Much as the tech is hated here, one could create an automated defluffed entertainment news website using LLMs to do the defluffing.

Of course that doesn't guarantee that the actual information in the articles is factual in the first place

Thanks for the reminder to rewatch Dogma

The people who buy new vehicles usually do it for the warranty that lasts several years so the cost structure of ownership is entirely predictable.

You can also buy a 25 year old Volkswagen 1.9 tdi. Some years your cost of ownership will be fuel and oil changes (and those cars basically take no fuel), but at some point you'll need new unit injectors costing 2-3x the car's value for a set. Will it be the month after you buy the car, or will it be in 5 years? It's a lottery and you're better off replacing all 4 when it comes to that, rather than doing one at a time.

Cars in the range of 5-15 years of age are even worse because they're more complex and some of the parts are super expensive. And it takes around ~10-15 years to know if an engine or transmission design is truly reliable (if it has big problems, we might find out sooner).

I'm going to use German cars as an example again because those are the ones I know best, but for example when BMW had the M57 diesel, that was basically the best modern diesel engine. 500k km? 700k km? No problem whatsoever. Only real issues would be the occasional injectors, turbo and maybe some coolant hoses, but those usually started surfacing after 300k or 400k km, at which point you expect SOME issues.

Then N57 came out as its replacement and a few years later we knew about the potential chain and valvetrain issues. Kinda sucks, because they'd also moved the chain to the rear of the engine, but you can get it done for a few hundred euros yourself, or somewhere between 1500-3000€ at a shop. But it took nearly a decade before we knew about the crankshaft issues and those are an engine killer. I'm talking a full rebuild of the bottom end with a NEW, not re-ground crankshaft since these have a special coating from the factory IIRC. Prepare around 10000€, which incidentally could be more than the car is worth by the time you find yourself doing this work.

Now that engine's replacement, the B57, has been out for 8 or 9 years and as far as is currently known, it has nearly no typical issues beyond some plastic coolant pipes that get brittle over time. But we don't know what other common issues might start surfacing as more and more of those engines reach high mileages.

Now if what you're thinking is "just buy a Toyota and you'll have no trouble", well, Toyota has made absolutely horrible engines in the past, for example the 2.2 diesel. Head gasket failure was notoriously common. Again, something that you wouldn't necessarily know when you're buying a 5 year old car because the issues haven't started surfacing en masse yet.

Presumably you'd be sleeping in a tent, so the "sleeping outside in the rain for days" bit isn't too bad. Carrying everything is a pain though, particularly if it's a cold season and you'd have to carry a bunch of furs to help maintain body heat while sleeping. Only real way to do it in that case is to have an extra horse for cargo, which of course further complicates logistics

Might very well be that they were talking about the PS6 since the announced date was 2028 and they'll probably have the PS6 come out around that time or even before?

Remember, PS4 release date to PS5 release date was 7 years. PS3 release date to PS4 release date was 7 years. Logically they'll try to shove the PS6 down our throats starting November 2027 and any new games coming out on PS6 only, are going to be digital only. Game releases aiming for Christmas 2027 are still expected to target both platforms, hence free to ship both physical and digital.

It's just a single lost sale so it doesn't matter to Sony or R*, but I was considering getting a PS5 to play some Sony first-party games and GTA VI assuming good reviews... But then we got the digital-only announcements for the future of PlayStation and GTA VI... And apparently GTA VI is going to lock you out of some singleplayer content if you don't get the ultimate edition or whatever... Yuck.

This was going to be my first ever console, as I've only owned PCs so far in my life. Okay I also had a Gameboy Advance SP lol

The demo for the game at least is English-only. It's literally only the Steam description page like he said.

At worst this is slightly misleading because someone might expect it to have translations in the game as well, but quite literally, such a non-issue to nitpick an indie dev over.

Well I suppose for most people hiking is a thing they do a week or two out of the year, or maybe they go on short hikes where they don't even need to camp.

Honestly, I think there’s something to be said for going back to “little old lady in the community who matches up young singles.”

Ah, the AI algorithm. Aged Intelligence. Or amo(u)r intelligence

no Linux People Meet?

Are you sure there's no transfemme one?

I've been on dating apps a lot and I've seen tons of the ones mentioning height. Standard is "under 180 swipe left".

Far from a majority, but maybe 5-10%? And that's just the ones that mention it in the bio, some may still have prejudice against shorter guys but not mention it in the bio.

Gave up on the apps myself, I'm a lot better in person and you can't tell I'm 2 centimeters under the legal lower limit for manhood (aka just under 180 cm).

I know but I'm also too lazy lol

"Hurr durr I'm incredibly privileged and the job market has been kind to me so it'll be kind to everyone"

You realize that most people can't just drop everything they're doing and get a degree, right? And a lot of people have jobs that require them to actually be present more than a few hours a week so they can't do it while staying employed either?

A bachelor's degree alone takes three years. Then you're gonna have an internship at some point before anyone even considers you able to do a job in another field. How is that "doesn't take years to get into another field"?

The undeniable and obvious fact you’re avoiding is that loads of people have jobs that they find satisfying in a “life well lived” kind of way.

And there are billions in the world who don't have that.

There are loads of corporations who’s employees believe in what they’re doing.

Yea, but they're still working for a corporation. They're all still contributing to the same machine, doesn't matter if they're directly working for a tech company or not.

Your timed piss break anecdote is not an example of a satisfying job. A job where you make minimum wage is not an example of a satisfying job.

It was an example of a job where you actually do good for the world. That's what those kinds of jobs are like. You get abused to pieces because the company has a noble mission so you're more likely to stay around. This btw was considered to be head and shoulders above the company it metastasized out of (founders of the original company sold it and had their family members start up a competitor so their noncompetes wouldn't matter, then everyone got laid off a while later by the new owners). It now employs 500 people, or about 0.5% of the city's population if you include pensioners, children and everything.

I've heard of tons of problems with so many other companies in other industries too. Not paying salaries on time or at all, closing down with zero notice when the owner moves abroad and transfers everything out of the company bank accounts so nobody can be paid their last salaries or severance, forcing people to work unpaid overtime... Tons of small businesses pay you in cash so they can save on tax, but that means you don't get national health insurance or pension contributions...

Quite literally, the job market out there is shit, getting worse every year. You should count yourself lucky that you're in an industry where you can just hop into a tangential industry and have skills carry over, or that your job affords you enough free time to get a degree, or that you're not working for capitalists. Gratz, it's a one in a million job you found yourself in, same as me. But the thing about one in a million jobs is that there are only a few thousand of them in the world.