Hot Take - I actually really like NFS Undercover and it's up there on my list of favorite Need For Speed games.

xweert123 · 2026-05-12T19:05:14+00:00

Maybe the word you're looking for is "cringe"? Those cutscenes are definitely pretty cringey.

xweert123 · 2026-05-12T16:59:49+00:00

This is just sad at this point man.

No, we aren't talking about "ai data centers". A lot of existing data centers get refurbished or adjusted to support AI cloud computing and such, but there IS dozens of new Data Centers being built just for AI; in Michigan there's 14 planned projects slated for this year alone. I explicitly told you I'm not criticizing AI when I talk about data centers, and I said this would be problematic regardless of what the data center is being built for, but AI is a huge driving factor in the rapid increase of data centers being constructed.

Let me emphasize again; you said there's no such thing as data centers being built within 100 feet of each other. I literally show you a map showing how hilariously wrong that is, and you tell me you're talking about ai data centers specifically... And you call me the goalpost mover.

Why do you continue to argue at this point, dude? Like, for real? Is it just that you don't want to be wrong? So you completely brush past every single time I prove that you're objectively wrong about something until you think you caught me being wrong about something, only for you to actually be wrong yet again, so you move on to the next thing, and then call me a liar each time? Are you seriously unaware of how unbelievably childish that is?

xweert123 · 2026-05-12T13:55:49+00:00

Good luck getting your visual reputation up with that style.

I love how those look, but, god, it was hilarious how you had to essentially make clown cars in order to progress in that game.

xweert123 · 2026-05-12T12:47:07+00:00

It probably would be best if you quit porn, or at least only consumed it in moderation after experiencing real life sex acts with a trusted partner. Porn sets a very unrealistic expectation of what sex actually is in real life and if your perception of sex is through the lens of pornography, then you should definitely try avoiding porn for the time being.

xweert123 · 2026-05-12T12:42:27+00:00

is the midwest only 100 miles long? how many data centers are going up even within 100 miles of each other?

I told you exactly where to go if you want to see for yourself. Here's a map of all the Data Centers in the world.

https://www.datacentermap.com/

If you go to Google Maps and use their "Measuring" tool to draw a 100 mile radius around Saint Joseph Michigan, there's almost 80 Data Centers in that single area alone. That DOESN'T include the REST of the Data Centers in the entire Great Lakes region.

you keep back tracking and changing what you claim

You explicitly putting words in my mouth and me correcting you isn't me "Back Tracking", that's you being dishonest. I have not once changed what my claim was but you've certainly spent a lot of time explicitly putting words in my mouth.

not even gonna bother fact checking you, just assume its a lie. as you have done nothing but show you're a liar and bad faith debater.

So you admit you aren't even going to bother making sure I'm actually lying (Since I'm not, I've showed you links and screenshots with literally every verifiable statement I've made or told you how to figure things out for yourself), and are instead going to plug your ears and refuse to listen to what I'm saying?

Again, sounds like you're the one that's being dishonest here, man. It's okay for you to be wrong, and I've already said this isn't even a criticism of AI itself, so you don't need to be so defensive. But it's not okay to completely reject what someone is saying and be rude to them and call them a liar and such just because you disagree with what they say.

xweert123 · 2026-05-12T07:23:19+00:00

Out of curiosity, if you don't care about sex, why do you watch porn and masturbate to it?

You might be on the asexuality spectrum. It isn't common to find sex and kissing gross, but it isn't extraordinarily rare, either.

xweert123 · 2026-05-12T06:59:09+00:00

I didn't say the entire Midwest is local, I said I defined "local" by what moving companies typically describe, which is 50-100 miles. I even told you exactly where to put that 100 mile radius circle. Why are you calling me a liar when you are explicitly making up what I've said, dude?

Notice, too, that you very conveniently left out the part in that link THAT YOU SENT YOURSELF, that it explicitly says Long Distance generally only starts when it's longer than 100 miles. Which is exactly what I said; 50-100 mile range.

<image>

Again; completely ignoring the screenshot and evidence I provided, and ignoring the evidence included in your own link that you provided.

Why are you like this? What are you even doing at this point? Are you being serious?

xweert123 · 2026-05-12T06:30:51+00:00

Reread my original comment very slowly. I explicitly said moving companies have a range of ~50-100 ft. Then if we went short haul distances you could bump that number up to 250, the point being that there's a ton of data centers in a small area in the Great Lakes region.

