Not that it really matters, but trying to learn about (Christian) God by reading the Old Testament is like trying to perform maintenance on your 2024 vehicle using a manual from the 2000 version of that car… Like, yeah, that was relevant once, and there’s some overlap, but the situation has evolved since then. It’s called the Old Testament because it is based on something outdated (again, from a generically Christian perspective). The Old Covenant (which is what the Old Testament is testifying to) was between God and the Jews, and was based around compliance with the law. That’s why the OT is so full of rules and punishments.

Then, Jesus arrives on the scene and changed the game. His birth, betrayal, and death, represent a new contract between God and humanity (not just the Jews) wherein mankind is saved by God’s grace alone. In fact, God has done a 180 on the whole obedience to the law thing. Turns out, God loves sinners, and prostitutes, and tax collectors, and prodigal sons, and all sorts of ne’er-do-wells that the God of the Old Testament would have reviled. From the death of Jesus forward (and maybe retroactively too, I don’t know dogma all that well), the only thing necessary for your salvation is God’s grace, and that is given to all, as long as you accept God into your heart or something like that. Basically, God is Darth Vader, and he has altered the deal, pray he does not alter it further.

Of course, as with anything A) religious and B) 2000+ years old, there’s a lot of disagreement on like every aspect of the above. But, I think I’ve got the gist of it correct from a generic, if Catholicism influenced, perspective. It’s been a long time since I had to sit through a theology lecture.

With all that being said though, I imagine that the reason the OT has stuck around in Christianity is that it’s characterization of God as vindictive and capricious and obsessed with toeing the line is a very useful tool for keeping the plebs compliant. They get to have their cake and eat it too, as it were. “God loves you unconditionally sweetie, remember that, but also if you have sex before marriage you are DAMNED to HELL for ETERNITY!”

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I imagine it’s something of a difference in expected audience behavior. I would think that, for most people, looking at a few of the top comments and their replies is all the engagement with a post they want to have. So, a voting system facilitates that process by highlighting a few items the hive mind likes, and leaving the rest in relative obscurity. Whereas forum style posting sort of assumes that everyone present in a thread is in conversation with one another, hence chronological organization.

As neat and tidy as your explanation is, I think you are vastly oversimplifying the concept.

You say the moon is real because you can see it, and you can prove it’s there by telling other people to just go look at it. Alrighty then, I’ve seen bigfoot. In fact, lots of people say they’ve seen bigfoot. Therefore he must exist too, right? The photos “prove” his existence just as much as you pointing to the sky saying the moon exists cause there it is.

Now, I realize that there’s probably some degree of hyperbole in your statement, so I’ll walk this back a little. If the defining metric of your separation between these concepts is whether the hypothesis can be proven through experimentation, that’s all well and good. However, I would argue that, in 99.9% of cases, it’s still a belief statement. Let’s continue with the moon example, but, rather than “seeing is knowing”, let’s apply the same standard that you applied to God. So, you “know” the moon exists, not just because you can see it, but because it’s existence can be empirically proven through experimentation. What sort of experiments would you conduct to do that, exactly? Have you done those experiments? Or, like the rest of the rational world, do you accept that scientists have done those experiments already and decided, yup, moon’s there? Cause, if you’re taking someone else’s word for it, do you personally “know” what they are saying is true, or do you believe them based upon their credentials, the credentials of those who support the argument, and your own personal beliefs/knowledge?

As another example, let’s imagine for a sec we’re philosophers/scientists of the ancient world. I have a theory that the heavier something is, the faster it will fall. You may know where I’m going with this if you remember your elementary school science classes. I believe in the power of experimental evidence, and so, to test my theory, I climb to the top of the Acropolis and drop a feather and a rock. The feather falls much more slowly than the rock. Eureka, I’ve proved my theory and therefore I now KNOW that an object’s weight affects its fall.

Now, anyone not born in 850 BC Athens in this thread will point out that it’s a flawed experiment, since I’m not controlling for air resistance, and if you conducted the same experiment in a vacuum chamber, both objects would fall at the the same rate. However, the technology to test my hypothesis with all of the salient variables controlled did not exist at that time. So, even though it’s now widely known that my experiment was flawed, it wouldn’t have been at the time, and I would have the data to back up my theory. I could simply say try it yourself, it’s a self-evident fact.

Finally, your statement about subjectivity of definition being an obstacle to functional language is so alarmist as to border on ridiculous. If this question were “how do you personally define the distinction between ‘yes’ and ‘no’”, then sure I can get on board a little bit more with your point. However this is much more like ‘twilight’ vs ‘dusk’. Crack open a dictionary and you’ll find that there is a stark, objective distinction between those terms, much as you pointed out that belief and knowledge have very different definitions. For the record, since I had to look it up to ensure I wasn’t telling tales here, sunset is the moment the sun finishes crossing the horizon, twilight is the period between sunset and dusk when light is still in the sky but the sun is not, and dusk is the moment the sun is 18 degrees below the horizon. So, I know that these are unique terms with specific, mutually exclusive definitions. But let me tell you something, I believe that if I randomly substituted one term for another based purely on my personal whimsy, people are gonna get what I mean regardless.

