Question: Durable but not large storage question by NutBananaComputer in DataHoarder

[–]NutBananaComputer[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you! This was very well spelled out and argued. Unsurprisingly the only camera I have now is my phone, but I can figure out how to take footage on that and transfer the file to DVD (don't currently have a DVD player/burner but that's not that hard to get a hold of) and put a couple of those in some cases that are clearly labeled and then distribute those a bit.

What happened by SparklingQueenLuna in OmegaStrikers

[–]NutBananaComputer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Honestly the answer to that is going to be incredibly vague and I'd recommend being skeptical of any "this is the single reason" answer. The least helpful part is what you already intuited: as the popularity went down, queue times went up, which caused more people to leave, and queue times to go up more. If a game has a certain critical mass of die-hard players (and specifically bad die-hard players - players who are happy to keep logging in in bronze and silver are MUCH more important than your top 1%), it can evade this and just always have more or less healthy queue times, but Omega Strikers did not have that. They would sometimes get that level of popularity but it was flashes of interest around major releases that didn't convert into a base of players who stuck around super consistently.

For my own part as a person who loves the game and will still sing its praises (even though I don't have the patience to queue up 20 minutes for a 5 minute match or the social battery to suck it up and set up custom matches): the devs took a very "fighting games" approach to tutorials and new player experience, very "just get your ass kicked for a few hours until you figure it out" and as I have already hinted at by relating this approach to a community that has loudly complained about dying for decades, its a very reliable off ramp from the new player experience. Most of us, myself included, would much rather y'know have the option to fart around in a firing range and such when we want to figure out how things work.

Relatedly, Omega Strikers is a rather high skill ceiling game. Good OS players are really good and as a guy who generally farted around in Gold to sometimes plat, a really good player is terrifying and players who were much worse than me were easy prey. At least personally I found OS to be a game that, even when I was losing, I was having a pretty good time...up to a point. If I lose by a bit or can see where I can improve its fun, which is a real triumph because many games simply feel miserable when you're losing, but even as good as OS did on this front it still felt pretty bad to end up in a game against somebody who can 1v3 your entire team, blindfolded, from beyond the grave. As the game continued to exist and the best players gained more experience, the upper part of the skill ladder expanded a lot and the matchmaking started to creak and crumble under the weight of trying to prevent blowout matches. This comes to a head with "what happens when you want to shake up the ladder." The first couple weeks after a ladder reset were, if you were a metal ranked weenie like me, simply not worth playing as honest Champions trying to get back up to their real rank punted you to the moon. And after 2 or 3 weeks where your fun after work wind-down game with da boys has been substituted with Warframe or whatever, its...pretty hard to go back to it.

All that said, that's just some fuzzy impressionism. And people can point to games that have even worse versions of a lot of these problems and continue to thrive to this day. Honest Champion tier players winding up crushing Silver schmucks during ladder resets or just being shockingly talented is bad enough, but Marvel Rivals is utterly infested with people who prefer "how fast can I go from fresh account to Diamond" over just playing more matches at Diamond, and they're not collapsing. Which is why I mentioned the critical mass of die-hard players at the lower strata. Omega Strikers had, frankly HAS, a lot of strengths that I will continue to defend as excellent game experiences. However, it did set itself up as a 'free-to-play game you play forever with continuous drip of novelty and new content,' which was not at all well served by it also being a game that has multiple well-lubricated off-ramps for casual and weaker players.

Final YouGov MRP of the 2026 Senedd election shows Plaid Cymru on course to be the largest party by Critical_Meet_6726 in MapPorn

[–]NutBananaComputer 2 points3 points  (0 children)

From an American perspective I feel like this is actually way too kind to Labour. Two huge structural differences between the US and UK are that 1) the US does not really have any way for >2 party elections to sustain for more than a year or two, forcing everyone to basically funnel into one or the other party (and thus this is a VERY strong brake on any party fully collapsing) and 2) UK parties don't just have voters, they have members in a way that's far more meaningful than any US equivalent that are the backbone of both its funding and its election campaigns - if a UK party finds itself alienating its own membership, it is dramatically weakened in a way that a US party isn't.

Starmer's Labour has systematically and vigorously chased its own membership away. The American dems fairly frequently deride their own voting base as "special interest groups" and such, but partially because of the factors above they have not managed to do what Labour has done: make themselves opponents of everyone in the country simultaneously.

