Mersopolis

Remember "home phones"?

Abraham Lincoln.

Speed runs are a work of art and skill and to hell with anyone who thinks otherwise.

Incase you didn't hear last month, this happened: 
 
 
Allow me to explain the significance of this if you don't understand. In 2002, Bryan Bosshardt, one of the OG gods of Goldeneye speedrunning, set 53 seconds as the world record for the first level of the game, Dam. Before this video happened, over 100 people had matched his world record, over the course of 15 years. It was no small feat, but became the "beginner" WR to aim for. 0:53 was the record for 15 years. People ran the level, no doubt thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of times, maybe even a million times, for 15 years, and could not get any lower than 53 seconds.
 
Eventually it became known that a 52 was theoretically possible through TAS, but because it was TAS, it was virtually impossible that a man could actually do it. But Karl Jobst is no man. He is a god.
 
In the above run, Karl Jobst, after 250 hours of playing Dam, has the fucking planets align under a blue moon on a white Christmas in July. So many things went right in this run. A boost is when a guard propels you forward by shooting you. On Dam, getting 1 boost is semi-rare. Getting 2 is rare. Getting 3 boosts is fucking mega-rare. Karl only had 3 runs throughout the entire 250 hours where he had 3 boosts. And in one of those 3 boost runs, the big metal gate, which still nobody knows what affects the speed of it opening, opened fast (the fastest gate that he had ever seen, he said), AND he got a perfect shot on the lock, which is often where people choke runs, AND the alarm went off late (after he shot the lock) which prevents soldiers from coming out and causing lag. All these things lining up ONCE in the course of 250 hours, combined with the razor-thin perfection of his strafing, finally got a time which was just BARELY a 52. Like if he were as little as 2 or 3 frames slower, it would have been a 53 instead, and Karl would've been in for another 250 hours of Dam. Karl basically human-TAS'd Dam in what was literally the perfect run, after 15 years of culminated attempts from the entire Goldeneye speedrunning community.
 
I absolutely do not think that anybody is ever going to get a Dam 52 anytime soon again. The chance of all the RNG lining up so perfectly combined with having perfect movement is so unbelievably fucking minuscule, I think it's going to be many years until a Dam run this perfect happens again to the right player. 15 years. 250 hours on a 53 second level. 1 Dam 52.

Well... That was... weird... I was basically some weird angel of life/death. (Didn't have a set of wings though, so lamer than it sounds.) I was stood in the middle of a swirling white mist with a vision of how someone would die at the centre. I couldn't make out what it was until I was close, but it was a brain that was bleeding from the inside. Suddenly, I'm whooshed away in a split second with the entire world blurring momentarily from the speed of it and when the world stops once more I'm stood in front of the person I'm supposed to save. Slightly intimidating however when it's someone you personally know. I was never told this, but I just knew via the power of dream logic that the only way to save them was to get them to admit they had a serious health problem and to stop denying their own wellbeing. (You'd think I'd have some slightly more godly powers than "good advice".) Aw well... That part of the dream stopped after that.
 
The dream then teleported to some cafe/bar place that some friends were at and some guy was grinding my gears by belittling them constantly so I ended up beating the crap out of the guy and then running because I was scared the police would arrest me if they arrived. Time then flashed from day to night as I ran from a busy city square down an alleyway and arrived at a beach with the city dissolving behind me. The guy I fought was somehow waiting for me despite being left black and blue at the bar. He magically pulled a pistol out of mallet space and so did I. We fired a couple of shots and he dropped dead. Seemingly whatever angelic/demonic thing I was from the first part of the dream ran over into the second one, because I realised I'd been shot in the chest but hadn't felt a thing. It was slightly amusing to realise I essentially had godmode enabled though. Looking down at your chest and seeing a fountain of blood pouring out without a hint of pain is quite a weird sensation. It made a nice change from my usual dreams where the pain is very real because my brain likes torturing me.
 
Then I woke up with a puzzled expression and just said "...Huh."

