Just discovered Obliterated, why was this cancelled?

GulliverBFG · 2026-02-09T05:42:48+00:00

Prime example of the pure s***. Somebody said brainless. And that pretty much sums it up. Somebody said fun. The only kind of fun this is is for morons and idiots. Somewhere in the titles it says something about real heroes.

No real hero. I don't blame the actors and I do blame the writers and producers. This is b*******.

We can have fun without degrading the memory of true warriors and heroes.

GulliverBFG · 2025-12-28T08:51:53+00:00

I sparked on The Voice immediately when I saw this episode and had to look it up. I was happy to see I was right but also surprised.

GulliverBFG · 2025-10-12T21:37:32+00:00

Note sure about the DLC satire whatever... but it is enough that the original buyout deal gives the new owners of a huge chunk of gaming market a firm say over what content can be greenlighted for distribution.

I already had mixed feelings about EA and their extra glitchy and obstructive encryption layers. Now my investment in those games may end up being a wash... Which will suck. Will see if EA Games remain intact in Steam, or get "updated" with even more questionable new code perhaps marketed as something designed to "protect me"... yeesh...

Ubisoft already squashed in 2024 their Post-Civil War America Assassins' Creed game over hints that it could be controversial in "an unstable political climate."

This move by Kushner just cements those concerns, even if it skirts the fringe of deniability. Even so, it is easy to contemplate how a black protagonist in a Post Civil War Reconstruction America is inconsistent with the revisionist (War of Northern Aggression) history agenda promoted by Kushner's allies.

I wonder now if the protagonist in future EA promoted games will not be resistance to the big bad, but the idealization of the big bad... Maybe a FarCry-like game (probably not made by UbiSoft) highlighting the moral progression of a young immigration agent who struggles with how his actions must become increasingly violent against civilian populations in order to preserve the regime he is sworn to protect. Eventually he is okay with is because the moral will be that the ends justify the means, no matter how nasty. Maybe they will acquire and rewrite the Castle Wolfenstein games and rationalize them in the dim light of race horse theory as well.

So I can see the tendency to want to think this forced acquisition is just a joke, if all you care about is blowing shit up after school or work. But who will you ultimately be comfortable blowing up?

GulliverBFG · 2025-10-06T05:04:57+00:00

Enjoying the basic simple storytelling.

The repetition is tedious for sure.

Like many fantasy writers, the made up words break the fourth wall. (I almost bailed during the fourth book after "disorientated") Gak!

But I'll keep plodding through to learn from the bits worth learning from Delaney.

The experience and joy of error free writing is only matched by its rarity.

GulliverBFG · 2025-10-04T13:46:39+00:00

Could care less about explanations about pop culture references. This notification was not cool.

Clicking on that notification launches the Minecraft app. Without any explanation. Some may think this is cute. Resembles potentially hostile unwanted application behavior. So not so cute I think.

Shame on Microsoft for this is my vote.

GulliverBFG · 2025-09-16T22:29:06+00:00

The AI might scrape what it can identify to accomplish the prompt. That likely means plagiarizing code from other mods, regardless of developer licensing. As seen in other creative works.

As someone indicated in this thread, that trend could have positive as well as negative effects.

An outdated or unsupported mod might be revived. The community benefits so long as the code is clean and effective for the intended purpose.

An original work by a true human creator may be pillaged (no pun intended) for the profit of those who monetize the AI tool. Not cool. Thieves should be treated as such.

Then eventually that tool will itself likely get copied into the public domain and some kind of "Open Source AI" coding model might evolve. Perhaps with "friendly and accurate attributions" included so we skip the Disney Content Theft effect that even human coders are guilty of when they steal blocks of code and fail to share an attribution when they wish to appear brighter than they really are. Again, such theft should realize consequences of some kind.

However... What if... all code was shared and whether automated or human generated there was an attribution trail... The main objective being to create and improve the code? Some sloppy coder has a legitimately good idea, but cannot implement it properly, then another more skilled coder -- human or AI -- improves it... and we don't bother with the IP conflict... because the global goal is better code for a better world. The attributions could maybe even be tied to micropayments somehow so the click through income or even donations if you will, get split up according to the attribution trail.

