Woman is upset the men in Korea don't all look like K-pop stars. pic.twitter.com/z3BkNphojS

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) February 17, 2025

!foidmoment

!asians

!coomers @Discuss

!schizomaxxxers

DUI suspect caught speeding at over 130 mph said he was in rush to see his cat: cops https://t.co/bhFU83s7NV pic.twitter.com/XX2K3NJW73

— New York Post (@nypost) February 7, 2025

This is because the creature was mentioned to be a prehistoric marsupial . Yes I'm saying he shoved them inside his pouch. You're welcome.

I want one so I can play Uboat https://store.steampowered.com/app/494840/UBOAT/ the xbox controller keyboard mapping is confusing

about $150-200 https://us.nerdytec.com/products/couchmaster-cycon2

I feel like it's crossing into some new nerd realm

What a lie.

And from someone who complains about lack of honesty from the mainstream media. https://t.co/DxofPYolon

— Andreas Mogensen (@Astro_Andreas) February 20, 2025

You are fully r-slurred.

SpaceX could have brought them back several months ago.

I OFFERED THIS DIRECTLY to the Biden administration and they refused.

Return WAS pushed back for political reasons.

Idiot.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 20, 2025

I technically have only 1 trophy left to get the plat, just to finish the game on hard but after beating all the challenges it's an easy part.

So the game continues the divisive game ff7 remake or part 1. A vocal minority didn't liked that part 1 wasn't a faithful remake

https://old.reddit.com/r/FinalFantasyVII/comments/i967ja/how_faithful_is_the_ff7_remake_to_the_original/

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/168653-final-fantasy-vii-remake/80041128

My fully objective opinion is that if you want to play original story then play the original game. I played first time the game in 2017 and it held very well, the graphic is part of experience it also a lot better in many ways than the remakes.

So devs had hard choices to make second part more faithful or do some creative freedom.

They started with big middle finger to canon lovers by putting Zack in front of their promotional art. And teased that you can actually save Aerith. And the whole game will end up being a very big tease.

The game start with you playing Zack and them showing parallel universe where Zack survives but cloud doesn't wakes up. Zack enters Midgar and sees helicopter crushes with Avalanche including Aerith. This shit absolutely doesn't make sense timeline wise but goal was to show Zack surviving is bad. So cloud than wakes up, yeah every Zack moment in the game is dream sequence.

Devs made every Zack sequence as dream so they could always back steep if majority of gaymers don't like the new direction and say "ha it was just a dream"

So the next 7-8 chapters of the game have basically no story. Just gameplay and the gameplay is alright, it has some strong far cry motif but what is really impressive is the balance. The game is so balanced

FF7 is a legendary game because there was so many way to break the game so many players were experimenting with the builds and stuff. RPG are generally about min/max and breaking the game. So ff7 remake parts showing such a middle finger to rpg elements. Some rpg elements will only show up at end game but you'll still will never be op. They also future proof the balance. Like you can't use equipment to get a status boost +100% attack or magic. You get only 1 item in the game that can give you +25% attack so it's impossible even to reach 100% attack boost and they already creeped you

You end up being in that game weaker than in part 1. In part 1 every character can reach 9999hp because the hp materia gives you 50% hp boost and you can use multiple of those. In part 2 30% hp boost max

You could assume it an action game but nope as action game the gameplay is absolutely not balanced but luckily you only encounter it doing hard mode or challenges.

So on chapter 8 comes the first legit big change. Tiffa falls into mako, in og game that happens after aerith dies.

On chapter 13 happens some wild religious symbolism shit in those dream sequences starts happening. Here my fav:

They start giving player a choice hinting that you can save Aerith but same time foreshadowing that non of those choices are real, neighbor can't escape fate and some symbolism like all those choices had this dog

Hinting that you won't save Aerith. That dream sequence also killed Zack multiple times showing you can't change the fate, Zack must die from bullets from those soldiers. So the moment Aerith is about to get killed, cloud saves her in his head and starts fighting Sephiroth and then thinking that he saved Aerith when she got killed

The game ends with illusion of Aerith telling she will stop Sephiroth and all this is still cannon since in og ff7 Aerith did showed up in the end in life stream defeating Sephiroth.

