TwinIon

Without reading through this whole thread, can someone chime in as to if the PS5 is still the “best” way to play this? A quick google brought up a bunch of links from launch that suggested that the PC version was a bit rough and to go with the PS5 if it’s an option. Have things changed over time, or is there really not much difference?

The Daily Beast's headline reads Elizabeth Holmes Should Have Faced a Life Sentence and they lay out a case that she got off easy because she's a white collar criminal, given that the sentencing guidelines called for 80 years. I'm not great a putting numbers to things like this, but 11 years feels about right in a vacuum, but you probably wouldn't have to try too hard to find someone who got way more time for far lesser crimes.

As with everything in all Trump investigations, I really want to see this go somewhere and come up with a result, but I don't expect it to.

I quick aside for Elden Ring players: how would you compare the combat difficulty to these God of War games? I haven't picked up Elden Ring because I'm not enticed by difficulty and expect I would be frustrated by the combat experience. Is there a difficulty setting or some specific fights in GoW that might be a good analog for the general combat in Elden Ring, or are they too different for a comparison to be useful?

I just unlocked a big sidequest area (the crater) after the "Creatures of Prophecy" mission, which is definitely getting towards the end of the story, and it's the first time I've felt like the level design really missed the mark. Up to now, I think the game as been extremely well paced. I've done every side quest as soon as I've found it, and some of those missions are really great, hardly feeling like side quests at all. They flow naturally through the areas, requiring very little retracing of steps, if any. When you're plowing through a well told mission, discovering secrets and unlocking chests along the way, the game just feels incredible. The Crater is probably the first area in the game that messes with that flow a bit too much. There are still sections where you get gracefully lead through, but there are a bunch of side quests all happening at once, and a couple different paths you can take, with large areas to explore in multiple directions. This has made me retrace my path a good few times, trying to find this piece of that quest or something I missed. The quests then also take you back to some of the same areas for new bits. It's the most "open world" that either of these new GoW games has felt to me, and I think it demonstrates well why the level design is so key to the feel of the game, and what happens when direction becomes less clear. When you do go back through an area, searching for that missed quest item or secret, it's just not a great time. The areas feel dead and empty, and the little traversal bits that are great moments for story dialog just feel tedious. Now, I think many people will not have that problem, even in this area. If you're not chasing down each quest, or if you just move "forward" relentlessly. It's quite possible that I'm breaking the flow myself and that I'd have ended up finding everything if I just kept pursuing the next thing in front of me, rather than trying to make sure I didn't miss anything. Still, I think it's notable that I haven't had that problem at all so far, most of the way through the game, and how well it has worked for me. It also has me re-thinking some of my criticisms about the game world. My first impression, especially when you're in actual towns, was that they felt too empty. Compared to something like the settlements in Forbidden West, or even the camps in Last of Us, they just felt unnaturally devoid of stuff. Having towns built like a dungeon, with a more or less linear path and little going on, felt like a missed opportunity to make the game world feel more alive. Now I'm thinking that it was probably the right call. This game, and the way it's structured, relies heavily on a specific pace of progression, and any level that effectively leads the player through, without making them feel as though they missed something, serves that purpose best.

I think that's probably fair, but I think it's also important to note that plenty of crypto activity already falls under existing law. That's why FTX.US is separate from FTX.com. So Crypto guys don't get to pretend that they're immune from the law or that crimes with crypto aren't big boy crimes, but still let them burn their little sandbox to the ground.

I don't care about soccer/football, but I'm very much here for every story about how this goes poorly, like this one about the brand new hotel not being ready for FIFAs top execs.

I enjoyed BP2, but there are a handful of things that prevent it from being a home run, some things within their control, and somethings far outside. Third act issues aside, do think the lasting impression of this film will be that of the how much of a loving farewell to Chadwick it was, and how Coogler's team continues to excel with the design of these invented cultures.

I am glad to see her stepping down, but I don't know much about Jeffries other than the brief bios in the articles about Pelosi stepping down. Right now is a really interesting time for the Dem minority leader. With a fractured and chaoic GOP only holding a majority by a couple seats, while we have a Democratic President and an edge in the Senate, any successful deal making could be huge. I hope he find success.

I almost feel bad for SBF after reading this VOX article: Sam Bankman-Fried tries to explain himself WWW.VOX.COM The fallen crypto CEO on what went wrong, why he did what he did, and what lies he told along the way. Kinda seems like he felt like he was talking to a friend rather than a reporter. Admitting that his stance on regulation was a fraud, as were his efforts at philanthropy and even ethics. Does seem like he's genuinely upset he lost people's money, but the fact that he basically lost it all on accident proves how much of a house of cards the whole thing was.

