Goafer

Yup, I agree. If it makes people who are already pretty self-conscious and low confidence feel more comfortable, I'm all for changing it. Plus "Hurr hurr hurr, man in woman's clothing" was never that funny to begin with.

"No Black Mirror twist" is an accurate description of the whole series. The only thing I found even remotely thought provoking was thinking about whether it was actually cheating in Striking Vipers. Ashley Too had the dark tones of a good Black Mirror episode in places, but the ending was far too Hollywood. That end scene at the rock bar was just painful. It's a shame, as it was a very good episode up until the last 10 minutes or so.

Finished season 5 last night. Striking Vipers: it was a bit meh. Nothing great, but nothing bad either. Interesting idea, but I just couldn't get over the fact that characters in a fighting game could now have sex for some reason. Like, why would that be programmed in? And how easily the guys got over the fact that they were boning each other. I would have liked to see the reasons explored a bit more. Like, did they secretly have feelings for each other all along? Smithereens: As Eevil said, it was a bit boring. I enjoyed it, but it was slow paced. It also fell into the trope of "Police are dumb and only the plucky tech nerds can help them". Topher Grace was good though. It didn't feel like a Black Mirror episode though. Just some random guy angry at Facebook. Ashley Too: I enjoyed it, but the ending was far too sickly sweet. Overall, none of the episodes felt like Black Mirror. They've always been kind of dark and thought provoking. These were just generic sci-fi based loosely on near-future (or current in the case of Smithereens) technology.

Whilst I would love to play PSO2, it'll just be just like PSU, where we're years behind the Japanese version, always feeling like we're playing the inferior version. If it comes to PS4, I may give it a go, but I won't be buying a new console just to play it.

Baby Driver Never really paid it much attention until I realised that it was Edgar Wright. Loved it. Reminded me a bit of Drive, but without the 80s vibe. Little/no cgi, just awesome practical effects and a fairly decent storyline. The way the action synched with the music was also a nice touch. The only downside for me was that Kevin Spacey has kind of soured it now. He's still a good actor, but just seeing him on screen is still a distraction.

Good news! You can buy one! https://www.polygon.com/2019/5/29/18644530/death-stranding-collector-edition-baby-ps4

I only really had a passing interest in this before, a sort of "watch someone else play it" sort of interest, but I might consider buying it myself now. It's reassuringly Kojima.

Do you work with them regularly or are they in a different department? My advice: Wait until a work event, spend time with them there (ideally just the 2 of you), then ask them out when the opportunity presents itself. If it doesn't work, at least it won't forever be associated with your day-to-day work environment. A friend of mine actually organised a whole work event (bonfire night fireworks) just to ask someone out. Just pick something from the conversation that seems natural. For example, If you end up talking about films, try to steer the conversation towards a current film they want to see, then suggest you go see it together. Don't suggest taking anyone else, but don't specify just the two of you either. That way you can judge their reaction, and if they suggest taking others, you can agree and play it off as a group thing. Also, I'm assuming that since you're asking for advice, they're single? If not, it's all kind of a moot point.

Oh ok, so no one has mentioned Blackadder Goes Forth, "Over the Top". Fine.

Mine is fortunately working, but the battery has died. Fortunately, I've kept my important saves on the memory card. I did have a scare when the console didn't recognise it, but pulled it out, blew the cartridge and slot and it worked fine. Annoyingly, I've lost my spare batteries, so I've ordered some new ones. Not exactly expensive, but annoying none the less. To make things more annoying, Dark Saviour can't save direct to the cartridge, so I have to manually transfer the saves every time I turn on/off the console until the batteries arrive. One thing I may look into at some point is an SD card mod. I've got a spare Saturn, so I may do it to that or buy another Saturn to tinker with. I'm a bit reluctant to do it to my spare one, as I have a model 1 and 2, so would like to keep them original if possible.

So yeah, I bought this. I really want to like it, as I unexpectedly loved the first. Unfortunately, it's pretty boring so far. The car sections are pretty much just commuting to shoot bang sections. It would be ok if these shooting sections were longer, but they last about 5 minutes, then it's back to the car for another commute. The gunplay is still great, but there's just no decent section (so far) to really get your teeth into. Also, no fucking left handed controls. I should have known really, as Bethesda never put them in. Normally it's not an issue, as I can just swap the sticks in the PS4 accessibility settings, but for games with vehicles, it makes those sections a pain.