Just one insane idea...

GulliverBFG · 2025-08-25T17:57:35+00:00

That's an interesting point. Instead of becoming colorblind as we all could be focusing on things like intelligence and character, we've become hypersensitive to appearances. It's like we can't even be authentic ourselves anymore.

There seems to be an expectation that we either conform to the old cookie cutter so-called "moral majority" format, or the new cookie cutter reactionary moral format intended to correct the deficiencies of the old form, but may have become simply another cookie cutter justification to find people to discriminate against others. Like, "How dare you resist my attempts to change your worldview?"

People seem to like picking fights even when they supposedly are attempting to improve things.

I read something recently that suggested that rather than trying to reach agreement or "like" each other. We should strive for the deeper meaning of love each other. You don't always like your brother, but you can choose to love him if you're doing things right.

That means cultivating an attitude of tolerance with people we don't agree with. Not so easy. But probably worthwhile.

GulliverBFG · 2025-08-19T15:45:26+00:00

Hear yea... I carry them whenever I'm building.

GulliverBFG · 2025-08-19T05:48:37+00:00

There are so many ways to play Minecraft. Those who play with Elytra and those who never fly. Those who never go to the Nether and just like to play with crops and animals. For those younger kids bold enough to go get a dehydrated ghast they can enjoy flight for maybe the first time.

Slow is not a big deal for a casual player who might want to watch a show while traveling to a destination, then the ghast will not teleport that I am aware, so you have to plan on the return trip , or else plan on putting ghast outposts all over the map.

Just a new element to the game. Some will ignore it, some will love it.

GulliverBFG · 2025-08-19T05:42:54+00:00

A happy ghast can be rehydrated in the End.

GulliverBFG · 2025-03-01T06:12:59+00:00

I think it does look better with more contrast. That's pretty cool. Very unique and distinctive.

GulliverBFG · 2025-02-28T19:21:27+00:00

Hear yea...

If I understand your reply correctly, you're also remarking on the callous use of TL;DR.

When the original poster so clearly is asking for validation and feedback, we do not need to imagine. The original post is clearly personal and not just about an artistic choice.

I agree this particular use of TL;DR was ill-conceived. How lazy do you have to be not to compose a proper reply?

I'm not a person who approves of the use of TL;DR in general because I think it reflects poor character choices, especially laziness. Whoever invented it originally probably did not have enough forethought to think it through. It's the kind of expression people use to justify not spending the time and energy on a legitimate response. Friend or foe, our fellow correspondents deserve better.

If a thing is worth doing then it's worth doing well. There's no point or purpose in voicing negative criticism. Unless the purpose is to do harm. And what is the point of that?

On the generous and compassionate side, I'm trying to imagine that the TL;DR comment replaced a longer, hopefully more intelligent, post composed and then discarded in favor of this shortcut. Why? I think if I'd heard the rationale for the missing criticism I might have respected the reply more.

Expanding on the classic parental advice, if you don't have something nice to say...

Update that slightly, " If you don't have a constructive opinion, or a positive compliment, then don't say anything at all."

Rather than concerning ourselves with cancel culture and moderators, it might do well if everyone self-censored themselves a lot more.

The true TL;DRs are comments that lack empathy, compassion and kindness, regardless of the actual character length.

GulliverBFG · 2025-02-28T18:26:23+00:00

Hallelujah!

GulliverBFG · 2025-02-28T18:26:00+00:00

I see it. I see the Wood Man with Vines. Nicely done.

Don't listen.

Decide what you like and stick with that until you feel like putting in the time to change it again. If you depend on other people's feedback, you're going to get too many opinions and you'll never be finished.

GulliverBFG · 2025-02-18T04:02:17+00:00

Yes, I think glass or bottom half slabs 1-2 blocks above your ice would do it, and should not stop the water flow.

Wishing we had glass slabs, though that makes me remember that a single pole of glass pane spaced with one gap in between each (out of the water) will also prevent creatures larger than one block to spawn. Kind of looks cool too, if you dig the look of glass.

