Starman2112's recent activity

  1. Comment on What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga) in ~anime

    Starman2112
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    Naruto was great. Wish I could go back to the days of watching that 1/3rd of an episode at a time on youtube

    Naruto was great. Wish I could go back to the days of watching that 1/3rd of an episode at a time on youtube

  2. Comment on Those who read a lot of fiction shown to have improved cognitive abilities in ~science

    Starman2112
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    This does make intuitive sense, and it's easy to rationalize how reading fiction might train one to be more empathetic. I can see how being open to accepting the abnormal situations in fiction can...

    This does make intuitive sense, and it's easy to rationalize how reading fiction might train one to be more empathetic. I can see how being open to accepting the abnormal situations in fiction can make one more open to accepting viewpoints other than their own, in a way that reading factual accounts of real events wouldn't. Another commenter pointed out the frequency of first-person perspectives in fiction books specifically, which would explain why reading is the strongest indicator—experiencing stories from other people's perspectives in such an extremely personal way must do a lot to help a person understand other points of view.

    I do have to wonder though... does reading fiction improve cognitive ability, or does improved cognitive ability make you crave fiction? I can just as easily rationalize that being able to understand other people's perspectives would make you more receptive to first-person stories, and it just happens that the majority of first-person narratives are in fiction and autobiographies. I'm curious if this same correlation is present among non-fiction readers who enjoy autobiographies.

    7 votes

  3. Comment on What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga) in ~anime

    Starman2112
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    Intrigue in the Bakumatsu: Irohanihoheto was pretty good. Historical fantasy that keeps the actual events depicted fairly grounded. Of course, it plays up the fantastical elements and their...
    Intrigue in the Bakumatsu: Irohanihoheto

    was pretty good. Historical fantasy that keeps the actual events depicted fairly grounded. Of course, it plays up the fantastical elements and their involvement in these events (Enomoto was probably not possessed by a haunted skull in real life). Like I said last week, strong recommend if you like shows where half of the major characters have entire Wikipedia articles. I bookmarked the article for the show so I could read about the real people and historical events.

    Minor spoilers ahead. The ending kinda comes out of nowhere. The last episode has the lowest rating on MAL, for pretty good reason. I liked the end good enough, I just don't think the show sets up the antagonist's plan well enough beforehand, and the flying castle took me out of the experience.

    Was a solid 8/10 until the last episode, but my problems with the ending bring it down to a 7/10. Totally stealing the story for my D&D campaign

    A Certain Scientific Railgun

    Before 2021, the last show I watched through in its entirety was Psych, in like 2016. In 2021, I started watching A Certain Scientific Railgun, and finished the first season in a week. After about a month, I realized that I hadn't let a day go by without watching at least one episode, so I kept that streak up. I watched it once subbed, then dubbed, then I started watching other animes, always keeping the daily watch streak up.

    It's been 1,070 days, 1,671 episodes of 55 shows, and 23 movies. I'm rewatching Railgun once every year, just to see if it still holds up. The first few episodes super duper don't. Hate em. Feels too much like Index. That being said, from the third episode on the show is great. Far from the best show, still has its flaws, but great. I don't think any other show would be the right mix of "good enough to maintain a streak" and "bad enough that other shows are still interesting."

    Railgun is the show that got me into anime. Can you pin your interest in the medium on one specific show? If so, what show is that?

    1 vote

  4. Comment on What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga) in ~anime

    Starman2112
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    Currently watching Intrigue in the Bakumatsu. There exists a certain, extremely specific type of person who's super into both Japanese history and historical fantasy, for whom Bakumatsu Kikansetsu...

    Currently watching Intrigue in the Bakumatsu. There exists a certain, extremely specific type of person who's super into both Japanese history and historical fantasy, for whom Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto is The Show. I'm not that person, but I like it good enough. 7/10 so far, though I'm only 15 episodes in and liking it more the further I watch. I had trouble getting into it at the start, but at this point I'm forcing myself to stop watching and go to bed every night. I highly recommend it if you like historical fantasy where a lot of characters have their own Wikipedia pages.

