The absolute best arcade racer to me was always NFS Hot Pursuit 2 for PS2. The physics were so much fun and the cars were a curated selection of cool.

Always loved the Project Gotham Racing series, especially 3. Tons of fun to drift in those games. The Kudos system was definitely a unique feature.

Been playing through the Ridge Racer games most recently. Damn these are just fun to play.

Sega Rally Championship will always stand out as some of the best driving physics early on.

Art of Rally and Art of drift are hella fun “zen” games with a unique art style.

I was always a sucker for some of the cash-in Fast and Furious era car fad games. Juiced, Tokyo Extreme Racer (out before all of it) Street Racing Syndicate, NFS Underground, Midnight Club 3. They’re all fun but driving is always just ok.

My short list though: Gran Turismo 4 Forza Motorsport 4 or 6 (4 is less grindy I feel) NFS Most Wanted 2

Aim lower.

It sounds shitty but there’s merit. Think of it like an RPG, where you grind on low level fodder until you have enough confidence to land where you really want. Also, you may find that people who you’ve generally considered “unattractive “ in the past are actually really great because they’re genuinely decent people.

Bag a few 2 or 3 girls (by your standards) so you feel confident and good enough about yourself that you’re not in a pit of despair.

I also noticed is that when you really stop trying, that’s when things tend to happen. Like you have to consciously stop trying. People can smell the desperation and effort a mile away. Confidence is sexy because it comes off as effortless.

Yes and in Nassau county NY, they’ve now made it ILLEGAL to wear a mask unless you can prove to a cop you’re doing it cause you’re sick.

Deadass.

Apparently the law exists because “bad actors” were protesting certain policies while “undercover” in a mask. This law was designed to “protect citizens and law enforcement from people hiding their identities to commit crimes.”

I never liked Adams. He always seemed like he was up to something.

Wait till they hear about GWAR.

I’m convinced we live in a timeline where the Illuminati is run by clowns and they are giving us the most absurd storylines for season 2024 of Earth AD.

I’ve been using Mlem since week 2 and I have no idea if I’m missing anything or not. I’ve never visited any instance on anything but Mlem.

I have Sonos and it is meh. They just issued an apology in the app for how bad their app got, so I can’t really recommend it.

I keep seeing good reviews about Audio Pro. I don’t know too much about them, but they seem to have the same idea of multi-room audio.

Self hosting is the big caveat. There’s a lot of great software options, but the hardware can get to be a bit limiting if you don’t wanna play with common protocols like AirPlay or Chromecast.

Additionally, you could do a Denon or Marantz receiver or Soundbar with multi zone and cover at least 2 spaces wired and add wireless zones via their Heos protocol.

There’s also HomePod, Alexa, or even Bluetooth speakers like the UE Boom or JBL series that you can daisy chain Bluetooth speakers together. No real soundbar solution with this option. Ironically JBL Soundbars don’t communicate with their Bluetoo speakers.

Audio Engine makes some fine speakers that support WiFi or Bluetooth and all they need is power.

Kef has the incredible but pricey LS series of bookshelf and tower speakers. They are independently powered and support all kinds of wireless protocols including AirPlay.

There are a ton of audio solutions nowadays but a lot of them will still require either a wire somewhere or playing with standardized protocols.

I too wish there were a more “self hosted” options. It seems like sooner or later some more viable options will come to light though.

I legit thought it was Steve-O

Ahhh, it’s good to be da king.

No but hopefully it is something better than Reddit has ever been. It’s awesome watching the community grow and cater to more niche interests.

I have found enthusiast forums and believe it or not YouTube videos to be helpful.

Now with YouTube reviews, you gotta be a bit discerning. Try to follow personalities who have a lot of experience reviewing or have pretty stringent review measures. For example:

For any kind of home entertainment information I usually go to Chris Majestic and anyone he works with because he has pretty helpful measurements of how he qualifies products features.

Reddit has become a wasteland. It’s getting more difficult to find human content on the internet.

Maybe I’m in the minority, but I like my EcoTank. I got it cause we print a decent amount of pictures and laser can’t do even passing quality photos. Having no cartridges to worry about is much less of a hassle than it used to be.

That said, laser is fine for most people.

Also because there is less content its more meaningful. There’s a lot of fluff and garbage on Reddit just so people can get karma.

Projector guy here. Once you get a taste you don’t wanna go back. The tech has gotten so much better over the last 10 years and short throw projectors are a game changer.

But how will we ever learn where the boundary is if we don’t go over it?

What’s sad is that t one of the next great leaps in technology could have been something interesting and profound. Unfortunately, capitalism gonna capitalize and companies we’re so thirsty to make a buck off it that we didn’t do anything to properly and carefully roll out or next great leap.

Money really ruins everything.

I’m coming across this post after reading an article about how Netflix is bathing in money and now making their options worse for customers, how the most wheel of a Boeing 757 fell off, and a how a country has been so free of criticism for decades that they’re able to commit genocide for over 3 months.

I’m having a hard time seeing hope in our future. Every company operates solely to extract as much profit as humanly possible (and not as Artificialally Intelligently as possible) without considering for a single moment how a decision they make may effect their relationship with customers or the quality of their product. I know companies are in it to make money, but they used to at least correct decisions in the face of public outcry. (Hell Microsoft did an about face on Xbox One features in 2013 after public outcry)

But things seem different now. Since the pandemic and the overall regard for human life went up, companies almost feel vindictive and emboldened to do even more to fuck customers over. Its almost like they’re holding a grudge over consumers for considering anything in life over their spending habits from March 2020 - September 2021. After all, the biggest push to “return to normal” was to get the economy back on track. I’ll never forget some asshole on a fox news segment saying “We gotta return to normal people. Yes some people will die, but grandma would sacrifice herself for the economy.” That’s when I lost all hope of things getting better.

We’ve had the chance many times to change the way we act as a species and potentially make the world better, but somehow we always fail to do so. We’re just fucked.

Why else? They don’t think it’s “worth it” because they only have so much money to go around and they don’t want to waste it on bullshit like needlessly expensive laundry detergent compared to their salary.

When a bottle of detergent is 2/3 your hourly wage why the hell wouldn’t you want to steal some if you could?

Man, capitalists will do literally anything to not pay people more money. You know people steal cause shit is expensive and they don’t have a lot of disposable income to waste on stuff right? Why inconvenience everyone. Pay people more and hire more workers.

Also cause the propaganda to get people to “want” stuff is so effective they start stealing just to have it.