Eskating cyclist, gamer and enjoyer of anime. Probably an artist. Also I code sometimes, pretty much just to mod titanfall 2 tho.

Introverted, yet I enjoy discussion to a fault.

  • 167 Posts
  • 1.12K Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: June 13th, 2023

help-circle
  • For a long while their innermost secrets were just that, secret. Members are tight-lipped on any real elaboration, and won’t engage with outsiders.

    It also makes it really difficult for outsiders to present any countering logic to their beliefs. People aren’t gonna tell you you’ve fallen in with crazies, if you don’t tell em the dumb shit you’re being told is real.

    But a lot of it is now out in the open, if you know to look. Even then, the church AGGRESSIVELY wields the law in an active attempt to suppress public knowledge as much as possible. But as even top-level members have left the cult over the decades, even the innermost bullshit has been exposed.

    It’s probable that your daughters boyfriend himself knows much less than what is available online, because members are disciuraged from interacting with any “harmful” media so as to not grow disillusioned, and aren’t told anything substantial until it’s way too late to painlessly pull out.

    It’s all quite deliberately set up to be as insidiously prolific as possible, while minimizing the chances people will leave.

    And if people do show start to show signs of wanting out, the gloves come off really quick with stuff like blackmail and legal action.

    Even its tax exempt status in the US is a complete farce, yet it lends the cult an air of legitimacy.


  • It’s a cult. The “science” they base their beliefs on is called “dianetics”. You can look that up and get more straigh-up explanations than by looking up “scientology”.

    In short, they think humans are possessed by the dead souls of immortal aliens from millions of years ago, but we can’t perceive this due to traumatic memories which must be “cleared” using “auditing”.

    Auditing sessions are recorded, and as they involve confessing your darkest secrets to “clear” the relevant “trauma”, the recordings can then be used to blackmail people into staying with the cult.

    It’s a pay-to-level-up religion, except instead of caring for your health they abuse you. They actively reject mental healthcare based on real science, and consider psychiatrists equivalent to murderers.

    They don’t believe in the concept of crime, instead considering anything and everything that happens to someone their own fault.

    Members are not allowed to report crimes perpetrated by other members to the actual police, instead they must be reported to the church. When scientologists rape other scientologists, the victim gets punished with more auditing.

    The most infamous scientologist is likely Danny Masterson, who is finally in prison for assaulting likely dozens and dozens of female members.

    They also don’t tell their followers what their beliefs actually are, before they’ve paid so much money for it that the sunk cost fallacy has them too committed to pull out.

    You can find more info online about their actual beliefs told by people who have left the cult, than they reveal even to their own followers. Its all deliberately confusing, because no-one would buy into their crazy bullshit otherwise.

    Get your daughter out of this relationship asap. Or even better, have a serious talk with her about scientology, explore what it is and what it does to its members, together, so she can then consider the situation and navigate it for herself.









  • For the mouse, I recommend G305. It’s wireless, but it lasts a truly stupid amount of time on a single AA. Just keep a spare in your bag and you will literally never have to think about charging it.

    It has a fantastic sensor, and doesn’t break the bank. As long as the shape fits you, it should be good.

    For keyboards, look for “tenkeyless” or even smaller. Tenkeyless can come with full size keys, while being smaller by dropping the numpad. Even smaller keyboards might drop the columns of keys with the arrow keys and home/end/page keys, the function row, or even the number row. Somewhere along the spectrum you should get down to something that’s about the size of a SteamDeck, or smaller, without making the keys you’ll actually use while gaming, smaller.

    If you want to save on thickness and weight, consider LP switches. Low profile mechanical keyboards have become more available. These’ll be thinner and have shorter travel, but without going as flat as most laptops. They can be really nice, while also being way more portable than boards with full-height key switches.

    I like them myself just for the ergonomics. A keyboard that lays flatter on my desk means less bending upwards and then back down in my hands and fingers when using it.

    I use a G915 TKL, but that may still be a tad big next to the Deck. (And expensive)

    Edit: I remember hearing good things about keychron. I don’t have personal experience so do some research, but that K3 and this K7 seem potentially ideal. They also have a bunch of other models.












  • It’s unclear.

    Considering it was the first project from Kojima Productions (the independent studio he started after Konami) it’s actually probable that they didn’t own the IP.

    They would have needed someone like Sony and 505 to foot the bill of developing their first project, with no incoming cashflow, and those deals usually leave the publisher holding the IP.

    Whats really confusing me, is that it wasn’t Sony holding the IP rights, it was 505.

    It looks like maybe 505 was holding it all, giving Sony a cut of the pie for the timed console exclusive, and now sold it all back to Kojima, allowing them to do the Xbox release.

    I for one am really happy that studios are wising up and buying the rights to their own stuff when its successful enough to enable them to do that, instead of letting their IP be owned by the publishers in exchange for having them bankroll development.

    Studios like Kojimas and Remedy have been shopping around with multiple publishers, and owning their own IP, means they can now even more easily drop a publisher for another, if they try to sacrifice quality.