oatmaster

The legal test in the UK for this sort of thing would be whether 'a moron in a hurry' would mistake it for a Pokemon game. I'd argue that they would based on the designs. Strictly it applies to trademarks but it's often used in a broader way.

Edit: just realised I had this legal test wrong in that the test fails if 'only a moron in a hurry' would mistake two similar items rather than things needing to be sufficiently distinctive for said moron. I apologise for my error.

@johnvboy they come up every single day for LGBTQ+ people.

Just a small attempt to get back to some sort of reasonableness before I get any more het up. Most of the arguments are basically semantic and unwinnable. Instead we should focus on impact and harm.

What actual impact do these issues have on you? If you're cis (I know that annoys some people but is a useful shorthand), straight, etc, what effect does inclusivity have on your life? Most I can really see is that it means you have to put a bit more care into your choice of words which is basic politeness. Or sitting through the odd boring course.

If, however, you are gay, trans, non-binary or whatever the exclusion has a much bigger impact. If every piece of culture is denying your very existence that's going to have a profound impact.

So I reckon that's the way to look at it. You can still believe whatever you want as it's only interactions that count. And if your interactions are harming someone then free speech or whatever doesn't completely clear your conscience.

edit to add: going to have to bow out on that. Had my say and this is all having a profoundly adverse effect on me.

@Tirza bit of a false comparison as you can change which languages you know.

@johnvboy thing is, I don't see much middle ground. The people opposed to anything to do with gender identity seem largely affronted by the existence of people outside the classic binary. At best, they resent being required to do the basically polite thing of allowing people to decide how they're addressed, at worst they want things put in place to prevent them from existing. The best case scenario probably feels pretty extreme to a trans woman who's being told she's a bloke.

I genuinely don't know what the reasonable middle ground looks like in this context.

@Maxz 'rabid hole' is a great eggcorn.

@Flash33 what you describe as shoving down your throat is confirmation bias - you spot the things you're looking out for so they appear more prevalent that they are.

@johnvboy their affliliations lie in the direction of internationally recognised human rights, equalities and hate speech legislation. As the publisher of all these comments they are obliged by law to not let them descend into the abyss. The disclaimers are there in a, generally fruitless, attempt to nip it in the bud.

Pretty depressing set of comments so far. 'glad'. Old enough to have lived through 'political correctness gone mad' the first time round and never expected it to make a comeback. I suppose everything is cyclical.

@DreamlandGem paging request for an article on religious portrayals in video games

@FantasiaWHT The Sandman is very good for a range of LGBT+ representation with LGBT+ characters not all being depicted positively. The trick generally is that any character's evilness is incidental to their queerness, in the same way that evil straight characters can be evil without it having anything to do with their straightness.

Although The Sandman doesn't lend itself to simple interpretations tbf.

@Not_Soos I wonder if the stigmatising depictions are a sort of confirmation bias. In that, people who have experienced strife as a result of religion are more likely to be creating stories to tell people about it. I remember a Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff podcast episode touching on something similar - the cliché of the church that is all evil. They pointed out that there must be some positive social benefit to it or it wouldn't have persisted for so long, no organisation can if it's just all evil. They were talking in the context of RPG world building and how you need to find a purpose for this religion to be existing, that certain conditions in the world must be present that the church helps and contributes to.

@Not_Soos what you describe in your first paragraph sounds like gender non-conforming, which is related to but not quite the same as non-binary.

@Ogbert on a related note, I remember wondering why German job adverts posted in English would have (M/F) after them. Turned out to be because of most/all job names are masculine or feminine so they have to explicitly make the point they aren't looking for a specific gender. Speaking English, it's easy to forget that gendered words are common in loads of languages.

I have a pet theory that certain questionable attitudes that are rife in the online gaming community persist because lots of gamers just do gaming and don't consume much other media, in a way that is rarely the case for people who watch a lot of films or read a lot of books.

Might be gubbins, of course.

@MrPKOmega nothing is necessary, some things are to be desired.

@deejrandom it must be very frustrating to have invented rules for yourself that prevent you accessing excellent games.

They've re-badged it you fool!

@Yorumi the miracle of privatisation of natural monopolies. If you tax them too much they put up prices or go bust. I've been trying to make sense of it but unfortunately I'm completely out of mind-bending drugs.

@Fizza British Gas, despite the name, are also an electricity company.