    3 votes

  5. Comment on What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga) in ~anime

    Starman2112
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    Mild spoilers for Megalo Box Nomad: Megalo Box 2 I was not expecting the tone shift in Nomad. Went from shounen to seinen like that. It took me until 3 episodes into this season to figure it out....

    Mild spoilers for Megalo Box

    Nomad: Megalo Box 2

    I was not expecting the tone shift in Nomad. Went from shounen to seinen like that. It took me until 3 episodes into this season to figure it out.

    Megalo Box is not a story about boxing. It's a story about a man with no friends, no family, and nothing to his name but the gear on his back, discovering a lust for life that he never had before, and finding those things which he always lacked. It just happens that he is a boxer, and boxing is the lens through which we see his dreams made real.

    Nomad is a story about a man who's lost his friends, his family, and his will to live, listlessly drifting through life, not living, but merely surviving. Fighting not for the love of the sport, but because it's all he knows. This is a man ridden with guilt, for what he's done, and what he's failed to do. This is not a story about boxing, it's a story about salvation. Boxing is simply the lens through which we see this man's salvation happen.

    The first season got an 8/10 from me, this season is catching a 9.5. Haven't been this emotionally invested in a show since Haibane Renmei.

    3 votes

  6. Comment on Have you had a life-altering change in who you are? in ~talk

    Starman2112
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    My favorite response to Pascal's Wager is Pascal's Mugging. I don't have any weapons, but if you don't give me all of your cash, you will suffer infinite pain and torment in the afterlife. But if...

    My favorite response to Pascal's Wager is Pascal's Mugging. I don't have any weapons, but if you don't give me all of your cash, you will suffer infinite pain and torment in the afterlife. But if you give me your wallet, you'll be repaid with infinite everlasting bliss instead. It's the exact same thing as the Wager, but with two key differences—I'm a tangible being that you already know exists, and you only stand to lose whatever is in your wallet, rather than decades of dedicated worship. If the Wager is a reasonable argument for you, then PM me your credit card details.

    7 votes

  7. Comment on Have you had a life-altering change in who you are? in ~talk

    Starman2112
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    Some years ago when I worked at an animal shelter, the worst day of my time there made me a vegetarian. Dead cat. Specifically, an entire litter of stillborn kittens. It struck me that their...

    Some years ago when I worked at an animal shelter, the worst day of my time there made me a vegetarian.

    Dead cat.

    Specifically, an entire litter of stillborn kittens. It struck me that their placentas looked exactly like raw steak. That did not make me want to eat steak. I cared deeply for those animals, I mourned when they died, and seeing those kittens flipped a switch in my brain and made me figure out that all of those cows and pigs and chickens are exactly the same as those kittens. I never knew them, and still I feel awful knowing that if they did live, it was a short, tortured existence.

    Since then I've had to get used to the fact that most people simply don't care about, like, anything. It doesn't matter how many people you show Dominion to, they'll just do the same thing I did ten years ago: ignore it. Pretend it isn't happening. My favorite thing is that as soon as people find out I'm vegetarian, or I bring it up on the internet, there's this compulsion to defend their decision to eat animals. It's annoying when people say shit like "I'm gonna eat two burgers tonight just for you," but at least they're open about not giving a shit. It's worse seeing someone act like they care about animals before going home and making chicken soup.

    Anyway, if you're going to eat meat, do the world a favor and buy Elwood's Organic Dog Meat. The Chihuahua sausage is inexpensive and super tasty.

    9 votes

  8. Comment on What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga) in ~anime

    Starman2112
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    Paprika Feels fitting to see Paprika within a week of watching Serial Experiments Lain. The two have wildly different vibes and pacing, with Paprika being much more energetic and bright, and Lain...
    Paprika

    Feels fitting to see Paprika within a week of watching Serial Experiments Lain. The two have wildly different vibes and pacing, with Paprika being much more energetic and bright, and Lain being much more slow and gloomy, but both share a surreal mixing of the conscious and the subconscious.

    Basically flawless movie. Visually beautiful, amazing soundtrack, easy 10.