The real changes are basically just Tifa mako event and Yiffie being the main female protagonist, she has even more screen time than Aerith if you ignore the dream sequence. It's understandable, modern Japan is quite libertarian so no wonder she is everywhere and the strongest character in the game. Despite being total optional in og game. She got her own dlc in part 1 and in part3 she will get a huge chapter for her self.

Graphic of ff7 part 2 is actually worse than in part 1 but part 1 is not open world so understandable.

Part 1 is generally a better game than part 2. Part 2 just has so many mini games like 1/4 of chapters are just mini games. Part 2 is too much of an fanfic game.

The story also needed more changes because like I mentioned before that og ff7 did a lot of things better than the remakes and one is that in part 2 it doesn't make sense how the party was following clearly mentally unstable cloud without questioning his actions, many characters interactions just looked better og game than with modern graphics. In rebirth so many interactions and characters motives look so robotic than even most giga neurodivergent would write a better interaction of characters, just show how robotic japs are.

So objectively the game is a 7/10 but if you like Japanese nonsense the game becomes 8/10 and if you like serious shit that makes sense the game is 5/10.

If you go after platinum it will be an harder platinum than any souls game

It has challenges where you have to fight 10+ bosses and if you lose one fight you have to start from beginning, you cannot use any items. All bosses are faster than you and have moves that will wipe you out in one hit so you need to know their patterns

I didn't had any trouble with the game and beating the mini games but the feeling that after fighting a challenge for 30 min the prospect of losing last battle and then start from zero didn't felt nice. I have no idea why they made a jrpg this hard. I am pretty sure the 1% that finished all those challenges didn't liked it and devs will make them even harder in part3.

He’s completely missing the point. But people who lack empathy usually do miss the point so this isn’t shocking https://t.co/BRRGwD6qLk

— △⃒⃘Youtube: Nu Mindframe△⃒⃘♒️ (@nu_mindframe) February 1, 2025

Face images computed by averaging people's perceptions of their political out-group. Liberals' perception of conservatives (bottom right) is the one that's "not like the others." https://t.co/zm4Uf1l3WZ pic.twitter.com/EXIF7L2pGB

— Rob Henderson (@robkhenderson) July 7, 2023

!anime !weebs

What are your favorite anime soundtracks to listen to?

For my new years resolution I have decided to take up cardio kickboxing classes. I am still underweight so I'm not supposed to do too much cardio, but I will also be trying to eat more so it should balance out.

Dirt

If you buy ground coffee, Congratulations!!!! You are buying dirt!!!!!

Don't buy pre ground coffee ever. Coffee grounds go stale within hours after being ground. When you buy coffee grounds from the store, the coffee is already stale and has been for probably multiple weeks already.

Seriously, that shit is stale before it even reaches the stores shelf.

Bugs

Coffee beans are a little better, not as stale as ground coffee but there are other worries.

Quality control is terrible, with the amount of contaminants very high for coffee beans.

The FDA limits contamination at 10% of the total coffee beans count are insect-infested or insect-damaged.

So yeah, ignore my advice, and keep eating the bugs like a good little NPC.

The other issue is how old the coffee beans are will heavily affect taste quality. Too fresh, and the taste will be too bland, to old and the beans will go stale. Expiration dates aren't accurate methods of determining roast date, so honedtly you are spinning a wheel whenever you buy.

How to Do Coffee Right

The only acceptable form of coffee making is the use of GREEN COFFEE BEANS. Green Coffee Beans go stale as well, but if kept in an airtight container will be good for a good 3-6 months.

Then you roast as much a you need for a week period. There is an art to coffee roasting which I am not going to explain but YOU WILL NEED TO RESEARCH. Also don't start a fire by cooking them too long lol. After roasting, you should put the coffee grounds in airtight container and wait generally between 2 days to 2 weeks lafter roasting. This highly depends on roast and what type of taste you prefer. So play around with it a bit. I personally prefer waiting a shorter amount of time, around 3-4 days.

The before you make your coffee you grind the amount of beans you need for the amount you will drink (obviously). Don't grind all at once. This ensures coffee grounds are fresh for each cup of joe.

