What's something you don't get the hype about?

Just like the fast food thing, TikTok is literally addictive. It’s the new breed of addictive tech. It’s the fentanyl of tech.

The funny ones are all just somebody using the sound from a funny skit but acting it out themselves.

I'm so funny, I acted out this funny skit somebody else made

In the same way that sugar/candy is physically addictive, fast food has been proven to have the same physiological effects. It’s literally an addiction.

The only appeal of fast food was that it was cheap, but that's not even true nowadays.

Especially outside the US, for some reason Carl's Jr is insanely popular in Mexico yet its expensive and objectively worse than local burger shops.

My SO has long rants about blockchain and the people who think it is useful. My own, completely non-technical, criticism is "so you're saying privacy is enhanced by putting every transaction ever onto a permanent, unalterable public ledger?"

Meh I think the decentralization is a pretty nice use case actually. It’s great that no one can shut it down and no centralized entity can just decide that your money is gone now (for cryptocurrencies).

Look at Monero. Since it's almost impossible to track governments are actually trying to ban it but they can’t shut it down because anyone can just spin up a node and there’s nothing any government can do about it except banning it from exchanges. I think that’s pretty neat, although the environmental cost for this technology together with LLMs are absolutely crazy

The only real use for the block chain is tracking stocks to prevent illegal shortselling.

So it will never ever ever get used for that purpose.

Obligatory fuck citadel.

Big number go up, get brain drug dose. not much more to it than that.

It's a really fun game. People exaggerate the "addictive" aspect because.. you know.. "internet"

I don't like that kind of game. I didn't like Balatro. I'm more into realism and simulation though. I had no idea why all of my favourite sites couldn't stop talking about it. Honestly, I think standards have fallen a lot further than we thought. Again though. I'm surviving until the release of Elder Scrolls 6. Balatro was never really on my radar.

hey, you're valid... I'm from Korea and it's crazy seeing how people drool over kpop nowdays. no attention for the actual good music, the korean rock and hip hop and funk and jazz and so on... just the corporate boybands.

It's the same shit that's popular in the US. manufactured popularity. we could talk about all the factors about how they pulled it off, but who cares, it's a bunch of shitty music created by desperate people selling their souls to rapists who prey on modern social isolation to sell empty fantasies to the masses.

that's the point of the music! you should be proud to dislike it. now go listen to something good, like Jaurim (자우림)

Isn't it basically the same as back when western boybands were popular, just with more internet? I suppose I don't quite get those, either, but it's not that hard to figure out why these groups are so appealing to many girls and women.

Can I massacre you with hugs for this? 'Cause that's the only impulse I have for your saying it.

(I agree, if you haven't spotted this. 😉)

There's good and bad kpop, like there's good and bad of most genres.

Part of it was EPA regulations fucking up small trucks. Another part is that they're safer for the occupants, deadlier for everyone else. And then there's general machismo.

I love my small car but it's getting impossible to drive anymore when the LED headlights of these trucks are literally at my eye level blinding everything. They are a danger and the only way out it seems is to join them and get above the lights.

I agree with pick ups. The issue has been that bigger pick ups are generally exempt from fuel efficiency mandates resulting in manufacturers making bigger and bigger pick ups. They don't make compact pick ups anymore. Add in America has some fascination with owning trucks. I'm actually gonna disagree on crossovers. For most people I agree they're impractical. But they're better than SUVs and pick ups. Most people actually need a mini van or wagon but we just stopped making those

This is basically Florida. Tons of massive trucks on the roads, all driven by assholes that I will judge absolutely by their truck alone.

I would go further and say they are stupid for everything. Oh i need it to haul stuff. And you didn't get a bus? Are you stupid?

Nowadays I use my pickup for work, but when I bought it, it was simply for fun - not for any practical reason. There’s not much more to it. They look cool, they’re fun to drive, and they make you feel like you’re operating a machine, not just something meant to get you from point A to point B.

You’re just not the kind of person who’s into that - and that’s fine. You probably aren’t into playing the flute either, but I doubt you’d say you “don’t get it” or that it’s dumb.