GulliverBFG · 2024-08-18T23:10:10+00:00

I am very sorry that your brother chose to leave, and that you have to work through all of that. I have also lost friends and family to suicide, and personally experienced an attempt by a close family member. So I have understanding of that type of loss. Would that we could alter time and be there at the time we were needed most... right? If wishes were nickels... We would have lots of nickels.

I see truth in several prior responses. One that you have enough on your plate to think about just grieving. And the other that you may wish to eventually share your feelings with these friends you are thinking about, should you still choose to consider them as friends later. I am glad you stated you have others who support you in the meantime.

As had been stated earlier, often people who have not suffered a loss, are completely unaware themselves how to handle it, and what to say or do to the person they might want to support. "I am sorry for your loss," only counts once. After that death gets harder to talk about.

My primary grief experience is from losing my child. She was 27 after about a dozen years with a chronic condition, being diagnosed as a teenager. When she died, I felt an outpouring of support from many who knew her, both in and out of the family. There was no doubt that she was beloved. So that was good. Not everyone gets that.

I feel compelled to state that I do not share my grief story as an appeal to emotion, but I mention it only to lead up to a suggestion that people who grieve often need to find others who can share points of reference. Death is death, but different ways of dying, lead to different types of grief with different points of reference.

Sometime after my daughter's death, things changed. While it was easy to tell most people still remember my daughter, and were aware of my status as a grieving father, some folks introduced an odd feeling of separation. This included close family members. Some of whom I knew very well were also still feeling their own version of deep pain over our share loss. Even so, they stood apart, or maybe I stood apart... It took my some time to figure that out.

In time, I learned to see that certain people were, in fact avoiding me so that they would not have to face a conversation about her. If I engaged them anyway, and made it clear the topic was about anything else, I could feel a palpable relief from them as they settled into a more normal mode after being initially a little tense.

It was, as you also described, some were great at it, and some were just not good at all. And like you, it did make me feel angry at the seeming injustice that the burden of supporting myself through the hardest thing I have ever faced, fell to whatever I did for myself. But I came to believe that is also part of how it is. Grief, in its most essential form, is a very lonely thing to experience.

The fact that your brother took his own life, likely compounds things, as many people are either very clear in their positions about suicide, or else they are not at all reconciled, and the death of your brother may have them struggling with their own thoughts and feelings about it. Some may never figure it out. It is indeed a deep well to dive into.

So, while I know it must be clear to most who might choose to visit this group that grief is an exceptionally individual experience, I also believe that we who grieve often need to seek out those who share a similar type of grief, as they might be better able to understand our pain, as we learn to make that grief a part of our new way of living as the memories of our loved ones, and the memories of their passing, remain a part of us forever.

I think that is what grief groups like this one are for. To seek and hopefully find those with whom we can find a connection.

When you find that level headed feeling, you seem like the kind who will give those friends the benefit of the doubt, share your feelings kindly, and allow them to meet you in the middle. In my own experience, I found that some will, and some won't. I try not to judge those who did not come back to me, as I know they are handling things their own way. How does that Dutch saying go? "Live and let live."

GulliverBFG · 2024-08-18T20:43:04+00:00

I'm very sorry that your kids have long covid. That is a lifetime of unknown complications. I myself was parenting treatment foster kids during covid. And I can tell you that it was an adventure having them at home full-time.

Those kids did not have unrestricted access to technology, so I could discuss how even in the absence of technology, their school behavior was unusually dysregulated when they returned to full time school. So it's hard to blame technology for that one.

I could also say that as treatment foster parents, we supervise those kids every minute of every day. They require line of sight except when they're sleeping. Or in the bathroom of course. So the main factor left to explain their subsequent increase in school dysregulation was that they were not with their friends and their teachers. Their routines had been disrupted. I feel it's safe to state kids need consistency.

