So, for those who missed it or maybe didn’t notice, the announcement trailer announced two new features they did not directly call out. One a lot more obvious than the other.

Firstly, one of the most requested features is bulk crafting, and they show it once and very briefly. The player goes to the new hotel kiosk and sees that they need 3 of a thing. The screen then jumps to the crafting screen and they are able to enter a quantity, which raises the crafting cost accordingly. But when they back out, they are at a regular crafting station (DIY workbench), implying you will be able to bulk craft anything.

Secondly, when terraforming, it appears you can now strafe (slide to the side) or move forward or back exactly one square for easier terraforming. This feature is not presently in the game. It’s unclear how it’s done, but it’s shown several times.

Was there anything else that was shown but not specifically called out? I’m sure there were.

They won’t.

I have an iPhone 16 Pro Max (2024) and a Galaxy S10 (2019… also hasn’t seen an OS update in like 3-4 years… and I’ve checked). Guess which one has the better keyboard? Yep, it’s the S10, specifically Gboard.

This is a solved problem. Apple just refuses to fix it.

They tell you to just pay again because most people will. Most people will just roll over and put up with their shit.

Not that I care about Minecraft, but it’s been out like 15 years and it hasn’t come down in price. What are they still paying for with its sales? It’s straight profit at this point. They could comp the guy a key and they would lose absolutely nothing and only gain goodwill, but they know people are hooked on it and will just pay again. Or at least enough people will just pay again to cover the few who won’t.

If your x86-64 machine still runs well, dump Windows and put Linux on it. If it’s starting to show its age, consider the Mac mini. $500 gets you a lot of power. If you do buy another machine capable of running Windows, don’t buy a pre-built one that comes with a Windows license. Either build, or find a seller that doesn’t include the OS or doesn’t include a Windows license. Hell, even consider a used business workstation. They’ll take the volume license for Windows off of it (it probably wasn’t capable of running Windows 11) and you can put Linux on that. If you’re intimidated by Linux, Mac is super easy, but the truth is… so is Linux. Start with Ubuntu, it’s dead simple, and if you really like the way Windows looks and feels, start with something running KDE. I recommend Kubuntu (Ubuntu with KDE instead of GNOME) but Linux Mint is pretty popular too, and that uses KDE by default. And KDE is more than “the Windows-like frontend.” It’s actually a lot nicer than that.

That’s the idea. The plan is basically, starve the poor, wait for violence, declare martial law, suspend elections.

They’re deathly afraid they will be voted out — at this point, they probably can’t recover from this. So they’re moving to ensure they can’t be voted out.

They also have an exit strategy in case it doesn’t pan out. But at this point they are going full steam ahead with their plan.

Right, so it’s still open in the broader sense, but if it does or does not fit one open source license or another… kinda beside the point. The point being that what you buy when you buy Android is not open source, and that’s the problem, especially when you’re also looking at an iPhone and saying “well this one is open source and that one is not.”

Of course, you can still say “I can install whatever I want” about the Android phone. Apple has been unkind to developers of certain apps, but then again, so has Google. Both platforms banned emulators. Both platforms allowed them back — Google did it many years before Apple, though. Both platforms banned Fortnite because of Epic’s misdeeds going against the terms of both stores. Apple was forced to re-list Fortnite in the US and maybe some other areas, but not everywhere. You’ve always been able to install the Epic Game Store on Android, you just gotta jump through hoops.

The real issue is ad blocking. Google is obviously trying to stop that. On my iPhone — I use both platforms, by the way — if I install the Google app and Google something, and go to a site, like, say, Fandom (the gaming wiki site), I get ads. I don’t get ads on my iPhone because I know what I’m doing on both platforms. But Google will tunnel around my ad blocker to deliver ads. That’s sketchy AF and why that app is not allowed on my phone. So on iOS, you can block ads via DNS, same as on Android. The apps work exactly the same, they do the same thing. They do the same thing as a Pihole, essentially. They set up a DNS server (presents as a VPN on iOS) which blocks hosts. Of course, a rooted Android phone can take it a step further and edit the HOSTS file, which is way more effective. I didn’t think AdAway was in the Play Store (I always sideloaded it, installed from apk), but, that’s the kind of thing Google is going after.

It’s just petty AF. You’re gonna charge iPhone 17 money for a phone that performs like an iPhone 11 (at least the CPU; obviously, Google’s AI stuff is far in advance of Apple’s, and their cameras are pretty smart too, but my old ass doesn’t give AF about AI), they’re selling my personal data out the back door to boot? Yeah, that’s a hard no from me. I mean, yeah, I do still use Android, I have a Galaxy S10, I kinda want a newer one but I don’t trust any of the OEMs (or Pixel). My iPhone is newer (16 Pro Max), so the Android is the next to be replaced. I just hope in 4-5 years when I’m looking to do so (the S10 still runs awesome, by the way), it’s worth doing. Not that Apple is any better, they’ve been boring since, I dunno, a few generations back, and their next big thing is a foldable? GTFO. I miss when phones were exciting.

