I think @rayyy is right, unfortunately. If the West severs ties with Israel overnight (and suddenly stopping arms shipments would essentially be the same thing as severing ties), it'll just create a power vacuum where Russia or China will cosy up to Israel instead. Israel has a lot of influence in the region - partially because it's been propped up by US support, of course - and other countries would absolutely try to prop up Israel and capitalise on their influence in the US' place if they had the opportunity. Which would perhaps slow down the genocide for a little while, but it would inevitably pick back up, but this time without the US/West having any influence at all.
Not to mention the fact that the US losing its influence over Israel would almost certainly destabilise the region. Iran would be emboldened, as you alluded to. Hamas would be emboldened, and while I take the side of the Palestinian people in this whole ordeal, I don't think Hamas being emboldened would be a good idea - it would likely lead to further conflict and even worse suffering for the Palestinian people. Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey would all likely try to expand their influences, too.
Biden is trying to slowly reel Israel in while still maintaining US influence there. Partially because the US just wants to keep its power, of course, but also because it's perhaps the best way to have some control over the genocide and over the region rather than just being an observer. I don't like all the blood on our collective hands but I think that, at this point, the genocide would continue without us.
I absolutely think the fact that Israel has been put in the position it's in represents decades of shortsightedness and foreign policy failure, though. Israel should never have been in the position to do this.
And to prove your point even further: my friends and I went go-karting for someone's stag do a couple of weeks ago and it was £50 per person for two fifteen-minute sessions. And that's even more entry level than autocross, I'd argue!
We had to get there early, too, and get registered, get changed into overalls and helmet, etc. We had to go through an idiot-proof safety briefing. We had to wait for the previous group to finish their session. We had a break between our two sessions for drinks and to cool down / recover, and another session ran during that time, so ~twenty minutes there. All in all, our half-hour of driving probably came with around an hour and a half of downtime, which I think lowers the value proposition even more.
(Plus I got heatstroke during it and got increasingly ill as the day went on - and was unable to really eat during our restaurant meal or drink at the bars later in the day - which lowered the value proposition even more for me, ha!)
£100/hour of actual go-karting, versus £1/hour for most AAA games these days. I don't tend to like AAA games that much, for the most part, but even with all their bloat, recycled content, open-world downtime, etc, they still seem like better value per money per time than anything motorsports-related.
Monkey killing monkey killing monkey over
pieces of the ground
Silly monkeys
Give them thumbs, they make a club
to beat their brother down
How they've survived so misguided is a mystery
Repugnant is a creature who would squander the ability
to lift an eye to heaven, conscious of his fleeting time here
I don't disagree, but gaming laptops are always overpriced. You're paying a premium for the small form factor. (And I assume they also have the much less powerful RTX 4070 Mobile, which makes the value proposition even worse for laptops.)
I wouldn't recommend ChatGPT for factual information at all (at least, not without validating for yourself afterwards), but I think it's quite good for helping you mull over or develop ideas, and for finding "soft answers" to things.
I used it recently to suggest a font to use, for instance, and found it much, much better than trying to use a search engine. My font knowledge isn't particularly high at all - I know what serif means but that's about it as far as technical knowledge, and I wouldn't recognise or categorise most fonts - but I was able to describe what I wanted to ChatGPT and narrow it down:
"I want something more friendly than that"
"less professional"
"more wonky"
"less rounded"
"less uncomfortable"
And so on. I could be somewhat abstract with my requests and it still mostly seemed to understand what I meant. Eventually it suggested something that fit my requirements pretty well. Trying to find a similar suggestion via a search engine would have been very difficult, I think, and would basically have just relied on me stumbling on a "top 10 fonts for X" listicle that happened to cover my requirements.
ChatGPT is fantastic within its specific niche (assuming you know how to feed it prompts properly and how to interpret its outputs - it's a tool thats usefulness very much depends on the operator) but I definitely wouldn't want it to replace search engines.
I think my first Bethesda game was Skyrim and I love Skyrim. I’ve played through Skyrim when it first came out I played through it again in the DLC came out. I played through it again on the switch I have since played through it again on PC. I love Skyrim. I played it so many times and I know it’s a meme to keep re-releasing...
The big difference between the two for me is how much feeling of gameplay expression there is. In Fallout, my options feel like melee, shooting enemies with shotguns, shooting enemies with automatic rifles, shooting enemies with long-range rifles, shooting enemies with lasers, shooting enemies with miniguns, and so on. And the shooting mechanics don't feel strong enough to really differentiate those different weapons as different playstyles for the most part. If I play a game like Titanfall, Battlefield, etc, then changing weapons can feel drastically different - they handle differently, you navigate combat arenas differently, you prioritise targets differently, you use cover differently. But that doesn't really feel like the case with Fallout for me without any of the moment-to-moment decision making that tends to allow for gameplay expression in shooters.
