I came here to make this exact quote. Good job bro!

It’s estimated that mice have 70 million to 100 million neurons in their brains. They are capable of feeling pain and have social hierarchy. They also experience emotions like fear, pleasure, and anxiety. (We use them in pharmacology models of many mental illnesses.)

Have you ever heard the phrase, “the neurons that fire together, wire together” ? Our neurons are in a constant feedback loop with the environment we experience. Our experiences shape how our neurons make interconnected networks, which then impacts how we behave upon the environment.

If those neurons connected to the computer chip only ever experience playing the game “DOOM,” how would they know about anything else? How could they know about pain without having limbs to innervate and experience the pain with? How could they have a social hierarchy without others to interact with? We may as well be god to those neurons on the PC chip, because we are controlling the entire world they have access to.

What I find sad is that our society is ok with hooking living cells up to a computer to make smarter computers, but has a problem with ethically harvesting stem cells to be used to treat diseases.

It has to be a full fetus with a heartbeat to have rights. /s In all seriousness, the human brain is estimated to have 86 billion neurons.

Thank you for this.

I live in the USA and I am 46 years old. I owned a car for a brief 3 year period when I moved away from NY to Dallas, TX. (The public transit there was abysmal, and the roads were way more dangerous for riding a bike than they were in NY.) The rest of the time it’s been nothing but bicycles.

In 2000 I bought a brand new bike, spent $1400 on it and had it for 23 years until it was stolen. At the time, when I bought it, I was making 26K a year. I paid cash; that was what was within my means to own something without having to pay extra for it through a loan. In 2023 I bought a new (electric) bike, paid $1000 cash, no loan. I make 55K now. That’s what was within my means to own something outright, without having to pay a middle man for the privilege of borrowing money. No car loan hanging over my head, no worries about gas prices, or paying insurance and registration for the privilege to drive. The most I spend on transit is $65 a month during the worst weather month, (Feb,) in the winter. Other months is usually $13-26 when I am mostly riding the bike everywhere.

As a 20 something year old growing up in NYC, cars were unaffordable in 2000, and they are even more unaffordable now in 2026 for me as a 46 year old. Between the insurance, registration, inspections, fluctuations in gas prices, a loan payment, along with being responsible for repairs if something goes wrong and be stranded to boot, I’d be living in my car because I wouldn’t be able to afford rent.

The entire automobile industry is death to us by 1000 cuts. Cities have been built around cars, instead of being built around the needs of people. I refuse to fucking participate in it. I’ll be cycling until the day I die.

In 2000 I bought a brand new bike, spent $1400 on it and had it for 23 years until it was stolen. At the time, when I bought it, I was making 26K a year. I paid cash; that was what was within my means to own something without having to pay extra for it through a loan. In 2023 I bought a new (electric) bike, paid $1000 cash, no loan. I make 55K now. That’s what was within my means to own something outright, without having to pay a middle man for the privilege of borrowing money. No car loan hanging over my head, no worries about gas prices, or paying insurance and registration for the privilege to drive. You are 100% right about people living above their means. If the weather is really bad, I take public transit. The most I spend on transit is $65 a month during 1 month in the winter. Other months is usually $13-26 when I am mostly riding the bike everywhere. Me being a cheap bastard about transit affords me the ability to live 3 miles from my job, (higher rent,) and affords me the opportunity to travel and take a small vacation on yearly basis. I can afford to pay my bills with cash because I make a point not to live above my means.

I’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating:

Refusing to release titles to the PC isn’t going to make me run out and purchase a console. There are tons of games on PC. My backlog is long enough that I can live happily without whatever kind of bullshit Nintendo, Sony, and Xbox are trying to peddle. Assuming I did care about a specific title, and it’s being gate locked by console exclusivity, I’ll fucking pirate it. That’s what you get when you decide you don’t want to sell to a specific market. Sony, Microslop, and Nintendo can all get fucked.

Sounds like this was caused by an altercation between two students.

The family said the incident stemmed from an earlier dispute between Sylas and another student.

My money is on that other student convincing or hiring thugs to beat up Sylas.

I don’t view this meme in the context of the most recent election, or current administration; I view it with 40 years of political policy and context I’ve lived through. Over decades, I find this meme to be mostly accurate. I was born at the tail end of Carter’s admin, for context.

