Aielman15

I use Fossify Clock and I’m having the same problem.

Robert Silverberg’s “The man in the maze” is a cool science-fiction book based on the Greek play Philoctetes. Iirc it’s a very short story (maybe about one or two hundred pages), I don’t remember the exact length but I recall reading it in one sitting. It is a very character-driver story where the “maze” itself is an allegory about mankind, isolation and disability, but it is very much enjoyable as a casual read as well.

The protagonist (“man in the maze”) is an astronaut who has been somehow cursed to always radiate its emotions in such a way that others, even his family, find repulsive, so he self-exiles to a remote and long-dead planet to live the rest of his life in isolation. But when an alien species makes hostile contact with humans, he is needed again, as his “curse” is the only way to properly communicate with them and maybe convince them that humans are sentient beings and thus their equals.

Oversexualization. Panty shots, ass shots, boob physics, the same old jokes from the ‘80s about a guy “accidentally” groping a woman, guys peeping into a girls’ space, suggestive poses, barely-disguised fetishes (included, but not limited to, harems, incest and pedophilia).

It got to the point where a friend would recommend an anime, I’d watch it, and walk away halfway through the first or second episode because it was just unbearable. Friends would tell me to turn a blind eye, but why the fuck should I put up with sexualizing minors in a show? I’d rather spend my time doing something that doesn’t make me feel sick.

It also attracts the wrong kind of audience. Since the medium is so keen to produce oversexualized content, that’s all people look for and talk about. Any anime discussion thread degenerates into gross memes about “flat is justice”, “twincest is wincest”, people patting each other in the shoulder while calling the other “man of culture” for sharing their kinks, and shit like that. It’s so extenuating that, back when I was interested in the medium, I still actively refrained from interacting with fellow fans because I felt grossed out by them. Fun fact, I had a female classmate back in highschool who was interested in anime, and I thought that I could find common grounds with her, but no, it was the same thing, just reversed (she would only watch anime with sexualised boys).

The medium also forgot what its name stands for. I haven’t seen “animation” in “anime” in years. It’s just still frames and more still frames and whenever there’s an action sequence, the characters will constantly interrupt them to explain or think about the thing that I’m already watching and needs no explanation, or having flashback sequences, because it’s cheaper to animate. The fact that Ghost in the Shell and Akira from thirty years ago had better and more fluid animation than the shit they produce now is just sad.

Never heard of it, but it sounds like it was a great place. Sad to see it fail against established giants of the internet. I would’ve been interested in trying it out before the end.

I think this is a problem that multiple small realities like this (including Lemmy) are facing. There are people interested in them, but they don’t know them, so they can’t join.

Oh boy. Just one?

I guess I’d go with “signing up to a random online forum back in 2012”.

I was a very shy and introverted kid back then, without friends or social life to speak of. I would spend all my time playing videogames and reading books.

That online forum gave me a chance to speak to other people while staying “safe” in my shell. Without realising it, I slowly gained confidence and social skills that helped me make friends both online and irl, some of whom I still speak with to to this day. Thanks to one of the people I knew on that forum, I now have a job that I like.

I wouldn’t recommend online forums nowadays to fight depression/lack of social skills, as the internet has become a cesspool. Online chats are breeding grounds for political extremists. But in my case it definitely helped.

A close second would be having a girl in college confessing to me. I had never really thought about my sexuality back then: it just wasn’t on my mind, like, ever (which should’ve been a red flag, but whatever). She was really nice and wasn’t pushy at all, but I knew that I couldn’t leave her hanging forever, and I had to give her an honest answer in a relatively short time.

Well, long story short, I realized I wasn’t straight. At first I thought I was bi, then gay, but a few years later I understood that I am ace (again, should’ve been obvious by the fact that I literally never thought about sex for the entirety of my teenage years, but I’m dumb).

But seriously, there are so many important moments in one’s life, it’s difficult to choose only one or two. Watching nature documentaries with my brother as a kid turned me into a huge animal lover, to the point that I’m literally unable to kill a fly because it makes me sick. Thanks bro, those are some of my most treasured memories!

The brothers Grimm for me. I don’t see many people discussing it online, but I enjoyed it. That scene where the horse eats a kid is still distressing to me years later.

I recently bought a Jabra Elite 2 for €60. They have great sound quality and active noise canceling. I also recommend them.

I’ve always used headphones though, so I don’t have experience with other earbuds to compare them to the competition.

The first thing anyone should do when buying a smartphone is disabling/uninstalling the trash on it, including (especially) Google stuff.

There are tons of better Gallery applications out there.

I’m Italian.

Four years ago the DDL Zan, a law that sought to fight language and deeds that amount to religious, political and racial discrimination by adding aggravating factors for sexual orientation, gender and gender identity, was proposed.

Among its detractors, the Vatican itself, who urged Italy to stop the law because, according to them, the Law calls into question church’s ‘freedom of organisation’ and threatens ‘freedom of thought’.

