Like an agent? Actors and sports players have them. People who get paid in the millions. So they can hire people to act on their behalf to get them work while they sip martinis by the pool.

So the video is essentially saying that Nintendo requiring docks be their proprietary basic one and not supporting third-party docks with more features could be a sign of companies like Apple, Samsung, and others making their USB/Thunderbolt ports proprietary?

Doubt it.

Nintendo is in kind of its own little tech bubble. It’s not really considered tech, it’s considered a toy, so while the Switch OS may have started as an Android fork (I’m not sure how true this was at release — prior to the Switch launch it was reported that they were forking Android), it’s not an Android device and should never be (and fortunately isn’t) treated like one. And yes, it uses a USB port, but it’s not an open USB port, it’s a Nintendo accessory port and should be treated as such.

I don’t like the idea of Nintendo using proprietary crap, but it’s Nintendo, if you want to pay $450 for a minor update to the Switch 1, you kinda know what you’re getting. If you love the Switch and have had it since release, maybe that’s worth it. I just got the Switch 1 OLED 11 months ago, so the Switch 2 doesn’t appeal to me. Maybe if they had it when I was ready to buy one, I would have bought it instead, but a minor spec bump less than a year out? Hard pass. Especially with like two games (DK:B and MKW). I play Animal Crossing, and Switch 2 isn’t doing shit for us. (Interestingly, AC New Horizons is designed to scale up to whatever hardware you run it on. PC/Mac users have gotten it up to 8K without any real work. So on a Switch 2 it’ll just take advantage of the higher resolution/frame rate without needing a patch. Even so, my AC runs fine on my Switch. I do get a little pop in on my island if I watch the edges sometimes, but it’s no big deal (and Isabelle is still telling me my island needs more shit on it to get that coveted AF 5 star rating.))

You ever see a dump truck that says “not responsible for broken windshields”? Guess what. EVERY truck — this is US law anyway — is responsible for securing its load. So why do they have the sticker? So you don’t bug them about it. Or at least so most people don’t bug them about it. They also say stay back 200 feet. That’s not a law. It’s just a bumper sticker and is equally as enforceable. If they crack your windshield because they didn’t secure your load, you (or rather your insurance company) can go after them. But the truth is, most insurance companies just write off so many broken windshields per however long anyway, they won’t go after the company even if you have proof. But they could — and so could you.

Post the review anyway. Or at the very least post a review that says “the terms say I can’t post a negative review so believe me when I say the service was acceptable.” It’s not a negative review. It’s not a positive review either. It’s a neutral review and it calls out the clause. It is heavily implied to be opposite of what you said. You said the work was acceptable, implying it’s unacceptable. If you used the same tactic and said the work was great, the opposite would appear true, that it was not great. But acceptable is not great. So say it was acceptable and imply you were forced to say that. Thusly, an intelligent person will see your message for what it is.

That is so weird, I was just reading about them earlier today. I really only cared about one or two songs off their first album, but Apple Music recommended the 25th anniversary EP, it’s like 4 songs on that album that are getting remade or something. Apparently they’ve gone through some lineup changes, it’s still the two sisters singing and writing though, and their latest album of new material was last year.

Too heavy for me but I’ll listen to “Brackish XXV.” I might listen more than once. I mean, the novelty in 1999/2000 was, here’s these 12-13 year old girls (I think one was 14?) and they make metal. And it’s not even cute, they’re serious about it and they’re punching above their weight class. Not by much but they did alright and enjoyed moderate success. I guess it’s still a novelty if their lineup is all female and they’re writing their own stuff, that still makes them somewhat unique in the industry, but still not really my thing.

Maybe.

I grew up reading Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Bentley Little, and John Saul. I now think horror movies are kind of silly. I like the Scream series because they’re smarter. They’re good slashers but you have the whodunit aspect as well.

I can’t speak for everyone though. And maybe it’s not so bad to be scared of horror? Like, isn’t that part of the fun?

Never got into horror games though. The problem I have with that is, being that it’s a game, either you have the agency to peek behind the curtain, or you don’t. With a movie, you only see what they want you to see. I never actually played horror games, as such, but there were a couple scary moments in games I have played, like Fallout 3 with the Dunwich Building. It’s a random building toward the southwest corner of the map that is not connected to any main or side quests. (I think one of the DLCs had a tie in to it, though.) When you go in, you find that you can’t leave the way you came in, and as you traverse the building looking for another way out, you see flashbacks that are handled like jump scares. It’s really not that scary, but the first time through might be. There’s a similar area in Fallout 4 (Dunwich Borers, so, same company) and you experience some of the same stuff.

