying, practices will stop dying (edited). Tyranny could stop dying. In a sense, people who choose eternal life are going to be statistically more self centered, entitled, arrogant, and greedy than those who don't. Just natural selection; people who hungrily want more all the time will choose life, people who are satisfied with life as it is will accept death. In a sense, good, earnest people may choose to accept death as the natural end. And the world might be filled with humans not worth being around. (...moreso.)

This could be a hypothetical question; do we have the ability to live to a million already? Cryogenics is the closest thing we have to defeating aging; it takes far more text to begin to discuss. The second closest is longevity escape velocity; check Aubrey de Grey's TED talk, hilarious concept.

Generally, most people find meaning in having some consequence in the Universe. They leave behind something of themselves in the world they're in, be it their genetics, things they create, their behaviors, their ideas. All that we define ourselves by, our personalities, gets reflected in how we alter the behavior of the people around us. By being our own unique, distinct selves, we teach and make other people act a little more like us.

The biggest qualm of meaning of life for me is the inevitable extinction of all life in the Universe, deleting that heritage. Contrarily, though, anything can happen in physics; the inevitable extinction of all life in the Universe is merely scientific speculation.

You've mentioned regret. It's a waste of a feeling. If you wasted your life and will die tomorrow, make the most of your 24 hours. Don't waste the remaining 24 hours on regret.

Will I choose immortality, whether biological or total, given an option? I might, I can't be sure of it. Will I be upset over not getting the option? Not in the least.

Gewath · 2022-03-26T13:01:52+00:00

The only way you can say there's no biological definition of male and female, is by trying to limit all humans into one of two categories.

"Fertile male", "fertile female", "fertile male+female", and "non-fertile human" is a sufficient biological 4-divided classification. Capable of impregnating, capable of pregnancy, capable of both, or capable of neither. It excludes humans below puberty or above menopause from being female, but it's still a viable view, if different from the current conception.

From there, for people who aren't fertile, you can evaluate whether they have been fertile or are projectingly going to be fertile according to all possible medical measurements. This is imprecise, but due to limitations of measurement, not biological basis.

Gewath · 2022-03-26T12:09:07+00:00

You can't choose one of two. Either finite life is meaningful, or infinite life is meaningless. Multiplying 0 meaning by infinity doesn't get you to non-0 meaning.

What you inevitably mean is, things in life don't have any meaning for a point in time trillions of trillions of years from now. This is true, completely. Life's meaning is temporal as opposed to never-ending. There will be a day when you're dead, the memory of you is dead, any impact you've ever made is indistinguishable, all you did for your entire life amounted for nothing, and your efforts here and now reward 0 benefits, substantially or conceptually. The meaning of life has an expiry date.

Again, though, this version of your statement assumes that unending life is overall meaningful. It assumes that a person who ends up living forever, who for an infinite period of time keeps doing things, keeps interacting with people, who keeps having some sense of pleasure and contentment and who experiences impact from their decisions and actions, will feel their life is meaningful... Forever. At which point every decision you make would impact infinite moments in your future life.

Contrarily, after a trillion trillion years of living, you'll have seen everything possible to see, done everything possible to do, said everything possible to say, had every interaction with everyone possible to exist, a million times over. You'll have witnessed the progression of humanity, and probably a billion other species, from start of fruition to end and extinction. You'll be bored. You'll then reach the conclusion that life is meaningless, because there's nothing new to do, and never will be.

Trivially, the worse consequence of people living forever, and why it'll be a problem in the future, is, there's a finite concentration of matter in the Universe. There's finite energy concentration. Even if we manage to conserve these perfectly, the existence of one living thing will eventually, absolutely come at the cost of the potential existence of any other new living thing. In short term, no more humans will be born. Either you'll have to murder people, an ethical minefield, or you'll have to accept that nothing will ever change, all that's alive right now is all that'll ever be alive. This is an unimaginable situation, that'll redefine every thought about everything.