    Megalo Box

    I almost forgot that modern anime is still great. Megalo Box is my kind of anime. A protagonist who's basically a D&D character, a story about the indomitable human spirit, fun action sequences. Even still, I gotta give it an 8/10, because while it is incredibly fun to watch, it doesn't stand out as a masterpiece to me. I am on the lookout for more shows with good action sequences now.

    In the same way that Last Exile and Wolf's Rain occupy the same shelf in my brain, Megalo Box is filed right next to Gurren Lagann. I can't draw parallels between the two the same way I can Paprika and Lain, but they both share a certain reverence for the human drive to excel that I really enjoy.

    Megalo Box jumped up on my list while I was watching Ghost In The Shell, specifically that one scene with Batou boxing. Watching that scene back, it's insane to me that the clip I just posted was from a show 15 years older, and with so few action sequences. GiTS just does everything better than every other show. I gotta stop comparing everything I watch to it.

    3 votes

  9. Comment on How do you organize your phone's home screens and apps? in ~tech

    Starman2112
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    One condition: don't judge me. Almost all of them are extremely specific to my particular interests. Some of them are low resolution, some of them are funny, some of them are from when I was a...

    One condition: don't judge me.

    Almost all of them are extremely specific to my particular interests. Some of them are low resolution, some of them are funny, some of them are from when I was a teenager. Hopefully you find something interesting in here

    I've had to delete a few for privacy reasons, so here's 163 of them

  10. Comment on How do you organize your phone's home screens and apps? in ~tech

    Starman2112
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    Another Nova Launcher user. I'm extremely fond of my wallpapers (I cycle through 167 of them at the moment), so I have my home screen set to an empty page with three mostly transparent folders on...

    Another Nova Launcher user.

    I'm extremely fond of my wallpapers (I cycle through 167 of them at the moment), so I have my home screen set to an empty page with three mostly transparent folders on the bottom for the apps I use. There are 5 pages. The middle is the home page, kept totally blank so I can see my wallpapers. To the left is a page with one large calculator widget, to the right is a page with a calendar and weather. There are more blank pages to the left of the calculator and the right of the calendar, because some of my wallpapers scroll and I like seeing the edges.

    At this point using my phone is a nightmare for anyone but me, but my muscle memory lets me use it without even looking.

    1 vote

  11. Comment on What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga) in ~anime

    Starman2112
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    Can finally cross Serial Experiments Lain off my watch list. And I thought I wasn't smart enough for SAC 2nd Gig. About 6 episodes in, I looked up "when does Lain start making sense," and I read a...

    Can finally cross Serial Experiments Lain off my watch list. And I thought I wasn't smart enough for SAC 2nd Gig. About 6 episodes in, I looked up "when does Lain start making sense," and I read a comment that I think helped my enjoyment of the series tremendously:

    minor spoilers

    5 years ago, reddit user alvaropacio wrote

    Don't take everything at face value.

    If you see something getting bigger, don't focus on the in-universe explanation of why it's physical volume is changing, the point is the that object has an increasing presence and is pushing away other things; if you see a floating mouth talking consider that you are simply watching opinions being voiced. Light is sappy and pure, darkness is gloomy and troubled, teddy bears show childish innocence... it's not all that cryptic when you look for it. I mean sure, a weird, surreal, relatively confusing story unfolds as the show progresses, and pieces will start coming together towards the end, but I feel like the trees aren't letting you see the forest here.

    Understanding that I shouldn't take anything too literally, whether it's happening in the Wired or not, helped me to at least avoid trying to pick apart every detail about the show. It also helped me to grok that the line between the real world and the Wired isn't as concrete as we might think.

    What I could understand were themes of the internet playing a bigger and bigger role in people's lives, and people having different personalities online and offline (though not as literally as Lain's). It's been said before, but this show was eerily prophetic about 21st century life. There's even an Apple Vision Pro user in it! There are also more philosophical questions about the nature of reality, which I am just smart enough to notice, and not smart enough to actually talk about.

    End of series spoilers

    What even is reality? For example, at the end of the series, we see a new world, one where the people who we've seen dead are still alive. Did Lain literally resurrect them? Did she prevent them from having died in the first place? Maybe she made them entirely anew, and buried the evidence of their deaths like she did in the one shot manga. Maybe they only exist in the minds of the people who perceive them. Maybe that very perception is what makes them real.

