This thread is really about society in 2014-2018, when being 'inclusive' or 'diverse' was more important than being 'good'.

Personally, I did not buy Battlefield V exactly because of this reason. I really don't need another bit of media trying to push their agenda down my throat. As people say, "If you don't like it, don't buy it." Or if you do buy it, and 10 years from now all games are like this, we'd be thinking, "Wow, we shouldn't have supported that."

Have 20 black characters. Put in 15 women. Have no white guys. You know what? I probably wouldn't even notice, and I probably wouldn't even care. As a white guy, I don't have a requirement that the characters look like me.

But you come out and say, "If you don't like this, then you are probably a racist/sexist jerk."

Ummm...no. That's not cool. What I am is a gamer, looking for fun games. I don't need politics, especially identity politics shoved in my face once again, as I am just trying to relax and escape that crap for a while.

Diversity or inclusiveness is great. Do it. But if that is a selling point? Then I'm guessing you don't have much else to sell.

If it is important to do you...do it. But again, don't shove it in my face.

** Source- gamer who plays almost exclusively as female characters (when available) because of my own deep seeded issues that make me want to dress like a woman or do freaky stuff with men. But, when someone tells me I should feel bad about not wanting forced diversity...then they can suck it. I have no interest in people telling me to feel bad because of who I am.

I had a friend. (Okay, not a friend, I couldn't stand her, but she was an acquaintance)

She was going to build 'passiv haus' (we're American, but she liked the German spelling) communities to save energy, etc. etc.

She drove from California to New York at least a dozen times to support this plan. I'm pretty sure she used more fuel on her roadtrips than she would have saved had the plan actually worked. The plan didn't work, and she ended up finding out that Upstate New York is really cold, and she didn't want to live in an unheated house in that environment.

But she still talks about how dedicated she was...she does NOT like to hear about the wasted fuel.

Her marriage went really bad because she ignored her spouse while being a road-tripping ecowarrior. And absolutely none of this is her fault- the system is against her.

But damn...she can feel high and mighty knowing that she was THINKING about this stuff while you were watching TV.

I was going to call you out for that ridiculous estimate on the price of the pen.

DAAAAMMMMNNNN...they really are $99.

That's ridiculous.

Okay, maybe they are super and special in some way. I don't know, and I don't care. But you were right...I almost apologize for my initial disbelief.

Hey! #MeToo!

For me it was about 4.5 years ago, when the wave of sexual harassment complaints was just taking off.

I was the subject of a complaint. Kinda sucked because it was a lot of half-truths. Basically I was messing around with someone at work (at least 50% driven by her) and eventually I think her husband found out. So in order to save face, she made a sexual harassment claim against me.

Well, there was a big investigation, blah blah blah, and what they found was that I didn't harass anyone, but I was involved in an 'inappropriate relationship' that was mutual.

But guess what...the 'findings' of these things don't matter. The only thing that mattered was that there was some poor young lady who felt 'threatened' by me and that is how it was judged.

Bitch- stop inviting me to come to your house when your husband is gone if you're feeling threatened. Don't book us adjoining hotel rooms with a pass through door if you feel threatened. And goddammit, stop flashing me your panties if you want me to ignore you. (A pair of yellow panties was my favorite...)

Oh well- new job pays much better and there are only 10% of the headaches.

But fewer chicks with big boobs and sweet asses at my new job, so that's a bummer. But probably better for me in the long run.

That's a pretty bad exaggeration.

All of the 'ads' I have seen are related to games, movies, etc. that are available in the Store. Of course the Store is one big ad essentially, so once you are there, it doesn't count. But telling me that I can get a game for 75% off on a small part of the screen is fine.

Possibly 25% of the screen is taken by 'ads' at most. The most recent ad/notification I remember seeing was for 'State of Decay' (I think that is it) which is a game that I can download for free as part of my current Game Pass subscription. I don't even think of it as an ad..more of a notification.

Also, they will tell you about the other free games you can get from Games with Gold. Again, I've already paid for them. Telling me they are available is a service- not an ad.

Once you are off the home screen, anything else is completely related to what you are looking at- again, notifications not ads.

I can't provide a screenshot of my dashboard, but just do an image search for 'Xbox One Dashboard'. See that really big part of the screen that refers to a game? That's typically the game you played most recently. For instance, my Xbox has 'Sunset Overdrive' all over it, because that is the game I am currently playing. I thank them for providing that info.

Beneath that, is a big old section showing me info about the friends I have played with most recently. Not ads...other people.

People talk about ads there...but they aren't being honest.

I've owned businesses. Landscaping and printing.

I tried to hire homeless people. I've gone to the guys holding the signs and said"hey...I have work for you...help me mow lawns for the day $12/hr. And I'll buy you breakfast and lunch."

I did this a LOT. I did not care about appearance, criminal record, etc. They didn't need to plan ahead or meet me later. I offered immediate food, etc. Etc.