While those cartoonish evil cults aren’t common, they are not the only evil religious organizations in the world. The head of one of the abrahamic religions, and one of the most popular religions in the world, fought against the freedom of my fellow LGBT+ individuals because of their supposed right of hate speech, apparently. So no, it’s not an American perspective, and yes, all religions are evil.

Religion is ignorance and refusal to face reality.

As long as people behave, treat others, and vote according to the sacred scriptures written by a crackhead thousands of years ago, and their influence shapes the world around me and puts a limit to my freedom, then there will be no distinction between religion and extremism. The lesser of two evils is still evil.

I’m not a pet owner anymore, unfortunately, but I have a few to share.

My first dog was able to recognize the sound of my father’s car from the street, and would make sure that everyone in the entire building knew that she recognised the sound. She would bark from the moment the car appeared on the street, until my father was at home. We eventually managed to convince her to bark a little less, but even then, she would still bark a few times. Problem is, my father would frequently come back from work late at night!

My second dog loved to jump. Like, seriously, he was the world champion of jumping. He didn’t know how to run, he trotted and jumped to gain speed. When somebody entered our home, he would come to them and jump around them. A lot. Sometimes we were forced to put him in another room and close the door so that he wouldn’t greet our guests. He was very dumb. A very playful fella, though.

That’s a nice argument, senator, but have you tried telling it on a platform that actually encourages quality discourse?

Dude, no one here is shocked or angry. There are just normal people calmly discussing ways to bypass yet another attempt from Google to stop AdBlockers. If anything, you’re the guy who spent the entire day yesterday screeching at people in another thread who don’t want to pay for YT Premium, and is still doing the same thing now, in a community dedicated to piracy no less. You just deleted the vast majority of your comments because you were too embarrassed when people called you out for licking the boots of a trillion-dollars corporation and being angry at other people who don’t want to follow your example.

Go touch some grass, it’s free (just like YouTube!).

I’m confused about what you’re trying to say, because none of those are YT alternatives.

TikTok is centered on short videos. Twitch is a platform for streamers, mainly for video game content creators. Curiosity Stream is a platform hosting professional documentaries and science shows, it’s great but it has nothing to do with the amateurish nature of YT content.

All of those cater to a specific niche of YT (YT shorts, video game let’s play, and science channels, respectively), but there’s a huge chunk of content that doesn’t appear on any of those services, but is present and thriving on YT.

Your argument falls flat the moment you realize an alternative to YT doesn’t exist because all these bit corporations have spent years either starving off or buying the competition, and they are now happily enjoying the monopoly they have created.

I don’t expect Google to ever cater to me, and I fully expect them to keep their war going against AdBlock. It’s their job to make more money, after all. But the point is, it’s their job, not mine. I’ll keep doing what I think I rightfully deserve, which is, watch a few videos without the hassle of ads provided by the big corporation that has taken my data without my consent, sold it to the highest bidder, and made a fuckload of money off it.

I’m not a freeloader because Google is already making a profit off me by profiling me. They are just being greedy and asking for more. If you are happy donating your hard-earned money to the trillion-dollars corporation that’s exploiting you, good for you. I am a sane individual and I’d rather put that money to good use. In fact, by donating to the WWF, I’m spending less money yearly than a YT premium subscriber, and I’m making someone happy that deserves it more than Google’s sleazy investors.

Google is already making millions by profiling its users and stealing their data. All these YT changes are not caused by them losing money, but by them not growing enough to please their (multi-millionaires) investors.

(1) I’m not shedding any tears for a corporation that’s big enough to have more money that I’ll ever see in ten lifetimes.

(2) I’m not paying for a “Premium” experience to allow them to keep profiling me (and thus gain more money). They are already gaining money off me, they don’t need my premium subscription.

(3) You should stop arguing in favour of exploitative big corporations that don’t even know you and are probably actively exploiting you in this very moment.

I pirated 90% of the texts I used to write my thesis at university, because those books would have cost me hundreds of euros that I didn’t have.

Fuck you, capitalism.

I can relate to that. I recently went to the cinema alone to see Godzilla Minus One, because none of my friends and relatives were interested. Watched big lizard smash things. Felt happy for the rest of the day.

I see mobile games as the natural evolution of flash games from the old days. I used to spend my time playing those games and I had fun, but I would never insist on them being the best experience I’ve ever had in gaming. They were just cute games to spend some time on. To use your examples, Minigore is just like Boxhead. It may be fun but there’s nothing “genius” or ground-breaking about it.

In the end, gaming is just an experience, and our emotional attachment to it decides our rating. I hardly care about Call of Duty, but the people who spent their childhood playing online with friends rate it as one of their best/most formative gaming experiences. Surprise, people’s opinions on things are subjective.

By the way, as you’re the same guy who dunked on Uncharted, The last of us, God of war and Witcher for being games that rely too much on story exposition and have too little gameplay, you seem to have a preference for games with zero/near zero story and offer immediate gratification via gameplay. That’s also a characteristic that lots of mobile games share, so that may shape your preference as well.

Personally, I rate mobile games very low because I hate their monetization and I despise touch controls.