Thank you for taking the time to reply.

I agree with most of what you’re saying. Especially about top sports being a combination of both hard work and a unique constitution.

I just wouldn’t call it segregation, as for me this term has quite a negative connotation (might be a language thing). I think it’s empowering to have separate brackets to compete in so that every “group” of base constitution has a chance to compete. Though this does open the question of where to draw lines and such, to which I don’t have an answer (as it probably goes to theoretical again as you were saying).

Thanks again for your input 🙏.

I by no means agree with the person you’re responding to, and feel that especially in the scenario of kids they should just be allowed to do whatever they want and have fun.

I do wonder however, aren’t there a lot of sports that become almost completely male dominated if you move away from the separation? For example the historical top 1000 men in 100m sprint are all faster than the fastest recorded woman in history.

I feel that taking away the separate competition would reduce these moments of empowerment for non-men.

I use “man” and “woman” with a grain of salt here, as it is what these people were assigned when they were performing the sport, I by no means want to reduce gender to a binary thing.

I also want to say that while it is a subject that I find interesting to discuss, I really dislike how bigots frame it as some sort of violent attack on their way of life. I see it more as an interesting conundrum that we can try and find a solution for together as a group.

As you’ve played it for so many hours, what is it that hooks you about this game? I’ve never played it, but I heard it’s sort of a very deep / simulated survival game similar to dwarf fortress? Just love it when you can be so passionate about something that you can lose yourself in it for thousands of hours and keep coming back for more!

I have this with only 1 game (though I’m around the 1000h mark myself): Slay the Spire!

Is Outer Wilds indie? Because Outer Wilds is my favorite :).

I really like Donkey Kong Country as a kid. Great environments, fun platforming and a timeless soundtrack.

On GBA my most played game became an underated licensed gem: Lord of the Rings: The Third Age. The GBA version is completely separate from the ones on other platforms, but it’s a great turn based strategy game in which you get to command the heroes and other units through all important battles of the original story. Really fun!

I recently did the opposite, I sold my Emerald and Blue for a decent price, which helped fund my second hand new 3DS. I don’t really care for the cartridges as long as I can play the games, and I feel no guilt for playing roms for games that are no longer being produced :).

I do like seeing large collections of other people, but I don’t have the same satisfaction from that compared to what it would cost. (I say quite hypocritically, as I have a larger than rational LEGO collection including tonnes of Bionicle sets that I will never let go for any price)

There is still a thick layer of dust on my Valbrace copy, nice to know that another gem is waiting for me!

I remember hearing about wizardry from another enthusiastic fan, but don’t remember what it was about. Some sort of old school RPG?

I have been a bit cheeky, as I have chosen my first Pokémon game as the thumbnail for this post: Pokémon Blue for the Game Boy.

Sadly, I was very young and English was not my mother tongue, so I had no idea how it worked. Skip to several years later, and I gave it another go (this time with some extremely rudimentary knowledge of English, but more importantly with some more experience in games in general). Playing Pokémon this way was a mix of an RPG and a translation based puzzle game, but I was absolutely hooked. Even though I never got past about halfway through the game before my attention faded, I must have done that first half about 10 times in those years.

Later I got Pokémon Emerald for the GBA after my previous GBA game was finished in only a few hours: I figured a Pokémon game would give me my money’s worth. Again, I played this numerous times and had a lot of fun, but never reached the ending.

A few years ago I was feeling nostalgic, and bought a second hand copy of Pokémon: Let’s Go Pikachu, knowing that it was a remake of my first Pokémon game of years ago. Reviews of this version are mixed because of the Pokémon Go like catching mini game, but nostalgia goggles made this an amazing experience for me. I especially remember one whole day where I was at home with a fever, laying on my couch and playing Pokémon Let’s Go Pikachu while dipping in and out of the strangest Pokémon related dreams. Even with that bumpy ride, I was eventually able to reach the end of the story and beat the elite four! I know that there is stuff to do after that, but I was happy and sold my copy again.