I suppose I cling to the old adage that a bad game is bad forever, while a delayed game may some day be good. It’s less true today than when Miyamoto said it (No Man’s Sky being the commonly cited example of a game which was able to turn its radioactive launch into a fairly positive experience), but I still believe it’s more accurate than not. I’m picking on a straw man here, but I wonder how many of those “gamers” bemoaning Halo’s long absence also look down their noses at the yearly release mill of sports games. Far as I’m concerned, new games in a franchise should come when the creators feel they have something new to showcase. A new mechanic, new engine, a new plot, whatever. Obviously, the games industry at large is perfectly happy to ok boomer me, and I’m perfectly happy to keep mining through my backlog of games which manage to be fun without live updates.

This article, or corpo propaganda depending on your cynicism, asserts as fact that “gamers” are clamoring at the gates, screaming about the length of time between installments in franchises. That rings hollow to me. If anything, it seems like franchise fatigue is a much more common ailment. However, Lemmy is the entirety of my social media presence, so I am sure I’m not tuned in to the wider landscape.

Yes, I believe the figure they cited was that Google earns 73% of their revenue through ads. I imagine what they would have to do is bust up the ad services in addition to the various departments of Google. Each new entity formed gets to keep revenue from ads shown on their platform maybe? E.g. YouTube gets spun off into its own thing separate from Google proper. They get to keep ad revenue from what is shown on their platform, but they don’t get to touch any revenue from sponsored search listings, or from banner ads on other websites, etc.

That’s an approach that makes surface level sense to me, but I am neither a lawyer nor a business bro nor a tech bro. So, I don’t actually have the faintest idea if my idea bears any resemblance to reality.

I’m speculating, but perhaps the thought would be that separating Google Search from the rest of the company would deprive them of the alternative revenue streams they used to maintain their market position? If I remember the ruling against them correctly, one of the key pieces of evidence cited by the judge was that Google spent like 30 billion dollars a year to have 3rd parties use their engine by default.

I disagree with your assessment. To an average user, whatever winds up saved in their browser cache is there mostly unintentionally. Yes, it’s saving info from sites they choose to visit, but after that initial choice, the user is out of the loop. The browser saves what it needs to without user notification or input. I might even wager that most users are unaware of their browser cache, or don’t know what’s in it or how to access it. Therefore, I believe your metaphor perhaps confers too active a decision-making process on something that most people are completely unconscious of.

To be clear, the strawman average user I’m using here is me. I know I have a browser cache, I know vaguely what is stored in it and why, and I know how to clear it if I’m having certain issues. That’s about it. I sure as heck don’t treat it as an archive.

Hmm, so, last month I began to have issues with my Chromecast for the first time. I have an old 3rd gen Chromecast attached to my bedroom television (not a smart tv) for the purpose of casting obnoxiously long video essays to fall asleep to. After like a decade of essentially hassle free operation, it suddenly stopped being able to maintain a connection to my phone. I cast a video, and after approximately 10 minutes, the cast disconnects and I get a message on my phone saying “this video cannot be played in the background”. I’ve tried ever troubleshooting technique I can think of.

I know I shouldn’t attribute to malice what can be explained by other causes, but boy, seeing this news today sure makes me think about things like planned obsolescence.

While it’s possible that a different reviewer applied that hypothetical headcanon to the Burnout series, I believe you’re actually thinking of Ross’ Game Dungeon. Specifically the Trackmania Canyon video, not Burnout.

Check it out for yourself, if you like. 22 minute gameplay demo. I think it looks neat, but I am not involved enough with the game to samee how these things interact with one another.

Depends on your bunny rabbit stance, I reckon.

Seconding the other poster. Excellent write up; you distilled every rebuttal point I would have made to OP perfectly.

This is a factually accurate statement, but it reads like you’re encouraging someone to get into smoking cigarettes, which is (I thought) a myth invented by DARE types. Hey OP, speaking as someone with a 15 year off and on addiction to nicotine, steady on your course, bud.

I don’t understand diddly about the specifics of this article (I’m a member of the normie minority on this site who is neither working in IT, nor interested in the field), but I gotta say, I loved how it was structured and written. In a sea of AI generated crap, or simply parroting talking heads and calling it news, I found the way they laid out the article in two parts ("this is what happened, followed by “this is our subjective opinion on those events based on the wider context”) to be very refreshing.

You deserve the hose for this, because now I can’t stop thinking about it.

You’re correct, HR is there to benefit the company. However, in this case, the goals align. OP wants to stop being sent objectionable material while at work. HR wants employees’ actions to not open the company up for litigation. Being able to prove that dickhead is engaging textbook harassment while on the clock should be an open and shut case.

All of this is to be taken with a heaping handful of salt, since regulations differ wildly by jurisdiction, but this seems pretty clear cut to me.

Don’t let her shitty politics get in the way of doing something you enjoy. Death of the author and all that. If you’re worried about fiscally supporting her, I’m certain you can find the whole series at reasonable prices in any secondhand bookstore.

I’ve definitely gone through the Harry Potter series a couple of times at different phases of my life. Definitely had a different experience with every reading. Not always positive, but at this point it’s part of the tapestry of my childhood.