!physics !ifrickinglovescience

"The Apple hasnt fallen far from the tree."

"They must also be charged with neglecting to maintain his grandfather's house. Their punishment should be to paint and landscape the house."

"Fake News 😡😡 allow those innocent children to go"

"Innocent like Zuumi?"

"Oh my goodness....you need to catch a serious wake up. They would even steal from innocent people like you!!!!!!!"

are a dramatic bunch.

https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/2025-01-09-mandelas-grandson-arrested-on-hijacking-charge-at-houghton-home/

====(from businesslive)

The property previously owned by former president Nelson Mandela in Houghton, where his grandson Mbuso was arrested with four hijacking suspects on Wednesday, was in use by Mbuso, the family has confirmed.

Mbuso Mandela's older brother, Ndaba, said his younger brother had lived on the property for years and had neglected it.

Mbuso is expected to appear in the Johannesburg magistrate's court on Friday with four other suspects.

The arrests followed information from a vehicle tracking company on the location of a white Toyota Corolla that was hijacked on Wednesday on Louis Botha Avenue in Oaklands, said Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department (JMPD) spokesperson Xolani Fihla.

Fihla said the police had recovered the vehicle and arrested four men and a woman.

====(end quote)

https://www.iol.co.za/the-star/news/nelson-mandelas-grandson-among-four-arrested-in-hijacking-incident-6e30657f-2394-4fc4-87f0-0fde8e2186b1

https://9gag.com/gag/aYQVABx#comment

Chuds of 9strag weight in

you need to be fucking serious LMAOOOO i’m way outta your league https://t.co/WIuipsmJeL pic.twitter.com/jtIjkqgIb5

— alexa🧸🪞 (@inmybloodgrande) January 25, 2025

https://x.com/_troubling/status/1883566145489527031

To be fair you guys look closely related

— Mariè (@p8stie) January 26, 2025

Looks matched tbh

— Nugs (@Nugjokes) January 26, 2025

you're barely a 4

— Haile Selassie Groyper (@bannedgroyper23) January 25, 2025

You're both actually looksmatched if you take off the makeup.

— Involuntary Celibate (Incels.is) (@IncelsCo) January 26, 2025

B-word 💀💀💀 pic.twitter.com/sFpvHPUlKD

— ChadCathGroyp ❄️ (@ChadCathGroyper) January 26, 2025

you somehow becoming convinced that this is not your exact stone cold looksmatch is the reason that fertility rates are going to zero https://t.co/rURcM2uOpc

— doomer (@uncledoomer) January 26, 2025

It’s funny in a way because women are delusional when it comes to their looks but it is an actual problem. Many such cases. pic.twitter.com/NH5BwjprZp

— kt🧝🏻‍♀️ (@amishescapee) January 26, 2025

Yea I’m not gon hold you y’all are in the same league, same conference, division rivals even https://t.co/6HctQoqVI3

— Trill Burr (@ReloadedJu) January 26, 2025

This is proof that women can't rate themselves objectively and think they're way more attractive than they actually are.

The truth is that they're both looksmatched and not a single person would bat an eye if they were together. https://t.co/gPpkTtchRe

— Involuntary Celibate (Incels.is) (@IncelsCo) January 26, 2025

Being a narcissistic whore putting down your looksmatch is based and good until enough people start pooping on their appearance too, then suddenly it's about "heart" or whatever the heck. Lol https://t.co/WqZSrqqsBa pic.twitter.com/ngmcyuhcgX

— ᓀ‸ᓂ (@hisenkeigeniac) January 26, 2025

sorry it's such a lazy post but yeah pretty funny huh 😏 I made a post about this guy being ugly and jewish before but they actually do look like my childhood friend's parents and the mom would go all out for every holiday with themed hand towels and such and the dad liked to drink beer and watch hockey but they were nice and wholesome and always bought us chinese food so I feel like these two should get married

badmen and saiyans ONLY

!saiyans

The international standing of the US is literally never going to recover https://t.co/k21jJ9fv0z

— #1 Venlil Enjoyer (@EmpressThaliaa) January 27, 2025

Like I don't mean to be overdramatic, but this is straight up the end of the American century

— #1 Venlil Enjoyer (@EmpressThaliaa) January 27, 2025

It’s the fact that Americans have 0 idea how important it is that America has so many Allie’s around the world that Trump is just now cutting off one by one for absolutely no reason because he failed to communicate.

