Zelda: Link to the Past, going through the lost woods. I can still hear the music.

Honestly the thing that sticks with me more is the scene after defeating the final boss.

The game just does such an incredible job of starting with a local problem and then gradually, believably making the stakes bigger and bigger until you have to kill gods. And then when you finally do it, you remember that all of that was just to solve your first problem, a problem so local that it exists only in your character’s skull. It instantaneously gave me the scope of everything I’d accomplished. One of the greatest pieces of media I’ve ever experienced. I wish it had been a movie so I could do it again and again.

There isn’t genocide in Ukraine

When Russia started relocating Ukrainian children into Russian families, that made it a coordinated effort to eliminate a people, which makes it a genocide.

Walz actually would have me a little excited. He seems like a great person and a solid candidate.

I’d be more excited for AOC. It’s possible she wouldn’t have a chance, but if the will of the American people keeps disappointing, then at some point we have to hang it up and say we deserve what we get.

If we can’t vote in a woman at this point, then maybe the experiment really is over.

but you can’t really say you truly love something you didn’t go out of your way to choose

That’s clearly not true if you think about it for a second.

Presidents don’t have “subjects”.

There are zero Hades 2 guides on gamefaqs. The site is still up, but it’s empty.

I tried my query on Ecosia. It gave me the same search results as Google, but the AI result hallucinated a bunch of bullshit.

No, I mean for example if I want to know how the “Trusty Shield” boon works in Hades 2, I can just google it and get the answer right away.

20 years ago, I’d have gone to gamefaqs and found a text guide with the answer.

10 years ago, I’d have googled it and gotten a bunch of useless fucking videos.

5 years ago I’d have added “reddit” to my search and had to click through results to find the answer in the comments eventually.

Today I just search for it and get the answer right away.

Google’s search engine has only gotten shittier every year, except in these very specific cases where AI search results actually help.

Braid

I couldn’t go back to BotW after Elden Ring.

In both games you have a vast world to explore. You see something in the distance, and it turns out it’s actually a place you can go to, which is such a cool feeling. You’re rewarded for every path you go down.

In Elden Ring you’re rewarded with some weird new scroll or a weapon that even if you won’t use it, you can totally see why it’s unique and cool in its own way.

But in Breath of the Wild you’re rewarded with a shrine that gives you nothing, or with another fucking Korok seed. And also while you were exploring your weapon broke.

A masterpiece. The entire game you have the sands and can rewind all of your missteps, only to lead up to one final, ridiculous platforming challenge where they take the sands away. Like the whole game was training you for that moment. Such a unique experience.

Depends on what it’s for. If I’m asking a discrete question about a mechanic in a video game, Wikipedia won’t have that.

As much as I don’t like AI, it has made a lot of my Google searches better. Still not good for a lot of the things people use it for though.

See, my wife and I will go back and forth, checking various streaming services and vetoing each other’s picks for the full duration of movie night.

Now when she asks what I want to watch, my first reply is always, “Literally anything except the Netflix menu.”

A pox on the phony king of America!

He’s far from the first major political figure to express disdain for voters they don’t agree with. Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, as well as 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, all had their moments.

Fuck CNN and this both-sides equivocation bullshit.

The way Trump speaks about and has always spoken about his opponents is beyond the pale. There’s no comparison to anything that any other major politician in America has ever said. His brand of incivility is unprecedented, dangerous, and shouldn’t be normalized.

So 200 years ago? I think everywhere was less populous.

Who said anything about Democrats vs Republicans? Do you just have your replies locked and loaded, and you look for comments they sort of fit with?

Regardless of your obvious both-sides agenda-pushing: there were still elections after FDR. There won’t be after Trump, at least not in any meaningful sense.

Even if you’re imagining that all the presidents worked together to set the stage for the death of American democracy, then that makes them accessories, not murderers. Trump is the one murderering democracy.

Population Density in the United States vs Europe

I mean I’d love more trains in the US, but let’s not oversimplify.

What I don’t get is why they can’t add a good story to that spectacle. Or even an ok one.

And if Trump had been president in 1801, how do you think he’d have treated his slaves? If he’d been president in 1830, do you think the Trail of Tears would have been any less than an overt genocide?

Come on. This isn’t a real discussion if we’re just going to make up hypotheticals about what different presidents would do in different contexts. But even if we do base this on such speculation, Trump is still by a wide margin the worst president in American history, because it’s hard to imagine him not committing those same crimes but worse.