You know how people who are into Q-Anon and Pizza-gate look at strange symbols and odd numerology to find strange connections to prove whatever crazy thing they believe. Taylor Swift like to release albums, singles and tours using favorite numbers, hidden symbols and hints in her other songs. So it fits that section of the internet who love to analyze to death things to find clues. Since she is so prolific there is enough material for her to hide these Easter eggs to generate endless conspiracies about when things are released. Since she does drop hints it makes sense that people love to find them. Its like a puzzle-game mixed with a conspiracy theory mixed with a "viral marketing campaign" all in one. And instead of unraveling the fabric of democracy she release music people like.

I like her music when I hear it, but don't seek it out. From what I gather she really speaks to women, they get her in ways I (male) would not relate to. She strikes me as moral and doesn't have skeletons in the closet or any weird behavior one would expect from someone that rich and famous. As dad would have said, "That's a stand-up woman!"

She knows how to sell herself, which I find an admirable and difficult trait. I feel I'm 10x more confident than the people that post around here and she's 100x more confident that I. And it's not bullshit, unearned confidence a la Senior Musk.

And who doesn't love how she fucked the record companies over at their own game? Knowing her own worth changed the industry.

Doesn't hurt that she's almost ethereally pretty. :)

I just saw Black Joe Lewis play last night and I know for a fact he's a much better guitarist. But she packs stadiums and only 50 people were at his show. maybe it's because he doesn't show off his thighs?

The reason I like vinyl is how slow and deliberate it is compared to other mediums. If I want to play a record I have a limited curated selection which I purchased with a specific use case. These are all played in my living room and are generally slower and relaxing type music. If I want to play a record I will need to start at the beginning and typically commit to hearing the entire thing in its entirety. Each side I have to choose to continue which slows down the process. I can't skip ahead to the songs I like and it doesn't automatically play anything once its done. Its slow and has a large physical object which I enjoy.

If I used CDs I could skip to whatever song I like or have it automatically play the next CD. With a multi-disc changer I wouldn't have to choose what I want to hear each time. I have CDs which I use in my car for a different use case which is to listen to when the radio is being annoying.

The reason the people choose vinyl is because of its limitations. CD has a larger dynamic range, but because it's fully digital, producers can abuse that fact and make an extremely loud and dynamically compressed record and the CD will play just fine.

If you tried doing that on vinyl, the needle would fly off the record. So thanks to this physical limitation, people who produce for vinyl are forced to make a quieter, more dynamic record. It's less fatiguing on the ears, and if you want a louder record, you can simply turn up the volume.

I like vinyl for it being big enough to be somewhat like a poster. I'm hoping to eventually gave a vinyl wall when I have my own place

I'm 30 so CDs were well and truly widespread during my formative years so it's not nostalgia for me

Vinyl gives you better dynamic and frequency range than CDs. Like if you play Genesis' "The Firth of Fifth" on CD there's a segment that sounds like the bass is being run through some extreme distortion effect. It isn't. It's just being played at an extremely low frequency that the CD can't properly catch, so you're getting distortion artifacts from it. Playing the same passage on vinyl, however, assuming you have equipment that isn't low-end trash, and assuming you have decent amplifiers (note the plural) in the loop, and are playing them out of good speakers, will give you an undistorted bass note so low that you can barely make it out ... if you're young. (People my age can't hear it at all.) But whether you hear it or not you will feel it echoing through your chest cavity.

But that right there is the problem. Count the costs. You'll need an upper-middle-end turntable to start with. Then you'll need an equivalent grade pre-amp. Then you'll want a power amp that's even better (because the switching noise of a lesser power amp will be very audible with a sustained, loud bass note that low). And you'll want speakers that can actually reproduce that frequency at all. (Most can't.) So you're talking low thousands of dollars of kit minimum. To hear about 15 seconds of a single song in all its glory.

That's a bit stupid.

And that's over and above the problems you've already state: that note will play gloriously perfectly on the second playing (the first playing will be slicing away some of the artifacts of vinyl production first). Then you'll get ... maybe a dozen plays of good quality bass that you will feel more than hear deep inside of you. And then it starts going away.

Thousands of dollars. To hear 15 seconds of a single song. Maybe a dozen times.

