squirrel

joined 2 years ago
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A segment in a documentary about the cartoonist Art Spiegelman was edited two weeks before it was set to air on public television stations across the country.

Archived version, without paywall: https://archive.is/FQsBM

[–] squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone 14 points 12 hours ago

What I find interesting in this picture: Women freaking out to music in public was still such a rare occurrence at the time that the women in the back really don't know how to handle it. By now it has been normalized so much, nobody considers it particularly noteworthy. And the world is better for it.

 

Skin Deep by Blendo Games is one of the best games I've played in years. It's genuinely the closest I think a game has come to capturing Hitman World of Assassination's chaotic magic, and that's already one of my favourite games of all time. Truly a marvel.

Thanks to the current state of the games industry and the resulting challenges stacked against indie games like Skin Deep - from development and production through to release and coverage - as well as the continued dominance of AAA megahits like Grand Theft Auto and the upcoming release of the Switch 2 (with all the associated talk of the cost of games rising to $80), I'm willing to bet you probably won't play it. In this combined game review and industry analysis, let's talk about why you absolutely should check out Skin Deep - the best game you probably won't play.

An alternate title for this video might be The REAL Problem With Modern Gaming.

[–] squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 2 days ago

Archived version, without paywall of the NYT article mentioned: https://archive.is/Bx3c3

 

An Instagram post by Alex Graham has stirred up a hornet's nest of controversy by suggesting that comics by marginalized groups are overrated

 

For context: The popular game GeoGuessr may look like it is build upon Google Maps/Streetview, but in the background it is fueled by an active community of players who handpick interesting locations to "guess", in order to keep the game interesting and fun.

Today the community published this note:

We, the creators of a considerable share of GeoGuessr’s most popular maps, have decided to make our maps unplayable in protest of GeoGuessr AB’s decision to host a World Championship wildcard tourney at the Esports World Cup (EWC) in Riyadh.

The EWC is a sportswashing tool used by the government of Saudi Arabia to distract from and conceal its horrific human rights record.

Groups targeted by the government include women, LGBTQ people, apostates and atheists, political dissenters, migrant workers in the Kafala system, religious minorities, and many others. The subjugation of these groups is extensive and pervasive. Members of these groups are routinely subjected to discrimination, imprisonment, torture, and even public executions. These severe human rights violations are well-documented and indisputable.

By participating in the EWC, GeoGuessr is contributing to that sportswashing agenda, which is designed to take attention away from Saudi Arabia's human rights violations.

The GeoGuessr community is diverse and includes many members of groups that would be harshly persecuted were they to live in Saudi Arabia. In solidarity with those currently residing in Saudi Arabia while being subject to oppression, as well as members of the community who would feel and be unsafe attending the tournament in Riyadh, we have decided to black out our maps by replacing all their previous locations with random garbage locations, rendering them unplayable.

This blackout includes dozens of creators and their maps, including a supermajority of the most popular competitively relevant world maps. It will continue until we see action from GeoGuessr; specifically, we demand that GeoGuessr cancels its wildcard event in Saudi Arabia and commits to not hosting any events there as long as it continues its oppressive regime.

You don't play games with human rights.

Thank you for reading.

The GeoGuessr mapping community

Original post on Reddit

[–] squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 points 4 days ago

While "tribadism" (old term for various lesbian sexual positions, including scissoring) has been known since antiquity, scissoring itself has only been distinguished from other lesbian sexual positions in several sexologist studies in the 70s. Its prevalence was heavily debated even back then, but there was little doubt about its existence before the emergence of modern porn.

 
 

Television and radio are already heavily monitored and censored. Next up: the digital arena, including social media.

 

SAG-AFTRA claims Epic didn’t negotiate video game AI voice replacement terms.

[–] squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 6 days ago

Of course. ヾ(^▽^)ノ

 

Deadline speaks to Hollywood’s fiercest advocates against Trump’s DEI rollbacks — Roger Ross Williams, Ashley Eakin and Asha Chai-Chang.

Archived version: https://archive.is/x5Dpi

[–] squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone 18 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (5 children)

The question is somewhat difficult to answer, because the reactions to HRT are very individual. They depend on things like your age, your genetic make-up and the kind of HRT you get (what kind of drugs, what dosage, etc.)

To put things as general as possible: If you start HRT you may first feel euphoria, which is (more often than not) a purely psychological reaction. The actual effects of HRT will usually begin to manifest after a few weeks (once again: highly depending on what you are taking and how your body reacts to it). Unlike the initial psychological effect this will usually be more gradual, as your body and mind "ease into" their new state of being.

The obvious physical effects usually take months to manifest (growth of breast tissue, etc), though infertility can come earlier, particularly if you take anti-androgens or progesterone.

Because you specifically asked about sperm, the effects of HRT are (mostly) reversible in that regard, particularly if you haven't taken HRT for long. Some people can become fertile after months, sometimes even years of HRT, once they stop taking it.

So: Yes, most people can stop HRT for a while, freeze some sperm and then go back on. There are no guarantees, but it works far more often than not.

 

Bungie, the studio behind the Halo series that is now owned by Sony, said it is investigating concerns over the “unauthorized use” of the artist’s work.

Archived version without paywall: https://archive.is/cdKUn

 

The house style of the New York Times is severely outdated. Depending on the topic, the newspaper’s purportedly impartial tone instead reads as smug, self-amused, and deeply lazy. The results are disastrous when applied to a recent article which sincerely considers the idea that Rachel Griffin-Accurso, the popular children’s entertainer known as Ms. Rachel, might […]

Archived version without paywall: https://archive.is/yE3mF

[–] squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 week ago

I have to admit, I was also puzzled by what they mean with "horny", despite agreeing with the gist of the article.

[–] squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 1 week ago

Me? I am impartial, I am certainly not being paid by Big Dictionary!

*attempts to hide the old, dusty Oxford English Dictionary on the bookshelf

[–] squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone 185 points 1 week ago (8 children)

Dictionaries are - by definition - descriptive. It is not their duty to judge what goes into them. They merely collected terms used by people and explain what they mean.

Demanding to remove information from a dictionary, because you do not like what it expresses or the people who use those terms, is the very definition of censorship.

 

SUPERHOT VR released in 2017. Then in 2021 the game’s entire story was removed.

 

Large language models are reflections of the people who program them.

Archived version: https://archive.is/U2Wv2

[–] squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I think I experienced similar feelings which usually appear when I was comparatively "better" than during the times that counted as major depressive episodes, according to the professionals I dealt with.

But honestly the way our psyche deals with depression is highly individual and good, responsible therapists/psychiatrists/neurologists/... consider a variety of symptoms before making a final diagnosis. With the exception of a high risk of suicide which will immediately place the sufferer in the "major depressive disorder" category, because of the immediate danger to their lives.

What I want to say: Probably only an expert will be able to tell you exactly what kind of depression you have/had. And I cannot claim to be one. I am simply someone who suffers from it too and I read up about it.

[–] squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 points 1 week ago (4 children)

I am sorry for being the bearer of sad news. Suicidal thoughts are the most easily recognizable of the symptoms. And even if they are less persistent between major depressive episodes, a lot of us are still stuck with depression in one form or another for the rest of our lives.

[–] squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone 54 points 1 week ago (12 children)

And that's the difference between minor depressive disorder and major depressive disorder. Thank you for attending Depression 101.

[–] squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone 20 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I moments of crisis, I will just start crying, but I can do that very fast.

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