I have recently bought a second hand New Nintendo 3DS and have been procuring a lot of games on it in a seafaring fashion. One of those that I’m giving a go is Yo-Kai Watch. I’m only a few hours in, and right now it looks absolutely gorgeous, but I’m unsure of the combat design and the actual design of the monsters. If any of you have some other 3DS tips, please let me now, I have a seemingly unlimited budget for 3DS games right now :).

That’s the stupid part. Serious criminals will always find a way to encrypt their data. Any communication channel can be used for encrypted communication if you do the encryption part yourself (like with an agreed upon passphrase or something similar). The only people who are hit by this are the average users.

This makes me so mad.

Isn’t that worse though? They use your computing power but they still get the data :). At least with cloud apps you get the benefit of not having to run the app locally (this was the idea behind low powered chromebooks).

How come you have such strong feelings against Firefox?

Not trying to start a fight, just an honest question. Choosing to rather stop using the internet all together seems extreme for a browser that I use daily, but maybe I’m missing something in your use case.

Crunchyroll, can weebs not stay in their bedrooms privately??

Also, 2dehands, which is the biggest second hand buying / selling site and app of Belgium. Quite a big one!

Silent Hill: The Short Message (53 on metacritic)

This game is almost universally hated, but I really quite enjoyed it and even respected what they were going for with the writing. My 8/10 review from when I played it: https://howlongtobeat.com/user/knokelmaat/reviews/u-145005/1

I have no experience with other Silent Hill games, which might have made me less critical of this game. By no means a masterpiece, but an interesting experience for me.

I had similar issues until I gave myself this rule: only do side stories and main story quests. If they require playing a mini game, sure, but only play the minigames as a novelty, don’t try to complete them!

Thanks for the long and interesting writeup! I’m still working through AC 1 and enjoying it, I’ll see if I stay on the train as long as you :).

I did play Ghost of Tsushima. One of the most beautiful looking games I’ve ever played with amazing combat and good characters. For me, it was just way to long and repetitive. I eventually found the solution, playing each of the three acts and the DLC with a long break in between each time, so it felt fresh again. In the end I even got the platinum trophy for it, but I still see it as a great 8/10 game that could have been an all time favorite if it was trimmed to about half its runtime. Here’s hoping that they don’t make the same mistakes for Ghost of Yotei. If they can keep the good and trim the bloat, this could be the game of a generation.

“based on news like this”

I think you’re spot on there. Not saying that the BBC is untrustworthy, but there is always a bias in every news source. Especially when it comes to criticizing foreign policy versus local policy.

I am not disputing that it is not going well there. I’m just saying that similar issues are present in a lot of western countries. I am of course only talking about the subject of this article. If you look at how authoritarian the gouvernement is, stuff does get clearly worse in China compared to most western countries.

Don’t the amount of available jobs scale too?

I feel like this problem would be the same if China was a tenth the size, same goes for US and other countries. It’s a systemic issue, where the ratios of workers and jobs are wrong and unsocial.

It’s hard to discuss such a massive series. It feels as if everything has been said about it and people have largely gotten tired of the formula, but hear me out.

I actually never played any of them, I recently started playing the first one (from 2007) on my Steam Deck and I am actually loving it. It’s such a simple, straightforward game, with a basic but engaging story and honestly gorgeous visuals for the time. The mechanics are delightfully limited, in a sense that it really helps me to turn of my brain and just enjoy myself. I really like the world and how dense it is: all objectives are reasonably close and movement is quick and agile. A real gem for the Steam Deck!

I most certainly will get the sequel trilogy, as that one seems to be loved by a lot of people.

You are absolutely allowed to look at a woman or make moves. Just respect other people and their boundaries.

Just move in the world, do stuff you like, meet people, be respectful to them and make connections. Don’t force stuff and respect the wishes of others.

If you do this, there is absolutely room for getting to know people better and becoming romantically involved. Just don’t be a dick.

Also, no need to be attractive as long as you’re true to yourself and are as open to others as you hope for them to be towards you.