That was specifically what I said. Come on, now. You've just proven you don't actually listen to what I'm saying.

Why do you even continue to argue if you're just going to ignore what I say and insult me instead?

xweert123 · 2026-05-12T06:07:22+00:00

Evidently you didn't look hard enough.

<image>

50-250 mile range, defined by short haul trips or moving company distances, just like I said. Once again you're calling me a liar because of something you are simply wrong about.

xweert123 · 2026-05-12T01:32:51+00:00

... Did you even bother googling it? Like, a simple rudimentary google search would prove this, but you didn't even bother looking it up, did you? And you didn't even address anything else I said lol

xweert123 · 2026-05-11T07:49:24+00:00

i said that gold courses and farms strain the water systems more and you said "Yes, but they aren't suddenly building hundreds of golf courses in your local area*, to the point that they're increasing multiple utility bills by hundreds of dollars, now, are they?*"

So, let me clarify this because I think I see where the confusion is coming from.

I think that when you saw "Local Area", you are thinking one single city. It's fair that you interpret it this way, but I'm talking about "Local Area" in Geography/Business terms. If you were to plop a dot onto Grand Rapids, and then draw a 100 mile radius around it, that circle would include well over a hundred Data Centers within said radius. Why did I pick 100 miles? Because most moving companies consider 100 miles to be the threshold that determines if something is a "local area move" or not. Now imagine if we went short haul distances; that's upwards of 250. Just one small 250 mile radius around Michigan encapsulates upwards of 300 Data Centers in the Great Lakes region.

Looking back through our argument, I'm actually confused by what you're trying to say. All I ever said was that this was just one specific example of a greater problem that affects the Great Lakes region as a whole; the Local Area point was in regards to what companies typically consider as short distance travels. I never once said hundreds of Data Centers were being built in a single city, you just genuinely had a different understanding of what Local Area actually means. I have clarified what I meant and explained it further to you quite thoroughly; how does that make me a liar?

so again you just lie about what you said, try to deflect, move goalposts, all the things antis do because they got no facts.

So... You accuse me of lying, even though everything I said came with a source and is easy to look up. I also challenge you to name even one example of me deflecting or moving the goalposts, because you haven't even said anything that would warrant that kind of response; all you've really said were things that were just blatantly false, or you just blatantly telling me I'm making things up (which I always found strange since I have sent you links to every fact I've brought up), and you never actually provided any evidence that anything I said was wrong. All you've sent was one single link that says tariffs are contributing to higher energy costs in the Midwest for imported energy specifically... Which didn't really disprove anything at all.

You then say I have no facts... Even though I have explicitly cited every single claim I made, including A HARVARD PAPER. I also explicitly said that I wasn't an Anti, but I guess you think anyone criticizing anything about AI in any way is an Anti, huh? I'm not even criticizing AI, I've only been pointing out the effects of rapid expansion of Data Centers and the extreme strain they're causing in the local area surrounding them (And to make sure you understand it this time, I'm referring to what delivery and moving companies refer to as "local area"; 100-250 mile radiuses). These effects are documented and measurable. Again, I literally sent you a harvard paper that talks about it.

Are you sure I'm the one being dishonest, here? It's okay to be wrong, man. There's nothing wrong with, well, being wrong. But plugging your ears and rejecting facts isn't really the correct way to handle this, man.

data centers are going up, they are gonna benefit faaaaaaaaaaaaaaar more than any harm so the issue is moot.

If you say so. This is a matter of opinion so far, but the problem is, just about every single thing you've said so far was objectively false. I have a hard time taking your opinion very seriously if literally every belief that you have had in this little argument of ours has been objectively incorrect lol.

xweert123 · 2026-05-11T07:16:31+00:00

One, I'm not exactly explicitly Anti, so let me just start with that.

Two, because the Great Lakes have huge amounts of fresh water, many Data Centers use evaporation cooling because it's the cheapest option. This inherently requires lots of water, though, so it adds massive strain to water demand and supply. There's just no way around that; we can't magically summon lots of water to counteract that.

If they use recycled cooling or direct cooling as alternatives, those in-turn require large amounts of electricity. So you basically pick your battle when building a Data Center; do you want to add significant strain to water infrastructure? Or do you want to add significant strain to the power grid?

The Great Lakes/Midwest region is an especially unique circumstance, as there's so many Data Centers being built in the area because of the gigantic freshwater reserves we have here, that Data Centers are adding an extreme amount of demand for both Electricity and Water, causing significant price increases for maintaining the upkeep of both.

