By 'stealth archer equivalent' I mean the stereotypical easy/newbie or basic bitch way to play the game. It may be easy to pivot to and get stuck in a rut of playing that way.

I thought about this while playing Balatro. I kept trying to do creative combinations like Stone Joker and Marble Joker to see how far I could go with stone cards and pairs but pretty much always end up doing 8 Ball flushes.

I'm running into this more and more with BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) and Bungo Stray Dogs.

I was wondering if anyone else has run into anything similar?

This is the kind of bar of soap I am talking about. It's kind of a contoured oval.

I know there are copyrights on soap shapes. I've read several soap shape patents like Theodore G Brown's hollow bar of soap designed to contain slivers of old soap and Douglas Lee's helical soap.

I've tried to go through Conopco Inc's list of patents (the trademark holder for Dove) but I can't seem to find much. They also own a plethora of other companies though so it's been challenging to swift through.

On that note I also looked for subsidiaries of Unilever (they own Dove) to see if any of them make similarly shaped bars of soap but it doesn't seem like it. Brands of soap outside of Unilever such as Irish Spring (owned by Colgate-Palmolive) do sell contoured/"dog bone" soap but I don't recall seeing any that match Dove's design.

I did find a book called Chemical Product Design: Towards a Perspective through Case Studies from 2007 and chapter 9 is titled "Design of the Dove Beauty Bar" which sounded promising but it seems to be mostly about the chemical composition and reducing soap scum in bathtubs. This is also apparently one of the theories as to why they are branded as beauty bars instead of soap. The other theory being it was an advertising tactic by David Ogilvy to appeal to women.

Someone on Reddit claims their grandfather invented the shape of Dove soap and posted the original wooden models. They backed up their claims by getting into contact with Unilever. I couldn't find any useful information in the comments.

I could probably go to a grocery store and see if any other brands have similarly shaped soap and cross reference that with the release of that style of soap by Dove to see if the copyright has lapsed but that would probably mean looking for old advertisements.

For context I was in the shower thinking about different shapes of soap and it made me wonder if that specific design (contoured oval) was originally chosen primarily to either:

A) Minimize the amount of contact on surfaces after being used to limit residue build up and prevent it from becoming stuck to tubs, shower, sinks, and so on.

B) Work better with the human body by maximizing the area that comes into contact with skin and wearing more evenly.

I imagine these days Dove would say both but that feels a bit like saying the stay-on-tabs you find on canned drinks were designed with a hole to hold your straw in place or keep bees out of your drinks during the summer.

All of this made me wondering if there was a patent somewhere and I've now spent about two hours looking for it. I don't really know why I became so invested in this. I suspect there's going to be a simple answer.

I feel like having the early access label makes me more apprehensive about buying a game because of the amount of abandoned early access titles I own and being wary of it not having an ending. In the case of No Man's Sky I feel like I would be less grateful for all the content adding updates. I might view it as just working towards a completed project rather than doing something nice for the community or doing it out of passion.

Buying a broken game does make me a lot less likely to buy new games from a developer immediately after the release.

Other examples could be Cyberpunk 2077, Fallout 76, Halo MCC, and the remastered Grand Theft Auto trilogy.

Here's some on my list:

• Red Dead Redemption 2 - I do not want to deal with the Rockstar Games launcher.

• Tom Clancy's Breakpoint - The game's add-on packs feel like Ubisoft is trying to nickel and dime gamers who would instinctively buy the GOTY equivalent of a title. I do not want to deal with a Ubisoft launcher or account.

• Zombi - According to the Steam reviews it required a Uplay login to validate the game before you play and that version of the Ubisoft service no longer exists. This seems to have been rectified but I still don't trust it and don't want to go through the refund process if it hasn't.

• Skyrim VR - I've already bought too many copies of Skyrim.

A bit of a "this is why I pirate" thread but more targeted at individual games.

I'm going to start off by saying I would recommend watching The Gorge as blind as you can. The trailer doesn't spoil much but it does reveal the framework and direction of the story. If you like the 'vibe' or setting of Annihilation though you may like it.

