loobkoob

Green Wing will be right up your alley if you're a fan of all these shows! It's a sitcom/drama set in a hospital but it's not a medical drama. It's entirely character driven, very absurd in its humour, and almost like a sketch show at times with how some of its scenes play out. It's tied with Black Books for my favourite comedy series (and Tamsin Greig stars in both, too).

People can be angry or upset about more than one thing at a time. And you've no idea whether the person you responded to has been outraged about the US' strikes or not. Just because a society as a whole has a viewpoint that trends a certain way doesn't mean you can assume each and every individual you talk to has that exact viewpoint.

By all means, criticise society as a whole - it's a very valid thing to be critical of. But making assumptions about individuals - and being rude to / critical of them based on those assumptions - isn't the way to win anyone over.

I like the idea of this, although there'd need to be a robust verification system in place to make sure people aren't being bullied into passing their votes off to others.

I think it'd generally lead to people being more engaged and politically literate, though. And it could even lead to individuals bargaining with people they know. Like, I could say to my neighbour, "hey, I'll vote your way on this policy that I'm indifferent about if you vote my way on this other policy".

I do wonder how much of an issue disinformation campaigns would be under such a system. Would it increase their influence? Would hate rags like the Daily Mail find themselves with more influence? Or would people start to cotton onto the fact that nothing they suggest improves anything?

Well I'm just glad Harry Mack managed to release his 100th episode of "Omegle Bars" this week. He decided to take a break from doing Omegle-based content at the right time, it seems.

For anyone who doesn't know, Harry Mack's a freestyle rapper. He has (had) a series where he'd ask strangers on Omegle to give him a handful of words and then create a full song out of them on the fly. And not just saying those words then immediately moving on like most freestyle rappers do; he actually creates entire verses on the topics he's given and really raps around them. Plus he'd be calling out things the people were doing as they react to him, responding to things they say, mentioning things he can see in the room, etc, as he raps.

Here's one of his freestyles that's really stuck with me ever since I first saw it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehcA4zCeaPI

He takes what are some fairly negative, "cry for help" words from the girls and turns them into a really beautiful, positive rap overall. He's a very positive guy in general, and I've watched him consistently since I discovered him. Binging his videos got me through a breakup, in fact.

My own experiences with Omegle have either been penises or just bland, and it's not something I've used for many years as a result. But videos like Harry Mack's show what wonderful things could come from it and I do think it's a huge shame it's gone. It feels like another part of the old internet's gone, and that we're moving even closer to the sanitised, heavily-monetised internet run by megacorporations. I hate that.

I'm attached the end of your rod, motherlicka

Even if Starmer and the Labour party were pretty much the same except they kept the mask on, that would still be a step in the right direction. Normalising the racism, bigotry, corruption and general inhumaneness that fuels the Tory party is absolutely something we should try to avoid.

However, I don't think Labour is like this. I don't think they're perfect, but I think they're much, much better. They're not going to fix everything overnight, but I do think them getting into power would be an important first stepping stone in moving the country and politics towards being a better place in in 10-15 years. They may not be your ideal party but, if you're pragmatic and have any kind of long-term vision, you'll likely vote for them (or the Liib Dems, depending on which constituency you're in) to make sure the Tories are eliminated.

The Overton window is far too far to the right at the moment and Labour getting into power is important for helping to gradually shift it leftwards. People simply aren't going to vote in a "radical" socialist in the current political or economic climate; they want someone they can see as a safe pair of hands who can work on stabilising things somewhat. Right now, that's Starmer - the boring man who's politically central (by current standards) with a fairly clean record and an air of competence. When, in most constituencies, the options are Labour and Tory, you working to put everyone off Labour is just going to benefit the Tories.

Stop letting perfect be the enemy of good.

That and "Suella de Ville". And she's fully deserving of either title. I mentioned elsewhere in the thread, but where other politicians I dislike feel like they're either doing the wrong things for the right reasons, or they're selfish, corrupt or incompetent, Braverman feels like she gets off on the cruelty and is a genuinely evil person.

I think calling her the "second coming of Maggie" really undersells Braverman's cruelty and capacity for evil. I think Thatcher really fucked up this country, and we're still feeling the effects of some of her policies to this day. But Thatcher did genuinely think she was doing things for the right reasons - that she was making tough but necessary decisions.

Braverman seems to get off on the cruelty. A lot of her policies and ideas seem cruel for the sake of cruelty. There are plenty of politicians I've disagreed with and disliked, but they've all tended to feel like it's either because they were doing what I'd consider to be the wrong things for the right reasons (ie, they thought it would help, different approaches to what I'd want but with positive outcomes in mind, etc) or they've just been selfish, corrupt or idiotic. Braverman is a whole different thing entirely. The purpose of her policies is often the cruelty, with no tangible benefits that even she can list. She's a genuinely evil person.

Yeah. There are a couple of other factors, too:

• there are general economic issues around the world right now that are affecting most sectors. Borrowing is more expensive, utilities are more expensive, etc
• people had more disposable income and time to spend on things like gaming during COVID lock downs so games companies simply made more money because of that

So gaming (and tech in general) companies have seen a downturn in investment, their audiences are spending less money and the general economy is weaker. It's no surprise so many of them are having to resort to layoffs. Some of that is down to poor management and overspending/over-expansion during the pandemic, and those companies' management obviously deserves criticism. But some of it is just down to a collection of unfortunate circumstances all coming to a head at once.

Not to defend the guy because he seems awful, but a century is just absurd. There's no way I'm going to be thinking in ~50 years' time, "damn, I'm glad 80-year-old Sam Bankman-Fried is off the streets, I wouldn't feel safe if he were free". It just seems disproportionately high.

See, I love spreadsheets and being able to optimise things, but I do need to actually be able to feel the impact in the gameplay, too. And yeah, Destiny is terrible for that; the buffs and upgrades you do get just feel irrelevant, for the most part. Especially with the terrible scaling system they use where you never feel any stronger against weaker enemies, just weaker against stronger enemies. When getting a huge numerical upgrade (in terms of gear score) doesn't change anything about how the game feels to play, I think that's poor design.

I don't think looter-shooters (and loot games in general) are inherently limiting, but loot needs to be exciting. I've played thousands of hours of Path Of Exile, and hundreds of hours of other looter games, and what holds my interest is interesting loot and build variety/depth. That simply doesn't happen in Destiny. Compare Destiny to Borderlands, for instance, and you can see how boring the loot really is. Look at games like Path Of Exile, Grim Dawn, or Last Epoch, and you can see how boring the skill trees are. In all of those other games, I've had items drop where I've been excited to redo my entire build to accommodate it, or to make a new character built around it. In Destiny, items just don't feel exciting enough. (Not every game needs to be as complex as Path Of Exile, but Destiny is incredibly shallow.)

And, of course, Destiny's story has consistently been disappointing. There's some great lore there, but they've failed to translate that into a well-told, engaging story over and over again.