Machine and Method

Espresso machines are best (if you can find a good one which is hard). You want to get an all metal inside one though, which honedtly can be difficult to find and expensive. Like $2000 expensive. There are ones with plastic internals that pull amazing shots but you should obviously not do that unless u like consuming microplastics. The espresso machine imaged above is really good, great workhorse, finicky, but a classic. Rancillio Silvia, is its model. This is one of the few espresso machines I still have, since I adore it, but its plastic water reserviir so I would recommend no. Just let me be nostalgic though about pulling a better shot thab you have ever tasted on a $400 machine.

This one is all metal, but obviously, doesm't have as much capabilities:

Europiccola 8, cost around $600-1000 depending on if you know how to find used stuff.

Europiccola is the other espresso machine I currently own and is good. If you are on a microplastic free diet but still like machine precise espresso, this would be good pick up.

Pulling a good shot cna be difficult. Measure out grounds and learn the right pressure ti press the grounds into the thingy (cant remember name).

Depending on machine you might want to learn how to temperature surf. This might be outdated, since newer models might just be better at getting right temp. I had Rancillio I can't remember model, but it was like a classic. Plastic internals, but pulled amazing shots. Had to temperature surf though to get it right.

Crema

Crema is the easiest test to figure out if you pulled a good shot. Crema is layer of golden brown foam on top of the black espresso, that forms NATURALLY.

More Crema = More Swag.

Less Crema = More Strag.

No Crema = You have not only failed at making espresso, but you are also probably r-slurred.

Note on Cappuccino

If you add sugar or anything else to a Cappuccino besides frothed milk and espresso then exit my post immediately. You are a cute twink who I will slam head first into a brick wall.

Cappuccino is amazing. You need a steam wand, bezt ones come attachrd to Cappuccino/espresso machine. Don't use one of those terrible handheld frothers.

You want the container you put the milk into, to be solid metam and it should be in freezer before hand, so its icy cold. Pour milk into container froth, starting at botton then rising to top to create the froth.

Top: Froth

Bottom: Steamed Milk.

You want about 50% froth and 50% steamed milk by volume.

Then you tilt espresso cup slightly like 45° with espresso already made JUST BEFORE!!!! and you pour in while tilting espresso cup back to facing up.

Cappuccino Art

Cappuccino art is created with how you pour the frothed/steamed milk into te espresso.

Using a stencil, using some sort of cinammon, or whatever isn't acceptable.

Cappuccino art is ONLY achieved through the pour, using additional instruments or methods is not only cheating but also is the equivalent of sucking a peepee.

If you see some fancy desig with a logo or whatever on Cappuccino art, then that person kust used some stencil thing and I give you permission to beat them bloody.

i am not amazing at Cappuccino art, but I am much better than you will ever be. I am not going to share my secrets either. Continue to next section.

Not Espresso

Nowadays I don't even bother and only make Pourover or Mocha Pot for Espresso (rare). Too many iszues finding an all metal espresso machine under 2k so it is what it is. That being said you can pull great shots with Mocha Pot, like Italians do all the time. You just have to he an OG artist not a scientist. You knowimsayingneighbor.

Pour over is an art as well, don't listen to the cute twinks talking about temperature with therm and measuring out yada yada yah. Its an art. You use your intuition. You won't make good coffee this way if you are a nerd.

Speaking of which.

Coffee isn't for Nerds

If you want to measure out evrrything and tempetature whatever, die. That isn't coffee. Italians (the inventors if coffee), pretty much just grab the beans roast them in the oven and grind with simple grinder amd use Mocha Pots. They pull better shots than 99% of coffee shops in America.

Nerds require fancy equipment. If you are an artist, you will require less and less fancy equipment until you can pull a great shot with a handful of green coffee beans, a handgrinder, and a stove.

Alternative to Roasting

You can buy from Coffee Roaster directly and they usually (should) in most cases roast the coffee well and deliver freshly roasted coffee.

I will be honest, this is gay. Straight men don't let other men roast their beans. So if you are gay, this might be good option. If not, stick to roasting yourself.