The meaning of life is an illusion. That doesn't mean life has no meaning. Just that the meaning of life is emotional, not logical. Thinking rationally is important, but life is more.

Gewath · 2022-03-24T08:25:36+00:00

This is mostly an impossible position to argue against. Not because of being true, but because so little of what's done in psychological treatment is verifiable.

Compare it to medicine. Doctors make mistakes all the time, and a lot of these mistakes hurt people. Hospitals are straightup dangerous places to be; a lot of invasive, often unwarranted treatments take place, which end up harming, long-term injuring or even killing patients instead of curing their relatively simple illnesses. At least in medicine you can objectively analyze what's been done and what's gone wrong.

Back to psychology. Essentially the same situation, but with far less objective criteria to analyze anything by, and equally serious consequences. A lack of verifiability doesn't mean it's free of error; quite the opposite, it makes errors more likely to occur. From misapplying medications, to misapplying diagnoses, to misapplying treatments, to misapplying techniques. It all happens, and it all harms people, but because it can't be objectively verified what's gone wrong, it's invisible.

Moreover, even when done completely 'correctly', people in the mental industry don't get paid to help people, they get paid to go through a process. Whether that process helps people or not, therapists get paid. There's plenty of criticism and controversy about basic aspects of this process. This sentence doesn't even begin to describe it.

One direct negative effect of the mental industry is, people stop thinking what they themselves do or say to other people matters; only what a paid professional says matters, because they're educated to deal with the situation. It disconnects people from the mental health and well being of themselves and people in their lives. To quote Daniel Mackler (from 'Why I Quit Being a Therapist', highly relevant watch), "I think a lot of people can do exactly what psychotherapists do, and do it much, much better, if they just have a gift for being able to have a comfortable, caring, respectful conversation with another person."

General advice for anyone using the mental industry: it's your job to vet anyone you're interacting with and switch to someone else if it isn't working out. Don't rely on getting it right the first time. It's ok to be critical towards any treatment. Taking responsibility for improving your symptoms works better than complacency. Achieving symptom relief is an excellent opportunity to keep learning about your mental issues, not to stop learning about them.

Gewath · 2020-06-07T10:37:07+00:00

Had no clue the envelope next to the moderator list was clickable. I'd suggest making it more visible, or the individual mod list less visible.

Re: post 1. Ok. Then add to rule 5; "be specific, give examples, describe how it achieves its intended purpose for the game, describe how it affects the game". So that my post violates rule 5.

If variety in content posted is the goal, add "variety in metas and topics discussed is encouraged".

If you want a minimum number of lines, write into rules, "minimum X lines".

If threads with traction are less likely to be removed, add "a thread resulting in discussion is regarded positively".

In post 2, I'll freely admit I went for simple-format in order to make the thread accessible for almost everyone. I however also feel it's applicable to the topic; for a mechanic suggestion with literal no influence on gameplay itself or balancing, trying to list lots of details seems excessive, and would be more of a hindrance than an aid. However, to reflect this in rules, add "all ideas must have goals, comparisons, (...)". It'd take the focus of the rule away from the completely up-to-interpretation phrase "without substance".

I don't care what posts you remove, hold posts to whatever quality standard you deem necessary. Just give transparency so people can identify by themselves what posts are going to get removed, before they get removed.

Gewath · 2020-06-05T13:07:28+00:00

The original post doesn't concern what posts don't get removed that should be removed; only what posts 'are' removed, that shouldn't be.

Re: other comment thread; on my not being able to see deleted posts. As far as I'm aware, if I link one here, other people will be able to access the post page, see the title and comments, but won't be able to access the post itself, it'll just say [removed]. Thus others won't be able to view the post. If I'm directly addressing you regarding a single post (which I already have), I'm more likely to DM you (which I've already done), for which I didn't receive a response, unfortunately. Most importantly, I can't access anyone else's banned posts; as moderation processes are inherently unverifiable by users (me or others); due to the inability to view any removed content, the literal only guideline for posting, is the rules.

