Agreed in general, Square has turned to shit - but XI and XII were not where it happened, those games are great and XII in particular was peak Square. Part of the problem was Tetsuya Nomura and the slew of spinoff shovelware games with half-baked Kingdom Hearts style stories they started shitting out. The other part was a combo of their embrace of mobile gacha-style bullshit, and the apparent lack of skill and experience that go into their games as they shifted from maintaining their own engines and in-house tools in favor of joining the Unreal and Unity bandwagons.

But don’t worry, another “going back to their roots!” phase is just around the corner.

Leonard Nimoy. Grew up with a lot of Star Trek. Both him and Keanu Reeves helped me understand that it’s entirely fine to be introverted.

As I understood it, Nimoy’s death was from lung problems that developed as a result of his smoking habit - even though he had quit smoking many years prior that. It was the catalyst I needed to finally say, “I can’t wait anymore, time may already be up. I need to quit smoking now.” And that was when I finally did quit smoking and make it stick.

Sometimes I won’t buy a game made in Unity. Sometimes I will. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

There’s a whole number of THQ games I never bother to get, because most THQ games feel too similiar to each other.

Probably the closest thing would be Rockstar games. GTA 5 feels alright, but in so many of their other games I do not like the feel of the physics and mechanics. Hated Manhunt, terrible game. Was forgiving of the older GTA games growing up because they were pioneering and fun despite the broken mechanics. But they have not aged well.

Sugar causes diabetes.

Wrong. The single biggest factor in type 2 diabetes is body fat. Sugar can contribute to weight gain, but so can a lot of things. Overconsumption in general will lead to weight gain, and weight gain increases the risk of diabetes. Sugar can be one factor in those risks, but is almost never the sole reason. You know what does appear to play a pretty big role in diabetes risk? Meat.

Carbs are very different in your body then sugar,

Which ones? There are three types of carbs: sugar, starch, and fiber. Basic sugars and starches mostly act the same in the body. Both are quickly broken down by enzymes in our intestines, and processed into our bloodstream rather quickly (although starches take a little bit longer to digest than simple sugars).

Fiber is where things really are different. We cannot digest fiber, but out gut microbiome can, which makes it a crucially important category of nutrients for our gut health.

But I think what you’re not getting is that natural sources of fiber are very often also natural sources of high amounts of sugar and starches. Many fruits are very important sources of fiber, vitamins and minerals, and unique phytonutrients - but they are also a package deal with lots of sugar. So if sugar is so bad, does that mean fruit is bad too? No, well, not usually at least. And that’s because the fiber binds up those sugars and a lot of other nutrients, and causes all of them to digest a lot more slowly. On top of that, the antioxidants in the fruits cancel out what would have been pro-inflammatory effects of the sugars if those sugars were consumed in a form where the fiber and antioxidants were stripped away leaving only processed sugars.

This is what I was trying to get it. Whether sugar is harmful or not depends on a lot of factors. When it’s refined away from its whole-food source it’s bad. When it’s refined and consumed in a diet really high in saturated fats, it becomes even worse. But sugars that are naturally present in plants, when those plants are eaten in their whole form, are healthy and a great source of energy.

and it looks like your post was edited,

Are you accusing me of something?

idk about fat causing diabetes as you typed, never heard that.

Not just fat, excessive body fat. Overweight is the single biggest risk factor for type 2 diabetes. This is why every fad diet out there can claim to “cure” diabetes. Play around with a diet long enough and you might lose weight. If you lose weight, your diabetes might go into remission. Viola, you can now claim your diet cures diabetes.

This was pretty much my impression of /e/ as well. Used it only briefly. It ran poorly, had a bunch of crap I didn’t want. Bad launcher. Things didn’t work properly.

Overall impression I got was that the people who make /e/ do not know what they are doing.

While the GrapheneOS dev comes across as sus and toxic to me, part of me would like to give it a try. But between Pixel phones still having black screen of death problems, and newer ones lacking a headphone jack - I found a Moto G100 plus LineageOS with MicroG is a great option.

I only run open software on it, and keep everything proprietary on my old un-degooglable phone that only gets turned on when necessary.

All of it is accurate.

Yes, and those are usually beneficial fats, and are naturally in the ballpark of healthy levels. A person on a 100% whole-food plant-based diet, if they are not adding any extra refined fats, can expect their calories from fats to be anywhere as low as 10% (which is likely dangerously low), to as high as maybe 30% if they are eating a lot of the high-fat plants like nuts, seeds, and avocado. But healthy oils like canola and olive oil can be an easy way to get that number in the 25-30% range, while getting the benefits of improved antioxidant absorption.

Lol. Sugar industry perversions? My anointed sibling, you replied to a comment in which I recommended a list of ingredients to make a healthy Nutella alternative - not a single one of which was sugar.

And okay, carbs aren’t sugar. Except they also are sugar, because all carbs are made of sugar. That’s the point, that the substance itself is not evil or unhealthy. It’s the inappropriate consumption and other relevant lifestyle factors that are.

For example, overconsumption of fats - namely saturated fats - increases insulin resistance in the body. This effect amplifies the harmful effects of sugar. Sugar does not cause diabetes apart from obesity.

Right, it’s no good environmentally, or healthwise.