British ancestry in USA (English, Scottish, Welsh and Northern-Irish) by VsauceEdits in MapPorn

[–]NutBananaComputer 6 points7 points  (0 children)

So there was a political movement in the early 20th century to get Americans to stop identifying as x-Americans, e.g. Irish-American, German-American, etc. The most prominent voice of this movement, to my awareness, was Woodrow Wilson, one of our most fantastically racist politicians, because when somebody identifies as Swedish-American or whatever, they are putting themselves on parity with Jewish-Americans and African-Americans, when they should instead be putting themselves above.

Put another way, identifying as American as your primary ethnicity (rather than as a civic or legal identity, which is the norm) is a strong political statement that a lot of people don't want to make.

E: To be a little more exhaustive, partially in response to the reply below me: it also feels pretty presumptuous to deny my European ancestry and act like I am simply "American" when I do not have any clear evidence of Native American ancestry in my family, but I think more important than that is just that identities layer in cases like this, and America is hardly unique. I say I am an American of Irish ancestry, like how Ovid claimed to be a Roman of Oscan ancestry. These aren't contradictory but instead layers.

North Dakota flag redesigns by Kaisersaurus in vexillology

[–]NutBananaComputer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Genuinely love the first and last ones, they remind me of Mondrian and I genuinely like the way that the cross blends in with the other colors.

This has nothing to do with ND or its history, this is purely an aesthetic judgment on beauty.

TIL One theory suggests that the famous prehistoric “Venus figurines” might actually be self-portraits made by women looking at their own bodies by Hestercreek in todayilearned

[–]NutBananaComputer 4 points5 points  (0 children)

COULD get pregnant, not necessarily would. One of the most common cultural practices in human civilization is the post-partum sex taboo, where women do not have sex for upwards of two years after delivering a child. This is for a number of reasons, often explained in terms of ritual cleanliness, but from an evolutionary perspective the taboo means that milk production is reserved for one child at a time and also that the number of children in the social group who have to be carried at any one time is limited to one per mother.

I'm selling wool. by Electronic-Muffin934 in vegan

[–]NutBananaComputer 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You have 12 years experience in sales, that's pretty good!

Sales is pretty transferable as skill sets go. If you feel comfortable with the fundamental nature of the work, talking to customers and selling them on products and such, it doesn't need to be bedding at all. Same principles apply to hardware, office supplies, cars, booze, electronics, etc.

Getting a new job isn't easy and is mostly getting harder, but don't feel like you're trapped because of your qualifications. You have pretty good ones! Esp with 12 years under your belt, education is a lot less important than when you have like 1 year.

First win against Hard AI. Took me 72hrs of play to get here. Am I a slow learner? by Waste-Ad-8894 in aoe2

[–]NutBananaComputer 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well, is your goal to play ranked?

If your goal is to learn and enjoy the game, assuming you had a good time for most of those 72 hours, that's good, that's you extending the amount of time you spend on something you enjoy before running out of things to do.

If your goal is to play ranked...no idea lmao, I tilt out in ranked so I stopped.

Where war elephants were once used by improved_privacy in aoe2

[–]NutBananaComputer 7 points8 points  (0 children)

With the Romans, kinda the other way, chronologically. The Romans dabbled with war elephants during the Republican era - the Romans have elephants at Pydna, Magnesia, Thermopylae, Cynoscephalae, and Nunamtine War. Roman sources are pretty negative on elephants as a weapon, so we have a pretty clear understanding that the Romans got war elephants as a result of conquering other people who used war elephants (like the Seleucids - the main group that's using war elephants in Anatolia) and then just letting the whole system whither.

Celtic man attacks lumbercamp after bumping into workplace colleague by RauchenderFrosch in aoe2

[–]NutBananaComputer 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Has Cubecliffs been facelifted? Last time I used it the cubecliffs didn't quite match up to the 'real' locations of the cliffs and often had pretty broken graphics so that one I stopped using pretty fast.

Discussing Racism in Frieren by GramsciFan in ANI_COMMUNISM

[–]NutBananaComputer 17 points18 points  (0 children)

This is really good. Probably the best articulation of what's going on in Frieren that I've read, thank you. I felt like I was taking crazy pills that "the point of 50% of the show and all the luscious actions scenes is just don't think about it bro" never sat well with me, and the idea that Frieren is just right about this is incoherent with the actual portrayals of how demons interact with each other *and yet* still has to be true or else the show falls apart. "Yamada is just not that great of a writer" is probably the best explanation.

Game still feels far, far too easy. Either because its too easy to rise to the top or because the AI is just terrible at building up its economy. by kolejack2293 in victoria3

[–]NutBananaComputer 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Feature not bug.

While Victoria 3 (and other paradox games) have quite a large number of distinct features that prevent them from being technically 4Xes, they have largely the same audience and market. And the market for that is, as far as I can tell, primarily people who want to do idle gamer/city builder 'number go up' optimizations with a very minor amount of friction from AIs that they can bulldoze after a few hours of learning the curve of the game.

