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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: August 15th, 2023

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  • Cleared DRS last week for the first time. I had kind of avoided it because I’d heard mixed things, and bozja / field op stuff never really caught my interest (I had ranked up to 22 but kind of didn’t enjoy the format). The past couple weeks I got back into it and something clicked and I realized it’s exactly the sort of content I’ve been wanting.

    Lost actions / essences, while still kind of annoying to farm (I ended up just buying some from MB), give you flexibility in builds that no other content does. Also the duel system that confused the hell out of me before has given me a challenge to look forward to while I’m farming in Zadnor. I think it helps that the instances aren’t too crowded anymore so it’s easier to get into duels to practice.

    So when I joined a couple of field op discords and noticed there are multiple DRS runs per week, I decided what the hell, I always wanted the mount. I spent a few hours reading guides & got my holster prepped, and joined a run. The first run was a blast, but ultimately we wiped on Queen’s Guard and didn’t re-instance that night. The second run I joined was 48/48 with a lot of vets and we tore through the bosses, but it was still definitely a challenge (my goal was to not die too terribly and embarrass myself), and I felt like I could contribute even being a newbie.

    I’ve done a lot of raiding in this game, but DRS was some of the most fun I remember having in grouped content. Definitely recommend it if you think it might tickle your fancy.






  • I’ve definitely had that feeling before. I was really into Chinese rock bands and bought a bunch of CDs. I’ve been slowly uploading them. I mean China is a big country with lots of people, so it’s not like these bands are completely unknown, but when I used to go to concerts in China some of the groups that I thought rocked the hardest didn’t tend to pull big crowds. And when you look on Chinese Internet for this stuff, you usually find crappy MP3s, not rips following proper procedures.

    I still think about the band where I showed up late because the train to Beijing was delayed and then the taxi driver couldn’t find the venue address, so I just barely caught their last song. Then afterwards I was hanging out chatting with people and they were like, since you only got to hear one song you deserve to meet the singer. And they were friends with the singer so they called her to come out. It seemed like she was blown away that any foreign fans at all are into her music, and when she found out I didn’t yet have a place to stay for the night and was planning to find a last minute hostel or hotel she said “no, you’re not doing that, you’re staying with my friends who have a spare room”.

    Whenever I rip & upload Chinese rock, I think about those people who were so friendly and gracious towards me. Like who tf invites some random stranger at a rock concert over like that. And none of those bands, even the ones that made it “big” really got the attention that I thought they deserved. They were pouring their heart and soul into their music.



  • I mean look at this dumpster fire of a comment section… I don’t think we as a community are really making a good case.

    Personally I think the bot is a bad idea because I always hated that kind of shit on Reddit. I’d rather have discussion with real people than just have a bot that always comments.

    But the people attacking MBFC are really coming out of left field in my view. If I was a mod, I don’t know if I’d want to listen to feedback either.


  • Look, honestly I don’t really know who Ryan Grim is, but I googled “Ryan Grim” and “The Gray Zone” and apparently “the grayzone crowd comes after [him] all the time”.

    https://twitter.com/ryangrim/status/1696331666980053126

    I also don’t know enough to really get into a discussion about Israel / Palestine, and I don’t know anything about the drama with WaPo in the article you linked so I can’t say whether or not it’s 100% factual as you say.

    Maybe in this specific instance, The Gray Zone is correct, and in agreement with Ryan Grim. I don’t know. But the thing is, you are I are in a discussion about bias and source quality. And I’m saying to you that, in my view, The Gray Zone doesn’t pass the smell test.

    That’s the whole point of MBFC: to get a smell test of whether a source is worth considering or not.

    What I am saying is, I’m not going to spend hours of my life going through your source to check it out, and possibly verify it, or refute it point by point. Especially when the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article on it is:

    Coverage of The Grayzone has focused on its misleading[25][26] and false reporting,[27] its criticism of American foreign policy,[1][4] and its sympathetic coverage of the Russian, Chinese and Syrian governments.[4][21][28][29] The Grayzone has downplayed or denied the persecution of Uyghurs in China,[33] and been accused of publishing conspiracy theories about Xinjiang, Syria and other regions,[34][35][36] and publishing disinformation about Ukraine during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which some have described as pro-Russian propaganda.[32][36]

    The article about Xinjiang that I linked to you was just from a random source I clicked from Wikipedia.

    I realize that I am probably coming across in a rather dismissive way, but honestly I think that’s the point – if I can convince myself this quickly that a source looks suspicious, it’s in my interest to dismiss it just as quickly. In the past I’ve spent dozens of hours doing deep dives on random sources that friends have sent me, and in every case it’s been a waste of time because I ended up coming to the same conclusion that I did in 5 seconds of reading Wikipedia.

    I know some people love doing these deep dives, but I’ve realized for myself – like back in 2010 when one particular person was sending me crap from Natural News – that unless I truly get “this needs the benefit of the doubt” vibes, all that time I spend just makes me feel bitter and angry at the world, and I end up having gained nothing and learned nothing from the experience.

    So again, I’m sorry. Your source may be correct. But it looks seriously suspicious. Personally, I’m not willing to look any deeper than that.







  • Yeah /u/[email protected] kind of understated the problem. They were seeing insane failure rates in data centers like 50%. At this point, any 13th or 14th gen CPU that has experienced any crash or instability should be considered faulty unless you know the cause of the crash is from something else. This isn’t just me saying this, mainstream outlets like Gamers Nexus are saying it.

    If you’re a consumer and have one of those CPUs a replacement is probably in your future. And I wonder if Intel even has stock to replace that many at once…

    I can’t think of anything like this ever happening on this scale before in computing history.



  • The bill didn’t need to pass with a 60 vote margin. The House is simple majority, and it passed the house. It’s a little murky to me what happened next, but it seems like the Democrats were arguing that it could be treated as budget reconciliation in the Senate, only needing simple majority. However, the parliamentarian said it’s not budget reconciliation, and so it would have needed 60 votes total in the Senate to get past the filibuster, which it didn’t have.

    Then, strangely, the Senate amended the entire title and text of the bill and turned it into a general appropriations bill, which passed both houses and became law, but with the entire original text of the bill struck.

    Maybe someone a little more familiar than me with the machinations of government can fill in some of the gaps of what exactly happened and why. My point is, you’re right that it didn’t pass, but neither house of Congress requires a 60 vote margin. The Senate requires 60 votes total for a bill to be filibuster proof.