The title pretty much says it! I'd like to explore that idea a little and would love to hear y'all's recommendations. This thought was originally inspired by lord of the rings, but I'm also currently on a little nostalgia trip by reading The Sea of Trolls and the soft magic system in that is pretty fun

The average American consumer is starting to pay for the additional power consumed by new data centers.

Firetruck drove around rail crossing arms after waiting for earlier train to pass, according to person briefed on details

Archived version: https://web.archive.org/web/20241229094432/https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/28/florida-passenger-train-firetruck

SpinScore: https://spinscore.io/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fus-news%2F2024%2Fdec%2F28%2Fflorida-passenger-train-firetruck

Summary

A Brightline high-speed train collided with a firetruck in downtown Delray Beach, Florida, injuring 15 people, including three firefighters.

The firetruck reportedly drove around lowered crossing arms after waiting for a freight train to pass.

The crash, which severely damaged both the train and firetruck, is under investigation by the Federal Railroad Administration.

Brightline trains, known for having the nation’s highest death rate since launching in 2017, have faced scrutiny over safety.

The incident adds to growing concerns about railroad safety following other recent accidents nationwide.

Vote Here!

I hope everybody is having a great end of the year! I just wanted to remind everybody that voting is closing at ~05:00 UTC on December 30th for the Anime Awards. In case you missed it, there are also other mediums you can vote for:

• Manga Awards
• Light Novel Awards

Finally, a shout out to @NineSwords@ani.social for the graphic.

One of two Azure CDN providers was Edgio, which filed for bankruptcy.

azureedge.net dotnet CDN URLs will cease to work sometime next year after January 15th.

We expect that most users will not be directly affected, however, it is critical that you validate if you are affected and to watch for downtime or other kinds of breakage.

We maintain multiple Content Delivery Network (CDN) instances for delivering .NET builds. Some end in azureedge.net. These domains are hosted by edg.io, which will soon cease operations due to bankruptcy. We are required to migrate to a new CDN and will be using new domains going forward.

Affected domains:

• dotnetcli.azureedge.net
• dotnetbuilds.azureedge.net

Unaffected domains:

• dotnet.microsoft.com
• download.visualstudio.microsoft.com

Summary

Donald Trump publicly supported Elon Musk’s defense of the H-1B visa program for skilled foreign tech workers, despite opposition from some of his far-right supporters.

The debate was reignited after Trump appointed Indian-American AI expert Sriram Krishnan as an adviser, sparking criticism from immigration hard-liners.

Musk, a former H-1B holder, argued the program is essential for U.S. tech, while critics like Steve Bannon claim it undercuts American wages.

This stance marks a shift from Trump’s earlier policies limiting H-1B visas, highlighting tensions within his base over immigration policy.

First some definitions or my understanding of terms.

JRPG - Story heavy, narrative driven games originating mostly from Japan with anime tropes and featuring turn based character battles commonly

Core gameplay - The main gameplay element of a game, for example Dodging, rolling and spacing combat in Elden Ring, Monster Hunter. Character placement, team builds, XCOM, TRPGs

Sub system - Mini games or the social systems in Persona games, a secondary gameplay element that is different and unrelated to core gameplay

I've enjoyed Yakuza Infinite Wealth, FF7 Rebirth and Persona these few years which led me to think that I enjoyed "JRPGS" so I booted up old "Tales of" game (action battle) and am having a hard time pushing through

I then realised that the JRPGs I've played have a lot of investment into sub systems, Yakuza basically being a collection of minigames polished over several series. FF7 adding even more mini games than the original in a 1/3 installment and also having a non turn based system and Atlus' games having a large chunk of it being a dating sim on top of its flashy UI for the turn based battles.

I think the core reason is that other gameplay mechanics, from driving to shooting to RTS to combat have high skill ceilings such that people playing CS can transition to Overwatch and then to Marvel Rivals and maintain their level of training over years. RTS have high skill floors for PVP. Meanwhile for single player RPGs without deep builds and customisation, you should be able to complete the story and endgame with grinding or items or clever builds. The first 2 being the easiest and least 'fun'

This has led to mainstream JRPGs needing sub systems to support the price tag while CRPGs like Baldurs Gate 3 have builds and branching stories to make it fun and replayable.

On the other hand Dragon Quest 3 hd-2d remake sold like gangbusters so maybe I'm off on this

About half a year ago I bought a used UPS. It didn't have enough output to power my main PC, but it's perfect for my home server and network.

Starting on Christmas eve and continuing even today, my neighbourhood has been getting intermittent brownouts. It's only affecting one phase (house is on a three-phase 240V connection), which happens to be the one powering my network (also all of the light fixtures, stupid Soviet house), and the UPS works beautifully. I didn't lose any of my services even once. Without it, I would probably be reinstalling Proxmox and praying to the RAID gods to restore my hard drives.

"It pays for itself as soon as it is needed" is proven true once again.

Nigel Farage has threatened to take legal action against Tory leader Kemi Badenoch if she does not apologise for accusing him of publishing a "fake" ticker showing Reform UK's membership increasing to overtake the Conservatives.

The Reform UK leader has reacted furiously to Ms Badenoch's assertion that he was "manipulating [his] own supporters" with a ticker that is "coded to tick up automatically" after it showed the insurgent right-wing party had gone past 131,680 members - the number of eligible Conservative Party members in its leadership election in the autumn.

He is demanding an apology from Ms Badenoch for the "accusations of fraud and dishonesty" that he labelled "disgraceful", and said he is "not going to take it lying down".

Asked by Sky News in a call with journalists if he is going to sue the Tory leader for libel, Mr Farage said: "I'm going to take some action in the next couple of days. I've got to decide exactly what it is, but I'm certainly not going to take it lying down."

...

Reform showed Sky News the coding used to link the ticker to the member count within their account on the platform NationBuilder. The demonstration provided strong evidence that the ticker was not automated.

Has anyone had issues with trying to get the steam deck to work with a receiver? I tried and was getting no output. I couldn't find any change that I could make to get it to work. I connected it directly to the TV and it worked immediately..

Salome Zourabichvili tells gathering protesters she will leave the presidential palace as far-right successor Mikheil Kavelashvili takes power

Archived version: https://web.archive.org/web/20241229091815/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/29/georgia-president-sworn-in-protests-zourabichvili-kavelashvili

SpinScore: https://spinscore.io/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fworld%2F2024%2Fdec%2F29%2Fgeorgia-president-sworn-in-protests-zourabichvili-kavelashvili

cross-posted from: https://feddit.nl/post/26075718