If you don't mind a bit of a reveal this is what I mean by the last part:

Here's what I liked and disliked about the movie (real spoilers):

• IMDb page for Annihilation

• IMDb page for The Gorge

I'll start by saying I had a bit of trouble wording the title but I'll try to elaborate on it. I find it can be a bit daunting at times figuring out what a decent entry point is in a series of video games without searching online first. Sometimes there will be ten games released across three different generation of consoles with reboots, prequels, and remasters and you can feel a bit left out of the loop if you start with the most recent release.

I'm wondering where people would recommend starting in other popular series like Nier, Final Fantasy, Armored Core, Ace Combat, Assassins Creed, Metal Gear, Metroid, Resident Evil, and so on.

It might make for a fun bit of Friday discussion and encourage some people to try out some new games.

Here's my example:

With the Fallout series I'd say you could easily start with any game because you have a new protagonist each time and a lot of the lore is reintroduced. The exception being Fallout 2 because it feels a bit more like a direct sequel to the original.

I would probably recommend Fallout New Vegas as a starting point because it's the fan favorite, has a few quality of life upgrades over Fallout 3, Fallout 4 adds a lot of extra mechanics to the game so going backwards in the series if you wanted more Fallout could feel a tad awkward and take some readjusting if you are accustomed to them, and the classic Fallout games can be a bit of a challenge if you aren't used to old school RPGs.

Might seem like a silly question but I'm curious.

Maybe a movie with a lot of action or decent soundtrack for example

Call me lazy if you want but I don't think someone should need to look up a guide on how to buy a video game without feeling scammed. I feel like I've been seeing this more and more lately with abstractly named tiered bundles, complete editions that don't contain everything, and remasters of games that feel like they should have been updates.

I've listed a few examples below but can you think of any others?

Examples:

The photo I attached is a buying guide for Hitman 3. A game that still confuses me. For those that don't know Hitman 1 and 2 can be played in Hitman 3 but the game is sold in bundles. I believe part one contains missions from the first game but the standard edition, the next level up, does not contain all the levels for Hitman 2 but does have all the levels for Hitman 3. The deluxe edition has all of Hitman 2 and a good chunk of the small DLC like cosmetics and challenge missions but not all of them.

Before Hitman 3 was rebranded as World of Assassination I believe you could avoid repaying for the games you already own (at least on Steam) but I don't think that's the case any more.

So as someone who owns the original Hitman I believe I essentially need to rebuy it as part of the deluxe edition if I want to play Hitman 1 and 2.

Intravenous for example was released in July 2021 and from my understanding is being remastered with features from the sequel, Intravenous 2 (released August 2024), as a DLC for the sequel under the name Intravenous IV2.

To be clear I know what multipoint is and it's not what I am looking for. I don't want to toggle between two audio sources. I want to combine several various audio sources into one set of headphones. I searched online for this and a lot of people were asking why someone would want to do this. It's so I can do things like play Elden Ring on my Steam Deck and listen to a podcast on my phone. Zoomer stuff.

One way I'm pretty sure I can do this is with Bluetooth audio receivers, a X in 1 out audio mixer, a USB hub and power source, and a Bluetooth audio transmitter.

I am not sure if using the same cheap audio receivers would cause issues or what kind of latency that would produce. Given how many people use Bluetooth headphones these days and the existence of Bluetooth DACs I thought something would exist (even if it was limited to a niche Tindie product). Ideally something that makes the pairing process easier than using screenless audio receivers and is a bit more portable.

I would appreciate any tips or suggestions to simplify this setup.

Disclaimer: I haven't eaten raw chicken. Not looking for Reddit quips telling me to go to an emergency room.

Was just wondering if salmonella is pretty much guaranteed when eating raw chicken or if it's something like 50/50 and an easy preventative measure like throwing out expired/damaged cans of food or washing fruits and vegetables before you eat them. I feel like I've seen a lot of people in TV shows and movies eating raw eggs.