    My understanding is that the ambiguity is the point, and I cannot wait to see other people's interpretations.

    It gets the same rating I gave to SAC 2nd Gig. My inability to understand it hurt my viewing experience a bit, but I can acknowledge that it's objectively extremely good. 9/10, bears a few dozen rewatches.

    ETA: The more I think about the show, the more I lean towards giving it a 10. The last show that had me thinking this hard was From The New World, and it got a 10 from me because it had me thinking hard about the ethics and implications of the events of the series for so long afterward.

    The biggest thing I'm arguing with myself about is the concept that "if no one remembers it, it's the same as if it never happened at all."

    spoilers for the 18 page doujinshi

    It seems like the series leans towards that concept being true. However, at the end of the doujinshi, Lain finds the collar she cut off of the Bike-chan that was destroyed. Of course, the fact that Lain doesn't remember Bike-chan's destruction and subsequent recreation doesn't mean it never happened. No amount of memory erasure, no perfect copy of Bike-chan, will erase the fact that the one she started with was destroyed.

    Bike-chan is, of course, just a doll, but this carries some implications for the events of the series. All those people that died... died. Of course, this doesn't matter to those that are still alive. To them and the people who know them, they've always been alive, and they aren't any less real than the originals.

    A rant about the realness of copies of people, spoilers for Star Trek's 'Second Chances' and Black Mirror's 'San Junipero'

    Idunno. I have similar feelings about other media with these kinds of perfect copies taking the places of their originals. The big two that come to mind are Star Trek's transporters, and Black Mirror's San Junipero. Everyone who goes through a transporter gets The Prestiged. There's even an episode of TNG where we see a Riker who wasn't properly killed by the transporter. Is the Riker that arrived on the Enterprise any less real than the Riker that was left on that planet? Of course not. He's the Riker that we've come to know and love. Well, one of them at least.

    In San Junipero, the Kelly and Yorkie that we see at the end of the show are not the same Kelly and Yorkie that we saw in the beginning. Ultimately, the decision to upload their consciousness to San Junipero or not doesn't really matter. They're copies. Perfect copies, who are just as much real people as their originals, but copies nonetheless.

    This has become a rant within a rant. Have I mentioned how much I love the details tag on Tildes? If I were on Reddit or lemmy, I would have deleted all of this because it's too much text.

    1 vote

  12. Comment on You're wrong about Aptera's car. It's ridiculously efficient (and solar powered). in ~transport

    Starman2112
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    It's a little hard to believe this study without any details on it at all. The most I can find is that an EU commission checked 576 influencers, with no information on their selection process. Was...

    It's a little hard to believe this study without any details on it at all. The most I can find is that an EU commission checked 576 influencers, with no information on their selection process. Was it random? Were these influencers already suspected of skirting these rules? Were these influencers in specific demographics that tend towards shady sponsorships (crypto, fashion, fitness, etc.)? Is it specific to the EU, or did they screen people from around the world? It really can't be a truly random sampling of people, because if 97% of channels were getting paid by corporations... You realize that 97% of channels can't possibly be getting paid sponsorships, right?

    1 vote

  13. Comment on What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga) in ~anime

    Starman2112
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    Watched NieA_7 over the last week. It's likely the most obscure show I've seen yet, being notable only in that it's a distant cousin to the more widely known Serial Experiments Lain and Haibane...

    Watched NieA_7 over the last week. It's likely the most obscure show I've seen yet, being notable only in that it's a distant cousin to the more widely known Serial Experiments Lain and Haibane Renmei.

    (Some spoilers) NieA_7

    What a fun little show. There really isn't much I can say about it that hasn't been said better by others. And yet, force myself to write I shall. This is not my best work.

    "It's a funny thing to see, that moment when the extraordinary becomes ordinary."

    You'd think a show about an alien living in someone's clost would be more... fantastical. Instead, this series shows a world that's almost indistinguishable from our own. They have strange customs, but are no stranger than any other human society.