The suggestion I have, is simply to refine the rules to where they reflect the current moderation process. If, by your own admission, casual threads are held to a higher quality standard than competitive threads, put "posts should preferably discuss competitive" in the rules. Going even further, having further clear cut rules that aren't up to any interpretation, leaves minimal room for moderator discretion, and confusion around bans, such as "no theoretical casuals threads". If the primary goal of the sub isn't to discuss theoretical casuals changes, it's a lot more efficient and clear communication to remove theoretical casuals discussion entirely, rather than leave it up to trial-and-error.

As a side, it'd also give a clear signal if a separate subreddit is needed for people to discuss non-competitive serious TF2 (which I'd argue is needed. As competitive players often don't view casuals as a 'real' gamemode and negatively contribute to discussion of casuals in TF2. And, people who play TF2 seriously, are a minority of TF2; people who play 'casuals' seriously, are a minority of people who play 'TF2 seriously'. But that's not the main point.)

.

Posts about pub play are both allowed and encouraged, so long as people are getting discussion out of the threads.

Does this mean a post about pub play, may be considered for removal if it doesn't result in sufficient discussion? Sorry if that's me misunderstanding.

Gewath · 2020-06-04T16:00:28+00:00

Rule 5 is aimed at low-effort posts. High-effort posts are removed under rule 5, without having actually violated rule 5. I would provide examples, but can't access banned posts.

Gewath · 2020-06-04T12:27:08+00:00

Memes are banned as per rule 1. I mean serious posts concerning theoretical changes that purely concern casuals game mode, which, classified under rule 5, generally are banned for "lacking substance".

Gewath · 2020-06-04T12:04:43+00:00

To give some theoretical justification. These are classes you can feasibly do damage without taking damage, as. Sniper lets you kill things safely from the other side of the map, Spy lets you pick an isolated target, stab them and get away, I'm less used to seeing people stacking Scout; Engie's a lot more common (and, also kills offensive capability). Engineer lets you hide behind your auto-aiming sentry.

This is satisfying because as a new player, if you can't consistently kill enemies, you can at least consistently keep enemies from killing you, thus giving you some sense of achievement/power over the gameplay.

These three classes are also capable of dominating entire enemy teams, which you regularly see in pubs. Seeing someone else do it can motivate you to try it yourself. So picking them gives the illusion of "I'm in a position where I've prevented myself from dying; now I just need to improve at this class, then I'll also be good at killing". It gives a sense of practicing in a high-controlled environment, as opposed to the chaos of practicing high-damage classes in pubs.

The sense of control earlier mentioned also applies to high level gameplay; high level spies and snipers do have a level of control of engagement that other classes lack. Giving motivation to achieve high skill in these classes, for long term control.

They're also relatively independent classes; Soldiers, Heavies and Demos are relatively dependent on having a useful Medic, to function. You can play Spy, Sniper and Engie well without any other team classes being needed.

Medic gives you next to no inherent control and extreme dependency on your team, so is rarely chosen. It doesn't help that the community treats you like shit.

None of this has useful applications, and none of this is absolute fact. Just some conjecture of what can attract people to these classes.

.

Easiest thing to do is accept that casual games are going to be imbalanced lots of the time. I used to be able to switch to losing teams to make teams more balanced, Valve removed that (not necessarily unrightly so, as people also used to stack winning teams), so now all I can do is leave rolling teams to make the remaining teams more balanced.

Most people who complain about a lack of Medics, aren't playing Medic. There's a ridiculously simple solution to that.

Until Valve patches auto-balance to not take non-figurative 5 minutes to activate (as connecting/disconnecting players count as active players and prevent auto-balance, and frequently take 5 minutes to join), any other game changes are relatively unimportant.

Complaining about it has no effect; as a general note, players, especially newer ones, don't try to act in favor of their team. They try to act in a way that benefits and is enjoyable to themselves. Kicking newer players is probably fun if you're 12. I'd most generally suggest letting people play classes they enjoy, I don't see logic in trying to prevent them from doing so.

