atxcyclist

One of the biggest issues in the U.S. is the acquisition of property for the rail lines. Outside of using current ROW for interstates or large highways, which is its own can of worms, it would be basically impossible to get it worked-out. It’s one thing when a rail developer is in court with a single property owner trying to get an easement established, but having potentially thousands of those cases lined-up for a long route? Not happening in many states that have strong property-owners rights. Even using eminent domain powers would be extremely difficult, and it would only take one failure in court to literally and figuratively derail the whole process. Honestly, outside of small routes I don’t think high-speed rail travel is going to be established nation-wide. Airfare is dirt-cheap and fast, people that like traveling would probably rather road-trip (I’m in this group), and those that just want to get somewhere probably prefer a few hours in a plane.

This is really sad news. Some years back I worked down the hall from Arkane Austin, and at the time it seemed like a serious but upbeat place from what I could tell. They were just getting wrapped-up on Dishonored at the time so it was a high point for them. A lot of people were skeptical about Microsoft acquiring ZeniMax, and I was hoping the process would be smooth as I just bought a Series X and am a big Fallout nerd, but this is going very poorly for a lot of studios.

I didn’t claim you said it, you quoted my response to someone else; They said they played one game Bethesda made and that made them hate all of their games. You inserted yourself into a conversation and then wondered why the discussion wasn’t about you. And I don’t know what you expect from an open-world game with a large map, you will have to walk around in it, but that doesn’t make a game a “walking simulator” as there’s plenty to do. Perhaps open-world adventure games just are not a genre you enjoy. Ozzy Osborne has one of the longest careers in music, whatever memo he could get about his comedy chops is surely irrelevant to him, and the people that listen to his music.

Two people’s negative takes on a massively popular game series, are not going to change all the tens of millions of players opinions on it. I’ve never modded any Fallout or Elder Scrolls game, and I’ve played a lot of them. I understand there’s some subjective opinions about games, but someone calling-out a whole studio after only playing one game in one of a few massively popular series they’ve made is just ridiculous. Also, Ozzy Osborne is a musician and not a comedian that has to be funny, so I’m not sure what is “cringe” about that. Again there are subjective takes on music but he is one of the more popular musicians.

There are DOT requirements here in the U.S., technically a lot of these conversions are not road-legal, but it’s not at all enforced. If the conversion assembly is DOT-certified then it will be close to a factory vehicle if aimed correctly. The state I live in is supposed to check for DOT compliance for headlights, but I’ve been running LED replacements for a few years on two of my vehicles and no one ever checks it during the yearly inspection. Now, my housings are new and clear, and the pattern is good (also I aimed them correctly), so if you didn’t know the car shipped with halogen bulbs you’d never guess.

That purple paint is cool, even if the application isn't perfect it's way better than what was there, unfortunately all of the black and dark blue Hondas start to look terrible and chalky after a while. The fact that it was sanded and primed is way better than most people do when spraying their own cars. I worked at a car audio/electronics shop for a while and installed some power locks, basically all of the aftermarket kits are flawed in some way, but Audiovox is a somewhat reputable brand so hopefully they'll keep working. Depending on the design of the actuators, it may be possible to retrofit the factory ones down the line if they start failing. Dynamat has a great advertising department, but all of the aluminum-backed alternatives are considerably cheaper and just as effective. It's actually shocking what a little bit of that material can do for a car, even a few small squares on the inside of the door skins can greatly improve stereo performance.

You're basing your entire viewpoint of a game studio on one game? Fallout 4 isn't the strongest in the series, but 'utter piece of crap' is such a bad take. You're seemingly ignoring the entire Elder Scrolls series too, which has several incredibly popular titles; Skyrim is one of the most successful games of all time, over 60 million copies have been sold. Also, who genuinely thinks Ozzy and his other associated acts suck? Wtf?

Between this and forcing Stellar Blade to be modified to be sold in the US, Playstation seems to be making some extremely unpopular choices lately.

It can be really difficult, I have problems throwing things out or giving them away, because I rationalize keeping things like old computers because 'what if' there's a time I need it. Case in point: The server at my office nosedived some years back and I had to get something back in service over a weekend, and I had all the parts at home to make it happen. It's probably just reinforcing bad habits, but the way I see things is it saved my bacon many times, so in the back of my mind I always wonder if tossing something will put me in a jam later. It doesn't help that I'm the repair guy in my immediate family and for many of my friends in terms of computers, cars, motorcycles, and even bicycles, so I've accumulated so much stuff over the years it's ridiculous. So the answer to the question of which stuff do I keep? Seemingly everything, haha.

I have some older Paradigm Titan speakers that I've placed on stands for a while, but thought maybe to try loading the stand columns with something (dried sand, steel BBs, etc.), but the design of these stands is such that everything would just leak out of the cable management at the bottom. So my idea was to use some microphone arm stand weights, preferably some that are a split-ring type that I could fill with some heavy material and set down on the flat part of the base. My question: Is the true benefit of weighing-down stands actually reducing vibrations in the vertical column with some material, or just the weight holding the stand down to the floor? If I'm not really going to do anything but spend money, this would be a pointless exercise.

Hold up, is that a GoPro/camera mount on the front?

I do like this concept, but I'd probably not go through all of that just to skip a few YouTube ads (I also really appreciate fast-switching games and other apps on my Series X). I will say though, that I'm considering finally rolling-out an opnsense router build and wonder if there's some way to run an adblock through there. Again, I'm not against ad revenue for creators, but I know most don't really rely on the small amount that it gives them, and also if YouTube is going to make skipping and viewing them annoying with apps built-in to standard hardware, I'd consider options at a router-level if possible.

I'm wondering if this is something other people have noticed. So, we've all experienced the ad countdown at some point in time, but there's a new annoying thing that I've been experiencing the last week or so: On my smart TV or XBOX, an ad gets down to zero where it looks like in the next instant I'll be able to skip, but what happens is the ad continues to play for an additional few seconds and I end up pausing the ad trying to skip. Can YouTube seriously not put an accurate timer on ads? This seems like it shouldn't be an issue for the largest video platform online, unless it's on purpose, to make advertisers think people are pausing to look at their products. I am pretty OK with ad revenue being a necessity for creators, but YouTube shouldn't be janky with something as simple as a countdown until an ad ends.

Yep, making ineffective safety equipment during a pandemic is so scummy. Giving someone that could be sick the false sense of security that their mask was keeping them from spreading a virus, really sucks and I would personally feel terrible if I gave someone else covid. When I had it I interacted with as few people as possible, but when I absolutely had to I wore a rated mask.

I received a small handheld vacuum/duster as a gift a while back, and it’s replaced canned air for me. For working inside computers it’s just as effective, and since it’s rechargeable with no cord I can actually get it down into a case much easier.