@LEGEND_MARIOID the router thing is due to the autonegotiation and speed ranging. They'll tend to adjust their speed according to stability, favouring a stable connection over a fast one. If they get turned off and on the process resets so in some cases the true maximum speed never gets reached.

The Martin Lewis view on this report was that it was overstated if you've got reasonably modern things but worth bearing in mind if you've got some older devices around. Like vampires, the older ones are the greatest threat.

Steam Link is interesting, wonder how many of their sales were from when they all got flogged a fiver each.

@TJC04 it's not out of the question, Dune did have global cultural influence but I haven't found any promising potential connections in my brief googlings.

Paul Atreides did alright for himself. For a bit.

As I read it, the invention is a method to reduce the chance of the battery impinging on a flexible circuit board when it swells over time, making some more compact designs possible.

@nessisonett X and Y aren't really opposite chromosomally. There's a heck of a lot of essential stuff on the X that everyone needs. And Y barely even qualifies as a chromosome, it's titchy and codes hardly anything.

My guess is it was going to be ultraviolet and infrared but they decided against it.

@BLAZINOAH your username is ringing a huge bell with me as someone who got booted off a forum for aggro reasons but can't place it. CaB? An Alien(s) one?

I wouldn't be surprised if the guy is attempting to reach some sort of "I'll go quietly" agreement involving a payout in trust for the kid as the child is likely to suffer a long-term financial detriment as a result of this.

@dew12333 aye, it's always a grey area - the contract will likely specify dismissal if the person is sentence to a prison term but otherwise it will be all words like 'reasonable' and 'significant' which are open to argument. Such arguments can either come to some sort of agreement or be decided by a tribunal.

@dew12333 a company's reputation is a valuable asset and so prominent companies usually have conduct clauses in their employment contracts which get more stringent with seniority in order to protect the value of this asset. The employee in question will have agreed to abide by this when they took the job.

@Haruki_NLI hitting children is still legal in most countries, though is outlawed in Wales (or will be soon). There's presumably a line at which hitting children becomes unlawful assault which will vary between legal systems.

On the face of it it's pointless destruction, literal vandalism. It's only not if something worthwhile is created in the process.

If they don't rename it as Centre there will be riots. I'm not rioting but I assume there's loads of people out there who will.

@Neckcrane makes me think of Team Cherry.

@Obs ah, cheers! Think my biggest was about £115 so that makes sense.

I suspect shipping costs rather than customs will be more of an advantage compared to US anyway, although they always seemed pretty reasonable to me. Think 'forfansbyfans' had some things I wanted from Slime Rancher but their shipping was bonkers compared to FanGamer.

I've never paid customs charges with them anyway, not sure if it's just a random thing or certain order values. I've either been lucky or not placed a large enough order.

Tokyo Jungle was my first thought when I saw the trailer.

@Williamfuchs420 the muscles pull back of the eyeball down, so yes.

Even if you go back to the spine, looking up is a backwards pivot. It only works the other way for touchscreen mobile phone games and those are against nature as any sane person must surely agree.

@Williamfuchs420 nature also says humans shouldn't fly. But we did. And we do. And we invert Y while doing it. Let nature stop us.

@Dualmask correct, it was the default back in the day. Why anyone would willingly let their children learn a control scheme that means they will never pilot an aircraft is beyond me.

@Richnj I'd imagine they're giving free rights to use the innovations in the patents but not the actual code to implement it. The code itself would have to be quite specific to the game its used in and couldn't easily just be dropped in from one game to another.

That said, it does raise the possibility of someone developing an open version of it that could be dropped into Unreal Engine or Unity or similar without infringing anything.

That sounds right up my street, real-time comms without the need to actually hear online gamers. I'll have to give that a try.

Played this to death with my son on the pc and he's been delighted to get back into it on Switch. Had a couple of small glitches which are presumably linked to the performance optimisation but it's a pretty decently done p(l)ort. And a fantastic game besides.

@Tobiaku the reason, I assume, is that the story in Dream Daddy (a work I admit is unfamiliar) is similar to other minority stories - the gayness is an integral part of the story being told in a way that straightness isn't an integral part of the story being told here.

As I say, though, possibly not the case in either example.

@nessisonett it's very outdated at least. It's the sort of opinion for old pub bores or Very Online people. Basically just chaff.

@N64-ROX absolute nonsense. It's love for one's own heritage not hatred of another. And besides, to have another language is to have another soul.

Does anyone know the tax implications for the scalpers? If they're already paying tax on income they'd presumably need to fill in a tax return for their scalping profits.