I actually dreamed I was a 40 year old-looking German doctor. My mercenary days were over and I had retired, living in a nice house, going to the beach regularly. I look pretty good despite actually being about 80 thanks to my awesome technology that I'm now vaguely famous for. I don't have kids or anything but I am friendly with my neighbours and their two kids. One day, I get a call from Spy. He's visiting someone or other and wants to visit me. I'm taking the kids down to the beach, and Spy decides he wants to visit me then.
 
Spy looks amazingly well, despite the fact that I know he's not been using my technology and all that. The weather is weird, oddly cloudy and windy, even though it's August. But the wind picks up and I think there's an earthquake and lightning too. Everyone on the rather packed beach runs into a bunch of shelters. The kids go with a younger friend of my neighbours, while I help someone who's got all tangled up in something. I find myself in an old storage room full of old arcade amusement thingies. Spy is there too.
 
Suddenly Spy stabs me and I find I can't move. He says he wants to take my body. Because somehow my body is nicer than his body. Keeping in mind that I'm an 80 year old who looks like a 40 year old. He sticks something in my neck and I start seeing his memories. Over the last 4 years, he has been using natural disasters as a cover for stealing people's bodies, transferring his mind into a new body then leaving his old body in the wreckage.
 
I fight back, as best I can. A door breaks down and Heavy comes rampaging in, and Spy somehow makes me attack him. Turns out Heavy is aware of the shit Spy has been up to. Heavy breaks my arms then knocks Spy out, pausing his mind transfer thingy.
 
Heavy then carries me to what looks like an old part of the map Koth_King, and Engineer and Demoman are there. Demo is more robot than human and he and Heavy beat the shit out of Spy while Engy fixes me up. Before long, I'm fine (apart from the broken arm), but Spy disappears, never to be seen again.

I just had one where someone asked me to buy a bottle of water but I didn’t have enough money. So so someone opened a kickstarter for me to get a dollar to do so. Stretch goals involved Devolver developing and publishing a new Putt-Putt game by taking suggestions from 4chan if they got $1,000,000

Mannnn, fuckin shitty bullshit dream last night. So I was making a pizza, right? Some dude knocks on my door. I vaguely recognize him as one of my brother's old school friends, though I don't think he actually was. Dude whips out a switchblade and starts shanking me, piece a shit. Had to force the shank from his hand and drive him outta the house with it, then I called 911 and woke up. Guess dream-911 is just going back to the real world where you're not shanked.
 
Didn't even get to eat the pizza...

Had a kick-ass fuckin radical dream last night. I flew to Australia and enlisted in the military. And of course because it's Australia there's giant bugs and shit.
 
During bootcamp I got in the bed on a pickup with some other dudes and we went down this kind of trenched backroad. On the right it was all woods, on the left a big field, which turned into woods eventually. So we're driving and then a fuckin big ass herd of these big ass bugs starts moving down the field going the opposite direction of us. They were called "great converse beetles" and looking like centipedes, except the segments were fatter and rounder, and only had an exoskeleton on the top, which was black, and their bellies were red, with white fur where their legs began. They kinda moved on the back half of their set of legs, with the front half of themselves held up off the ground, looking forward.
 
Oh and they were also 250 feet tall from belly to back and 150 feet long from head to tail. Apparently they were super aggressive if you got near them bu otherwise didn't care if you kept your distance.
 
So we're driving with these giant fuckin great converse beetles going opposite to the left of us, and then a herd of giant fuckin goats the size of the beetles come outta the woods at the far left of the field and start battering the beetles, so now the giant goats and the giant beetles are fighting and killing each other. Shit was awesome.
 
Eventually I left Australia cause I had a dentist appointment.
 
And to think my dream the night before was literally just me taking a shower and then playing SMB1 on the NES.

Happy new year all of you
 
No matter what you're doing witb your life, whether you're bettering the world squeezing moisture off leaves to feed starving African children or waking up to play videogames all day, just make sure you're happy to wake up every morning
 
Even if this forum is dead I wish you all the best and I mean it

So... guard dog update?

