I don’t disagree. My last job was using winget to update some things. I raised the concept of trusting otherwise unknown updates, but I was pushed aside for the quick utility.

I’m only a student of cybersecurity, but I harshly judge my former “security expert” on far more than that.

Like fuck, the help desk has to install every patch, to every machine, through a spreadsheet?

No, deploy that shit from a server. Fuck.

In a way, I’m glad I left. In another way, I would really like a pay check again… and I moved to a well, tech illiterate state. Fuck me.

I picked up Veilguard because I enjoyed Origins and Inquisition. The second game… at this point, I don’t think I took it right and its my problem and I need to give it another chance.

I’m still very early into the game, but the only “woke” thing I’ve seen so far is variable gender identity during character creation.

You want to play a “woman” who looks masculine, with atypical male traits, even a penis, and a deep voice? You know what, I’m glad the option is open to people. It doesn’t vibe with me personally, but I’m glad that people I care about can make a character that is “them,” because who hasn’t made themselves in an RPG at some point in their life, best they were able.

Again, I’m early to it, but that is all of the “woke” shit I’ve seen.

For the record, I have friends and family in the LGTBQ+(whatever, doesn’t matter) that I support.

I don’t want hate in my heart, and I’ve worked very hard to overcome some biases that came from my more “southern” upbringing. Hell, one of those biased views from the past is now openly trans, and I was the only family member they talked to because they couldn’t talk to anyone else.

I’m imperfect, as all humans are, but it isn’t hard to fucking TRY, just a little, to realize that someone else’s self image and happiness doesn’t affect mine other than what pronouns I use to refer to them. Fuck, its not hard. Just don’t be a dick.

Yeah, TNO is absolutely an individual character you happen to be in the shoes of.

Without spoiling anything, the game IS TNO’s story.

If that doesn’t interest you, best of luck in your refund request.

That being said, I’ve only gotten around to getting one tattoo in my life - The rune of torment.

Oh fuck me, I’m still studying to red team basic computing.

I take it you’ve never had to log into a printer with an AD account before?

Yeah, I went out to 32 characters once. Until I needed to work on a printer.

As a Texan, in a purple area, this doesn’t surprise me from Oklahoma.

I had the displeasure of driving through OK to get to my late father in law’s hospital bed before he passed.

I ended up blowing through a toll entry because they didn’t accept paper money or cards. Just coins. I went to the little building to try to pay my way, and it appeared to be abandoned.

Mother fuckers, I can buy a legal variant of weed with my fucking watch. Coins? Join this century please.

My expectations of Bethesda, since Oblivion, has been as a mod platform.

Gimme a new engine with updated graphics and great mod support and let the community does what it does best.

I’ve thought of this, but don’t have the wherewithal to actually make a project come to fruition.

I’m also not a lawyer, but I’ve read multiple articles on this, and it doesn’t seem like any legal violation. Corporation got lazy, didn’t confirm where 10m in royalties went and under what circumstance, and got burned.

Finally a corp gets scammed by the common man.

I say good on him.

We live in troubled times, the planet is overheating at a rate that it might affect my life more than being more uncomfortable in the summer. And that’s Texas summers at that.

There is an island of plastic refuse in the ocean bigger than some countries.

I saw the home computer come to the living room and the internet be birthed.

If you were to ask if I was jaded as a kid, already? Yeah. Around 7 years old.

It isn’t getting better. Corporations claw for more and more at the expense of the people and the planet.

I hope the younger generations can lead the charge of change, but for me… I don’t have the time or energy to play games most days, let alone change the planet.

And for those who will say, “Aren’t you just part of the problem then?” Sadly yes, I am. I try to make changes when I can, but I fear changing the small environment of my home will not be enough.

I worked in Yellowstone for a season. People are idiots and despite being told that the animals are wild beasts and we’re just visiting their home, they think these animals are tame when they wander into civilization.

They’re not. They never will be.

Being late for work because of wild life is common, and while verified, no one gets shit for it.

One day I had to call my boss and say I’d be late because there was a bison blocking the exit of my employee dorm. She just said be safe and get in when you can. Bison wandered off 5 minutes later and I went into my shift. All good, no further questions.

When the local elks gave birth and nested in Mammoth Hot Springs for the first week of their babies lives, it was super hectic and crazy. The elk moms were vicious. Went to pop out for a smoke during my shift, and rapidly realized the usual spot was no longer friendly. Employee rules were relaxed and smoking in front of the hotel was allowed, briefly, because safety was paramount.

In the same time span, me and a few friends were walking back from the employee pub to our dorms and we ended up getting trapped on the loading dock for the employee cafeteria, because elk don’t climb stairs. We had to be rescued by rangers because we were essentially besieged by a vicious (protective) elk.