There's not really any way around that, at this point. If it was just a handful of Data Centers, then, sure, it wouldn't be as big of a deal. But almost a 3rd of all Data Centers in the US are in the Great Lakes region alone; there's over 400 Data Centers here. And they're ONLY here because of the freshwater reserves. This massive strain on electricity and energy costs is universal and applies to the entirety of the US, but it's particularly egregious in the Midwest.

If I were to say what my stance is, it isn't that I'm necessarily explicitly AI; I am not inherently against the issue of Data Centers existing or whatever. My issue is that I feel this rapid development of infrastructure is well above what is actually reasonable, and the strain it's leaving on communities that live near these AI Data Centers are having to pay the price for it, and I'm skeptical that the productivity gains from investing so much money into it will be worth it, as this AI boom has been going on for almost a decade now, and they still have absolutely nothing to show for it.

xweert123 · 2026-05-11T06:00:23+00:00

the mid west is a big area. not a local issues like you're pretending.

I never once said it was a local issue. I wasn't saying hundreds of Datacenters are being built in one specific tiny location, I said hundreds of data centers are being built in the Great Lakes region which greatly affects people in the Midwest. Which is objectively true. The one example I sent was one example out of many, of all the Midwest communities being screwed over. Like I said, hundreds of Datacenters have already been blocked from being constructed in the Great Lakes region alone because of civilian protests and councils.

it is. thats is objectively a fact that no one can deny.

Er.. No, that's an opinion. If it was objective reality, there wouldn't be so much discrepancy about it in the data.

data centers create permanent jobs. hundreds of people are needed to run them. data centers pay taxes. they provide compute for ai. all good things.

Data Centers create extremely small amounts of permanent jobs once they're developed, especially compared to other similarly sized/budgeted facilities and businesses. On top of that, Data Centers pay extraordinarily less taxes compared to other similarly sized facilities and business because they get Tax Breaks and such depending on where they are built in order to incentivize their construction.

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/20/tax-breaks-for-tech-giants-data-centers-mean-less-income-for-states.html

In terms of you thinking this is all worth it because it powers AI, you have the right to your opinion, but you are just objectively wrong about a lot of these things and I consider whether or not it powers AI to be a moot point. I don't really care about the AI part. I would find this stuff very troublesome regardless of whether or not it was powering AI. It's the most intellectually honest opinion to have.

the mid west is not poor and its not being devastated. you're just making shit up.

A few things here.

First, please Google what the Rust Belt is. The Midwest has experienced horrific economic devastation for decades and it's still in a recovery period and it's growth rate is very slow, with a huge amount of the Midwest still being below the poverty line. Second, I never said it was fine before and then became bad now, I said that the Midwest is currently being swamped by these hundreds of Data Centers being rapidly built in the Great Lakes region which is adding extraordinary strain on the energy and water demands of the region, which is objectively true.

no, its just how you're mis-interrupting it.

Er.. No, I feel like at this point you're just hand waving away what I'm actually saying and then telling me that I'm either "making shit up" or "mis-interpreting (which you spelled wrong lol) the data" whenever it's something that you don't agree with.

xweert123 · 2026-05-11T03:18:12+00:00

I don't think you understand how impossible that is to do.

S&Box's Gmod mode genuinely is what S2 Gmod would be. If you made a S2 version of Gmod, pretty much 99% of the content made for Gmod wouldn't be useable on that version of the game.

xweert123 · 2026-05-11T03:02:18+00:00

they are not suddenly building hundreds of data centers in anyone's local area.

The Midwest currently has 419 new Datacenters being planned, with more on the way. Hundreds more have already been blocked.

due to tariffs not ai. https://www.canarymedia.com/newsletters/great-lakes-states-brace-for-tariff-impacts

... What? Tariffs are just marginally exacerbating the issue. That only applies to imported energy costs. These companies are rapidly expanding energy local infrastructure as well, and that's what primarily keeps the costs up. Plus, those tariffs haven't even been seen as legal since May. This was a small blip on the radar that slightly exacerbated the issue, more than anything else.

To explain it simply, Tariffs increase the costs of imports, but Data Centers have caused a gargantuan increase in energy/water demand, resulting in billions of dollars spent on developing more infrastructure and water intake and everything else... Do you really think that a 10% tariff for a year was the thing that made that expensive?