I understand why they had a hard time with the pricing. They don't want to sell it at a loss, and honestly it's hard to say how profitable a market segment that won't pay for a Series S would be for MS. If they were really confident that selling a $100 stick would bring in a ton of new customers to the Xbox ecosystem and that Gamepass revenue would quickly make up for a loss, I imagine they'd consider it. As it stands, I can see why throwing it in TVs and hoping you pick up customers while also continuing to refine the tech makes sense. The Samsung partnership, between not having to provide any hardware and having an advertising partner, is a much easier sell for the time being. He talked about how the Xcloud app is just a fancy PWA, so when the time is right they'll be able to put in on other hardware. Maybe they just need to push nVidia to put out a new Shield device or partner with Roku. Anyone what might be willing to allow them to monetize inside the app for less than 30%. Amazon would probably rather push Luna, Apple won't budge on their cut, but other TV brands will probably sign on in time.

Ragnarok is very much God of War 2018 but more! It's not substantially different in function or feel, but there's more of everything and everything is very well done. If you hoped that the last game was the starting point of an evolving series, I suppose you might be dissapointed, but if you loved that game and wanted more of it, then Ragnarok delivers in spades. I do agree with @Kal-El814 in the criticism that at times there is too much that feels too inconsequential. Yeah, unlocking new skills is good, and some armor pieces have specific traits that really make a difference, but there's also an endless number of runic this or artifact that serving very little purpose other than to give you a reason to keep opening chests. I've gotten lost in the menu more than once looking for where to slot the doodad that I just picked up, and most of the time I can't tell any difference. I'm playing on normal and I still die a number of times on harder fights, so maybe others will notice the nuance a bit more. Still, I enjoyed that you could somewhat tune things one way or another. I really like the armor that heals you when you do a stun grab, so I've built towards that end. I basically equip anything that increases stun so I can convert that to health. I like that build both because I get health, but also because the feedback loop is quite clear. Stun things, get health, repeat. Most of the armor I've found so far (lvl 6) is all "chance for good thing when doing x thing," which makes it easy to not notice, even if it is being beneficial. I do wish that you could find wrist and wast armor that had substantial effects like the chest armor does, and not simply supporting benefits.

I find it odd that the right wing media take on Trump running again seems so far from what it seems like the average GOP voter's opinion is. While I'm sure the lead up to 2024 will be contentious, I'd argue that Trump is still the front runner. He's still more popular now among Republicans than he was at any time during the 2016 election cycle. The closest point of comparison I can think of is Hilary in 2016. She'd lost the last time she ran, but was still favorable in the party, and her announcement was no real surprise. Certainly there were those that didn't want her to run again, and a vocal minority of people who actively disliked her, but I can't imagine MSNBC running a graphic of possible nominees and not including her before her official announcement, like what Fox just did with Trump. Trump has basically been campaigning since he left office, he's still popular among his voters, and despite DeSantis's rise, seems like the odds on favorite to win the Primary, but he's being met with disdain from outlets that praised him non-stop for years. I'm not befuddled as to why this is happening, but I am curious if they can keep it up, and if they do how much it will shape the election.

Digital Foundry mentioned in their review that nearly every title that utilizes ray tracing supports DLSS, while only a handful use FSR2, and DLSS looks better to boot. I'm looking to play at 4K, and if I'm going to spend $1000 or more on a card, I want those bells and whistles. AMD having a pending competing technology while falling behind in both results and adoption doesn't aid their case. Still, as I said, I'm not entirely convinced it's worth the money to me, so I am curious to see how the AMD cards end up comparing.

There is zero reason that any anti-trust regulator should care about Elon buying Twitter. Owning multiple big companies in completely different spaces just doesn't matter, even if he does a bad job at one or more of them. I'd be happy if leveraged buyouts weren't a thing, but that's different topic altogether. I largely agree that the EU is overdoing it a bit when it comes to MS and Activision, mostly because gaming is a pretty competitive space with a number of large players at nearly every level. Sure, Call of Duty is a big franchise, but even if MS was planning on making it exclusive, I feel like the market is still healthy enough that the acquisition should go through. That being said, I'd much rather have an active anti-trust regulator than one that just rubber stamps every acquisition.