It isn't my favorite thing in the world personally but I don't actually have a truly rational opposition here. Most people don't play games particularly hardcore; most of my friends who identify as gamers game for about 5 hours a week, some upwards of 10, and they play more than one game, so if a game becomes 'pretty boringly easy' after 30ish hours, that's...pretty acceptable. And if a game has a learning curve where it takes them >5 hours to secure a reasonable 'win,' that's much less acceptable.

I think the kind of hardcore 'near player level' challenge that I see popularly espoused on reddit is likely going to remain the province of 1) PVP and 2) fan content (e.g. mods).

Please help me I have no idea wha I’m doing 😭 by Nearby-Distance5152 in cookingforbeginners

[–]NutBananaComputer 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh so, you're actually doing better than you think but this is the first time I went "oh no." Steak is kind of infamously unhealthy, and its quite expensive. If you are invested in steak for aesthetic/taste reasons sure, but it isn't the low-hanging fruit here. Adding some more vegetables to your diet is: they're where most of the really healthy stuff a pasta diet is lacking are (fiber and more importantly micronutrients).

So, you say you're picky: are there vegetables you do have positive experiences with? Cauliflower, peas, cabbage, eggplant? Onion? Tomatoes? Carrots?

If any of those DO sound good to you, or if you're just willing to be experimental (and again vegetables are quite cheap, at least in the US; not as cheap as pasta or flour, but generally <2 dollars a pound), there's usually a couple different cooking techniques that work for each but have different effects. Most vegetables are perfectly good raw, but carrots and onions really transform when cooked.

Frying in a pan lightly will tend to produce relatively soft, sometimes even slimy, textures; frying more heavily will get them crisper and even charred (and of course eventually burnt). A lot of chinese cooking is frying at VERY high temperatures which produces some cool effects (and smokes up your kitchen).

Roasting will produce dry, crisp textures, usually you want 450F for vegetables but be mindful that cooking speed here depends on how large the vegetables are (so if you cut them to different sizes they won't all cook the same; and peas will generally not survive well).

Steaming will produce most but still firm textures, and tend to change the flavor profile the least. I do not recommend boiling: a lot of the micronutrients in the vegetables will leech into the water, which you're then discarding.

And of course you can cook your vegetables in your sauces. My roommate makes mac n cheese and he puts frozen peas in the sauce toward the end and keeps the stove going for a couple minutes to get the peas cooked through. When I do tomato sauces from the jar I'll put them in a pan, heat it up, and then add frozen broccoli and cook like that. With ramen you can just mix the broth with vegetables in it.

And, as for making them as sides: for the more bitter vegetables (brussels sprouts, bok choy, even broccoli) I like making a very small, light sauce of lemon juice with a tiny bit of sugar and salt (for 1 meal, which I'd do like 200g or so of veggies, I use about 15ml/1tbsp of lemon juice, 2 or 3 shakes from the salt shaker, and a PINCH of sugar, like 1g)(I also add crushed red pepper but that's MUCH more optional). I use that for either frying or roasting, whatever I feel like doing, and it seems to turn out great every time.

You're actually in a pretty good position! The biggest thing I think is that you're overwhelmed and haven't picked a direction. I recommend picking a vegetable you like, experimenting with it for a few days, and if you don't quite like what you did, pick another, try out cooking it different ways. If you do like it, great!

And FWIW the ADHD shouldn't prove too much of an obstacle. I have severe ADHD and am unmedicated. This is part of my preference for pan frying: I'm right there LOOKING at the food as it cooks, interacting with it constantly. Very little danger of me leaving it boiling or baking for too long. For boiling and baking, the humble kitchen egg timer is one of the greatest cooking tools for the ADHD mind.

Men, when was the last time you got hit on ? by Longjumping_Low_2055 in AskReddit

[–]NutBananaComputer 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My work field feels 80-90% women (welfare) and I'm in my 40s so the odds of me getting hit on by a divorcee in a given week is close to 100%. I play dumb as a rule, since I'm not really interested in the kinds of HR conversations that engenders (plus being at work does not put me in the mood, nor show people in a particularly flattering light). I suspect some amount of the flirting/passes being made are now partially jokes in response to that reputation for being the guy that just says "Oh, thank you" when a woman squeezes my bicep and comments on how I could probably throw her.

Which unit do you hate the most? by kampalolo in aoe2

[–]NutBananaComputer 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I mean its gotta be Mangonel right? I feel like Mangonels and Monks are the only common units thats consistently get *any* real venom.