Whereas Skyrim feels like there are a lot more playstyles available. Destruction magic feels very different to conjuration which feels very different to illusion which feels very different to being a stealth archer which feels very different to using a dagger which feels very different to using a huge, two-handed melee weapon. They're not just visually different; how you approach and navigate combat encounters will be significantly different depending on what kind of build you have. It just feels like there's so much more gameplay depth.
Unfortunately, The Boys also ruined The Boys. The last episode of season 3 completely killed my hype for it with the way they just tried to reset everything again so they can reuse the same broad strokes in season 4.
I don't think The Boys ruined all classical superhero stuff for me though, personally. It just coincided with Marvel going into a slump and DC still not having their act together for the most part, so The Boys looked so much better in comparison. I adored The Batman, though, and have enjoyed a few other bits and pieces.
To be honest, I think your position is short-sighted, naïve and lacking in pragmatism.
Right now, in most constituencies, your choice is between Labour/Lib Dem and Tory/Reform. And anyone who thinks Labour getting into government wouldn't be an improvement over the Tories hasn't been paying attention for the last decade. Even if Labour had the exact same political stance as the Tories - which they don't - the fact that they're not nearly as likely to be corrupt, self-serving slime balls makes them an improvement by itself.
Labour needs to appeal to moderate, swing voters. There's no steadfast left-wing voter base in the UK; if Labour can't win over the swing voters they won't get elected - it's that simple. That doesn't mean they're sat there asking themselves how they can be more like the Tories, it just means they need to take positions that have broad appeal and don't just go full-socialism. As much as socialism appeals to me, I'd rather see Labour actually get elected. There's zero chance we go from our current government to a socialist government overnight.
And if I think about where I'd like to see our country in ten or fifteen years, Labour winning this election is the most realistic way for us to get there. Spoiling your ballot, not voting at all, or voting for some candidate who's going to get <3% of the vote isn't going to achieve anything other than a short-lived sense of self-satisfaction. The best thing any of us can do is to pick the least bad of the realistic options. I don't like that that's the system, but it's the system we've got and we either have to work within it or have it imposed on us anyway.
I don't think the Labour Party is perfect by any means. They have some ideas I like, and I'm hopeful they'll unveil more policies I like in the next few weeks. And, of course, there are things I dislike about them. They're certainly not my dream party. But I also think it's important not to let perfect be the enemy of good. We have a chance to improve things, and squandering that chance just because things aren't going to be perfect is fucking stupid.
I believe the thinking is that three days is (hopefully) enough time for whatever issues to be resolved, or for you to look for other sources of supplies. You're not expected to stockpile enough to live on for months!
Tom Cruise is an odd one for me. The idea I have of Tom Cruise is that he always plays the same character, is just a generic action star, etc. And then whenever I actually watch Tom Cruise in a film, I'm always really impressed by just how good an actor he is. But I still can't shake the idea I have of Tom Cruise.
I have a similar issue with Brad Pitt, where my idea of him is that he's just a generic leading man, despite him almost always putting in a really strong, nuanced and varied performance.
I'm sure we've all played at least one survival game at this point, right? Minecraft. Valheim. Subnautica. Project Zomboid. ARK: Survival Evolved. Don't Starve. The list goes on....
Their song "Shut Up And Let Me Go" was fairly successful, too, so they weren't quite a one-hit wonder.
I actually quite enjoy their 2018 album "The Black Light", even if it wasn't that well received. It's kind of a stripped back indie dance record, and it's fine. But they did an alternate version called the "Manchester Version" that had a much more raw, indie rock sound to it that I dig. It's no masterpiece by any means, but it's something I'm happy to put on every now and then.
I don't hate the idea of midichlorians, honestly. Or rather, I do hate them but I think that's the point - to show that the jedi have kind of lost their way, are judging everything by "midichlorian counts" and tried to standardise and automate the process as much as possible rather than properly considering the human element and doing things on a case-by-case basis. If it's not the point then, well... it should be.
I think there are some decent ideas in the prequel trilogy, I just think the execution was pretty bad.
The rap mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs admitted in a video apology that he punched and kicked his ex-girlfriend in 2016 in the hallway of a hotel after CNN released footage of the attack, saying he was “truly sorry” and his actions were “inexcusable”....