Over the course of a year I had ONE person take me up on it. He was a good guy, worked with me for like 2 weeks before he disappeared.

Whenever people talk about all of the hurdles for these people to get jobs, I know that when I took away every single hurdle...they said "no".

In my experience these people are on the street because they prefer it to the other options. Not because they don't have other options.

I use Visual Studio Code, with Git embedded.

I like it.

Just did a quick Wikipedia read...evidently it is the most popular IDE...

I'm somewhat of a photographer myself (kinda, really).

When I am doing a shoot of some sort, and everyone gets together for a photo, I just let them go nuts with their phones. I don't even bother taking the picture.

First- the quality of their photos will be good...fine...potentially even better than my own because I am doing something totally different.

Second- I hate those shots. They are not going to be great no matter what you do- unless you are Vanity Fair.

I agree that phones are good/great for this. And the last thing I want is to have people say, "Oh Donna, you should be our photographer, your pictures were better than the person we hired!"

Let Donna take the group pics with her iPhone X- they will be fantastic. I'll use my DSLR for things the phones can't do.

Shut up faggot, nobody cares about you.

    (Yes...sarcasm...)

I respectfully disagree.

I was a huge Xbox 360 fan. I played a lot of games, but there were parts of the console that really bothered me. Mostly load times. Stopped playing for about 4 years.

I finally got an Xbox One about a year ago. My favorite 'feature' is that I can be playing a game, and power the console off....next time I turn it on, I can go right back into the game, exactly where I was. I can do the same when going between games. In the middle of a game, click 'Home' and go into a different game...then when I go back, I am right where I left off.

It makes games a lot less stressful. I can enjoy them more. I don't worry about save points as much.

Right now I am playing Sunset Overdrive and being able to pop-in for a 20 minute little gaming session...yet saving my progress...is really nice. I am thrilled I don't need to wait 4 minutes just for everything to load, then take 10 minutes to get back where I left off. It's there in about 10 seconds as though I never left.

For me as a busy person that is a huge factor.

That's my point. Evidently my post wasn't clear enough for the conspiracy crowd.

When you are hunting someone down for doing something that...well, maybe it isn't even illegal, but you really want them to stop- you charge them with kiddie porn.

Nobody supports a pedophile. They (NSA etc) know that. So they use it.

In the world of electronic data, nothing worse than taking from the CIA and NSA.

Well, there is something worse...kiddie porn.

That takes away all sympathy he may get from people.

Hold him for the smut, but send him to a dark hole for the rest of it.

Number one feature I have (problem to fix)...when going through photos, any landscape oriented photos are just too small in portrait mode. Automatically flip them.

That way I don't have to tell people, "Oh...wait...hang on...shoot, wait..." as things flip, I unlock the screen orientation, etc. etc.

I can easily flip my phone much better than going through the hassle of what I do now.

OH- and dammit! Give me a damn Bluetooth control that works from the notification bar! I don't want to just turn it on and off, I want to choose devices to connect/disconnect from. Probably the same for Wifi, but my wifi networks are locked in, and everything is fine. But if I could change Bluetooth speakers without too much trouble, I would be very happy.

I agree that the web is 'ruined'. I blame Marketing departments everywhere. I've been a web programmer for a loooong time, and for a long time we were winning the fight of, "No, you can't put huge pictures everywhere! No, the content can't be all videos! No, we can't have ads in 6 places on the website!"

But then Marketing comes in and shows how much more 'engagement' we can get- etc. etc. and the actual user experience goes into the toilet.

Now the marketing people (literally usually college grads on their first job) have been raised with the shit-hole the web has become, and it is normal. No qualms about shoving 3 or 4 more pieces of crap on the webpage.

Now it is better to trick people into signing up for content "give us your email address in order to read the article" than it is to provide good content. Because then they can say they have reached 10,000 new people this month- who will never, ever open, or even see, the emails that come in.

I hate those people.

First, I hate Chrome...and the 'new web' with never ending pages. I am not a genius, but when I've been on Reddit for 30 minutes on a never ending page, I think "God, how much RAM is this thing sucking up right now?"

Obviously that is not really Chrome's fault...but the two go hand in hand. The same B-holes that love never ending pages, have a hard-on for Chrome.

As an aside, the new Reddit update has some problems with my account, and I can't load anything anymore. Good riddance.

Second, not sure what you meant regarding your last comment about Microsoft's best interests- But if I owned Microsoft, I would be pretty happy to screw up Google's crap. Google's actions regarding Windows Phone were pitiful. If you think Google gives one crap about users in the world, you're wrong. They were more than happy to break every attempt to get YouTube on Windows Phone- suing Microsoft for an app that was just a web wrapper...

I think Microsoft should just keep breaking Chrome. Google deserves a kick in their testes.