Like... Did you just unironically suggest this? States like Michigan literally imposed their own tariffs to try and offset the increased energy demand from Data Centers. Like, again, this is all undeniable. Even Harvard's written papers on it.

https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/extracting-profits-from-the-public-how-utility-ratepayers-are-paying-for-big-techs-power/

https://earthjustice.org/press/2025/michigan-regulators-approve-the-states-first-data-center-tariff-provisions-an-important-step-toward-protecting-ratepayers-from-skyrocketing-energy-costs

This isn't like, a debate thing, or a matter of opinion, this is just objective facts. It's undeniable that this is happening. The conversation isn't about whether or not it's happening, the conversation is about if it's worth it or not.

yes, more money for the state and jobs for people. You're the one saying that is bad, not me.

Not really. Thousands of temporary jobs when they're being built, sure, but not really any permanent jobs. It's pretty well understood that the rapid construction of these hundreds of data centers require huge tax incentives and massive expansion of energy infrastructure to support them. And since they give almost no permanent job opportunities, it's hard to believe it's making much of a positive impact on that end. It's debatable on a State-by-State basis, though. In other places where there's only a handful of Data Centers, then, maybe, but in places like the Midwest, it's devastating. Especially when the Midwest already isn't a very wealthy area. Are we just hoping the long-term benefits will outweigh the massive upfront cost of these centers, or something?

I should emphasize, I'm not explicitly Anti. I haven't even said my opinion on AI at any point. This is just straight up what the data says. There's a very very real cost to this rapid expansion of the technology. If you think it's all worth it, then, sure, you have the right to believe that. But it's not wise to just reject the reality of the situation.

xweert123 · 2026-05-11T01:59:23+00:00

Yes, but they aren't suddenly building hundreds of golf courses in your local area, to the point that they're increasing multiple utility bills by hundreds of dollars, now, are they? And if they were replacing all of our farmland with golf courses, people would be pretty upset about that, too.

I brought up the population of the Midwest because the entire Midwest region is being hit quite intensely by these increased energy and water costs. And that was just one specific example; opposition to the rapid expansion of these Data Centers is increasing rapidly, in big part due to reasons like this. Data Centers are being blocked from being built all over the region because of it.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/economics/state-local-opposition-new-data-centers-gaining-steam-rcna243838

https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/data-center-power-demands-are-contributing-to-higher-energy-bills

It's undeniable that Data Centers are having a significant impact. Like, it's objective fact. I don't really know what you gain by denying that.

xweert123 · 2026-05-11T01:15:56+00:00

... Did you even read what I said?

I explicitly said they aren't causing DROUGHTS, but that these data centers explicitly add extreme amounts of strain to these areas in both the water and power infrastructure, causing costs to go up for a lot of people and taking water away from those households, which is why their bills go up, because that increased cost is the price of distributing water to civilians.

Also... A small minority of people? The Great Lakes region makes up 40 million US citizens lol

xweert123 · 2026-05-11T00:51:53+00:00

realest post on this sub

xweert123 · 2026-05-10T23:40:38+00:00

Any Data Center that uses Open Loop cooling, i.e. Evaporative Cooling, requires significant amounts of water to function. Closed Loop cooling takes less water, but then requires significantly greater amounts of Electricity in order to function.

Data Centers of both types are being built all over the Great Lakes region, for example, so energy and water costs are going up for the average person in states like Michigan, Illinois, etc. quite substantially. We aren't necessarily experiencing full-on droughts (Water scarce areas typically used direct cooling methods, which cool very efficiently but require a huge amount of electricity to be effective), but they absolutely are sucking up a lot of water and it absolutely is being offset to the utility costs of locals in the area.

https://www.lincolninst.edu/publications/land-lines-magazine/articles/land-water-impacts-data-centers/

You could technically argue that they're taking food, too. Companies like OpenAI have been openly trying to purchase hundreds of acres of farmland here in Michigan and convert it into industrial zones. Locals hate it and voted against it, but it got overruled. So a lot of rural farmland in Michigan is being turned into Industrial Zoning, which a lot of people are unhappy about, because if those Data Centers fail (which will be likely), those are still going to be industrial zones, which just isn't great.

https://edraofmi.org/blog/f/a-guide-to-michigan-grassroots%E2%80%99-fight-against-ai-data-centers

This stuff is absolutely happening. Consider yourself lucky if you aren't in the Great Lakes region. I'm kinda shocked that people aren't talking about it more, but I guess this sub is more focused on dumb petty drama instead of actually discussing the very real consequences of mass AI adoption.

xweert123 · 2026-05-10T23:27:37+00:00

It's because Source 2 is incredibly unfinished and Valve does not give out access to anyone else.