I mean sure, I guess, if you've got the thousands of dollars to blow, and are willing to constantly buy and buy and buy the same album over and over again, you be you, but I personally have much better stuff to spend my money on. (Like actual musical instruments.)

Oh, and if you're buying vinyl to play on a turntable that puts the audio out on Bluetooth for Bluetooth-enabled speakers? Just burn your money. It's a better use of it.

I don't have room for any sort of physical media. Yeah, I have some legacy tech I occasionally fuck with, and my sound system parts are from the 70s, 80s, 90s and up, but those parts do their job.

Bacon was awesome before the marketing campaign. Bacon was awesome during it, and bacon remains awesome to this day.

Sorry about all the shitty bacon you've been fed.

I don't remember a bacon marketing campaign. Regardless, bacon/pork belly is the most delicious meat in my opinion.

This is me in a nutshell. The more people that tell me to participate in any thing, the less likely i am to try it. Still haven't watched Tiger King, for example.

Life is strange. Just pure shit.

pretty generic trope

https://www.vice.com/en/article/the-not-so-hidden-israeli-politics-of-the-last-of-us-part-ii/

I finally started playing the first game on PC a few days ago... It's not great. Story is whatever I dont really care. The actual gameplay itself is just...not fun? Clunky and imprecise.

I had the same problem with red dead 2. I don't have the attention span to care about the characters or the story so I need solid gameplay to keep me hooked and it just wasn't satisfying to play for the most part. Felt like I was suggesting movement controls rather than actually controlling my character. The guns all felt meh. It's got some fun mechanics, but the bounty system was horrendous and the survival aspect is non-existent.

I have goopy goblin gamer brain as some call it. I need the gameplay to be excellent as I do not care about graphics or story. So many games have amazing graphics and legendary stories but the gameplay itself just isn't fun enough for me to finish it.

Haha I have a TLOU tattoo. Hate the 2nd game though

I think HP and Kpop are both quite overrated.

Anime and Manga are just media, so there are good and bad series, like anything else. It's not worth obsessing over, or writing it off. But there are definitely shows that are worthy of some amount of hype.

Gyms are a good place to have access to various machines and weights for strength training (which is super important!) It has advantages and disadvantages compared to something like calisthenics. Yoga is a great way of moving and stretching the body, which is big for flexibility and general mobility. Especially combined with some form of strength training, it will have a huge impact on how your body feels.

Fashion, makeup, and nail polish are all about self expression. Fast fashion is bad, but fashion can mean just putting together a good outfit. It's worth it to put a bit of effort into what you wear, and making your clothes into something that reflects you. Makeup also has a positive and negative side. On one hand, a lot of people use it (often heavily) to cover up their percoeved flaws and 'fix' their appearance. I think that's unhealthy and a bit sad. But makeup is also an an art form; it turns your face into a canvas. Think winged eyeliner, glitter, colored eyeshadow or lipstick, etc. This includes nail polish. It's an expression of creativity, an you get to look nice at the end! Even if it's something you aren't personally interested in, (or if you are discouraged from self ornamentation due to gender expectations) It should be clear why people enjoy these things.

Absolutely do use whatever makes you happy, but that is a false equivalence. Plex just updated their license to allow them to track your content consumption and sell that data to whomever they want...

Jungle pee!

Green or white?

Green are so so, but white... Omg... With hollandaise and a good piece of ham.

...i went to school in the tropics without air conditioning, neither in the classrooms nor dormitories, and it still feels like self-indulgent opulence to me every time i come home to air conditioning, even four decades later...

...does HVAC have a different meaning to you? I'm struggling to understand how you could have such an opinion about centralized air distribution. Do you look at air vents and start scowling?

Idk man, air conditioning is pretty nice.

...'scotch' encompasses such a vast diversity of spirits that i presume anyone who blanket-dislikes it either 1) doesn't like malt whisky in general, fair enough, or 2) mis-apprehends a specific style as endemic to scotch whisky as a whole...

...the latter folks typically dislike peated malts, often after sampling bottom-shelf blends...

Both of your takes are insane.

If you think Scotch tastes like listerine, I don't know what bathtub hooch you're drinking.

And your idea that you don't get how video games can be pleasurable is just absolutely willingly ignorant. You have an obsession with booze which is little different than people wanting to play games for pleasure.