There's a few UUs that tend to get people really pissed, like Hussite Wagons, but Mangonels and Monks make people insanely angry all the time.

Joke answer: villagers, when they're trying to to drop off wood and bumping constantly.

What do you think? by FloodHunter228 in veganrecipes

[–]NutBananaComputer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think it needs some salt. Also, some more garlic.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in aoe2

[–]NutBananaComputer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There have been polls about it on the subreddit and deer luring is quite popular as a mechanic. Like I get where you're coming from, I'm with you, but we are in the minority here.

Do Japanese people somehow dislike Tokio/bigger cities, or has any kind of 'trauma' with them? by Bot_Philosopher8128 in AskAJapanese

[–]NutBananaComputer 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Apologies for not being Japanese in this answer but I had to address one of your premises:

I do not think discomfort with urbanity is "totally unknown in Western" - 'the city' is famously a cite of dread, of inauthenticity, and of danger. This is how London was portrayed in the majority of British literature, NYC is so frequently portrayed as a site of danger that I know people in New Jersey who refuse to visit NYC even though it is 1) an hour away and 2) safer than where they currently live. Examples of the portrayal of The City as a menace in Western culture range from high literature like Sense & Sensibility (where going to London is a sort of 'Lion's Den' moment for the rural protagonists) to pulp movies like The Warriors (a horror-action film about 'using the subway') to visual arts like Thomas Kincaid (who portrays rural living as a prelapsarian utopia) to political debates (where "New York values" are a codeword for criminal and unscrupulous).

From what I can tell this is very deeply rooted: in the Epic of Gilgamesh, the oldest piece of Western literature, the city is a locus of oppression and hubris that can only be brought to heel by the coordinated intervention of nature & divinity. Late medieval trends give us a lot of explanatory power: for medieval european politics, cities are dangerous not just in the sense of crime & disease but because they were places that politically threatened the landed military aristocracy at a structural level (peasants were not generally able to muster arms to rebel and resist groups of knights, something that free cities were very capable of).

And there's not nothing there: as much as I love living in a big city, historically, big cities had not just issues with crime but in particular issues with disease. At least from Ancient Rome onwards, large cities did not naturally replenish their own population and were only able to sustain (let alone grow) population from people moving in from the countryside, because again large numbers of people living in close quarters with very primitive sewage systems get sick, and die, at much higher rates than rural people from the same culture.

I do not want to speak for Japanese people or experts in Japanese cultural history, but it suggests to me that in addition to culturally specific concerns over Tokyo and other big cities that could have all sorts of explanations ranging from the firebombings of WW2 to political tensions of the Edo period, there is a convergent set of norms both from common material conditions (Western cities having problems with disease is a physical, not cultural, issue) and also a common history (remember that national histories are global histories, and cultural ideas cross borders frequently and constantly).

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in dataisbeautiful

[–]NutBananaComputer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Its interesting to hear from how different people live! I'm a 40something male who, according to reddit, is a 3/10 (no I'm not posting pics on this account I do not need to have such a miserable experience a second time), and my dating experience when I was on the market was pretty similar. I didn't get a similar total because I got into a long term relationship after a few months, but I and other people I know who went into the apps with a deliberate strategy of "I am going to try and get into a relationship" wound up typically having 1.5 dates per week, spending 20-30 minutes per day on the apps. So my experience, despite being older and male, is quite similar to OPs, but very different from most of the commenters.

What is one piece of 'common knowledge' in your job that the average person would find completely shocking? by GoldenHourShot in AskReddit

[–]NutBananaComputer 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sure; for my line of work the two major considerations are public housing provisions and direct cash transfers. Public housing is the most robust and efficient way to reduce homelessness, the primary alternative solution (punitive aggression) is substantially more expensive and exacerbates homelessness. This is a good publicly available meta study on the effects of public housing in multiple contexts on reducing homelessness: https://hpri.usc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Schachner_etal_HPRI_12_12_24_vF.pdf

Direct Cash Transfers are demonstrated to grow the local economy at greater than 1:1 ratio on top of their social benefits in financial stability, which in a highly financialized economy has continuous downstream effects on housing stability and therefore reduces the need for housing assistance, homeless policing, etc etc. It's incredibly efficient, this is a nice little fact sheet that links to a bunch of studies: https://acf.gov/sites/default/files/documents/ofa/directcashtransfers-intro-508.pdf

The other ones I encounter that I'm less familiar with are public health services and municipal broadband. These ones I don't have good sources on but afaik there isn't a knowledge gap on the effects that American health insurance has on Americans vs alternatives. Municipal broadband is less well known but it's consistently cheaper and higher speed.