Take out the “half your age plus” and you might be onto something.

They’re all boosting each others’ craziness so none of them drop the dreaded list that exposes all of them, and/or the people they owe favors to.

If it aims to please a vast audience and it succeeds, then that means more people are happy.

The opposite is a film aimed at a very specific niche.

The best movie I’ve seen is the Japanese film 君の名は。. It’s (maybe) not for everybody. It is somewhat popular (a bit more so when it was new, 9 years ago), people know what it is, I’m pretty sure it’s in the IMDb Top 250, it’s one of those movies everyone should see at some point, but most people wouldn’t Top 10 it. I like movies with certain elements that appeal to me, and some of the movies I like, “most people” don’t. Like maybe if they gave it a chance they’d like it, but they wouldn’t watch it. The algorithm wouldn’t recommend it to them. And niche films keep getting made by studios like A24 and Blumhouse that give creators more control. But anyway, I also like KPop Demon Hunters, which is like, the #1 movie right now. I recognise it’s a formulaic movie. I see the formulae. I still bop to “Soda Pop” and “What it Sounds Like” along with the kids, teenagers, and millions of other people who made it the top film. I listen to the songs in my car, and at home. I was one of the ones in the theater watching it last week, but I did not sing along, I was just there to enjoy it on a bigger screen.

There’s nothing wrong with liking popular movies, or movies that are marketed to you. There’s nothing wrong with marketing working, doing its job, serving its intended purpose.

It’s only wrong if you can’t find movies that nobody else but you (and a few others like you scattered around the world) like.

(P.S. I’m not trying to be obtuse, or a smartass. 君の名は。 is called “your name.” outside of Japan. I simply prefer to use the original title as a personal choice, and I can pronounce it correctly as well (something like “key-me no nye-wah.” The literal translation is “what’s your name?” which is where the international title comes from. I also prefer to watch it in Japanese without subtitles, despite it being fully translated to English as an option. I don’t know Japanese. I’ve just seen it enough to know exactly what’s going on at all times.)

Depends on your age to a certain extent. Older men tend to value monogamy more, but we’re also older and looking for a sure thing (if we don’t have it already). Chasing tail, bedding a different young lady every night, sounds fun, but when you need someone to take care of you, it doesn’t really make sense as opposed to a long-term relationship.

If you’re younger though, you got your whole life ahead of you… just be safe. And try to avoid the crazy ones. They deserve love too, but they also take a lot of patience.

Is that the first game? Yes, it was great. But the publisher was scummy AF and broke the game up into four parts. Now, granted, each part came with an anime DVD which gave you some of the back story/real world issues around the back story, so they did try to make it worth it. But still, it should have been one game.

Yeah, I think it was meant to. Maybe the origins are same/similar.

Fun trivia: Isekai is a Japanese genre that means “trapped in another world.” Sword Art Online made it popular but it wasn’t the first, even in Japan. The idea of being trapped in a video game goes at least back to Tron in the 1980s. SAO was itself a revamp/remake of an older anime called .hack//SIGN — not officially, but it shared way too many details with that decade-older show. (The books were written around the time it was airing, but the show would have been green-lit almost a decade later, knowing there was a very similar show already out. And the same people worked on it, made the music, made the games, so yeah, similar DNA in both.) But the first isekai may have actually been Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Isekai has western origins, Japan just gave it a simple name. And now it seems like there are dozens of isekai (word is the same singularly and plurally) coming out every year, and most of them suck. But isekai is everywhere. Stephen King has written isekai — The Dark Tower, The Talisman, 11/22/63, Fairy Tale, and probably more.

Try it and see?

If it’s the soda I’m thinking of, it’s sickeningly sweet, with something like 130% of your recommended sugar intake in a 20 ounce bottle — roughly 600mL to those outside the US.

These days I can’t drink soda (or anything carbonated, like champagne and beer) but I believe I have had Fanta Strawberry before. I know it was one strawberry brand.