Oh, and actually plant-centric diets are a better way to achieve satiety than fat. Fats are so calorie dense that it’s way too easy to overconsume before feeling full. Since diets heavy in whole-plant foods are naturally high in fiber and low in overall calories, it’s easier for a person to eat as much as they want and still keep their weight under control. This is why vegans and vegetarians tend to average the lowest bodyweights among dietary groups.

You’re just spouting half-baked influencer nonsense. Sugar is not a demon, carbohydrates are literally the primary fuel that we run on, and virtually every cell in our body uses them. It’s the improper consumption of carbohydrates outside of their natural, intact, whole-food context; as well as within the context of an overall diet that tends to be high in heavily processed foods, extremely low fiber, low antioxidant and other phytonutrient content, way too high in animal products which come packaged with too much saturated fats, especially cured meats, and in lifestyles with other significant risk factors like sedentary, smoking, and excessive alcohol consumption.

Fat has its place, but its role is mainly an emergency store for periods of starvation. Our bodies use these fuels differently too. For example if you look at textbooks on fitness training, they might talk about the myth of “the fat burning zone.” Think of our body’s energy consumption like a set of dimmer switches. The body does not switch between one or the other like a binary, it’s more that it will use differing ratios of all energy sources based partly on activity level. If you’re doing low impact activity like walking or, even just existing, the body will tend to prefer burning a ratio of calories from fat. If you move to higher impact activities, your body will start burning a much higher ratio of calories from carbohydrates. Although going back to that point about the fat burning zone myth, it must be stressed that it is a myth - you’ll burn a lot more fat with higher impact exercise despite the body using more carbs because the overall volume of calories burned is way higher than with low impact, especially if you do something like HIIT.

There is good reason that even relatively conservative fitness organizations like NASM say right in their textbooks - carbs are equally, if not a more important nutrient than protein.

And yeah, the communication about fats in the 80s and 90s was poor. But that doesn’t mean one macro is magically innocent and the other is evil. In the big picture, experts were recommending Mediterranean style diets all the way back then. Industry did not listen. Sure some products were reduced fat - mostly the unpopular ones. And yes they raised sugar levels. But overall, both refined sugar levels, and fat levels have increased in processed food levels over time - especially saturated fats, and when it was legal, trans fats.

But yeah, palm and coconut oils are awful. They’re being put in too many things, and it won’t surprize me if we’re going to start seeing a dip in vegan health outcomes because of that.

This is all hypothetical and something I spontaneously listed based on the ingredients in the image. I haven’t actually tried making it and don’t know if the results are disappointing or not.

Some of the ingredients I chose were based more toward seeking health benefits than flavor - the walnuts and flax in particular. Both ingredients would make the results more of an acquired taste, and I might prefer something like pumpkin seeds and/or cashews if I felt stronger about flavor.

Too much refined sugar is bad. Too much fat, particularly saturated fats, are bad. When you put them together, they work synergistically to fuck you up so much more. But everyone zeroing in on the sugar exclusively, pay attention. There are 4 calories in a gram of sugar, and 9 calories in a gram of fat. In one serving that’s 21 grams of sugar times 4, which is 84 calories from sugar. By contrast, even though there is less fat by volume at 12 grams, it still amounts to more calories than the sugar at 108 calories per serving.

And notably only 1 gram of fiber per serving.

I don’t even remember what Nutella tastes like, and even when I did try it I never understood the hype. If I were trying to make a healthy alternative, I would blend together a mix of hazelnuts, walnuts, oats, cocoa, dates, and however much needed water to get the desired consistency. I don’t feel like added fats should be necessary (nuts are already naturally high in fats), but if I wasn’t satisfied with the results, I might try using a little canola or avocado oil. Knowing me, I’d probably squeeze some flax in as well.

This list captures everything that I could have thought of and more. It’s still too short, we need more games like Ratchet and Clank. 🫠

In the retro handheld community there’s a big split between those who prefer left stick on top, and those who want dpad on top. In all cases it’s going to be uncomfortable because of the lack of full sized grips as well as the vertical alignment of the buttons - the diagonal positioning of sticks and buttons on modern controllers is crucial for their comfort and ergonomics.

Stick on top is slightly more popular (it’s like a 60/40 split), but I’m in the dpad on top camp. Without proper grips, devices like these are going to be uncomfortable no matter where the sticks are. But with dpad on top, at least dpad-centric, fighting, and arcade games can be comfortable to play without needing added grips.

Can confirm, it is Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. Don’t forget deadheading! - everybody being able to basically switch off their brains to a kind of suspend state every time they get bored.

I’m fairly well convinced that some form of rebirth (similar but not the same as reincarnation) is real, even if it’s driven only by naturalistic processes and not something like karma; and that belief has had the opposite effect on me, wanting to prolong this body’s life and healthspan as much as feasible.

Given the sheer amount of living beings on this planet that are routinely suffering in far worse ways than I am, it’s statistically far more likely that “I” would be reborn into a far worse life than a better one many many times over.

Every choice we ever make is making and remaking the bed we’re laying in.

I agree, paid services are a good option too. I pay for my Posteo email service for one example.

I started the tutorial for Civ 6 recently, will probably play more. Been bouncing between various Civs off and on, and seems I’ve been playing UnCiv the most at this point - considering it’s right there on my phone all the time.

How far Squeenix has fallen. 😒