What Coffee Roaster to Use

While you can roast Green Coffee Beans in the oven, you absolutely shouldn't for many reasons I am not going to get into here.

What you need is a good coffee roaster. These can be expensive, bunch of different types and I don't feel like explaining. Do your own research idiot. Expect to pay at least $200 for a good one though. I have a decent drum roller type one that cost like $300, but there are even better types of coffee roasters some being $600 ones all the way up to like $20,000. Obviously thise ones that aren't drum rollers, can't remember what they are called, but they are OG as shit. You probably don't need one of those though.

Look here for Drum Rollers (my preference):

https://www.sweetmarias.com/roasting/drum-roasters.html

There are other types of coffee roasters, but yeah.

Grinder

Probably most important after roaster. Get the best one you can afford, or learn how to hand grind like a true Italian. Probably cost around 400+ for a decent one.

i have a $500 (?) roaster, pictured above. That model is outdated, but I recommend since its served me well for past 10 years and alnost as good as the Italian hands grinds.

Italy

Most importantly, to make good coffee you will need to go to Italy. If you haven't been to Italy, Congratulations!!!! Your coffee is almost guranteed to be shit.

Putting this one last, since I know this is the biggest barrier to entry and want people to read through thinking they are gonna make some good joe, then realize they can't visit Italy so they juzt wasted their entire time reading a straggy article abiut coffee making.

Import Info on Italy

When I refer to Italy, I am referring to Southern Italy.

"Northern Italy" isn't Italy, its basically Brussells + France + Amsterdam if they were black. North "Italians" can't make Coffee.

A year into their relationship, Jess and Nate got engaged next to the sea. "It was a golden, sandy beach – empty and secluded," says Jess, 26. "It was just us two there, so it was really intimate."

Except that the couple were actually hundreds of miles apart – and they were role-playing their engagement in the video game World of Warcraft.

Nate, 27, was living just outside London – and Jess was in Wales. After meeting briefly at an esports event in Germany in March 2023, the pair developed a long-distance relationship, playing the game together "from the moment we woke up to the moment we went to bed", says Nate.

The couple still play the game daily, even though they've been living together in Manchester since March 2024. And they know other couples who have found their partners through video games: "It's a different way of meeting someone," says Jess. "You both have such a strong mutual love for something already, it's easier to fall in love."

Nate agrees. "I was able to build a lot more of a connection with people I meet in gaming than I ever was able to in a dating app."

A selfie of Nate and Jess on the left, and on the right, a screenshot from World of Warcraft showing Nate proposing with the words, "Will you marry me?"

Nate and Jess (pictured, alongside their virtual engagement), found love online - but not on a dating app

Nate and Jess are not alone. According to some experts, people of their generation are moving away from dating apps and finding love on platforms that were not specifically designed for romance.

And hanging out somewhere online that's instead focused on a shared interest or hobby could allow people to find a partner in a lower-stakes, less pressurised setting than marketing themselves to a gallery of strangers. For some digital-native Gen Zs, it seems, simply doing the things they enjoy can be an alternative to the tyranny of the swipe.

Internet dating at 30 - a turning point?

Since it first appeared with the launch of match.com 30 years ago, online dating has fundamentally altered our relationships. Around 10% of heterosexual people and 24% of LGBT people have met their long-term partner online, according to Pew Research Center.

But evidence suggests that young people are switching off dating apps, with the UK's top 10 seeing a fall of nearly 16%, according to a report published by Ofcom in November 2024. Tinder lost 594,000 users, while Hinge dropped by 131,000, Bumble by 368,000 and Grindr by 11,000, the report said (a Grindr spokesperson said they were "not familiar with this study's source data" and that their UK users "continue to rise year over year").

According to a 2023 Axios study of US college students and other Gen Zers, 79% said they were forgoing regular dating app usage. And in its 2024 Online Nation report, Ofcom said: "Some analysts speculate that for younger people, particularly Gen Z, the novelty of dating apps is wearing off." In a January 2024 letter to shareholders, Match Group Inc - which owns Tinder and Hinge - acknowledged younger people were seeking "a lower pressure, more authentic way to find connections".