Greetings, my SubSPUF buddies! Today I bring to you a blast from the past, and an old favorite of mine! The story of Scout and his dream for a White Smissmas. Will he get? Find out in this hit poem by yours truly!
 
...
 
T’was the night before Smissmas, and all through the house,
The mercs were all sleepy, especially Scout.

The mercs all put on their jammies with the utmost care,
In hopes the Smissmas Dinosaur soon would be there.

As Scout gazed out the window, and looked to the sky,
A shooting star flew, quickly nearby.

“Oh please star, oh please star, just grant me my wish,
I wish just for snow, for tomorrow’s Smissmas!”

Scout returned to bed, his eyes shut like gates,
And for Smissmas morning, he eagerly waits.

As dear little Scout slept, he did have a dream,
He dreamt of Miss Pauling, or so it did seem.

Come morning, Scout awoke in a Winter Wonderland,
Not knowing what sort of magic was at hand.

“My wish, my wish, it has come true!”
But looking around, the true reason he knew.

“Huhuhu, I’m just like Jack Frost!” said little Scout.
And so he set off to spread joy all about.

Some joy for the Sniper, big Heavy and Pyro,
For Medic, Soldier, Spy, Engie, and Demo!

The mercs all awoke with great surprise and fright,
“Merry Smissmas to all, and to all a good night!”
 
...
 
Looks like everyone's favorite guy got his wish in the end! If this Christmas Classic is to be believed, anything can happen if you just wish upon a star! Anyway, that's it for now, but stay tuned for another Christmas surprise that should surface... eventually!!
LordAIDS Monkey, signing out!

Name a more punchable guy than this jackass. I fucking dare you.
 

>as he posts picture with memegenerator watermark

Last night I dreamt I was playing a mix of Lego Star Wars 1 and 2, but all the levels were set in various TF2 maps.
 
If anyone needs help getting the Red Brick on Lakeside, you gotta have Boba Fett to get it, after you fight Count Dooku but before you build the giant Lego Sandvich near the Wookies. Hope this helps someone 

I don't know why you guys do stuff like this. Just say the discussion is dumb if you want to. Posting a bunch of meme images after serious posts just makes you look like asshats. If you don't care about the discussion then don't say anything.
 
You guys are good posters on topics you care about but you then have to become ironically detached from discussions that other people care about that you don't. Maybe I'm the only one annoyed by this. If that's true then I guess I'll shut up.

What part of
do you not understand, Caveson?
It's not "months" of saving, it's almost always years. If it takes you mere months to save up enough cash to move to a new fucking state, you're obviously not doing that bad in life to begin with.

I'm going to be extremely blunt - and in doing so be an asshole - but I don't give a damn about your father's story and I sure as hell didn't ask for it. Because it's exactly the same kind of bullshit that I've been hearing everywhere else about why "The left just wants everything handed to them" "Millennials are so entitled" "Kids these days want the world for nothing". It's always "My parents grew up poor, but they worked and reaped the benefits of their hard work and blah blah blah blah blah" with words like "personal responsibility", "dedication", and "determination". Caveson, you're not this bloody stupid, the entire environment of the United States was vastly different than what it is now, it's why your father was able to actually accomplish that. I don't give a damn what you believe, lack of money is precisely the reason to not move, coming from someone who is currently in a situation where moving is impossible due to financial reasons, you're looking through Red, White, and Blue filtered lenses.
Thanks for dropping the pretenses.
Fuck the "Free Market".
Actually, this more falls into "The internet is a utility - akin to electricity, water, gas, etc. - and should therefore be treated as such instead of letting corporations have unabated control over the internet", nowhere did I ever mention the internet as a "right".
Except the states won't be able handle it!
The moment a state - and, let's face it, it's going to be California - attempts to actually enact and enforce their own form of Net Neutrality, one of the major ISPs is going to sue that state. And the courts will have no choice but to side with the company because if the FCC repealed Net Neutrality, that means they obviously intended for corporations to be able to do what they're going to do, and therefore the states have no right to try to stop them. 
It's better than the complete clusterfuck you're asking for.
You're assuming a lot about what kind of pricing they're going to offer. Things that use less bandwidth will not necessarily cost an appreciable amount less, and you'll still potentially be making internet access unaffordable for people who regularly use the internet for both "low-bandwidth" and "high-bandwidth" purposes.
Gee, gotta love how you immediately jump to some kind of negative assumption of me just because you can't think of a reason so I must be lazy and don't want to do any work.