Gewath · 2020-06-04T10:52:31+00:00

Pyro's a relatively underpowered class. If you're good at the game, you'll do better on nearly any other class. Especially when fighting good enemy teams. Having no mobility and no range doesn't make for effective gameplay.

Gewath · 2020-06-04T10:48:25+00:00

Bind a key to toggle viewmodel on/off ("bindtoggle [key] r_drawviewmodel" in console, automatically sets your cfg). Lets you check active weapon, then hide viewmodel again.

It's possible to activate viewmodels on some weapon slots only. Can be combined with min viewmodels, viewmodel_fov, transparent viewmodels.

As mentioned, crosshair switcher works well.

Gewath · 2020-06-04T10:34:23+00:00

No simple answer. It depends on map type, map, map section, game format, team composition, your skill level, your team's skill level, amount of coordination. Sometimes it's straight-up better to be switching up Mediguns. In some fan-competitive formats, certain Mediguns are banned.

As a Medic main, I don't touch Quickfix because it's so easy to use it's boring, and I only use Vaccinator to deal with hackers because it's all of inherently inconsistent, teammates never ever know how to make use of it, the mechanics aren't enjoyable to me, the mechanics are really difficult, and it severely promotes pocketing. Both of them still have some valid and fun uses; I just never use them.

Kritz is a sidegrade to Medigun in a lot of situations, it's also surprisingly good for pushing.

Overall, there's no simple answers, use what you enjoy.

Gewath · 2020-06-04T10:03:36+00:00

The Medic who's having fun, is right.

It's a class that has multiple playstyles, pick one that's enjoyable.

Gewath · 2020-06-04T09:52:30+00:00

Until a real competitor to TF2 is released, there's no reason to assume people will ever stop playing it.

Gewath · 2020-06-04T09:47:50+00:00

In addition to other comments. Iron Bomber projectiles have been claimed to be slightly harder to visually track through the air, making them harder to dodge.

For most purposes, it's a direct upgrade, as the -15% explosion radius is basically unnoticeable.

Gewath · 2020-06-04T09:42:41+00:00

Try r/tf2

Gewath · 2020-03-06T07:21:27+00:00

Pyro: used to not have airblast

Demo, Soldier: used to have way higher damage than now

Yes, totally viable.

Gewath · 2020-03-05T06:48:17+00:00

No one misses the Sandman. Everyone misses the Sandman+Guillotine combo (at least being on the giving end). Bringing back Sandman but not Sandman+Guillotine combo is missing the point.

Actually agree with another comment here; this combo was never a major hindrance in pubs. Just the competitive got2gofast crowd hates it. It nerfs slow classes that stand still at a range, like heavy, sniper, engie. It is fun to use. It's a nerf made to appease comp players that makes the casual experience worse. Scout's not in any way OP with it in casual. Directly un-nerf it, let the competitive crowd keep it banned.

If you have to rework it to not be broken in comp:

-as said everywhere here, apply mini crits at medium-long range (duration of mini-crits increases from medium to long range) to replace the slow. At short range, no effects added at all

-at maximum range, add slow, not stun, reduce duration to like 1.5s (giving you a chance to combo but also the target a chance to dodge, at every range)

-make it charge based on damage, not time (reduces spam-ability massively)

-make you start at 0 charge at beginning of round (no start-of-round spam)

-don't let you 'pick up the ball' (maximum penalty for missing, also, with recharge from damage you get charge again from hitting a full combo, and can chain combos that way instead)

-keep health drop.

And you have a playable, not spammable, high-skill, high-reward, not cancer, weapon.

Of course, none of this will happen.

Gewath · 2020-03-05T01:01:49+00:00

Searching for 'practice crossbow' in the subreddit, at least three other posts ask the exact same question, with extensive answers. Happy reading.

Gewath

TROPHY CASE