GW150914

I’m not going to touch the majority of the bait you’re laying out and instead merely note that the “circus” was probably more a result of the extensive and expensive decontamination required over a large area. Oh yes, and the civilian who died and her partner who was affected. That kind of thing tends to make people pretty upset, no need for sprawling conspiracies of the state required. Personally it didn’t seem like much of a circus unless... did you see the decontamination tents and get a little confused?

A couple of Russians saying that they found the wintry weather in the UK challenging? Well...

In fact it specifically mentions anonymous communications in a variety of forms.

Either (a) communicates with a person, anonymously or otherwise, by telephone, or by telegraph, mail or any other form of written communication, in a manner likely to cause annoyance or alarm; or (b) causes a communication to be initiated by mechanical or electronic means or otherwise with a person, anonymously or otherwise, by telephone, or by telegraph, mail or any other form of written communication, in a manner likely to cause annoyance or alarm; or Makes a telephone call, whether or not a conversation ensues, with no purpose of legitimate communication;...

I can only recommend a more in-depth reading for you. At the very least you owe it to yourself to have basic knowledge of the laws in question before you go about declaring what’s legal and illegal.

That’s simply not true.

https://definitions.uslegal.com/h/harassment/

The “platform” excuse is dead on the first real legal challenge. It’s past time for these publishers to be held to the standards other publishers have been held to for decades or longer. They can’t cry “free speech” on one hand while acting like publishers on the other. When it was just galling hypocrisy fair enough, but they’re big enough and have supplanted enough “traditional media” that their time has come.

Fade in games go something like this: a workable formula makes someone a lot of money. They rise and at a certain thresholds major publishers take note and iterate, crushing the original. Then other publishers inject said mechanics into their flagship games until people are so sick of them that they can’t stand it. There is a reason why all of the big upcoming shooters like CoD IV have battle royale modes.

To a lesser extent fads can burn out without studios ever really getting into it because it’s too small (relatively speaking of course). Surgeon Simulator set of years of “simulator” games ranging from I Am Bread to Black Screen Simulator. Eventually we got Shower With Your Dad Simulator which subverted the genre a bit, and set of another explosion of imitation. These indie fads tend to follow that pattern of initial massive explosion followed by secondary ignition when some slight twist on the formula introduces some air to the. mixture, and this repeats with smaller explosions until the last dregs of fuel are exhausted.

Zombie modes are another example, as are hero shooters like OverWatch (the “big thing” before BR). Remember LawBreakers? Exactly.

https://www.gamecrate.com/shadow-overwatch-how-games-are-try... What we’re seeing now with BR as it played out last cycle.

The comment that set this all off was short and made a single point that can be accurately described by a cliche. There was nothing else to it. I an understand not wanting people to dismiss real arguments with cliches, but I don’t think that’s what happened here. When someone brags about using a straw man to deflect reasonable criticism, it merits a response.

Not “uniquely evil.” I think if he’d said what you’re shifting the goalposts to, it would have been an unremarkable comment with few if any replies. He didn’t say that though, and what he did say was very clear and didn’t leave wiggle room for the hyperbole you’re trying to inject.

The actual quote the person you’re responding to was addressing justifies what they said, insofar as it ...trivially reduces to, "everything the US does is fine until it's the most oppressive presence on the internet". That’s a fair summation of using China as a diversion when people claim that the US is *...An oppressive presence on the internet.” Responding to people who claim that it’s worse than China, or “uniquely evil” is an entirely different conversation no one here was having.

Moreover it does nothing to dispel concerns held by people who feel the US is an oppressive force online. They might for example, point out that while China oppresses their own citizens, the US has more of a global impact as a result of their foreign policy and massive corporations. If they then pointed out that you’re essentially comparing apples and oranges, and asked you why you thought that was an appropriate response to their concerns, you would say...?

More exciting is that after 43 weeks of this stimulation and comprehensive training, they were able to walk on a treadmill unassisted bearing their own weight! It sounds like balance issues and strength remain potentially problematic, but it’s still amazing. The last line of the introduction really sums it up:

To our knowledge, this is the first report of independent stepping enabled by task-specific training in the presence of EES by a human with complete loss of lower extremity sensorimotor function due to SCI.

SCI = Spinal Cord Injury

True, but it implies the need for skepticism, especially given how many people have desperately attempted to find said evidence. Depending on your outlook it might also imply that a degree of disinterest in warranted, because the world of “things for which no evidence can be found or is required,” tends to be enormous and frankly, not that interesting. Unless we’re very specifically talking about a god who will damn you for a lack of faith, then ignoring the whole issue seems like a safe bet, and when you die you either learn the truth, or you’re just dead. It’s not like a human can do much either way, again, unless your assertion is about a specific and judgmental god.

Tl;dr I think the whole god thing is even less compelling and worthy of attention than the Bermuda Triangle. It’s just another thing that’s possible among an infinity of possible things lacking evidence for their existence. That’s pretty boring.

What about those of us who would rather stick a fork in our eye than watch PewDiePie, Degeneres, or Fallon? I’m not seeing the praise for what you’re calling “elitist corporate control,” so much as despair that the supposedly fair option is at least as hideous as the rigged option. Beyond that if we define normal as in Normal Distribution, then who’s fault is it if you expected to find the middle of that distribution on a site called Hacker News? Most people would be bored out of their skin on this site and that’s fine, just as it’s fine for a subset of the population with shared interests to enjoy it.

If you want normal as in average, you’re barking up the wrong tree, and FaceBook, Instagram, and the rest have you covered. If you’re seeing a lot of praise for the YT algorithm, rather than dislike of both algorithm and lack of curation, I must be missing it and you could maybe point it out?

Plus they are so unbelievably smart, as in significantly smarter than a very young human, and think of how much trouble little humans get into when bored! He was a good boy though, incredibly loving, and in the 99% of times we could meet his needs very happy. We’d run around for a couple of hours in a nearby mountain wilderness, then go home and take a nap together.

A good boy. I miss him.

It’s still better than the pure vomit on this fair site, but it could be soooooop much better if it didn’t try to maximize engagement as the primary goal.