    The first few episodes set up a normal routine for the characters—Mayuko is a broke high school student barely scraping by even with multiple jobs, and NieA is her freeloading alien roommate who eats all her food. They live in an apartment above the bathhouse that Mayuko's family used to own. This routine is disrupted in the last few episodes, when NieA runs away from home, and the current owner of the bathhouse discusses potentially selling it.

    Things change. Mayuko won't always live with NieA. The bathhouse won't stay around forever. The show doesn't end with NieA's disappearance, it doesn't end with the loss of the bathhouse. Only the understanding that these things won't last forever. That we should enjoy the time we have with the people and things we love while we can.

    All that being said, the show isn't a masterpiece, and it has its flaws. Subjectively I wanna give it a 9, but objectively it's getting a 7/10.

    Not the best review I've written, but I hate to see the weekly discussion thread sit empty for 12+ hours

    My favorite review is DegenerateRegime's on reddit. This excerpt in particular describes the show more poetically than I could ever hope to:

    So, what is NieA_7? Is it a comedy with some iffy jokes? Is it a lesser-known iyashikei from the tail end of the genre's first peak? Is it politically-thematic sci-fi with denpa elements? I don't know. I think of it like an omelette made with whatever you have in the fridge. The flavours can seem a bit strange together; the bottom's a bit burned because there wasn't enough butter. The imperfection of it tells a story about when and how it was made that a more refined, restaurant-quality dish never could.

    2 votes

  14. Comment on What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga) in ~anime

    Starman2112
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    Ghost In The Shell, from 1995 to 2006. I forgot to watch Innocence after the '95 movie, so I decided to just watch everything in release order. I don't think that hurt my viewing, but when I...

    Ghost In The Shell, from 1995 to 2006. I forgot to watch Innocence after the '95 movie, so I decided to just watch everything in release order. I don't think that hurt my viewing, but when I rewatch, I'm going to go SAC 1st and 2nd gigs, then all 3 movies. The 1995 movie and its sequel Innocence share a different timeline from the Stand Alone Complex series (almost like FMA and Brotherhood), but they're similar enough that it didn't hurt my viewing of them.

    No spoilers thoughts on the series

    SAC is fantastic. It makes every other show look bad by comparison, and that's not even hyperbole this time. The animation, the storytelling, the plots, the characters, the setting, the atmosphere, the aesthetic, the soundtrack, everything about the series is amazing. I can't find any faults in it.

    The first season is the easiest 10 I've ever rated something. There's no question that it's the best put together anime I've seen yet. 2nd Gig is getting a 9/10 from me, because although there are some significant improvements over the 1st, I found it extremely hard to follow. I feel that's more of a me problem than a show problem, but it still affected my viewing. Solid State Society was the easiest 10 since the first season, for all the same reasons.

    SSS felt in some ways like a sequel to both SAC and Innocence. I know they're different timelines, but everyone acts a bit more like their movie selves in this one, especially Batou and Kusanagi.

    As for the movies (1995 and Innocence), there isn't much I can say that others haven't said better before. Easy 10s.

    Spoilers for 2nd Gig

    Y'all, Idunno if I'm smart enough for this season. 1st Gig and SSS were super easy to follow for me, but 2nd Gig went way over my head. Maybe it's because I was spending too much time thinking about how I should feel about the refugee situation, and not enough paying attention to who all the players were, what roles they played, and what their motives were. I feel like I grok the Laughing Man's whole deal, I could explain what a stand alone complex is, but after finishing the 2nd gig, I couldn't tell you what the Individual Eleven is. It's a terrorist organization made up of people infected by a virus made by Gouda? I feel like I remember the virus being a threat at some point, and I don't recall when that was resolved. Why did Gouda make it? Who was that guy he was talking to before he was killed?

    I didn't have this problem with any of the movies either. Did anyone else have this problem with 2nd gig?

    Maybe when I rewatch the series it'll make more sense.

    Next on the list is either Texhnolyze, NieA_7, or Serial Experiments Lain. Or maybe I watch something awful instead, to cleanse the palate. It's been like 5 months since I watched something I didn't absolutely adore, and I need a reminder that shows like Gate exist.

    5 votes

  15. Comment on Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection used modder's work without credit in ~games

    Starman2112
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    I've never had excitement turn to disappointment so quickly in my life. All they had to do was rerelease the games exactly as they were, with new servers and online functionality.

