Been a while. Anything interesting that happened here?

I'll be in London 3 times during weekends in September and October as Bethesda has hired me to cast some Quake tournaments. Can probably meet up if I love you and find the time. We meet at the big clock at 3 bongs.

Anything we can do about the site looking like this every single day? Manually banning the accounts or deleting the posts is a tedious waste of time and doesn't do anything as the bots just come back or make new accounts. Since they all tend to come from the same parts of the world that we have no legitimate users from and fill out every piece of profile information (all these bots have a Yahoo Instant Messenger account tied to their profile, for example), maybe we can just blanket ban accounts that fit any of these criteria.

No they're not. Stop listening to people who couldn't even tell you what copyright is but are convinced this is the end of the internet because someone on Facebook said so.

Title says it all. This has been on my mind after reading Kernel's thread about how he'd struggle to afford $700 to register his truck. As you might know, this isn't uncommon at all. Some reports have found that over 60% of Americans are unable to cover unexpected costs or emergencies of over a thousand dollars, which is pretty staggering. I looked it up for my own country as well and found that those numbers are far lower (around 20%) but still too high not to be cause for concern.

So I figured I'd ask you guys the same. If you had to pay $500 for some unforseen circumstances (medical costs, home repairs, unexpected bills, loss of a job...), would you struggle doing so? What about $1000? $5000? $10,000? If not, how do you think you'd manage? Ask family / friends to lend you the money, take out a loan, sell some things, take on a second job, dig into your savings?

Game's alright so far, but:

- weapon degradation is a horrible mechanic.
- menu management and swapping stuff is awful (which doesn't help since you've got all the cooking and whatnot to do)
- fighting monsters already feels like a chore 3 hours in because they'll just respawn, you won't get anything good from them anyways, and you'll just break your weapons doing so
- stamina runs out way too quickly (I imagine this well get better later on but it's still a pain)
- exploration so far doesn't feel like it's been terribly rewarding
- abilities have felt underwhelming outside of the dedicated shrines

That said, the game looks good and the tech is pretty solid. Nowhere near a GOAT game though. Early impressions are a 7, maybe 8 out of 10.

Been a while since we've done of these and I just put together my second PC so I figured I'd start one. Post pics and list specs and details while you're at it, or give feedback to whoever.


The room is still pretty bare and needs more decorating but it's function over form for now. It's basically my attic room right underneath the roof with the other stuff and consoles in the main living room downstairs. Another proper office chair and monitor (144hz) to go next to the laptop are on their way. There's two computers for a dual PC setup to stream with (one PC to run the game, the other to do the encoding and streaming) with a gtx 1080 / i7 7700k / 16GB 3200mhz RAM / 970 Evo m.2 SSD in one and a gtx 1070ti / Ryzen 2700x / 16 GB 3000mhz RAM / 860 Evo SSD in the other. The screens are an Asus 144hz 1ms one for most games and an LG Ultrawide for other stuff. Sennheiser headphones, Logitech mouse (G403), keyboard (G810) and webcam (920 HD). Some noise cancelling foam on the wall to improve quality on the Blue Snowball mic.


The three current gen consoles (Switch, Xbox One and PS4) on a Sony Bravia TV. The games themselves and things like my Quake stuff are off-picture. Got a custom piece of Dark Souls art and things like that around the place.

I've also got this Elgato green screen to chroma key out the background. Really cool and collapsible screen to chroma key out the background of the cam.

I'm putting together a second computer for a dual PC setup for streaming and whatnot. It'll also be used for gaming (primarily by the girlfriend). Currently thinking of putting a Ryzen 2700x and GTX 1070 in it, but I'm also tempted to just turn it into the new main PC with a 8700k and 1080ti or so. Thoughts for streaming and whatnot?

Going to start my own .ltd company soon. I'm keeping my current job since I want that PhD before anything else but I think it's worth it for the additional esports talent/casting and legal counsel I do.

Anyone's got any experience with or advice on this? Also, suggest names for Flee.ltd.

Recommend them. I just got a 2DS XL. Pokemon supersun and megamoon are the only ones that come to mind.

No it didn't. Don't be dumb.

I never realized this wasn't common knowledge. If you didn't already know, you do now.

"New research measuring the importance of religion in 109 countries spanning the entire 20th century has reignited an age-old debate around the link between secularisation and economic growth. The study, published in Science Advances, has shown that a decline in religion influences a country's future economic prosperity.

The findings revealed that secularisation precedes economic development and not the other way around. Although this does not demonstrate a causal pathway, it does rule out the reverse.

Furthermore, the findings show that secularisation only predicts future economic development when it is accompanied by a respect and tolerance for individual rights. Countries where abortion, divorce and homosexuality are tolerated have a greater chance of future economic prosperity."

