Oni, Alien Vs. Predator 2, No One Lives Forever 1 and 2, MechWarrior 2/3/4, Black & White 1 and 2...

And that's just at the top of my head. Copyright hell is awful.

One thing I've heard is it's sometimes a weird stalemate where companies might have the property in their basement somewhere, but if there's interest in it, suddenly the value will shoot up, so nobody wants to confirm it in case they're the loser and will have it extorted from them.

I'm probably explaining it wrong. (Because it's absolute nonsense.) But someone might know a better explanation than I.

It's been hours ...help.

Oh c'mon don't screw with my head like that. I specifically remember seeing the "Shaq Genie movie"... Wait that was Kazaam! Dang it!

I agree with you 100%.

The worst part, is that the barbaric warmongers are absolutely conscripting and coercing their population to go kill people.

Clearly, the "Z nazis" are not to be convinced to simply stop throwing their lives away for a dictator. They actively recruit and reward people who revel in murder, and celebrate them as national heroes for their schoolchildren to look up to.

So...what are the defenders to do?

It's incredible how seemingly no business of any kind seems to understand this.

Skeleton crews with no backup plans are seemingly just fine for all of them. I imagine because the cost of retaining extra staff to prevent problems is higher than simply "hoping nothing goes wrong and dealing with the disaster if it happens."

It's cool though, since nobody needs jobs or anything. Lol

(hugs)

Mass Effect 3's (ultimate) ending:

I get it. I get that after a series of EXCELLENT games that touted meaningful choices, "select an ending video" was lame.

Were there better ways it could have been done without planting an infinite "tree of death" taking into account every player's individual choices from the entire trilogy? Sure!

I'm sad that this resulted in things like death threats and crap, from people who obviously have no idea what game developers do for a living. They obviously didn't deserve that.

The added "green ending" still gets hate even. It was fine. The game was fine. It told a story and was a blast to play through. (Even despite EA's constant executive meddling!)

I wish it wasn't profitable to whip people into riotous frenzy over such things.

Mass Effect 3's (ultimate) ending:

I get it. I get that after a series of EXCELLENT games that touted meaningful choices, "select an ending video" was lame.

Were there better ways it could have been done without planting an infinite "tree of death" taking into account every player's individual choices from the entire trilogy? Sure!

I'm sad that this resulted in things like death threats and crap, from people who obviously have no idea what game developers do for a living. They obviously didn't deserve that.

The added "green ending" still gets hate even. It was fine. The game was fine. It told a story and was a blast to play through.

I wish it wasn't profitable to whip people into riotous frenzy over such things.

Haha I used to wait tables long ago. I know exactly where you're coming from!

My most recent job nearly drove me mad. I worked for a public library computer lab. I got a chair, and could look busy scrolling reddit instead of hurredly rushing to the walk-in freezer to scream. Hooray!

But it actually made me miss the simplicity of taking and delivering orders and "flipping" tables. This was a job where I'm pretty sure I did some good sometimes, but you might know how dumb and angry people get with anything digital.

Explanation of what that entailed:

Everything was an end-of-the-world crisis for each unique individual that came in, everything required multiple steps, often stymied by the fact people thought they were being clever by having 13 email addresses and forgetting the passwords and not updating the phone number the recovery code was tied to. ("And I MUST print this thing for a job interview in like 1 hour! Oh computers are terrible I hate them you must be a genius, back in my day we just shook a hand and got a salary rabble rabble.")

It was an awkward position because you really couldn't just say "Wow, sucks to be u." If they were siphoning too much life force.

They would not leave until closing if you just left em' there. And the worst ones lived like down the street so they'd show up every day. And they piled up. And instead of a section of tables, it was ~20-30 computer seats I was in charge of.

I genuinely want to help people live better lives. And I seized the opportunity when I could, but man, people have bandwidth. Dropping the individual systemic issues of an entire society on singular "caring profession" workers is downright vile. I'm so thankful I escaped. I'm still mentally recovering.

But hey, making more then $2.14 an hour was nice. Lol

You shouldn't choose things to do that harm your own well-being.

