Yesterday, for the first time, I got google search results that were entirely useless. I don’t remember what I searched, but it was a relatively simple question and I was kind of in a hurry. The only results I got were video thumbnails and sponsored products… Also presented as thumbnails. Barely any text anywhere to tell me what the thumbnails were supposed to be. They even removed the choices across the top so I couldn’t select “all”.

It’s been getting worse for years, but that was the last straw for me. I don’t want to search the web on “large thumbnails”, I want “detail view”. Sometimes I’m searching for a product, but mostly I need information in the form of text written by a real human. If a search engine can’t give me that, then it’s not useful anymore.

Really frustrating. I guess I better get around to using duckduckgo everywhere.

Thanks for the suggestion. I tried spacerpg4 but it hasn’t held my attention as much as I hoped.

I did find an android port of star control 2, and that is some good stuff. Really scratched the 90 gaming itch too.

I think certain places (reddit?) Have been using algorithms to find and stamp out bots/vote manipulation for quite a while. I remember at least one major wave of bans for smurfed accounts participating in manipulation.

Do you know of anything like this for the switch? I’m a late comer to handhelds since I developed some shoulder problems and can’t really PC game anymore.

I used to love a game called transcendence back when it was a free alpha. Top down, open world, semi-roguelike, big focus on combat with satisfying 2d physics and lots of ship customization. Less focus on trading and world interaction stuff.

I’ve looked at a couple you guys mentioned, but I’m really trying to find something that’ll scratch that 2d space combat itch on a handheld.

Dark souls 1 or the remaster is still worth playing. The map design is once-in-a-lifetime good. There is a pretty hefty penalty like in other souls games, but it’s just getting hollowed and losing some souls. DS3 is also good, maybe a more refined version of 1, but I personally don’t think the world is as cohesive with the loading screens.

The trick is to just get used to being hollowed all the time and spending souls asap when you get them. You don’t lose gear when you die, and gear is pretty important. The real progress comes from learning how to deal with each enemy though, and that comes from dying. I guess it sort of boils down to “git gud”, even though that wasn’t what I was trying to say here lol.

You’re damn right it’s too soon. My beloved dead steam controller is barely cold, and to make it worse, they’re discontinued.

I had this exact same thought lol. Figured someone in the comments was ahead of me XD

I’d be wary of the trades as well. I am now an engineer, previously a welder. Unless you operate your own business, a trade is super unlikely to match the standard of living that a couple JDs would be used to. Also, most EU countries have very regimented training and qualification systems for tradespeople that start when you’re pretty young.

In the US, there is a labor shortage of skilled tradespeople and manufacturing workers, so there is a huge push to get more people into it. The nasty secret though, is that there is a labor shortage because pay has not been rising and benefits are a joke.

Corporations push high school kids and laid off tech workers towards the trades with promises of good prospects, high wages, and solid benefits. The reality though, is that most of them will end up trapped in mind numbing dead end jobs where their labor and emotional/physical health will be exploited until they aren’t useful to the company any more.

Manufacturers in particular are extremely reluctant to give their floor workers a bigger piece of the pie. So expanding the labor pool is an important long term strategy to ensure that wages stay low and that they can continue exploiting their workers as efficiently as possible.

Not trying to be a bummer, but I’ve lived both sides of this. The Association of Equipment Manufacturers, chambers of commerce, etc have a very strong and widely accepted narrative when it comes to the manufacturing labor shortage, so I think it’s extremely important to spread a counter narrative when I can.

On the positive side, there are some really simple things that can be done to help alleviate the labor shortage: increase pay and benefits. We finally started to see a tiny bit of that during covid, and I’m hopeful that the trend will continue. It’s frustrating though that it takes a near collapse of industry before manufacturers will even consider raising compensation.