Is there an exercise that goes in the other direction? Asking for a friend.

Nah, they’ll just use AI to do that.

Close. It was actually a rabbit.

I personally look to see if the company has their own storefront. And sometimes it pays off in unexpected ways.

For example I was in the market for a soldering iron. I found a solid Hakko one on Amazon, but I decided to check their site first and, lo and behold, they had the exact same one for sale for the exact same price. BUT I could choose what color I wanted; Amazon only had the standard blue/yellow, whereas they had two other color choices.
On top of that they included an extra goodie of my choosing, which I chose their coffee mug (I forget the other options).

So because I took the extra time to look around, I was able to get one in a color I preferred, got an extra item out of it, and cut out the unnecessary middle man. Win-win-win as they say.

Sometimes, though, it’s just not possible. I was in the market for a triple monitor stand as I use a unique configuration (ultrawide as my main, with two regular widescreens side-by-side above it). The only viable stand I found was available either through Amazon or Walmart. They did not sell directly from their site. So I had to choose which devil I wanted to support.

Can confirm about the unrest. My friend group is discussing these events daily. And a few of them are actually going out and protesting. I’m likely to join in this summer.

EUbuntu?

I’m gonna have to buy a 360 now to jailbreak and rip its games.
Been doing that for PS1-4, GC, Wii, Wii U, Switch, and OG Xbox. Now it’s time for the 360 to join the ranks.

Agreed. 2/10, would not recommend to a friend

Younger 30s AMAB here. It’s between shoulder and armpit length now and I love it despite the amount of work it takes now.
I’ve never had it this long before, mostly out of fear about what others would say, particularly my dad. But shortly before 30, I just decided to say, “fuck it,” and started growing it out. Now after growing it out for the past few years I’ve never felt more like me.
And the best part? I have received almost nothing but compliments about my hair. I learned to care for it correctly and found out it’s actually pretty curly. I always thought it was just wavy. It makes the ladies jealous and I get to establish my dominance with the best hair in the room.

The only issue with Stuntman on emulators is it’s one the last remaining games not playable on PCSX2. There’s been consistent issues with the AI pathing on one of the levels and they haven’t been able to patch it after all these years.
I’m not saying it won’t ever be, but it may continue to be unplayable on non-native hardware for a while longer.

I am not ashamed to admit it either. I even made the effort to get the PS2 ports of the two games that released on PSP, however I still need to play those.
It is a goal of mine to have every single R&C game playable on my PC. The only one I’m still waiting on is the PS4 version, and it’s only a matter of time with ShadPS4.

I haven’t tried the R&C collection on RPCS3 yet even though I have a copy. The compatibility list has it under In Game with some graphical bugs and glitches, but it was last updated nearly 5 years ago, so things may have improved.

Luckily since you have a Deck, you can realistically change your thumbsticks should they get damaged.

No one mentioned the Jak & Daxter and Ratchet & Clank games. Those were my childhood growing up and in my opinion hold up gameplay-wise to this day.

Plus the Jak series have a native launcher called OpenGOAL.

While I never played them myself, I have heard good things about the Sly Cooper series.

Rayman 3 Hoodlum Havoc is where it’s at. I consider that peak Rayman. Would love another game with that vibe.

Hmmm, a nuclear based propellant. Might be easiest to make it a pulse based rocket so you can use a bunch of tiny nuclear explosions to propel yourself into space. I’m sure that won’t have any environmental ramifications.

The mechanics are definitely a bit clunky which adds to the difficulty. But outside of that, the game doesn’t feel that difficult to play.
Then again, I only got to the yard as a kid, so maybe the game gets noticeably harder after that.

Lol, when I played it as a kid, it was on my grandma’s tiny ~13" CRT, so I can’t imagine the tv was doing much heavy lifting. My housemate does have a 60" TV I could try though…

Reminds me I gotta finish this game. I have it emulated on my phone. I only finished the house so far. It’s weird playing it as an adult versus as a kid. Back then the game felt much bigger and more difficult.

They say the best gift is one they keep on using. By that logic, my best gift is the tea kettle my brother gave me on Christmas 2018. I was getting into drinking tea, but I had no convenient way to heat up the water. It quickly became my most used Christmas gift ever. Then when the pandemic happened and I started working from home, I used it multiple times a day. It’s been used easily a couple thousand times in the past 6 years and it’s still going strong.

Edit: Another arguably best gift is the headphones that my brother also gave me. I forget what year, though, somewhere between 2014 and 2016. They’re a pair of Sony headphones and I started to use them a lot when I started office work at the end of 2017. Basically every day for most of my shifts. I used them so much the (admittedly mediocre) ear pads wore out and I had to replace them at the end of 2019. The 3rd party replacement pads are significantly better and show absolutely zero wear. I stopped using them as much when I upgraded to a wireless pair in 2022, but they still get used every week for work meetings and calls on Teams. I’ve definitely put a few thousand hours of use into them over the past decade.