Yeah, I agree. I hate that socioeconomics always seems to push us in that position. If it's not harmful, it seems to be relegated to the select few or outmoded as a job, it seems. (I'm trying REALLY hard to not be a doomer! Lol)

You're absolutely right though. I struggle to "not care". I think if everybody cared more about each other things would be better, but y'know, reality. Lol

I want to be social monke and love and help people, but everything must be some kind of infinite assembly line of the screaming masses. :(

I'm trying to finally be a digital artist and make games instead. It's definitely not the moneybags route, but I have a lot more energy to put towards the people who deserve it from me...

Excellent points and I really appreciate your correction. Accuracy is still important even for rhetorical jokes like mine haha.

Edited. Thank you! :)

Cool! I appreciate your opinion! I should really stick to it this time. It seems besides The Expanse (still gotta watch that one) or Orville, we're simply not spoiled with great sci-fi/sci-fantasy shows anymore. :)

No matter what anyone thinks of the ending, it does at least have a conclusion.

Oof, you've got a point there, pardner. (cries in Firefly)

That's pretty hilarious and I don't doubt it's efficacy!

I'll admit my trouble with these situations is I can't help but care about people or fixing things, often to save them from themselves as if they're, like you said, toddlers.

I start to resent being taken advantage of though. It's tough. :(

It's them...

It's "Deer Sir/Madam" :O

Honest question: So it's still worth the ride?

I loved the vibe, and the Newtonian (-esque?) space battles, but I kinda dropped off, and after the ending was spoiled for me I was like "Wow. Saved myself the time." Lol

But is the show worth it overall? I've liked things with silly/bad endings before. :p

That was a weird time, when troubleshooting internet connection issues was like "Is anyone using the microwave or perhaps a cordless phone at the moment?" Lol

"My subscribers are pogchamping me, Simperial. Can you say the same?"

(mournful pffft squeaaaak noises)

Exactly! I don't know why appeasement is even discussed with any seriousness. We've all seen this before.

Previously on: "World History"

England: "Fine, fine, you can have, like, Poland a slice of Czechoslovakia, but then chill out!"

Narrator: "He did not 'chill out'."

(Edited for accuracy. Thanks!)

Why oof? O.o

That's a really cool story about the Athlon still kickin in 2024! I love the spreading awareness of using existing equipment instead of mindless consumption! :D

You're right, like with any system, the user needs to want to understand it. I think the install will always be a hurdle for anyone as long as "computers with Linux pre-installed" stays a niche thing.

Although, I'd also argue that a pre-formatted install media with a little "How to start" card would do wonders. For something like Mint and many other distros there's just "Install this distro only" or "Alongside Windows" if no fancy partitioning needs to be done.

That's pretty snazzy for a fresh start!

As far as initial hand-holding though, Mint/Cinnamon or KDE are especially friendly for Windows users. With people being used to smartphones now, the repository being an "app store" makes a boatload more sense too.

Those beginner-aimed OSs also have that little "Welcome" window to familiarize users with what to use for office apps, how to get more software, how to update, and where to ask for help.

In my experience, I had to do barely if any support that couldn't be gained by the user just poking around a bit, and nothing that required any "fixing" under normal use. Two people I helped was in a position at my local library, so being bugged with simple questions was part of the job haha.

But my sister's experience with Mint was really smooth. She was nervous at first because it was different, but quickly got the hang of things. I don't get any questions, really. She uses the apps, gets online, plays Steam occasionally, and keeps it updated.

And to be fair, an install of Windows I think is way more intimidating these days LOL. (Had to do that for her, too for a dual boot...it was a huge headache, especially with their "Microsoft account" shenanigans and a million dubious opt-outs.)

Minus really specialized niche software that depends on Windows, I've noticed the beauty of these distros are that they can grow with the user, and if the user wants to get more advanced, the OS won't stop them.

I don't necessarily think a learning curve is a bad thing as long as it's a smooth ramp. I think if there's a learning curve, it means you're using a tool rather than an appliance. :)

(Example: Mobile OSs tend to be super intuitive...but they're mostly aimed at consuming content over any other purpose.)