It's a common issue at this point: a game releases, gets years' worth of updates and DLCs, and then eventually the developers move on to developing a sequel. The sequel comes out and... the depth and amount of content is nowhere close to what players have just been experiencing in its predecessor. The sequel may have many of the...
I agree, I had the same thought. And not only is she very pretty, she's also "believably pretty"; she doesn't look like a movie star or an unrealistically attractive Instagram model, she looks like someone you could see walking down the street. She'd catch your eye, of course, and probably be the prettiest person you saw that day, but it's not like some pictures/videos I've seen of people where I've thought "I've never seen someone look that attractive in real life" and there's a bit of a disconnect because of it.
Using Olga's likeness, I suspect a lot of people can be fooled into thinking she's just a regular person who happens to be at the upper end of the attractiveness scale rather than a paid model, and I'm sure they very intentionally decided to steal her likeness for that reason.
I feel like no amount of trailers or reviews are going to give me an idea of what to expect from this film, and it feels like I'll probably not know what I think about it until several days after the credits have rolled.
I'm not convinced it will be a good film, but it absolutely seems like a must-see for me.
Don't worry, I'm sure you'll be privileged and safe (lemmy.world)
Google promised a better search experience — now it’s telling us to put glue on our pizza (www.theverge.com)
Gamers aged 55+ account for almost a third of gamers now, and that share is on the rise. (www.midiaresearch.com)
A beginner's guide to nationalism (lemmy.world)
PC gaming getting worse every year (www.xda-developers.com)
Now that google is going all in on ai what are some sites you plan on bookmarking.
Just curious since I think it is about to get a whole lot harder to search using google. hopefully this will signal the end of their monopoly.
Fallout Series (Why don’t I like it?)
I think my first Bethesda game was Skyrim and I love Skyrim. I’ve played through Skyrim when it first came out I played through it again in the DLC came out. I played through it again on the switch I have since played through it again on PC. I love Skyrim. I played it so many times and I know it’s a meme to keep re-releasing...
Hugh Jackman ‘Really Thought’ Wolverine Was Done, Then He Joined ‘Deadpool 3’ Without Telling His Agent: ‘By the Way, I’ve Just Committed to a Movie’ (variety.com)
‘Change’: Starmer hopes simple slogan will chime with exasperated nation (www.theguardian.com)
Government tells Britons to stockpile as part of emergency planning (www.ft.com)
Archive...
Marjorie Taylor Greene pushes wild conspiracy theory about Slovakia PM’s shooting: ‘No wonder they shot him’ (www.independent.co.uk)
I never noticed it was him in X-Men: Apocalypse
Top Tory MP defects to Labour in fury at NHS crisis (www.theguardian.com)
Ex-health minister Dan Poulter who also works as a hospital doctor, says Conservatives have become ‘nationalist party of the right’
OC The double-edged sword of survival game mechanics
I'm sure we've all played at least one survival game at this point, right? Minecraft. Valheim. Subnautica. Project Zomboid. ARK: Survival Evolved. Don't Starve. The list goes on....
The Ting Tings - That's Not My Name (youtu.be)
Is the Y cut the best way to slice a sandwich? (www.popsci.com)
Experts slice up the horizontal vs. diagonal vs. Y cut debate. So what is the best way to slice a sandwich?
George Lucas Says Ideas in the Original “Sort of Got Lost” in Post-Disney ‘Star Wars’ Films (Gee, you think?) (www.hollywoodreporter.com)
Lucas reflected on his life in work in a wide-ranging chat in Cannes, where he received and honorary Palm d'Or.
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs admits he beat ex-girlfriend Cassie: ‘I take full responsibility’ (www.theguardian.com)
The rap mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs admitted in a video apology that he punched and kicked his ex-girlfriend in 2016 in the hallway of a hotel after CNN released footage of the attack, saying he was “truly sorry” and his actions were “inexcusable”....
OC Does extensive post-release support - particularly for live-service games - lead to unrealistic expectations and disappointing realities in a game's sequels?
It's a common issue at this point: a game releases, gets years' worth of updates and DLCs, and then eventually the developers move on to developing a sequel. The sequel comes out and... the depth and amount of content is nowhere close to what players have just been experiencing in its predecessor. The sequel may have many of the...
Did you know that before the release of the film Alien (1979) starring Sigourney Weaver...
...people had to weave their own sigourneys by hand?
How Chinese AI turned a Ukrainian YouTuber into a Russian (www.bbc.com)
cross-posted from: feddit.de/post/12110745...
UK PM announces 4th July general election (www.bbc.co.uk)
Megalopolis Teaser Trailer (2024) (www.youtube.com)
Well, we were discussing trailers that reveal too much yesterday. That’s not happening here.