Don’t make mistakes! This is for my really important lawyer job and I could get in trouble!

Hell, I’d be willing to lose $100 just to make him mad.

It’s the world’s biggest parking lot. Every tree is artificial unless it’s a cactus. The few places you can climb give you a great view of said parking lot. It’s 40 miles wide and can take over an hour to cross, yet bizarrely, everywhere you need to be is 30 minutes away. Some street intersections require multiple passes of building prior knowledge to safely traverse.

I seen my first 8 years there riding the public transport there and it’s an entirely separate hell. Everything goes from 30 minutes away to anywhere from an hour to 90 or more. I would say about 6 months of my time spent there must have been traveling.

And never to go anywhere actually interesting. Everything is one or two floors unless it’s an office building you’ll likely never have the lifestyle to be a part of unless it’s a temp gig.

They are neighborhoods so similar, miles apart from each other that I almost knocked on the wrong friend’s door before I realized I had driven to the wrong place.

I could go on…

Phoenix. Don’t ever make the mistake of moving there or you’ll have a hard time leaving. It’s the closest thing to purgatory I’ve ever experienced. I certainly aged, but I don’t think I matured a day while I was there.

It just dawned on me that no matter what, we have a wasted seat on self-driving taxis because we still put a wheel and pedals that are expected to go unused in the vehicle. I think this would help highlight just how unsafe this concept really is. With the wheel and pedals there, maybe it’s giving people more of an illusion of control or something, because I feel like having nothing there would make people a lot less comfortable, even though that’s the reality of the situation.

Edit: people keep bringing up ways this could be used, and that we do it for cost-cutting, but this still doesn’t detract from the reality of how they were actually deployed before these concerns were addressed. They’re not even commenting on it and letting the consumer fill in their PR’s gaps for them.

Everything is going to be okay

https://xkcd.com/1688/

Does the screeching chill your blood and herald death? If yes, banshee. If no, seagull.

I only have two hands and holding two guns makes both of them useless.

Darn. Too bad. I tried…

Infra is about 10GB and is an excellent case of a “walking simulator” done right. Wildly detailed environments and lots of environmental storytelling. I’ve spent entirely too long getting lost in it.

Literally dehumanizing. I’m so tired.

Absolutely. I’ve learned over the years that it usually works out pretty well to find out how much the cheapest dogshit option is and aim for an option roughly 1.5x the cost. Obviously not a blanket rule but it covers a surprising amount of common items and I’ve gotten plenty of long-lasting affordable alternatives that I actually enjoy using rather than having the crappiest version of everything.

Pfff. That’s just one boulder. Atlas does the real work.

I always hated that I’ve found the swatstika frustrating appealing as a shape. Why’d they have to ruin such an interesting geometric symmetry?

A massive one for me is pacing. If it feels like someone is telling me the story as it happens, I can pull myself right into the world, but if they spend two pages describing a room they just entered, I’ve already forgotten why they entered the room.

They could federate with servers if only they had servers that wanted to federate with them.

My actual personal favorite is Back to the Future Part 2, but if you’re looking for something you might not have seen, I’ll hit you with 3:

Baby Driver - A thrill a minute heist movie to a killer soundtrack and stellar cast

Everything Everywhere All At Once - An emotional rollercoaster as the title implies, go in blind

Ex Machina - Absolute masterclass in cinematography and storytelling about a billionaire and his invention

For me, Elite is all about alone time. Sure the loops are “repetitive”, but there’s well over 20 or 30 loops in the game. A lot of people share your experience because it’s ultimately more of a sandbox than a traditional experience like most other mainstream titles. It’s time for me to meditate and explore.

Another major factor is that I’m allergic to “the grind”. Many, many other players feel that Engineering is goal #1 and want the biggest, fastest, baddest ship, but I just don’t care about most of that. I like flying space ships and this game does it better than almost any other out there.

Add on the fact that now I have a squadron and it’s become a place to hang out with friends. Elite is less a game with a win state and more a universe to explore.

Lastly, it’s very easy to ignore major parts of the lore thanks to all the farming guides that skip past how those sites were originally discovered. It’s a game meant for you to reach these points hundreds of hours in instead of dozens.

I’ve been writing a new players guide for Elite: Dangerous in detail along with putting together a squadron to teach new players. It’s been the most involved I’ve ever been with an online game by far.

Varies from one night to the next, but I typically put on something from myNoise.net when I do want sound.