— You were warned 🇺🇸🇺🇸 (@Rickie99_) January 27, 2025

I can’t believe we’re burning down the world for literally no reason. I am never forgiving republicans

— Flaming (@FlamingAUS) January 27, 2025

me when i have to end my alliances built up over a century because i'm bored

— Amadán (@Mr_Elephant2004) January 27, 2025

its true lol. i think many countries are going to rely far less on the us now

the hostility is insane, the amount of people on here who act like its deserved and shows the us is strong is insane aha. comes across as incredibly petty and weak

— pierbi (@pierbiwierbi) January 27, 2025

pic.twitter.com/ZGWLGeZGjq

— Jan202021 (@Dixie202021) January 27, 2025

losing power in the global south speed run (new record: 6 days)

— SandstormRefrigerator (@Pokemonprimed) January 27, 2025

Yeah, it's basic diplomacy. America would lose badly in Sid Meyer's Civ right now.

— Tom (@iamtomgranger) January 27, 2025

Anyway remittances from the US account for 3% of Colombia's GDP so a single deportation flight is pretty devastating to their national economy. And the threats worked immediately

https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2025/01/26/trump-colombia-deportation-flights-migrants-tariffs/

So we are thankfully not going to be deprived of all the many things Colombia exports here. I don't know what those things are besides coffee and cocaine but X (formerly Twitter) informs me it's a lot and very important. Crisis averted.

what in the frick

!firearms

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

Honestly, I think Facebook has an algorithm that does this on purpose... If you scroll back to about one week ago, this was just another lame group posting unfunny normie memes. However, within the last week the Chuds and Soys have been doing battle and all of a sudden it appears in my feed lol.

Link to group:

www.facebook.com/groups/3472699292999947/

First post:

1. "you wouldn't know satire if it held a bolter to your temple" nerd posting intensifies

2. "You call this satire? Not a chance..." "another dribbler that thinks ironic settings can't be satire"

Second post:

1. "yet you wear a mask" "this you, bro?"

2. "wearing a mask in your profile photo... you look like a big P***" "I laughed way too hard at this, he looks like his Mom dressed him in that suit"

Third post:

1. "Chuds are obsessed with gay people" posts George Floyd Trans meme lol

2. "why all the gay shit... I don't get it..." "cry harder" "Say something intelligent. Queer and gay is a bad combination"

Fourth Post:

1. "can someone define woke?" "I'm glad you asked" proceeds to post great wall of text lol

2. "all that matters is the class war!" "I'm being told to tolerate people who hate my race!" "having to read about culture wars in my dorky manbaby FB group..."

"All the trillion dollar corporation CEOs are donating money and having one-to-one dinners with him. Hello oligarchy." - /u/erotic_sex_worker

https://old.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1huzpf3/tim_cook_is_latest_tech_exec_to_kiss_the_ring/m5p7lao/?context=8

So just like it's always been: Biden inaugural committee raised $62M with big sums from billionaires, corporations

I love that it's only news now because Trump does it.

It's (D)ifferent ya know

https://old.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1huzpf3/tim_cook_is_latest_tech_exec_to_kiss_the_ring/m5pvl7y/?context=8

God America is corporate wasteland now. They don't even hide buying politicians anymore. But don't worry rich orange Jesus is here to save us, he totally knows the struggles of the working man.

https://old.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1huzpf3/tim_cook_is_latest_tech_exec_to_kiss_the_ring/m5p5mla/?context=8

This is what 78 million Americans voted for.

They wanted corporate welfare, billionaire immunity, and pay for play.

Oh, you thought you'd get cheaper groceries and a one time $600 dollar check? Fricking dolts.

"I don't want consumer protection, workers rights or more financial freedom like never having to worry about healthcare costs again! I want to stop woke and trans and poor people from having freedom."

terrorists don't attack us anymore because they cant achieve our level of destruction with ignorance voting. - /u/herefromyoutube

I'm certain they wanted more corporate welfare and to not own the libs lmao

https://old.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1huzpf3/tim_cook_is_latest_tech_exec_to_kiss_the_ring/m5p7l5x/?context=8

Look, I didn't like Trump and never voted for him. I thought Biden was honestly doing a pretty okay job. But as a lifelong Apple fan, if Tim's on board, then I'm willing to give him a chance. - /u/Ok-Echo-7764 [-50]

https://old.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1huzpf3/tim_cook_is_latest_tech_exec_to_kiss_the_ring/m5pkt84/?context=8

It's even worse when you consider the fact that he's a gay man supporting this admin. Sad.