"The idea of using a shared interest to meet someone isn't new, but it's been reinvented in this particular moment in time – it signals a desire of Gen Z," says Carolina Bandinelli, an associate professor at Warwick University whose research focuses on the digital technologies of romance.

Getty Images Joggers running in a parkGetty Images

Many younger people are exploring alternatives to dating apps, from gaming to running clubs and other social activities

According to Danait Tesfay, 26, a marketing assistant from London, younger people are looking for alternatives to dating apps, "whether that be gaming or running clubs or extra-curricular clubs, where people are able to meet other like-minded people and eventually foster a romantic connection".

At the same time that membership of some dating apps appears to be in decline, platforms based around common interests are attracting more users. For instance, the fitness app Strava now has 135m users – and its monthly active users grew by 20% last year, according to the company. Other so-called "affinity-based" sites have seen similar growth: Letterboxd, where film fans can share reviews, says its community grew by 50% last year.

Rise of the hobby apps

And just as in the pre-internet age, when couples might have met at a sports club or the cinema, now singletons are able to find each other in their online equivalents.

"People have always bonded over shared interests, but it's been given a digital spin with these online communities," says Luke Brunning, co-director of the Centre for Love, S*x, and Relationships (CLSR) at the University of Leeds.

"It's increasingly difficult to distinguish between behaviour that's on a dating app and dating behaviour on another platform."

Hobby apps are taking on some features of social media, too: in 2023, Strava introduced a messaging feature letting users chat directly. One twenty-something from London explains that her friends use it as a way to flirt with people they fancy, initially by liking a running route they've posted on the platform. Strava says its data shows that one in five of its active Gen Z members has been on a date with someone they met through fitness clubs.

"[Online] fitness communities are becoming big places to find partners," says Nichi Hodgson, the author of The Curious History of Dating. She says a friend of hers met his partner that way, and they're now living together.

The same appears to apply to Letterboxd, too. With users including Chappell Roan and Charli XCX, it's a popular platform for younger people - two-thirds of members in a survey of 5,000 were under 34.

The company says it's aware of several couples meeting through the app, including one who bonded over a shared love of David Fincher's opinion-dividing 2020 drama Mank. "It could be that seeing other people's film tastes reveals an interesting aspect of themselves," says Letterboxd co-founder Matthew Buchanan.

Why the shift?

So what might be driving this? While dating apps initially appeared to offer "the illusion of choice", and a transparent, efficient way to meet partners, the reality for many has often proven to be different. The Pew Research Center found that 46% of dating-app users said their experiences were overall very or somewhat negative.

The recent decline in user numbers might also be a response to the way some apps are structured – in particular, the swipe feature for selecting potential partners, launched by Tinder in 2013 and widely copied.

Its creator, Jonathan Badeen, was partly inspired by studying the 1940s experiments of psychologist BF Skinner, who conditioned hungry pigeons to believe that food delivered randomly into a tray was prompted by their movements.

Getty Images A psychological experiment with pigeons conducted by BF SkinnerGetty Images

Tinder's swipe mechanism was partly inspired by Harvard Professor BF Skinner's psychological experiments with pigeons in order to understand the brain's reward system

Eventually, the swipe mechanism faced a backlash. "Ten years ago, people were enthusiastic and would talk quite openly about what apps they were on," says Ms Hodgson. "Now the Tinder model is dead with many young people – they don't want to swipe any more."

According to Mr Brunning, the gameifying interface of many dating apps is a turn-off. "Intimacy is made simple for you, it's made fun in the short term, but the more you play, the more you feel kind of icky."

The pandemic may have had an impact, too, says Prof Brian Heaphy at the University of Manchester, who has studied dating-app use in and after the lockdowns: "During Covid, dating apps themselves became more like social media – because people couldn't meet up, they were looking for different things."

Although that didn't last after the pandemic, it "gave people a sense that it could be different from just swiping and getting no responses – all the negatives of dating-app culture," says Prof Heaphy.

And in that context, the fact that video games or online communities like Strava or Letterboxd aren't designed for dating can be appealing. By attracting users for a broader range of reasons, there's less pressure on each interaction.

"Those apps aren't offering a commercialised form of romance, so they can seem more authentic," says Prof Heaphy.