It's all good that he keeps saying all that, but it's also the minimum that he needs to say to appease European regulators, who probably want an actual contract.

Gah. After skipping the 30XX series I was so ready to jump in with a 40XX series card, defaulting to the 4080 card as I've done for the last few generations. Now the 4080 is in such an odd place. It's fast enough, but now the top card is actually worth considering, AMD launching in a month for hundreds less, and the prices all around having shot way up, I'm not sure what I want to do. There probably isn't much hope that nVidia lowers prices anytime soon. It also seems like DLSS 3 is a big deal, so even if AMD delivers similar performance, it loses out on that account. Then again, all of this is moot until it's easier to actually buy one, and since I'm a bit conflicted on what to aim for, I probably just won't end up with any of them for a while. Would be nice to upgrade before Starfield.

I honestly expected Elon to more or less run the company normally while slowly trying some new things (that would likely be terrible ideas, but at least tempered by some time and the existing org structure.) I really hadn't expected him to speed run such terrible ideas after sinking so much cash into the company. Even just before the sale went through, I thought he might break twitter, but I expected it to happen gradually as the accumulation of Elon crud gummed up the works. I also expected that to be the reason that Twitter stayed relevant, even if the ship was sinking. At this point I honestly think there's a real market opportunity for a company like Automatic, Snap, or (most likely) Meta to successfully replace Twitter.

I wish I could have some hope that a crypto failure of this magnitude would more or less end the craze, but I think we're going to be stuck with it a while longer. Still, this must be the crypto crash with the biggest average consumer facing presence. Look through this list of their big sports sponsorships, and it's clear they've been doing their best to be in front of average folks. The Miami Heat arena, Steph Curry, Shaq, the MLB, Tom Brady, Mercedes F1. There might have been bigger crashes in crypto (I haven't kept track), but nothing I can think of had such attempts at general name recognition. The only sad thing about this is that it also means that a lot of regular people probably got caught up in the hype and will lose their money. I'll never cry for a crypto company or investor, but it is sad for all the people they scammed out of their money.

I think it's increasingly clear that Trump is no longer a winner in general elections, but we're still at a point where Trump has enough following to win primaries. If Trump lost a primary, I think we'd see a real split in the GOP. As it stands, he just has too much sway in the party for it to move on. So they're stuck in this place where the GOP can't move past Trump, but they can't win with him, but oddly enough him losing might be worse for them. I's so love to see Trump lose in the primaries and then run in the general under a different party. It would be the most glorious bloodbath, especially if he got other candidates to run for his party as well.

So apparently Adidas owns all the rights to the Yeezy shoes (with one exception) and is going to resume selling them next year, presumably under a different brand name. As someone that knows absolutely nothing about these shoes, I'm curious what people think will happen when Adidas puts them back on sale. Are these shoes that people are only buying because of Kanye, or are there more typical shoes that people would and have bought for other reasons? I'm sure they'd expect to sell fewer overall, but I wonder how much the association with Kanye matters.

It feels very Elon to: Decide the way something has been done is stupid Come up with "new" thing to replace old thing Reverse track on "new" thing until he's basically reinvented the the old way End up reversing track again to end up with something that seems obviously worse than the old way

Yeah, that's part of why I didn't vote for it. If all the money went to infrastructure (charging stations, electric city vehicles, etc) then I probably would have voted for it. I feel like we should be moving past the point of rebates, and a rebate program that is heavily backed by a company that will need to buy a bunch of electric cars felt pretty fishy.

In CA the two biggest propositions revolved around expanding gambling, and they both look to be soundly defeated. Prop 26 wanted to allow sports betting on tribal lands and at four horse racing tracks, and it is losing 30/70. A much more expansive law would have allowed online sports betting and it's losing 17/83. A very strange prop to tax the wealthy to help pay for electric cars lost, and a prohibition on the sale of flavored tobacco was upheld. Even though I'm not in LA, I'm very happy to see Villanueva lose.

My hot take is that these layoffs are thanks to Apple more than they are Zuck burning cash chasing the Metaverse. Generally, tech companies tend to be fine burning cash as long as they're also printing it. Google/Alphabet can spend tens of billions on "other bets", but when ad revenue starts taking a hit, it's the first thing to get cut. Facebook was doing well, but Apple's app tracking changes really cut into their cash flow, and suddenly the spending on AR/VR starts to look more suspect. Generally though, I expect them to be just fine. Apple might have hurt them, but they still make a ton of money.