These people really think the GQP is really going to take away gay rights lmao - /u/OmniAtom91

https://old.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1huzpf3/tim_cook_is_latest_tech_exec_to_kiss_the_ring/m5p9q2j/?context=8

Honestly I don't blame Cook that much for this. With Trump as president, you have to pay to play. Trump would be petty enough to do something to ruin Apple stock if Cook didn't pay.

Didn't hate the player, hate the game. - /u/d-cent [-8]

https://old.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1huzpf3/tim_cook_is_latest_tech_exec_to_kiss_the_ring/m5p7u4k/?context=8

(This is a continuation of my reply to the recent thread about the Civilization series.)

It's got some issues with, for lack of a better term, historical accuracy. There's some weird dodgy stuff in the tech tree. You may try to scoff and say that it's just a game, it's not meant to be accurate. Yeah, of course not, to a certain point. Old Man Redactor once saw me playing Darklands and pointed out that if you just changed the data files you could use the same engine to make a game about running a laundromat. What elevates games over spreadsheets is that there's some kind of story that it's telling you where the numbers mean something. In Civ, that story is history in general, so it had darn well better at least feel like it has to do with history.

I only realized later that actually my father is a Satanist who was trying to drive me away from good Christian games. One day on the solstice he made carry a bunch of 1-gallon milk jugs full of blood (I dunno what kind) from the garage to the trunk of his old Honda. Then he got in and it flew away into the night. That's when I put two and two together.

The way religion is handled I think is pretty butt-backwards. In the original Civ, it's all abstract. You build a temple and that's it, it's assumed that it's a temple for whatever these people believe in. It doesn't really matter what religion it is because, for the purposes of the game of Civilization, people from different religions act pretty much the same for the most part because we're all human.

The other approach you can take is what they do in Europa Universalis. (I dunno if they still have the guts to do this but they did when I played it.) Where you decide which religions are good or bad and give them bonuses and penalties. This obviously has some disadvantages. Like it's really fricking obvious what's going on when the game is made in Sweden and the good religions that get bonuses are in northern Europe. You can't get away with that if you're making a game outside of an extremely ethnocentric culture like Sweden.

Swedes always score themselves as the happiest country on Earth when they make those rankings, yet all the Swedes I know complain about how their husband just drinks all day and won't do anything even though she physically beats the shit out of him. Curious.

Civ IV tried to have their cake and eat it too but you end up with nothing and you're still hungry. The religions use the superficial trappings of ones from the real world but in gameplay terms they're completely generic with nothing differentiating them except which tech activates them. If they're generic why do we need them? Why not just leave it completely abstract like in Civ I? If we're assigning them to real world religions, why don't we give them their own special bonuses like we do with different civilizations?

The approach in Civ IV is kinda stupid both in terms of gameplay and theme. You might as call the religions pokemon because you're best off just collecting them all. Each one in a city adds happiness and gives you the opportunity to build more improvements. Honey, please. This is a stupid gameplay mechanic where you're encouraged to build missionaries to convert all your cities and build the same improvement several times for each religion. I consider this to be what Soren Johnson (designer of Civ IV) himself called a "degenerate strategy" in his seminal piece "Water Finds a Crack". You're doing something that's stupid and not interesting because the game rewards you for it. There's no interesting choices going on here. The other gameplay impact religion has is that basically it makes some of the AI civilizations hate you for no reason. This was obviously intended to stop you from just turtling and being friends with everyone, but it's annoying when you're left with fewer options to pursue in diplomacy.

In terms of history, this is all really stupid. Religious diversity works in America because the Founding Fathers designed our nation around it. In the rest of the world in the rest of history, having many different religions in one city is not a recipe for everyone to love each other. Let's look at the late 1500s, when religion was perhaps the most important in history that it's ever been. You had stuff like Protestant mobs surrounding the convent and yelling lewd suggestions of what the nuns should do. Today in Beirut they've got 15 religious sects and it's not giving them +15 happiness points. It's giving them continuous simmering animosity. Damascus, Aleppo, Baghdad, great cities that have "stood the test of time" like the ones represented in Civilization are not finding that diversity is their strength. By ignoring these real issues, I feel that Civ IV is demeaning both to America, where we actually solved them to some extent, and to the poor bastards living in those shithole countries where they have to deal with sectarian bullshit on a daily basis.

In 1976 the Lebanese decided that their happiness bonus from being multicultural society was so great that they asked the Syrian Army to come and violently put down sectarian violence experience it for themselves.