The World of Warcraft characters of PurplePixel and Wochi

The humans behind Wochi and PurplePixel (pictured) met while playing World of Warcraft, though they say finding a partner wasn't their original intention

It's a type of connection free from the burden of expectation. A different couple who met on World of Warcraft – and go by the names Wochi and PurplePixel – weren't looking for love. "I definitely didn't go into an online game trying to find a partner," says Wochi.

But although initially in opposing teams, or guilds, their characters started a conversation. "We spent all night talking until the early hours of the morning, and by the end of the night, I'd actually left my guild and joined his guild," says PurplePixel. Within three years, Wochi had quit his job and moved to the UK from Italy to be with her.

According to Ms Hodgson, "While some dating apps can bring out the worst behaviours, these other online spaces can do the opposite, because people are sharing something they enjoy."

Because of these structural elements, she doesn't think the recent decline in numbers is temporary. "It's going to keep happening until dating apps figure out how to put the human aspect back."

New kinds of dating app

The dating apps aren't giving up without a fight, however. Hinge is still "setting up a date every two seconds", according to a spokesperson; Tinder says a relationship starts every three seconds on its platform and that almost 60% of its users are aged 18-30. In fact, the apps appear to be embracing the shift to shared-interest platforms, launching niche alternatives including ones based around fitness, veganism, dog-ownership or even facial hair.

They're also evolving to encourage different kinds of interaction. On Breeze, users who agree to be set up on a date aren't allowed to message each other before they meet; and Jigsaw hides people's faces, only removing pieces to reveal the full photo after a certain amount of interaction.

It means that it's premature to proclaim the death of the dating app, believes Prof Heaphy. "There's now such a diversity of dating apps that the numbers for the biggest ones aren't the key indicator," he says. "It might actually be a similar number to before, in terms of overall membership."

And there's a downside to people going to more general-interest apps looking for love – people might not want to be hit on when they just want to talk about books. Dating apps, at least, are clear about what their purpose is.

What might the future look like?

In an increasingly online world, the solution to improving relationships might not simply be to go offline. Instead, apps that can offer an experience which more closely mirrors the best of IRL interactions, while tapping into the possibilities of digital ones, might also show a way forward.

With the imminent integration of AI into dating apps, we are "right on the cusp of something new", says Mr Brunning. "It's interesting to see if we'll end up with specific apps just for dating, or will we end up with something a bit more fluid?"

He points to platforms in China that are more multi-purpose. "People use them for chat, for community, and conduct business on them – they can also be dating platforms, but they're often not exclusively for that."

In the meantime, the interactions possible in less mediated communities like World of Warcraft could offer more of a chance to connect than conversations initiated by a swipe.

Jess and Nate's in-game engagement on the beach might not have been real, but the couple are hoping to change that soon. "It's a matter of when, really. There are a few things we need to tick off the checklist, and then she'll be getting her ring," says Nate. And there'll still be a gaming element.

"You can role-play getting married," says Jess. "So it could be funny to get all our friends together at some point in the World of Warcraft cathedral, and we could have a marriage ceremony."

!physics !ifrickinglovescience

badmen and saiyans ONLY

!saiyans

Yes, you read that correctly. He presented an award on an online award show for the worst game of the year. Clutch your pearls preemptively: the nominees were 4 universally agreed on bad games.

Did James make the decision about what games to have on here. It does not seem like it. BUT HE PRESENTED IT!

Oh yeah, this is somehow g*mergate, because we can't ever let the thing that happened over a decade ago die

This hurts bigly for all the 10 remaining fans of the 40+ year old who calls old games shitty poop farts

Should we even be complaining about this? Think of the dozens of extra views it might get from ResetERA referrals!

Thinking that it's dumb to complain about a shit game gettting a bad game award from a literally who tier youtuber? THAT'S A PADDLIN'

Nobody would have known what a NES or Atari 2600 was without AVGN

I know none of them played it because nobody played it, this poster included.

Max announce the release of the 'Luigi Mangione: The CEO Killer' documentary on February 17th. pic.twitter.com/nwIEA87QUp

— Pop Tingz (@ThePopTingz) February 13, 2025