I just had a read up on disc rot and from what I can tell, pinholes are more likely an error in disc manufacture, rather than rot. Given that the pinhole will have been there since the 90s and hasn't gotten worse, I'd say I'm pretty safe. I've played PDS from start to finish with no issues, so the pinhole can't be in a critical place. From what I can tell, disc rot seems to come from damaged/faulty/cheaply manufactured discs letting in moisture, casing the data layer to literally rot away. I'm no expert, but surely any early disc games that have survived this long aren't going to suddenly develop rot? If they were faulty/damaged when they were originally in regular use, they'd have shown pretty clear signs by now.

I always ask to check the discs when I buy from CeX. I've yet to find a single disc with actual rot. One of my Panzer Dragoon Saga discs has a single pinhole, but it hasn't got worse and the entire game is playable. I may go through my collection at some point and have a fresh check, but I don't think it's as rife as the internet would have you believe.

2 new games for the Saturn collection. Both are in great condition and have manuals.

Sold my old drone to fund some car repairs. Unfortunately for my car, I saw some Saturn games in CeX first. Both are in great condition and have manuals.

I've also started Japanese on Duolingo. Finding it good so far, but I'm only really doing it so that I have something productive to do when I'm bored. Don't know how seriously I'll take it. I've also started German, as I did it at school and I'm not too bad at it. I've mainly been focusing on the Japanese though, so German has taken the back seat. I'm basically studying the bad guys in WW2.

I'm still massively impressed by how compact the whole Mavic Air package is. On the left is the Phantom 3 controller. On the right is the bag that contains the Mavic Air, it's controller, all chargers, 3 batteries and a set of spare propellers. It's so nice to be able to take it places and not have to worry about being weighed down with stuff.

The CAA have finally announced a proposed drone registration fee. £16.50 annually. Whilst it's not much at all, I still find it annoying. It's already pretty hard to find somewhere to fly legally, with lots of public parks explicitly banning them and other areas requiring landowners permission. Now we have to pay for the very system that penalises us, with little to no benefit to the user. If there was any sort of benefit to the users, such as a guarantee that more public places will continue to allow drones, I'd be fine with it. Instead, it's money for fuck all. I'd even be happier if it was more expensive, but included some sort of insurance.

At least the registrar's erection makes sense now.

Looks like it's PS4 only for now.

Are we calling them out for copying Nintendo, or is that reserved for Sony products?

Went on a bit of a walk with the dog today and took the new drone with me. It's so nice to have a more portable drone. The Mavic Air can be controlled by gestures only, so I gave it a try. Left the controller in the bag, turned the drone on and took off, moved it around a bit, took some photos and then landed, all with just hand gestures. It's a really odd feeling to not have direct control, but it works well. Even managed to get a photo without the dog barking furiously at it: It's such a good feature if you're in a relatively open space and just want a quick photo.

I haven't got any videos that aren't already in the RC Thread, but I'll put up any new ones in there. I don't use my drone much, but I put that mainly down to it being too big and only having one battery. It's too big to just take with me on the off chance I see somewhere and if I took a trip to find somewhere, I could only fly for about 20 minutes, so not worth long trips. I'm hoping the new one will sort that, as it has 3 batteries and I can just leave it in a bag. That said, the Phantom 3 is an excellent "starter" drone. Image quality is comparable to newer drones and they can be picked up pretty cheap now (£250 second hand is about average). Get yourself a decent case and a few spare batteries and it would be a good test to see if you enjoy it and want to upgrade at a later date. Or just keep it and use it occasionally.

When I went to Greece last year, I really wished I had my drone on me, but my Phantom 3 was far to awkward to take with me. The Mavic Air Fly More Combo is one sale at the moment on Amazon, so it seemed a good time to upgrade. Annoyingly the red one was out of stock, so had to settle for the black:

Hit the level cap today and I'm still enjoying the game. It still feels like there's a lot of progress to be made in terms of equipment level, so hopefully plenty more life left in the game. I would like a few more missions though, so I'm looking forward to future content updates. I've briefly tried the other Javelins, but nothing feels as good as the Colossus. The Autocannon is a hell of a weapon class. The thing just rattles out bullets and even on the higher difficulties, the enemies life bar just drains.