Yeah that’s what I’m saying. We have the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) which is supposed to look out for us on things like that. But they can’t be trusted, especially under Trump.

So, for all the bad things you’ve heard about Trump, not being an American — he does tend to have a certain pattern to who he places in charge of what organisation. For example the FCC (Federal Communications… Commission? Council?), he appointed a former Verizon (national mobile carrier) executive, someone who would regulate in favour of business. So if he installed someone at the FDA, they’d likely be a former Walmart executive — not very keen on enforcing Walmart’s lax expiration dates!

Not UK but I remember The Real Ghostbusters. I also remember the original Ghostbusters. It wasn’t very good. But the people who made the 1984 movie had to license the name. The original was a live-action show from the 1970s, and the Ghostbusters cartoon is based on that. “The Real Ghostbusters” was the cartoon based on the 80s movies. The original had an ape (?) and the other, more popular one had Slimer. The original was more like Scooby-Doo in format.

We watched both of them.

I think he prefers McDonald’s.

McDonald’s should send him a clown nose.

Animal Crossing is the only one I play. I have a couple others — Mario Wonder and Odyssey, and Link’s Awakening — but I mostly chill on my island.

Android being open is a myth designed to entice low level techs who don’t know any better. AOSP is open, but nobody’s trying to run that. The thing that ran on Nexus phones before and Pixel phones now is not open source, but it was forked from open source. Just like the relationship between chromium and Chrome.

Android can’t keep open because it isn’t open. What you want is for bootloaders to remain unlockable so you can flash custom firmware. A close second is for a common hardware platform so custom ROMs can be ported from device to device with relative ease.

Thought it looked like a new Hotel Dusk (NDS) for a minute though, until I saw the gun/ammo in the inventory.

Still, looks like Hotel Dusk, Days Gone (whatever that 2D survival is called, never played it), and Resident Evil popped out a Metroidvania together… and I’m down for that.

Walmart milk expires a few days before the date. Been that way for a while. Some agency should look into it. I mean under a less fascist regime

Interesting. I found it (the article doesn’t link it) and looked up a few controversial figures on both sides.

It’s not like Conservapedia where it’s obviously run by hate groups.

That said, it didn’t mention Elon Musk’s Nazi salutes (he was the first article I looked up), so I guess it’s going to try to gloss over bad things done by people Musk likes.

I’m gonna look up Trump after his next spat with Musk and see what Musk’s wiki says about him then. That will be interesting.

So I guess it’s more of a right-leaning wiki? I dunno.

To its credit, it has dark mode on by default, its navigation is super clean with minimal distractions (then again, I am using an ad blocker) and it generally looks nice. I don’t intend to use it though.

Because Trump’s party controls all three branches of government.

American consumers have never been that concerned about privacy. /gestures vaguely at Facebook, Microsoft, Google/Android…

The issue, I think, has always been “well Washington is the devil we know and Beijing is kinda evil.” Whereas I think, neither one of them care about my privacy, but I’m not important enough for Beijing to care about.

I’d consider a BYD car, at least as much as I’d consider a lot of brands. None of them respect your privacy. BYD is attractive because they’re inexpensive. My next worry would not be “what does Beijing do with my data,” but, “can I get this car repaired where I live? Does it use standard parts or would they need to be imported from China?” I’m not being rude, racist, or prejudicial here. It’s a genuine concern. If I’m paying for a car, and it breaks down, I need my transportation, to keep going to work, to make the money to pay for the car and for my food and the roof over my head. And if those parts can be sourced locally and local mechanics can work on it, that’s more likely to happen faster.

Now as far as China goes, I think we need to stop thinking of China as adversarial (even though it may be) and just think of it as a country out for its own interests that is not aligned with us. That does not make China our enemy, and it especially does not mean we cannot ethically consume Chinese goods.

When they tell you who they are, believe them.

So the question then becomes, could a movie make the Cybertruck cool?

Or maybe a video game? What if they put the Cybertruck in Cyberpunk and made it one of the main characters’ personal vehicles, this person would always have it and you’d associate it with them. Or maybe GTA VI.

It’s not about what the theft will do to prices. Trump is looking for an excuse to declare martial law, which he can use to suspend elections. He tried to go after Medicare/Medicaid but the Democrats stood firm on the issue and the government shut down because the two parties could not agree on a budget. So now Trump is going after food stamps (also called EBT, also called SNAP). The idea is to push poor people to crime so he can justify marching the military into cities.

Pretty typical dictator shit.

Worry more about what the hit on distribution does to prices. It’s a big country, they will want to monitor and limit movement between states/major areas. Of course they will let food through, but delays will lead to shortages. Of everything. And that’s the idea.

They’re talking about food stamps, in the US.

Yes we did… and I wonder if we’d think they were ugly if not for Back to the Future.

I have heard nothing but bad things from people who actually own one.