Presumably Sauron could’ve destroyed the ghosts, he was just a little distracted at that time frame, or not yet able or willing to face them directly. Like the Eagles, they can’t really tackle the Sauron problem, so aren’t as much of a solve as they appear.

Also the reason they only fight in the final battle I think is because that is the only battle they’re bound to fight in, I’m not even sure you could use them to fight any other battle than against Sauron’s armies.

To be fair the entire army itself was just a distraction so that frodo could destroy the ring. The ghosts weren’t what caused them to win, they just prevented the death of the bait.

You’re expected to go to prison where they can legally use you for slave labor

But there aren’t ‘new’ graphing calculators being required and they don’t get worn out that easily. There’s a relatively stable amount of people who need one at any given time, so honestly I’d have expected the second hand market to have crashed the market more than it has. There should honestly be multiple times over more graphing calculators in circulation than there is a need for them.

This is scary new information for me that puts a childhood incident in a much more horrifying context. I was at pet store when I was like 10 and one of the parrots seemed friendly so I let it climb up to my shoulder, only for it to painfully bite my ear. It hurt a lot, but no blood was drawn. I managed to get free easily enough. I thought that was pretty bad, but now I’m learning that apparently it could’ve easily ripped off my ear?!? Apparently I’m a lot luckier and that parent was actually a lot nicer than I thought.

Honestly based on the consequences so far, I don’t even know why they bother hiding it. Feels like even if they accurately reported all their bribes, nothing would come of it.

I just hope to be dead before the circus breaks down

I’ve always kinda wondered about this. I’m not an audio guy and really can’t tell the difference between most of the standards. That said, I definitely remember tons and tons ‘experts’ telling me that no one can tell the difference between 720p and 1080p TV at typical distance to your couch. And I absolutely could and many of the people I know could. I can also tell the difference between 1080 and 4k, at the same distances.

So I’m curious if there’s just a natural variance in an individual’s ability to hear and audiophiles just have a better than average range that does exceed CD quality?

Similar to this, I can tell the difference between 30fps and 60fps, but not 60 to 120, yet some people swear they can. Which I believe, I just know that I can’t. Seems like these guidelines are probably more averages, rather than hard biological limits.

I mostly agree, with the caveat that 99% of AI usage today just stupid gimmicks and very few people or companies are actually using what LLMs offer effectively.

It kind of feels like when schools got sold those Smart Whiteboards that were supposed to revolutionize teaching in the classroom, only to realize the issue wasn’t the tech, but the fact that the teachers all refused to learn and adapt and let the things gather dust.

I think modern LLMs should be used almost exclusively as an assistive tool to help empower a human worker further, but everyone seems to want an AI that you can just tell ‘do the thing’ and have it spit out a finalized output. We are very far from that stage in my opinion, and as you stated LLM tech is unlikely to get us there without some sort of major paradigm shift.

Same. I want more physics, more depth to character dialogue, more animations, etc. High res graphics are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to making games feel immersive. At this point a bunch of older games feel newer or more modern to me because they actually include this stuff.

I have a Scarlett solo, guess that might be a DAC. Little box for sound connections.

I bought a mid range Sennheiser and dedicated amp for my PC because the one on my motherboard was buzzing. My favorite part about it is: no batteries to die on me, the open back design is more comfortable and the amp has a convenient volume knob. The sound quality is fine? It’s not shitty which is just about the only thing I can tell.

For like 99% of people arguing that ‘voting is useless’ they are also not working towards any other method of improving society. Either by working towards unions, or effective means of protest or even violent revolution. They’re just opting out and doing nothing of value while feeling smug about being ‘above’ such petty squabbles.

If you are the 1% actually doing something of value that isn’t voting. Congrats, I guess? But I think I’m far more likely to convince someone to vote, which is at least somewhat helpful than I am to convince them to join a revolution.

I was responding in general to the concept, not specifically this implementation, which as you say is not the worst implementation for sure.

We’ll have agree to disagree on pay2win not being predatory. Again, this specific implementation may not be as bad, but the market as a whole absolutely has examples just as dangerous as slot machines. They’re built on the same psychology.

As for regulation, it doesn’t strictly have to come from the government. Both movies and games have rating boards specifically to avoid government intervention and I think they are failing consumers here. The threat of government intervention might see the ESRB and the various gaming marketplaces adopt more strict rules and warnings. Things like preventing the sale of games with specific, predatory mtx dark patterns and mechanics from sale to minors, stronger warning labels on games containing these sorts of practices and penalizing companies from adding MTX in a deceitful manner (such as after launch). A game would be heavily penalized for adding adult content this way and perhaps MTX should be treated in a similar manner.

Regulation. Bad behavior that can’t be policed by econ 101, gets regulation. Stuff like recognizing the predatory nature of these micro transactions and limiting their exposure to kids and warning labels like we slap on actual gambling. Even higher taxes on profits derived from these sorts games. Maybe they aren’t so profitable when we actually protect the vulnerable and they have to truly rely on just the ‘stupid whales’ and not kids.

I hate that they took away my analyst title. I’m not a software engineer dammit. I don’t even have an IDE installed and haven’t done any programming in 10+ years.

So many people complaining about comic book artists that draw boobs as big as their heads, but apparently that’s literally a thing that can happen.

Would sky trains be as reliable? I assume subways are more reliable partially due to not being exposed to the elements.

Am I remembering yesterdays door locking or today?

Definitely agree. Innovation has slowed down. Time will tell if the 1900s was just a complete fluke or not, but personally I think at least part of the slow down is due to the slow collapse of capitalism and democracy. Feels like we’re just trudging along purely on inertia since the end of WW2. Like we’re an old beat up car that’s been patched and duct taped together so much. The whole system feels like it’s just ground to a halt and all ‘new’ progress is just marketing from grifters who’ve captured the system.