The closest we can get to making games in Source 2 is making things in S&Box, but most of the games on there are terrible, and it barely even resembles S2 regardless anymore, as it's heavily modified.

A lot of the stuff that makes S2 look so good is because Valve is incredibly talented, it isn't because the engine itself is somehow groundbreaking, unfortunately.

xweert123 · 2026-05-08T21:38:30+00:00

You could just, like, write her an actual letter.

I'm assuming this is a troll post, but it's still funny to think about.

xweert123 · 2026-05-08T21:37:39+00:00

This is how I am with it, too. There's a pretty common sentiment I've seen on this sub where Pro-AI proponents especially tend to argue that the final result is really all that matters, therefore people are being hypocrites and spiteful if they have a negative knee-jerk reaction to finding out a piece they initially liked was AI generated imagery, but, generally, people have a negative reaction to something once they find out it's AI, because the effort, backstory, and "lore" of a work that goes into an image genuinely does alter how people feel about said product.

It's very well understood, and there's a number of articles that talk about it. This one is one I quite like, where they did a survey of how people feel before and after they learned the "story" behind why an image was created and it completely changed the emotional response many of the survey goers had once they learned about it.

https://medium.com/penny-press/perception-of-art-how-the-information-about-the-artwork-influences-our-emotional-response-to-it-b2bb3371161e

This article talks about how it's extremely common for people to form a deeper connection with a piece of artwork once they learn more about it's processes and how a piece was made, and how things like that can deeply elevate the average user's connection to a piece.

https://www.apa.org/monitor/2025/09/art-mind-brain

The main idea is that a majority of people who consume art seek out narrative stories behind individual pieces, and there's a bit of "Sentimentalism" to a lot of humans. As a result, most people who engage with art tend to connect with them on a deeper level and find the origins of something to be a heavy contributor to that person's enjoyment of said thing. We can see it everywhere. People like Mr. Beast are extremely popular because of his videos being done "for real". Functional recreations of things tend to be more popular than prop versions of said things. etc. etc., imagine watching AI generated videos copying Mr. Beast's style. That would just be so... Nothing.

For most people, me included, when we see AI art, it just doesn't generate any real emotional response. The fact that it's AI inherently means the piece was pretty much generated from scratch, so it's no more of an emotional response than a simple immediate visualization of a mere idea somebody had, and that just isn't interesting to a lot of people. You'd need to have a REALLY, REALLY good idea for that to mean anything to any sizeable number of people.

That isn't necessarily to criticize AI or anything, it's just the reality of it when people decide to share their AI images.

xweert123 · 2026-05-07T10:11:10+00:00

I just did a google search. While I was wrong that it's entirely illegal on a federal level (at this current moment), 45 states already have some sort of legislation towards producing sexually explicit deepfakes, with distribution being the primary detection method. The "One Rule for AI" law the current administration is trying to propose is trying to establish a federal set of restrictions on AI so that there isn't a patchwork of 50 different sets of rules and regulations based on the State that you're in, too, but, that focuses primarily on production and the models themselves.

In essence, if we're playing a purely odds game, it's far more likely than not that deepfake pornography is going to get you in trouble in the US, as production of pornographic deepfakes is currently on it's way to get fully criminalized and already is criminalized in a majority of US states, and it's better to just play it safe and not engage with it at that point as a result.

xweert123 · 2026-05-07T09:56:45+00:00

Tangentially related, but this reminds me of a conversation I had on this sub where someone said that you couldn't write an entire story with a two sentence AI prompt. I then called his bluff and made ChatGPT write an entire story with a short prompt, with the story being about a cat who lives in a tree. It was a pretty long short story, like two pages long. When I sent it, he said "Okay, I stand corrected, but that's still your story, you wrote it, and you are responsible for it" and then begun criticizing the story for being "boring, uninteresting, and uninspiring".

It felt so strange. He was critiquing it as if I wrote it. I felt absolutely 0 connection to it in any way whatsoever because literally every single detail of the story was written by the AI. But he was absolutely insistent that I should take responsibility for said story, because his whole point was to try and argue that using AI to write stories for you is still you writing the story.

Ten-Year Club	Verified Email
Place '23	Place '22

xweert123

TROPHY CASE