And if Google had any sense, those were all improvements they should have just brought to Hangouts, haha.

But why improve a service when we can just create a competitor that does 2 things better, 5 things worse, and 1 crucial thing not at all?

I have no idea how they could omit Hangouts.

Allo, on the other hand, which was supposed to replace Hangouts, did not live as long as Hangouts and should probably remain forgotten.

Do serial killers normally break out the tape measure before cutting into a victim?

Mostly healthy for Daniel Radcliffe at least. He did develop an alcohol dependency during the later Harry Potter movies that he worked to overcome.

For a lot of celebrities I can only really guess at how well adjusted they are. Sometimes they seem normal until they have some sort of psychotic break and all of the skeletons in their closet come out, and sometimes they just put on a brave face while masking years of abuse and trauma.

At least as far as impressions, there are a few other names I can think of. Zendaya is a former Disney channel kid who seems to be doing well for herself. The Sprouse twins (Suite Life of Zack and Cody) also seem like they developed into normal adults and now just don’t spend much time in the spotlight. Kenan Thompson also has a good career as the longest serving cast member on Saturday Night Live, and he started as a child actor for Nickelodeon.

But I have no idea how much of that comes down to luck or just having better support from family (or again maybe just burying some skeletons/trauma). A lot of other child actors who worked alongside the names listed above ended up messed up in one way or another.

Shutters are less commonly used here, usually found more on older homes. Their intended purpose is protection during storms, but sometimes people install “fake” ones just as decoration.

For light management/privacy, most houses I’ve seen have adjustable blinds inside that you raise or lower to let more or less light in.

A steel “grating” (not sure how it’s called in English) for safety and a twin casement window.

Grating or grates is right, and sometimes people just call them window bars.

Yeah if you have those crank style ones it’s possible at least. I’ve only seen one which was a push to open window with screen on the inside that opened on a hinge, but it seemed like it had a pretty poor seal with the wall as a result and bugs would have an easier time crawling through.

Honestly having the screen on the inside is probably more convenient too. If you’re cleaning both sides of a window where you’d have to remove the screen either way, I imagine it’s easier to remove the screen from inside than outside just given the elevation differences.

Sash windows are the common type used for American homes, though you’ll find a good mix of casements (typically the ones you have to crank to open/close).

The only deal breaker for me would be casement windows that open outwards. The area I live gets a lot of bugs in the summer, and so our windows have screens to help keep pests out while windows are open. Sash windows and casements that open inwards work fine with screens, but casements that open outwards typically don’t.

I know they’re sisters, but it is interesting just how much they look like Elizabeth Olsen now. I keep mentally separating them because the Olsen twins were child stars who have been out of the spotlight for a long time, while Elizabeth’s career didn’t really take off until she was an adult.

Don’t forget that Crunchyroll is also owned by Sony, who have basically picked up a monopoly on anime streaming services by buying out all of the competition. Aniplex, Funimation, Crunchyroll, Kadokawa, all under the Sony umbrella.

Nintendo raised the price of the Switch 1 and most of their accessory products in the US and Canada in May for Canada and August for the US.

This was following price increases for Nintendo Switch Online in Latin American countries which started in January. Nintendo has not raised prices of the subscription globally, but in their press releases about increased costs of hardware, they state that “price adjustments may be necessary in the future” for NSO, presumably after evaluating trends when the free trial period of GameChat ends for Switch 2 early adopters in March 2026.

And I know you said you don’t care about Sony, but just to share sources, Sony has already increased the price of their hardware in Japan in August 2024; Europe, Australia, and New Zealand in March; and the US in August of this year.

This was following earlier price increases in 2022 for Canada, Japan, Europe, Australia, and Mexico.

Sony also increased the cost of PS+ in North America, Europe, and Japan back in 2023, more recently for Southeast Asia back in April, and there are rumors of another upcoming price increase to be announced at some point now that we’ve entered FY2026.

So all of this is just to illustrate that what Microsoft is doing isn’t really anything new—it’s just the latest development in a continuing industry-wide trend.

Raising the price of hardware twice since May and now raising the price of game pass by 50% is not something a company does if they’re interested in competing against Sony or Nintendo.

But when Sony and Nintendo are doing the same thing…?

Don’t worry, the games industry has you covered on that now. They just release games that are broken or half-finished without the day 1 patch, but then allowing it to update removes all of the licensed content.

It was $15/mo before it’s first price hike, too.

And before that, a lot of people were taking advantage of the Xbox Live Gold conversion deal, where folks were getting access to GamePass Ultimate for $60/year.

I once spent $180 for 3 years of GamePass, and now that same amount only gets you 6 months.

I barely even buy 5 games a year, and often not at full price. And usually the games I want aren’t even on GamePass anyways.

$360/year is crazy. Only a good deal if you’re buying more than 6 full price games a year and plan to 100% beat them and never play again before they disappear from the catalog.

Better AI than humans. Humans have the potential to be gay and will end up shoving their corrupt ideology into the minds of our children.

Can’t find a link to the referenced comic

Got you covered, fam.

There’s other versions around as well and I have no idea which is the original. Just replace “Bioware” with any studio that EA has purchased and chances are there is a version of this comic that followed that news.

Not strange at all, it’s not as though it’s a particularly action-y game.

If someone wanted to play FF7 Remake/Rebirth on M&K, I might have a few more questions, but speaking as someone who still plays a lot of FPS games with controller, you’ll never hear me tell someone that their preferred style is wrong.

There are a few asset upscaler projects that might be worth looking into, but also be careful which version of the game you play, as not all mods support the same versions.

There is the PC 1998 port. Being from a time before controller support on PC was a thing, you’ll have to really try to weasel in controller support somehow if you want it. Some parts of the PlayStation release (glitches and spelling mistakes) are fixed, but it introduces many bugs of its own. Character models have mouths. Supports mods, but a lot of the go-tos may be pretty old and harder to find at this point, and you’ll really need a lot of QoL mods to make the experience workable.

There is the PC 2012 port, which is a (lightly) remastered version of the 1998 port. Character models still have mouths. Contains further localization changes from the 1998 port. It runs far better on modern systems than the 1998 port, adds some (not great not terrible) controller support, and some of the features from popular QOL mods that people used to add to the 1998 version are baked in. This is the version that is currently sold on Steam. Also supports mods.

Then there is the 2015 mobile/console port, which is further adapted from the 2012 PC port. Character models have mouths removed to be closer to the PS1 style. Introduces achievements, better native controller support (still far from perfect), and slightly better support for larger resolution displays. This is the version you can buy on the Xbox Store for PC. Basically no mod support because Xbox App games are very locked down, but it includes the “boost” (cheat) features that Square Enix has included in other Final Fantasy ports (toggles to speed up time, characters do max damage, no encounters) which some may hate the inclusion of, but do make it easier to just play the game for the story if you’re looking for zero grind.