ChTe

Yeah, I can tell you're not an American with this one lol. I don't expect you to be informed on our news, our institutions, and the positions of our political parties. If you were, I reckon you'd be among a very small minority. Coincidentally, many of our own citizens aren't even informed on daily happenings in Washington or even fundamental details of government structure. Less than half of Americans can name the three branches of the federal government. Less than a quarter of Americans are aware that the First Amendment guarantees freedom of religion. I also don't think it's a huge surprise that Trump has a huge lead among disengaged voters, who largely do not follow political news, according to an April NBC News poll. Maybe you can argue that the news media is corrupting minds, meaning that uninformed voters are actually the ones who are "right." To that, I have no argument. Believe what you want to believe. But I'm sure you at least find it a little concerning that people who couldn't name more than two decisions from the last Supreme Court session are also deciding on who is most qualified to nominate those Supreme Court justices. Isn't it great how so many of the arguments for another Trump administration rely on an elementary understanding of subject matter? It's like some Brexit shit, again. Now I don't expect you to respond to this, but is it perhaps possible that the President & his cabinet are not responsible for record high inflation? Could there have been another contributing factor that led to increased manufacturing and transportation costs? Maybe a decrease in supply of the world's largest energy source? Is it possible that one of the largest producers of that energy source is currently at war? Is it also possible that they are at war with, surprise!, another major energy producer? I wonder if this has anything to do with inflation? Surely not... Anecdotally, whenever I'm around Republican family I am constantly subjected to bad takes about how "Bidenomics" have created this whole inflation thing, and if Trump was in office, none of these prices would have gone up. If I ever poke and prod, I usually get some grumbles about "deficit spending" and "national debt" or whatnot. Interesting to note that Trump increased the debt by more than half of what Biden did. He actually accumulated more debt in three years of office than Biden is on track to accumulate in a full term. If you want to go there, we can go there. I personally don't like this way of thinking though. It's my belief that the effect of presidential and even legislative policies on the economy are very much overstated. It's also funny to pretend that Biden controls prices in other countries We'll use the EU is as a comparison to the US in terms of output and quality of life. How is it that the EU both had higher peak inflation and took longer to come down from that peak? Is that Biden's doing? Again, I don't subscribe to the belief that the entire economy is A) controlled by the President and B) responds instantaneously to any of the President's actions, but if I did, I'd be inclined to give Biden his flowers here. Actually, @JamesRobot, maybe it's easier to just get the opinion of someone who lives outside America. What does someone like @Sumez think about all that damn inflation Biden's caused in Denmark? [Key: Blue line for US, dashed gray for Eurozone]

Alright, you spewed a lot of bullshit that I'm not even going to entertain, but I find this interesting. Do you really believe Donald Trump is the same candidate he was in 2016? It's a bit hard to present yourself as a political outsider when you've already served a term as President, no? Also, I would argue nationwide polling doesn't mean much. The Harris/Walz ticket will win the popular vote by several million. A Republican presidential nominee hasn't won that shit in my lifetime lol. What matters are where those votes come from, and Harris is ahead of where Clinton was at the end of her campaign in many key swing states (for now). Trump still has a very real chance to win because of how tight the margins are in many of these states. His path, like always, is to pray that he can ride his electoral advantage to the Presidency, despite being the less popular candidate. As a random on the internet with no polling background, it looks like that path is still there, although I would argue it's shrinking.

Reading this over, I can see how this might be perceived as inflammatory or divisive. I was pretty much just reading through this forum, saw the poll, and felt the need to vent. I love this little community, but that doesn't stop me from being critical of viewpoints that I feel are simply not grounded. Remove or ignore if need be. I find it incredibly unlikely that because something was attempted and happened to fail, there is no longer a threat or even a possibility of another attempt. Why vote the threat in once again? Is it because the other candidate is a few years older?

I'd also like to add that in many cases, like Florida's HB7, this type of restriction or outright ban doesn't just affect K-12 schools, it pours over into public universities, too. Giving you the benefit of the doubt, I can totally understand if you don't want a middle school-aged kid to read Fifty Shades of Gray or similar material. That's understandable, and I would completely agree in that case. However, when you're limiting what a legal adult can read, especially when that same adult can vote and die for our country? That doesn't hold up in my eyes. Not to mention it's blatantly un-American. We're supposed to be the land of the free, not the land of adults need supervision. I'm sure you can see how the actions of a few concerned parents could end up infringing on the rights of others. There's also the fact that many of these books aren't actually explicit, they simply mention taboo topics or are written by minority authors. That's another issue entirely, though, and other people have already explained it better than I can. [TPUSA is also not generally considered a reliable or unbiased source. I would not be surprised if the video you shared was taken out of context or straight doctored to generate outrage. Even if it's not, you can see my skepticism.]