But honestly, what olden days? The only strawberry soda I remember from back in “my” day (the 80s and early 90s) was Safeway Select. We didn’t have Fanta back then where I was. I remember Sunkist and maybe one other brand had orange and grape soda, but only Safeway had strawberry soda IIRC.

“Woman”? Probably. “Human female”? Most likely.

Girls figure out from a much earlier age, on average, that most guys are comfortable knowing, that vibrations in that area feel good. So even without thinking about sex or pursuing orgasm, they will seek out things they can straddle that move in a way that feels good. One of those things, if you’re around enough girls or a girl long enough you learn but maybe wish ya didn’t.

How do you mean “where is it going?”

The most recent iteration of “derpy” I’ve heard was in the Kpop Demon Hunters fandom. That’s what fans call the tiger-spirit-thing. I don’t know what its real name is, or if it has one, and I’ve seen the movie three times. At this point I don’t care, its name is Derpy.

If you’re not familiar, it’s a tiger spirit (apparently this is a thing in Korean folklore) and it appears to one of the demon hunter girls, and after initially appearing scary, it knocks over a planter, and proceeds to try to right the planter before proceeding. After several failed attempts, the girl intervenes and sets the planter right… only for the tiger to knock it over again and again attempt to right it. (It’s not a scary scene. Everyone loves the tiger.)

Maybe I worded that poorly. Yeah, we generally trusted the news, but for the most part the TV was the “idiot box” and was not to be trusted. At some point, the news — I think, largely, FOX News at first, but the others weren’t far behind — became “news entertainment” in the same way WWE was “sports entertainment.” It was either not real, or at the very least it was heavily biased. Whenever The Newsroom came out — what a lot of people know for a 3 minute YouTube edit about why “America is no longer the greatest country in the world anymore” but was really more of a love letter to the way the news used to be. They told real news in a way that was entertaining, but through a character (portrayed by Jeff Daniels) who was trying to tell the news the old way. Give people the facts and let them make up their own mind. But by that point, I think most news on TV was fake/heavily biased.

End of trust, not truth.

Back in my day, we assumed that if it was on TV, it was a lie or likely not the whole truth. When the Internet began to rise up, we extended that mistrust to the Web.

Lately, people have become too trusting of the Internet and I’m glad that trust is starting to roll back.

I like Quentin Tarantino but mostly in theory. He makes classic Hollywood type movies because that is what he loves. I don’t often agree with him though. Like others, I think Pulp Fiction is his best work. It’s the most fun and that’s important to me. It also stars people I like, and that shouldn’t matter, but it does.

I would say there is a case to argue it can be a delusion. I would say you don’t have the authority to determine to what extent someone enjoys or relates to this delusion.

I saw a conversation on another site and I didn’t reply the way I wanted because it would have been insensitive. But that point of view has greater context here. People were talking about the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s. I don’t know anyone who died from AIDS, or really felt connected to any celebrities who had it. However (especially since you bring up anime in the OP), there is an anime that is generally disliked for a few reasons, some of them valid. Since I am introducing it in this context, I cannot say what the anime is, because the “AIDS angle” is a huge spoiler, and I really don’t do spoilers. But it introduces this character near the end of the second season, and this character is all kinds of awesome and inspirational. You find out that what they’re doing is due to their time being short… due to AIDS. Or, if we’re going off the book those episodes are based on (light novel, not manga), it’s actually AIDS and cancer because, like, eff this character in particular, I guess. I don’t think I have to tell you how this arc ends. I will say if it were its own thing, if it were adapted separately from that anime with all the baggage, it would stand as one of the great drama series out there, it would have a lot more fans and attention on it.

So now we circle back to the OP’s question. If happiness coming from anime (or the other media) is invalid, what about sadness from anime? What if it’s an anime character with purple hair who really makes you care about a real-life social issue that doesn’t affect anyone you know? Does that make it any less real?

It’s not up to me to decide for you. I personally believe those feelings are valid. How you feel, I suppose, depends on factors that matter to you. For example, you might personally know someone who died from AIDS, and you’re like “well screw that fictional character, because that disease claimed millions of lives and I’m more affected.” But I would argue the story brings awareness. I would not argue that such a person is wrong for feeling that way, though.

If you know what anime I’m talking about, I’d ask that you follow my lead on the spoiler thing and not mention it. But I’m no one’s boss here.