But you can’t stop a foreign tourist from putting a baby on top of a wild bison if they don’t understand English. You can just call the local ranger station to send out rangers to try to keep people safe.

As a side note, national parks are FEDERAL land. Everything is handled in a federal court house, with federal charges, and rangers most certainly are federal LEOs. This includes being stupid with the wild life.

Not to mention, it is entirely possible to get home from work, play, and then realize you are now late for work.

Its just engaging on a level that most modern game’s can’t hope to achieve.

Hell, I’ve installed a game (old), then installed mods, then resolved all the mod issues, then launch it to realize I don’t actually want to play it.

Factorio? Mods are easy, and vanilla is enough to keep someone occupied and happy if they lack internet or something.

Its light weight too, it costs me virtually nothing to install it on anything that can run it.

I know, a problem that faces every single American, right?

Family Values… yeah, Trump values his families genitals. Look at his “relationship” with his daughter throughout the years.

Work has been difficult, mostly due to coworkers lately.

If I’m blaring Rage, like I have all week, I’m ready to walk or to burn the place down. But I’m a lazy man.

Or I mean, Shodan exists. I’m sure the gov has better.

A theoretical botnet I was looking at on github used shodan to identify possible targets to infect.

Honestly, I pay for top of line parts. I realize I’m limitiing myself on good games, but…

I paid for this shit, I try to keep top of the line because it is still my hobby (though, my time doesn’t allow anymore) and I want to push my hardware.

Low bit games, however good, don’t get a chance because… god damn, I expect better. I’m a 80s baby, and 90s kid. Nickelodeon early nick toons are my jam.

I paid for it, let me experience it.

I want to PUSH my hardware, and fine tune for play-ability, as expenses allow.

That being said, I love MMOs and realize how hard they can be to “upgrade” for all users… but damn, I don’t have the time or energy anymore. I wish I could raid EQ bosses like I was 13 on summer break, but I fucking can’t.

At the end of the day, I hope creative minds create new paradigms in gaming with limited resources. At this point, it is the only way we will grow. AAA studios make rehashes of former successes, which fail, and no one wants them. Gameplay has died, its been several years, and as an “old-head” (Quest for Glory 1 was my first PC game, with parser prompts) and I miss games. Even those are simple by today’s standard - but they still stand up in a shorter format.

For a real medical answer, I was, at one point, put on GHB and a Stimulant under the theory that an issue that took 9 years to diagnose (epilepsy, did not present typically). Since I had issues with cataplexy, which is only rarely seen with other issues, this made sense. Turns out it can be a side effect of some psych meds, as I’m also bipolar.

GHB knocks you out in moments, and you’ll wake up 4 hours later. Time for the second dose. 4 more hours. Like fucking clockwork. It was the only time in my life I was consistently on time anywhere I’ve ever worked. Wasted in a Walmart auto shop.

Then stimulants (amphetamine analogue) were supposed to keep a narcoleptic awake during the day.

I’m only on 11 because I want to learn it from a support perspective for work.

I am not enjoying it. I swear I have to reboot multiple times a day, against Win 10 which was only for updates… or linux, and basically never lol.

I will cheat in single player games. I give it a solid “first time” unmodded play through. If it’s good, I’ll do other “paths” or “builds” depending on the game.

Then make it a little more… interesting, or different even.

Then you work up to Total Conversions, and thats fucking great for longevity.

Then at a certain point, its quality of life. I don’t want to spend 20 hours getting to the “interesting” part of the game. I can no longer get even just an hour to dive into a game uninterrupted. I love immersion; in the past it was an unhealthy escape mechanism, now when I get it, its a breath of not dealing with my day to day shit for just a little bit. Life always gets in the way of living, at least the way we want or need to in the moment. But I digress…

But cheating in a multiplayer game really defeats the purpose of multiplayer. An unbalanced play field isn’t fun for anyone.

I’d like to see more games embrace a modding community. If you and a few friends want to play with mods A, B, D, and F, more power to you guys. Keep enjoying that game.

Just don’t force an imbalance on other people.

I need a slightly less secure walkthrough to allow, essentially, android auto and google maps to operate.

I did without for a while, and it wasn’t pretty.

Lets just say I went from a sketchy hospital district to a very sketchy dead end in a neighborhood that had lookouts. Working nights, this was not a great time to drop in unannounced.

I was in grade school. Doing an experiment where we sliced off a section of fruit to put under a microscope.

My dumb ass, with a plastic butter knife, managed to get the worst cut my thumb has ever seen.

That thing was rough and ragged, and got infected and was a bitch to heal.

Just saying, with enough stupidity, you can really harm yourself with harmless objects, lol.