I've already been impacted by differing standards across state lines. Technically I failed the 10th grade according to Georgia's standards, even though by Florida's standards I passed. In the grand scheme of things, it's rather insignificant - that could be said about just about anything - but I remember seriously questioning how and why the standards of education varied enough just across a single state border.

The reason I'm making this argument is because the United States has hardly changed over the decades, even centuries. We're still trying to govern on a system that worked perfectly okay in the US' infancy and for some time after its formation. But we've grown tremendously since then, we're now 50 states and ~323 million people strong. Our system of governing has been showing cracks and faults for decades now, and yet, year by year, the wedges keep being driven deeper and we keep adding more wedges. At some point - be it in the near or distant future - those wedges are going to get hammered all the way through the foundations and everything's going to crumble. 2016 was a rather brilliant display of how the low the general landscape the US has reached.
You can't always say no to a corporation. For example, I don't really like doing my grocery shopping at Wal-Mart, they're not the greatest company. But there's no place around me that has prices as low as theirs, or a wide enough selection of goods my family either needs or would be willing to buy. There's a Publix closer to my house, but they're typically more expensive on just about everything my family needs and uses. There's an ALDI somewhere around here, but it's far enough out and out of the way enough that we'd be spending every potential penny we saved on gas. So I bite my tongue and get my groceries from Wal-Mart, because they're cheaper and we can save that money in case something happens. Corporations don't need to outright force you to buy their products, they can still get you to buy their stuff in a number of indirect ways.

And I'd thank you to not make such generalizing statements about my life when you know nothing about it. Disconnecting from the internet entirely would likely drive me to suicide - I'm an introvert and suffer from anxiety, I don't want to go out and meet with people, I dislike being alone in large crowds, so I don't want to go "experience the real world", whatever the fuck that means, and certainly not for any lengthy period of time - the "simpler things" in my life are chatting and gaming with friends I've made across the globe online. I don't have "my friend"s outside of the internet anymore - I don't have anyone I can call up or text and say "Let's hang out" or "Mind if I come over?" - I have "our friend"s, and even then I see them about once a month now. As edgy as it sounds, I don't have anything out there for me aside from some leisurely stuff I can't do at home. As pathetic as it sounds, my life is online. I already suffer from depression and feelings of loneliness, I don't need my one connection I feel the most comfortable with fucked with by some greedy conglomerate that's only interested in money I don't have.

This is such a bizarre argument to make in this particular case. The only way the government is "controlling" the internet is having a regulation that no one is allowed to control the internet. Your stance is basically akin to this:
 
Major automotive companies start adopting highways across the United States. They are granted permits to set up toll stations along the highways they own, so that on a road owned by Toyota, only owners of Toyota cars can expect to drive with any expectation of a reliable speed. Drivers of every other brand have to drive in slow lanes, or pay tolls to get into faster lanes, or may not be able to drive on those roads at all. Clearly no one wants this. The government steps in and says "This fucking sucks. Roads need to be reliable and accessible to everyone within reason." and sets up a regulation to end the practice. By your logic, the government is being the tyrannical party in this situation even though it's clear they're acting in the best interests of the public, which is their job.

It's at a point where government intervention of some kind is necessary either way, yeah.
 
If some legislation was made to break up the mafia-like territorial control agreements all the ISPs have FIRST, then repealing the Net Neutrality rules would make sense and arguments that the free market would sort itself out would hold weight. As-is most people have either no choice or a choice between at most two ISPs (here in Florida it's Comcast and Century Link with MAYBE Brighthouse/Spectrum if you happen to live in one of the like 3 cities they cover), so there is no market.
 