1. Reagan gave us trickle down economics and destabilization of south America and the Middle East with the Nicaragua contra scandal to funnel weapons to Iraq and Iran. Our tax dollars being used to kill brown people. During the 1980s, the United States aided Saddam Hussein’s regime primarily to counter Iran, providing billions in economic aid, dual-use technology, and crucial battlefield intelligence, particularly during the Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988). The U.S. supported Iraq’s military efforts, ensuring Baghdad did not lose to Iran, despite knowledge of chemical weapons usage. (Didn’t we eventually fight a war to get rid of Dadsam? Oops 😬)

2. The first Bush was also involved in the contra scandal. Just before leaving office, President Bush pardoned six Reagan administration officials, including former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, who were charged with crimes related to the Iran-Contra affair.

3. Clinton, Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999: Repealed the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act, allowing commercial banks, securities firms, and insurance companies to consolidate. This removed controls on banks that allowed them to over speculate, and allowed consolidation of industries to be too big to fail. (This set is up for the supprime mortgage disaster that left tax payers holding the bag. Oops.) Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000: Exempted over-the-counter derivatives—including credit default swaps—from regulation. Telecommunications Act of 1996: Significantly deregulated the broadcasting and telecommunications markets. (The deregulation stipulation was that these companies would be rolling out broadband in exchange for deregulation and tax breaks. We still have communities in the USA that don’t have broadband. The telecoms laughed all the way to the bank, and jacked their prices way up. Oops.) President Bill Clinton’s administration (1993–2001) was involved in several military conflicts and interventions, primarily focused on peacekeeping in the Balkans, stopping ethnic cleansing, and responding to terrorism. Key actions included NATO bombing campaigns in Bosnia (1995) and Kosovo (1999), the failed mission in Somalia (1993), the occupation of Haiti (1994), and cruise missile strikes against Iraq and terrorist sites in Afghanistan/Sudan.

4. Bush the second coming, Iraq War (2003–2011): Launched based on assertions that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and threatened peace. The invasion swiftly removed Saddam, but sparked a long insurgency and sectarian violence. There were no weapons of mass destruction. It was bullshit that helped his buddies in haliburton get rich on the tax payers dime bombing brown people. Oh, remember Guantanamo and the torture? How about the slow response to hurricane Katrina that devastated new Orleans? Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, was convicted of obstruction of justice and perjury in a case involving the leaking of CIA agent Valerie Plame’s identity. (Oops we sabotaged our ability to gather intelligence.) Dismissal of U.S. Attorneys in 2006, the Department of Justice fired eight U.S. attorneys, raising allegations of political manipulation within the Department of Justice.

5. Obama gave us the affordable care act, and capitulated to the insurance industries by not pushing harder for single payer care. Authorized air strikes in Libya (2011) and later against ISIS in Syria and Iraq. The Dems had full control at the start of his presidency and wasted it trying to placate Republicans in the interests of bipartisanship. He was the tamest president in the past half century.

6. We all know what utter trash the 1st trump presidency was, so I won’t rehash it here.

7. Biden. His entire platform was, we aren’t trump. He honestly wasn’t that bad in terms of initiating military actions.

8. House and Senate during the second coming of trump. They threw away the leverage they had during the shit down for the promise that repubs would revisit tax subsidies that made the affordable care plans affordable for Americans. The Republican administration let the tax credits expire. How about all of the Dems that voted yes on trumps cabinet pics?

Have Dems been better? Yes, but not consistently. Lately there is not much difference between the parties.

OMG this is hysterical

I have briefly tried path of exile. It is also a good game, but maybe not for the casual aRPG player.

What I find really strange about PoE is that active skills you cast are tied to putting gems in your gear. As I continued to play, I found it frustrating. I might find a piece of gear that has good stats for my character, but the gem sockets are the wrong color for my gems that contain my skills. This necessitated grinding materials to re-roll the gem sockets, which was RNG. I found this to be a clunky way to change your skills too.

In grim dawn, you acquire active skills and stats as you level up and put points in your mastery. So if you want a skill, you base mastery must be raised high enough to unlock it, then you put a point in the skill. Putting additional points in the skill makes it stronger.

In terms of leveling up and making your character stronger, the system for spending points was pretty daunting in PoE. Resetting your points gets more and more expensive as your character levels up in PoE. This juxtaposed with the gem system for active skills just felt super clunky.