Never played, but is it Elite: Dangerous?

I really wanted to like this one, but I honestly found it pretty meh. The first time I watched it, I was the same age as Seita, and all I could think the whole movie was "That's not how a 14-year-old would act." I get that he was under immense stress to provide for his sister, but he didn't even have to do that. Not only did he have family to fall back on, but he also had fat stacks in the bank that he never touched until his sister was on her deathbed oh wow what a coincidence. Even Setsuko doesn't feel like a real character, although I guess you could argue that a small child might act like that. There's no excuses for big bro though, and as he repeatedly makes the worst possible decision to set the story up for its tragic ending, my belief is no longer suspended, and I don't care much about the characters' fates. Apparently this is what the director intended? One thing I do appreciate about this movie is the amount of depth it offers in a relatively short amount of time. There is a surprising amount of discussion to be had about dead author theory, the film's subtext, and its representation of the Japanese psyche during two of the country's most intense periods in recent history (1944-45, when the film takes place & late-bubble 1980s, when the film was produced). I feel as though there is a lot there to critique and analyze, but I do feel as though it is ultimately hindered by its poor characters who, to me, feel more like plot devices than real people. Also, and this is just a small personal annoyance, but the original author wrote the film's source material as an apology to his sisters who died in his care, and as such the book and movie are semi-autobiographical. The book's biggest deviation from Nosaka's lived experiences? That he killed off Seita, the stand-in for himself. A big part of the reason he wrote the book in the first place was to repent for his actions that he believed killed his sisters, including eating all of their family rations, leaving his sisters to starve. Wouldn't that make for both a better story and apology? I feel that, in both changing his actions towards his family and the circumstances around his death, Nosaka gives Seita, and by extension, himself, an easy way out and absolves him of the consequences of his actions. This is pure speculation, and I of course do not know the Nosaka family personally, but it almost seems downright disrespectful to his sisters to rewrite history in such a way. I guess what I'm trying to do here is ask how you felt about the characters and their actions? I feel like I'm missing something here, and since you clearly respect the film, I would love it if you could share your perspective on it.

Random REI-brand mountain bike. Looks like this: I can't say I do a whole lot of mountain biking, though. When I eventually upgrade I'll probably get a road bike, but this thing gets the job done for casual biking.

Request: COLLECT - Toys to Life: Disney Infinity 1 I'm looking to complete the set one day. These things are stupid cheap now that nobody cares about them anymore. I wish the same was true for amiibo lol

I'm planning to do the C&O Canal Trail in a few weeks. The plan is to do it over weekend and stop at camp sites along the way. Mileage should be something like 50/65/65

Dreamfall: The Longest Journey

I feel like I'm crazy, but I don't think anyone's mentioned Day of the Tentacle. It has a fully playable version of its prequel, Maniac Mansion, and to my knowledge is the first game to do this. (This is the 2016 remaster.)

Any chance you do it again next year? I'm planning to go and would def want to make your show.

I mostly agree with this. There's a few minor sections, like the woods puzzle right before Rubacava, that feel like they require some leaps in logic, but honestly those can just be brute-forced. The majority of the game's puzzles left me grinning and usually pretty satisfied, and the pneumatic tube and metal detector ones are still some of my favorites.

One of the most horrifying things I have ever read. I remember being both disgusted by the level of inhumanity depicted in the book and the fact that I had never even heard of it. In our school system, the whole Pacific War (and the Sino-Japanese Wars) are completed glossed over in favor of a big Holocaust unit and battles in Europe. Obviously the Holocaust is extremely important and deserves to be properly covered, but I always found it very ironic that in doing so it lead to other, similar events (albeit on a smaller scale) being neglected. The author, Iris Chang, is really interesting too, and the note at the end from her husband is probably the most I've ever cried reading a book. She took her own life in 2004, but I'm sure she would be touched by how far-reaching her work has become.