    I've never had excitement turn to disappointment so quickly in my life. All they had to do was rerelease the games exactly as they were, with new servers and online functionality.

    1 vote

  16. Comment on What anime do you think could have strong crossover appeal if correctly publicized? in ~anime

    Starman2112
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    I really appreciate Dungeon Meshi's lack of fanservice. There are so many points in the series that could have been made pervy, and yet the only upskirt we ever see is Senshi, and the only boobs...

    I really appreciate Dungeon Meshi's lack of fanservice. There are so many points in the series that could have been made pervy, and yet the only upskirt we ever see is Senshi, and the only boobs are on demihuman monsters. Some of them sexualized, but I can't imagine drawing a succubus without some amount of sexualization.

    Also do shows like Castlevania or Cyberpunk Edgerunners count as anime?

    Is a hot dog a sandwich? It depends on how you define it. I'm a descriptivist, so my position is that as long as people refer to something as anime, it's anime. That includes genuine Japanese animations, and non-Japanese animations that are clearly influenced by it. Like, there's a pretty stark contrast between Adventure Time and Boondocks. One of those can reasonably be called anime, even though they're both American shows.

    3 votes

  17. Comment on US President Joe Biden's 2024 State of the Union address in ~news

    Starman2112
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    Britt's response was unsettling. It looked and sounded AI generated. I don't think it is, but it vaguely reminds me of a video I saw a few months ago. (relevant portion at 19:50, in case the link...

    Britt's response was unsettling. It looked and sounded AI generated. I don't think it is, but it vaguely reminds me of a video I saw a few months ago. (relevant portion at 19:50, in case the link doesn't work for you) Everything about it just feels so artificial and forced, and the camera panning ever so slightly every few seconds bothers me a lot more than it should.

    She looked and sounded so much more natural just a few minutes before. What changed?

    4 votes

  18. Comment on What irrational video game requirements do you have? in ~games

    Starman2112
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    Grinding can turn what would be a masterpiece to me into an uninstall. I am deeply, deeply interested in Remnant: From the Ashes, all of the gameplay in between boss fights is great, but I haven't...

    Grinding can turn what would be a masterpiece to me into an uninstall. I am deeply, deeply interested in Remnant: From the Ashes, all of the gameplay in between boss fights is great, but I haven't beaten a single boss on my own yet. If I'm on the easiest difficulty, I should be able to move forward without having to backtrack and grind.

    1 vote

  19. Comment on What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga) in ~anime

    Starman2112
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    Started Stand Alone Complex a few days ago. Seeing how many movies, OVAs, and series there were made me hesitant to start it, but I finally decided to look up the watch order and it's actually...

    Started Stand Alone Complex a few days ago. Seeing how many movies, OVAs, and series there were made me hesitant to start it, but I finally decided to look up the watch order and it's actually pretty straightforward. I'm 10 episodes in, I already know it's gonna get a 10/10, and this time it isn't just me overrating it.

    There's something I find so fascinating about turn-of-the-century media portraying the near future, seeing what they got right and what they got wrong. People using flip phones and CDs in a time where VR chat is a thing. Come to think of it, I haven't ever seen a pre-iPhone series accurately predict modern cell phones. Are modern cell phones that futuristic? Was VR more predictable than touchscreen slabs with cameras and flashlights?

    2 votes

  20. Comment on I got paid $0.33 for confirming with Google that I got a haircut where I did and paid with a card in ~tech

    Starman2112
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    My uneducated opinion is that it's akin to a production line. They know every time you visit that barbershop, and for how long, let alone every other place they track you at. They just took one...

    My uneducated opinion is that it's akin to a production line. They know every time you visit that barbershop, and for how long, let alone every other place they track you at. They just took one unit off the production line and paid $0.33 for the data equivalent of quality testing. What we're doing isn't just telling Google we got a haircut for $0.33, we're also verifying that the data they had about everyone else going to that barbershop was also accurate.

    Which I'm not against. They're gonna pay someone that $0.33 for that quality testing, and it may as well be my minimum wage making ass

    10 votes