Making it fall under utility rules like light and power makes a lot of sense since that's pretty much the way ISPs have set themselves up. You have little to no recourse if Talquin Electric fucks with you because you have no other options, so it makes sense for them to be government regulated so they can't do that. Same here.

I only wanted to add that they can only if you get your internet from their Google Fiber service - which is only out in a few highly populated areas - but otherwise, I pretty much agree with this.

While Amazon, Netflix, and co.'s reasons may not necessarily be altruistic in nature - I don't know how they think, maybe it is for all we know - we've already seen ISPs do things against sites/services they don't like or that potentially cuts into their bottom line. 
- Verizon blocked text messages from pro-choice group NARAL, calling them controversial.
- AT&T limited its use of FaceTime to incentivize people to get more expensive data plans.
- AT&T apparently censored a portion of a live-stream of Pearl Jam's Lollapalooza set that contained criticisms of then-president Bush. 
- Comcast blocked BitTorrent, which was ruled illegal by the FCC at the time - now Ajit Pai says it wasn't a big deal
And there's still more!
And this is just some of the shit we know about, there could be many more instances that haven't been published yet.

Trying to compare ISPs to content producers and providers is stupid.
On the one hand, you have companies whose primary service is to sell you connectivity. They sell you access to the internet through their infrastructure.
On the other hand, you have companies who create content or provide services - shows, streaming, social media, online marketplaces, webcomics, art, games, etc. -  that are delivered to you through the internet.

While I won't discount that the potential for reduced revenue, lower sales/usage, and not having to pay out for "priority" or for higher bandwidth caps is a large driving factor in content providers' push to keep net neutrality, that's a pill I'm willing to swallow compared to letting our ISPs have the power to control what we see and do online. If our market for ISPs wasn't so monopolistic - with most places having only one or two, maybe three, ISPs to choose from - it might not be so bad, there would be some potential for The Free Market™ to finally do something useful. But we don't. So it won't.

The internet is a necessity at this point, even if you're just connected through your phone carrier's mobile network. We need to have some kind of protections in place to keep consumers safe from the predatory practices of the companies that control our ability to access the internet. Full stop. We are far beyond the ability of The Free Market™ to do anything useful in regards to ISPs, the only thing we have left is government regulation.

It's not about trust. These laws have a proven track record of working for the benefit of everyone. Repealing them has no tangible benefit in the current landscape of ISP semi-monopolies, and repealing them now can do nothing but harm.
 
Yes, it's all trendy and edgy to be like "Lel the government is evil they shouldn't touch or do anything" right now but fact of the matter is sometimes, as shown in this case, government regulation has a net benefit for everyone but the executives of these ISPs.
 
On the other side, yeah, no shit Amazon/Netflix/Etc. stand to gain from these laws staying in place and that's why they advocate for them. So? What's the issue with that? It's a win-win in that case, that's a GOOD thing.
 
Again, yeah, it's cool and edgy to bitch about corporations making money these days, but at least attempt to look at the bigger picture. Bad for corporations =/= good for everybody else and vice versa. If you want to talk about trust, can always trust a megacorp to do what's in their best interests and they have a lot of swing in that regard. Why be pissed when it swings in your favor because interests align for once? Just so you can shoot yourself in the foot to "stick it to the man"?

Yeah, gigantic profit-hungry corporations rule the world. Big whoop.
 
The difference is, if the gigantic, profit-hungry ISPs aren't beholden to Net Neutrality rules, they can completely control what you see, hear, and do on the net. They could, for example, bar access to news and social media sites that promote views they don't like. Netflix and Amazon don't have that kind of power over anything outside their own sites and services.
 
(You could argue Google has way too much power over what you see, but at least they can't prevent you from visiting any particular sites)

Buncha people with the letter M browsing. Totally not a conspiracy or anything.