Source: Bristol University.

Makes a lot of sense but nice to see research underpinning it too.

In the past few days, most of it in just 24 hours:

>Boris Johnson, the UK Foreign Secretary, resigns over Brexit and states concerns that the UK is headed "for the status of a colony".

>David Davis, the UK Minister for Brexit, resigns as the country is shaping up to "hand control" over to the EU regarding much of the economy and other areas.

>Steve Baker, the no.2 responsible for Brexit, has resigned as he feels his department is being blindsided and the UK is put in a weak negotiating position.

>British Finance Investments dropped 26% in a year while France and Germany soared.

>Latest revealed version of Brexit plan would not allow flexible deviation from EU rules to set up new service/trade agreements with the US.

Marvelous. A political decision rivaled in insanity and folly only by Trump's election is going swimmingly.

STRONG AND STABLE, or something.

Independent journalism and alternative news is something I've seen a lot of people rave about recently. With many deriding the mainstream media (MSM) for various reasons, I've been looking into some of these alternative sources myself. Unfortunately, I haven't warmed up to them much and remain unconvinced of their value over other sources of information. In short, I have three main issues with them.

1. They are independent only in the most narrow sense of the word. They may not be part of an association or work with an editorial board, but this doesn't mean they're free from external influence whatsoever. I'd even say they're more affected by (peer) pressure and coutsider leverage than traditional sources of media. Independent or alternative does not mean they're neutral, objective or fair, and much of this has to do with how important community support is for them.


So while they are independent in the strictest sense, these outlets are very vulnerable to external influence and often have little to no choice but to continue covering specific topics from a specific angle to feed an established narrative that will be supported by their community. As we're moving further away from the center and closer to the extremes, this is very detrimental to the reliability, accuracy and quality of their content.

2. Their lack of accountability. Like it or not, but the traditional media do have pretty good mechanisms in place to stop abuse. Editorial boards, review procedures, protection of sources, codes of conduct and standards of journalistic integrity, press boards, media watchdogs, procedures to file complaints... Of course, the media still messes up. But more often than not you'll see people being held accountable. Articles will be retracted or corrected in light of new information, apologies will be issued, and certain standards of quality reporting are often enforced. The people employed are usually trained writers and journalists who have received training on doing research and applying right methodologies. Yet in the alternative media, none of that really exists. Fake news will go unchallenged, incorrect information doesn't get amended, there's no sanctions for abuse, no standards of integrity, no nothing stopping anyone from jumping the gun... It's against their interests to do anything like that. You're not going to remove a popular youtube video making you money every day because you made a mistake, nor are you going to take accountability when something incorrect still achieves the desired purpose, puts your name out there and garners community support. And that too should seriously worry anyone who cares about the truth.

3. The often low quality of the content. As a result of the first two points, the actual information they put out is often highly slanted. Positions to the opposite are ignored or underrepresented. Points are often cherrypicked and made with lacking knowledge on a certain topic. Leading questions, thumbnails and titles frame the media from start to finish ("now I'm not saying it's like this, buuuut I'm just suggestively asking loaded questions"). Sources are often missing or of really low quality. Covering the recent Tommy Robinson news, should I involve a legal expert from the UK who actually knows what they're talking about (as several legal blogs covered in great detail) or should I get an American MAGA activist and lawyer who supported Tommy and has no expertise on this topic on the show? Hmm... Covering the topic of gun control, should I get some knowledgable criminologists on here or should I instead feature a gun owner fighting against gun policy, an NRA instructor and a pro-gun youtuber with the other side being represented only by selected street interviews at a march of ignorant people. The answer is pretty clear. Your viewers want metaphorical blood, they don't want someone knowledgable going against the narrative. They want to laugh at some random girl saying all assault rifle 100 magazine round ghost guns should be banned, not have an actual expert provide them with research and hard facts on how the most comprehensive study in history just found very strong evidence in favor of certain types of gun control. They want the MAGA man lament the horrors of Robinson, not a specialized UK lawyer explaining the actual proceedings and confirm that he did get a lawyer and trial and wasn't placed on what amounts to death row. And so that's what you give them.

tl;dr independent / alternative news is by and large unreliable. The lack of accountability, the extremely selective coverage of topics, the strong financial need to satisfy the direct supporters with a clear and biased narrative, and the often low quality and massively slanted reporting of topics are some of the main issues I see. The traditional mainstream media remains the better source of information by an enormous margin. While all news should be taken with a grain of salt, the alternative sources require a lot more than just a single grain.

Interested in your thoughts since I know there's several people here who follow these outlets.