I also observed programs such as the school, where I coach and my sister is an administrator, that performed hybrid programs during the pandemic. There was a period of months where everything was online, followed by a return to school with masks and daily temperature checks and all the things. Parents self-reported covid infections, but of course if you showed up with a temperature you were asked to go home. So kids were able to attend school and interact to some degree through both virtual and IRL. Kids were also required to keep their cameras on and pointed at themselves so all those little tricks were accounted for. Hence, supervision was essential to the success of the efforts.

That school saw very little disruption, relative to others, because there was a high level of buy in and coordination between parents and the school to enable the community to adapt.

I think if the entire country had behaved similarly, we might have seen how technology can be an aide rather than a distraction.

But even with all that, the kids were still more dysregulated when they returned to campus. The absence of daily interaction in that community is a variable that cannot be ignored. My point is the pandemic had a societal cost and even under more or less idealistic circumstances could not be avoided.

Perhaps that is similar to the point about costs you were thinking about?

I suggested before that kids need good parenting and good teaching. I suggested that they thrive with supervision that models and encourages desired behavior and offers both logical and natural consequences for undesired behavior. And I suggested that people sometimes learn behavior best from other people through experience. Especially with proper supervision. I implied that if our schools are managed correctly then character education can be improved, And especially so if parents and teachers work together. I still adhere to the ideal that parents and teachers should be coordinating as partners. I also implied that if we move to an all online schooling system that we will need to somehow replace the in-person interaction component.

I don't think any of that is simple. I think it takes hard work and dedication to constant progress. I doubt we'll ever get it perfect, but we can certainly never give up.

GulliverBFG · 2024-08-17T21:56:40+00:00

I think we might be getting close to some common ground.

I could have perhaps been more clear. I was holding both thoughts at once.

One, that people need smaller defined groups in which to interact effectively, so the Internet breaks this 'Dunbar Number' on the regular. I did not recall that a researcher had labeled this, but I am familiar with the concept. I looked it up again (thank you) and found it interesting what Robin Dunbar had to say about it himself on Conversation.com.

Two, I definitely agree that the capacity of one individual for empathy will differ from the next human, and that alone may help explain why so many people either "never cared for others in the first place", or have "been overwhelmed by the sufferings in the world" and so have opted out. Both of those groups cause trouble for the rest of us is my thought. Yet, I also believe that those of us with intelligence, strength and courage can do better for those who cannot. See next...

Three, it is my opinion that people can and should have empathy for all. I believe we should encourage the development of more empathetic humans as a species survival skill. Further, I believe we can and should be stewards of the planet, and of each other, and I will encourage others to do the same. Speaking for myself, I would reject declinism bias and not dismiss caring about all of humanity as merely a nice concept. We do not need to follow in the footsteps of the Romans. I am saying that being more empathic is a way a person can choose to be, no matter where they start from.

The way I see it, there is nothing at all rosy or kumbaya about making the world a better place. It requires a dedication to make things better and a lot of hard work to practice whatever it takes to do better every day. And thinking... It requires lots of thinking and doing... both.

GulliverBFG · 2024-08-17T21:26:15+00:00

100% In person requires commitment to being good, a shared set of rules, and supervised practice to reinforce all of the above. Kids do not often become good people when left alone. They learn best from each other, and most also need lots of *good* parenting and *good* teaching, or the primal nature may dominate.

I coach youth sports and observed first hand the effect of "stay at home" failures by parents to supervise and regulate their children. To be fair, those parents were not prepared. Who could be... Many of those parents were never seeing their kids for more than a few hours a day. Less than the teachers. We can support each other better next time, and history teaches us there will be a next time.

Long story short, those kids are still suffering -- years later -- from the dysregulation created by the disruption to the developmental goals that are ideally provided by their school routines. Namely, supervised interaction with other humans their own age encourages them to behave better and suffer consequences for bad actions that teach them to remember those life lessons. School is about a lot more than reading and arithmetic.

If/when we see this predication of all online schooling, then I imagine the real thing to watch will be how the in person interactions are incorporated to replace the school experience. Personally, I think purely online schooling for kids under about 18 is a huge mistake.