In grim dawn, leveling up your mastery gives you stats like physique, cunning, and spirit. If you are putting points into a base mastery for an arcanist, those base mastery points will overall give you more spirit per level; which means more energy regen for casting, and more magic damage. If you’re putting points into base mastery for a night blade, over time that gives you more cunning, for weapons based attacks, crit, and bleed. Putting points into base mastery for the soilder gives you more physique overtime, which gives you health regen, and the ability to avoid attacks. What I’m getting at here is the mastery system gives you the correct balance of stats. (Remember, you get to pick a second class/mastery at level 10.) As you level, you also get points to put into your characters base physique, cunning, or spirit which can help make you more well rounded, or boost a stat your are lacking due to the class choices you make. (Like a soldier + nightblade give you way more physique and cunning, and you might be running out of energy because you’re lacking spirit, you have a way to put points into spirit only to rectify this.) Reclaiming mastery points has a fixed cost and isn’t expensive the way it is in PoE.

The class/mastery system vs cost to make changes felt rewarding. It encouraged experimentation. PoE wanting/needing to make changes felt more punishing. I found in PoE I often waited to add points to my skill tree for a long time because I was worried about gem socket color on gear i might find, and the types of active skills I would find. Eventually I’d get locked into a play style and experimenting wasn’t rewarding in PoE.

The complexity of PoE eventually caused me to put it down. Grim dawn has the right balance of being more complex than Diablo 3, and simpler than PoE. Easy to pick up, with lots of depth too.

Refusing to release titles to the PC isn’t going to make me run out and purchase a console. There are tons of games on PC. My backlog is long enough that I can live happily without whatever kind of bullshit Nintendo, Sony, and Xbox are trying to peddle. Assuming I did care about a specific title, and it’s being gate locked by console exclusivity, I’ll fucking pirate it. Sony, Microslop, and Nintendo can all get fucked.

Grim dawn is an amazing game - 2,156 hours, (90 days,) played and counting. I can’t wait for the new expansion.

Here is a link to my review, with a copy paste below.

What happens when diablo, torchlight, and titan quest gang bang a video game developer and you’re not quite sure who the father is? Grim Dawn.

This game, hands down gets a 10/10. Absolutely worth purchasing at full price. Here’s why.

1. The class system is amazing. You can select a single class, or you can pick up a secondary class which allows for hybrid builds. The class system is similar to titan quest, in fact the game uses the TQ engine. (I own TQ, I haven’t play much, but now I am curios to pick it back up because Grim Dawn is so awesome.) The class system creates so much depth with varied playstyles.

Added for copy/paste; here is the full list of classes/masteries. Arcanist, Demolitionist, Nightblade, Occultist, Shaman, Soldier, Inquisitor, Necromancer, Oathkeeper, Berserker.

2. SO MUCH LORE. Really! I loved reading all the little notes you find scattered about the world. Many of the NPCs you interact with are pretty memorable, and add depth to the story.

3. Amazing art and music really help create the gritty and desperate world that is Grim Dawn. Boss battles feel intense. Dungeons and secret lairs feel creepy.

4. 3 different difficulties if you like achievement hunting. Crucible mode if you want to do a little PVP, or co-op crucible. 3 different crucible difficulties.

5. Despite how RNG the gear system drops can be, you have the ability to buy back talent and devotion points to adjust for gear drops. Skill bonuses on gear work well with the class/talent system. (Aside from the class/mastery system, there are a series of constelations you can also earn points for. Some constelations can be linked with your skills from your mastery class giving it additional effects.)

6. Gear is tradable. If you haven’t been blessed by RNGesus, you can trade stored gear with total strangers in multiplayer crucible. I love this. I love being able to give gear to someone that might be able to use it instead of letting it collect dust in my chest. Likewise, I have been freely given some pretty nice pieces too.

7. The community is AMAZING.

In summary, I love Grim Dawn. Grim Dawn, please marry me and let me have your babies.

Refusing to release titles to the PC isn’t going to make me run out and purchase a console. There are tons of games on PC. My backlog is long enough that I can live happily without whatever kind of bullshit Nintendo, Sony, and Xbox are trying to peddle. Assuming I did care about a specific title, and it’s being gate locked by console exclusivity, I’ll fucking pirate it. Sony, Microslop, and Nintendo can all get fucked.

Yes.

In the winter I have no control over the heat. My radiator has a direct line to the pits of hell. So the windows are open all winter long. They are open in the spring and fall as long as the temp inside will be comfortable. Closed in the summer because AC.

AMD, You were the Chosen One! It was said that you would destroy the cryptominers, not join them! Bring balance to the video card market, not leave it in darkness!

I slice a fresh cucumber and put it into the leftover brine overnight. MOAR pickles.

This is amazing!

You look very nice!