Also, what do you do with the Jews and Hindus? If you're putting real world religions into the game they're incredibly important so you have to include them, but they're not like the other ones featured in the game. They're not sending missionaries around trying to convert people. So what do you do? Write special rules for them? Who's gonna do that? You'd need to hire some guy from Hebrew University who also loves 4X to do any justice to it.

Now this is a nice campus.

The way that religion affects diplomacy in the game is stupid in the other direction. Countries won't make alliances with the "infidels"? How fricking naive do you have to be? Are like 4 fricking years old? Let's look at the late 1500s again. I don't have the book at hand at the moment, so this is from memory, but there was an alliance against the Hapsburgs that was something like this: Sweden, Denmark, England, the Netherlands, France, Portugal, Morocco, Algeria, various parts of Italy, and the Ottomans. They'd have added the Moros in the Philippines if they had better communications technology. In Lebanon they've gone through every possible combination of different sects allying with each since 1975. Most hilariously the Druze who have been both allied with and fought everyone else at least once since then. The elites running the country or the faction usually don't give a shit about sectarian hatred except as a tool they can use to manipulate the plebs.

Sana'a Mehaidli. Carried out a suicide bombing against the Israeli occupation force in 1985. I guess nobody ever told her that as a Christian she wasn't supposed to be on the same side as Muslims.

Which takes me back to my original point about how Sid Meier did it with generic temples. It's not because he's some atheist who hates religion. (He's actually a Christian of the actually going to church kind btw.) It's because trying to fit too much low-level detail about religion into a 4X game is really tricky and probably won't work in terms of gameplay or theme. I've always had a strong impression that this feature was basically put in because there was a feeling among (mostly atheist) 4X fans that religion was a big thing in history so we need a gameplay mechanic for it. And my feminine masculine intuition is rarely wrong.

After all this time I spent writing this I really feel like... starting up a new game of Civ IV. It's a great game.

!g*mers laugh at Nvidia-cels a $2000 GPU still cant play cyberpunk at 4k 60 fps with gay tracing. Have fun paying $2000 for a DLSS software update.

Oh yeah remember this?

Total fricking lie by 4090 performance they mean 5070 can use 4x frame generation to have an equal framerate, but frame gen also increases the latency to like 60 ms meaning the game will play like utter dog shit despite looking smooth.

Its kinda funny how the cope went from "well 60 fps doesn't matter" to "well its 400 fps who cares if the game has 60 ms latency"

!fosstards !linuxchads Nvidia continues to suffer the curse of proprietary BS

🇺🇸 The female Black Hawk helicopter pilot from the crash in Washington, Captain Rebecca Lobach, was not named until her social media was cleaned … so it seems.

She was Biden’s aide. pic.twitter.com/gP16Tmr2py

— Lord Bebo (@MyLordBebo) February 2, 2025

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."

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

Introduction

Y'all remember the smash hit One Punch Man (OPM) in the mid to late '10s? The persiflage of the entire shounen genre as an invincible but bored superhero defeats all enemies with just one punch? Filled with other nonsensical characters like the strongest man on earth who's essentially the weakest man alive or the guy whose basically just a male feminist (male feminist) in real life? Anyways, that shit is still going strong but I've to elaborate here, OPM is based on a shitty drawn but sovlful webcomic by ONE, which in turn got adapted into an official (tm) manga with much better art by MURATA. The thingy got picked up as an anime and rose to immense popularity. Naturally, the original tone of the comic has been lost as it essentially became what it was making fun of - but that's a given for japanese "writers" as they're all whiny or talentless hacks or a combination of the aforementioned - except Fukumoto he's bae(sed). Anyway, OPM has always had a terrible release schedule but lately it's gotten so disgusting that even long-time fans are dropping the series.

Context

To reiterate, here's the release schedule of the original comic (ONE):

while lazy he managed something

Here's what Murata has managed to draw after late 2023:

You may notice the Retconned tag after some chapters. And yes, it's exactly like you are thinking. He draws those chapters, releases them, and then later decides he isn't happy with the chapter (or the entire arc) and revisions all of it while making slight adjustments. Anyway, the latest chapter is a redraw of an already redrawn chapter originally released in 2023 featuring a filler side story of a filler arc. So basically the entirety of chapters released in 2024 are retconned - people don't like this ... at all:

Drama

/r/OnePunchMan

This sub can be insufferable

I love OPM, I love all the stupid drama over which wiafu is best (they're cartoons and y'all are weird), I love the characters and story, I love the art. But the thing is we are getting a product for free here, and early. We don't have to wait for the Manga to get released, we don't have to wait for the finalized product to be able to read what's going on. We literally get a look behind the curtain as this is being made. And part of that process is fixing work that they felt needed to be fixed. Who's to blame? Murata? One? Who cares. It's their work. I'll complain about redraws when I have to rebuy my physical mangas because there's an updated version. It's not done until it's been printed and released. It feels like people are acting privileged and entitled because One released his content online, and now they assume they deserve access to finalized and completed content at our convenience. It will be done when they say it's done. Can we just enjoy what we have in the meantime?

https://old.reddit.com/r/OnePunchMan/comments/1i8rbxz/this_sub_can_be_insufferable/m8vtavd/?context=8

I'd argue that trying to pretend that deleting 14 month of progress out of nowhere is completely fine is far more insufferable.

This isn't a look behind the curtains. It's officially released chapters that also gets official translations. No other series even remotely com close to this mess so of course there is nothing wrong about pointing it out.

Another moment of silence for the poor fools read the official version of OPM on VIZ's app. Because VIZ doesn't translate redrawings.

It is fine? That's how the creative process works sometimes

Literally no other manga series does that.

https://old.reddit.com/r/OnePunchMan/comments/1i8rbxz/this_sub_can_be_insufferable/m8vsw9i/?context=8

why make us wait a whole year for a promised move forward in this story and then throw it all away? Its not us being ungrateful but if Murata truly wants quality for this manga he ought to take his time rather than rush and give us half-assed butchered storylines and retcon it constantly

What you don't understand is you're not the audience.

He is getting it right, and the version he wants is what will actually make it into the volume.

He is the audience. Fans like him are the reason why OPM got an official English physicals in the first place. His opinion will be valid if he says it in Japanese or so? That's just silly. He's still a supporting fan, and he could buy the physical manga just like any Japanese fan could. That's a narrow way of looking at it. Every fan contributes to the series' success.

Thread Dump

/r/Manga

DISC One Punch Man Chapter 195 - 2nd Revision

To be entirely precise, we were at chapter 195 in November 2023. We're in January 2025 and we're now at chapter 195. A whole year thrown away.

https://old.reddit.com/r/manga/comments/1ia11m5/disc_one_punch_man_chapter_195_2nd_revision/m96wrxa/?context=8

Ngl the constant redraws have killed my excitement for this series. Doesn't help that I personally think the story gets worse with each version (just my own opinion)

Simple redraws or changes to the pacing is one thing, but changing the literal plot or direction is too far. It feels like that they don't have a vision for the manga and is just drawing whatever they feel works, which they then don't stick to and subsequently and in my opinion wastes my time and attention.

https://old.reddit.com/r/manga/comments/1ia11m5/disc_one_punch_man_chapter_195_2nd_revision/m96oshu/?context=8

This manga fell off so hard, it really needs to be studied. Being so utterly clueless in what direction you want to take the story that you have to rewrite an arc for a third time. Just copy paste the webcomic at this point.

The funny thing is the defenders of the comic on the main subreddit

Well, it's easy to find defenders when the powertripping mods on there will parma ban anybody even remotely stating something negative about the manga.

https://old.reddit.com/r/manga/comments/1ia11m5/disc_one_punch_man_chapter_195_2nd_revision/m97n48e/?context=8

OPM is genuinely starting to feel like an afterthought with both of its artists at this point.

I know Murata has that animation project he's working on, and ONE seems occupied with Versus and Bug Ego.

Deleting an entire year's worth of chapters, after having already done a complete 180 on the direction of the climax of the most pivotal arc of the series, is actually mental.

What's the point of reading any of this if it can just be retconned whenever ONE or Murata feel like it?

And the people that are on maximum strength copium trying to justify this shit by saying it's some sort of meta-level 4th wall interference by God to prevent his will from being hindered by the plot are just hilarious. Yes, it's totally that and not just blatant mismanagement and confusion by the creators as to where they want to take the narrative.

/r/OPMfolk

Thread Dump

https://old.reddit.com/r/OPMFolk/comments/1i7d8f0/redraw_chapter_195240_raw/m8jpizt/?context=8

All of 2024's chapters are gone from the site lol.

Get ready for another year of ninjas

I'm bored and this isn't as interesting as I've initially assumed. I'll revision this thread in the future.

This video is from Doctor nowhere, from YouTube