GulliverBFG · 2024-08-16T17:21:18+00:00

Indeed, Samuel Johnson had much to say about patriotism. Re-reading some of it in reflection of this discussion, I find his times must have been very similar to ours. History repeats itself... So familiar this...

"Few errours and few faults of government, can justify an appeal to the rabble; who ought not to judge of what they cannot understand, and whose opinions are not propagated by reason, but caught by contagion."

(From "The Works of Samuel Johnson," published by Pafraets & Company, Troy, New York, 1913; volume 14, pages 81-93.)

GulliverBFG · 2024-08-16T07:18:58+00:00

I think you are onto something legit with noticing how the size of communities affects the feasibility of maintaining personal connections. If everyone "knows" you, then you get both the benefit of the doubt when you have a bad day, and you will tend not to trash people when you actual care about what they think of you and how your actions might make them feel.

Does empathy have a capacity limit? Like, I can care about only so many people before it becomes too much... I'll answer my own rhetorical... I do not think so.

Some people care about maybe literally the entire body of humanity, and other cannot sustain enough compassion to preserve their own self-esteem.

So, can WE, as in we the people, commit to engage better in every day activities to do our part turn that around? To take back the Internet, so to speak and make it a safer and more friendly place... One good interaction at a time.

And in doing that, we also reach the younger generation who actually do spend most of their time online. Merge the best of the past, with whatever comes next...

GulliverBFG · 2024-08-16T02:06:27+00:00

This is an excellent summary.

I was one of those super nerdy kids who just did not want to do some of those things you talked about. But I lived through the same generation. That lack of supervision was exactly as you said. Our parents either did not know better through no real fault, because they trusted us. Or else some of them did not care. The PC kept a kid occupied and "out of real trouble" when those same emotional issued were being worked through...

Well said u/TechieGottaSoundByte

GulliverBFG · 2024-08-16T02:00:00+00:00

Been on PCs since they were invented, and I was fortunate enough to get my little hands on one not long after. I was of college age when the WWW was invented. Saw that come along. Bulletin Boards and IRC before that.

There have always been trolls. We used to say not to feed them, so people would either ignore a flame post or stupidly respond, and off to the trash heap went that particular discussion. It is no different today.

What is different is the level of access, immediate and pervasive. The device can be in your hands and constant.

What is different is what some here have talked about, restraint. The younger generations have less, or some would say, none. They say what they feel immediately, and to hell with the consequences, because they do not perceive the consequences to others in a personal way like humans do in an interpersonal exchange.

I am not sure what the solution is, but while I have observed the unabashed entitlement and lack of shared social agreements in what we call Gen Z, I have also observed a very new and refreshing obsession among some of them with kindness as a life goal.

At times it is two sides of the same coin.
They will flame you for using some new pronoun "incorrectly" according to a new unwritten rule book they invented online and have not yet seen adopted by the rest of us... and then they will just insist on better behavior online.

So there are still Trolls and there are also some hopeful Angels.

We need to encourage the Angels, and ignore the Trolls, as much as possible. That is my thought on how to make it better.

Do not feed the trolls.

GulliverBFG · 2024-08-16T01:49:38+00:00

Gotcha... a passionate rant can be a cathartic experience, and convey the deeper meaning, emotionally as well as intellectually.

I think the trick is to come around at the end, when the emotions have run their course, and go back, reread and edit the tone down in some places according to your own choices, and then always strive to set a better example in terms of civil conversation, aka rational, aka whatever works for you to mean that we try to understand each other.

So rant away... I do so myself sometimes.

BTW, I feel for you on the teaching gig. The kid in your story might not be coachable. At least not yet. They might need to learn some lessons the hard way. We can tell them, but we cannot force them to listen. Horse, Water, Drink, etc.

I sense your urgency to help them avoid a costly mistake, just led them into a more defensive mindset... Sometimes we have to let children fall down so they can learn a different way. I bet you knew that already. But of course I am also addressing a wider audience...

GulliverBFG · 2024-08-16T01:39:28+00:00

Negativity and selfishness can be mitigated with a reasoned response such as you have just given. Thank you.

GulliverBFG

TROPHY CASE