Many animals, including most felids and canids, have a fifth toe (aka dew claw), which could potentially evolve into a thumb. You don’t normally see it on domestic dogs though, because if I’m not mistaken, it usually gets cut off when they’re a puppy due to it being weak and having a tendency to get caught on things.

Alternatively, there is polydactylism in cats, which can give them extra toes that can help them grab things (I’ve seen a video of a polydactyl cat using it’s extra foretoe like a thumb, though I can’t find it). It seems possible that, overtime, an extra foretoe like that might eventually provide enough of a evolutionary benefit for it to become a standard feature.

If cats evolved human-like intelligence, they’d absolutely have night clubs of some kind. That said, I’m not convinced that cats don’t already have human-like intelligence and aren’t just choosing to not use it, but that’s beside the point.

Walking bipedally is something a lot of smaller mammals can do as well, it just isn’t their normal mode of locomotion because their bodies aren’t currently designed for it. Going the evolution route again, however, and it’s possible that a species might eventually decide to stand up like humans did. Edit: I forgot about birds, dinosaurs and semi-bipedal mammals like the pangolin. Birds and pre-historic theropods walked on two legs, and pangolins have heavy tails they can use to balance on their hind legs so their forelegs are free to dig at ant mounds. So humans aren’t the only animals that walk on two legs.

The wing things are part of her clothing.

You’re correct that being bothered by a chin alone is strange, but,

A) people have weird things that bother them, sometimes illogically

B) I kinda look at anthropomorphic animals as being evolved from their real world counterparts, so I tend to rationalize things in regards to how they might have evolved. It makes it more believable for me.

C) iirc, in the context of the movie that specific character is from, thats actually someone’s VR avatar. As such, it makes sense to make human concessions like opposable thumbs, five fingers and toes (cats technically have five toes on each forepaw, four toes on each hind paw), walking plantigrade, etc. A chin seems like an odd concession to make. From the article, it doesn’t really give humans any really evolutionary advantage so it’s not like you’re gonna be unable to do something because you don’t have a chin; and based on what I’ve seen in the furry community, chins on anthros doesn’t really seem to have much of an aesthetic appeal either (otherwise nearly every fursona would have an obvious chin).

D) It just looks weird. Idk man, it just looks weird to me.

That said, I don’t tend to mind hybrids or mythical creatures like gryphons, dragons, dragon-cats, or whatever, so idk. It just looks weird to me and I guess the thing about humans being the only ones with chins is a explanation and justification for why I find it weird-looking.

This is why it bothers me when artists add chins to animalistic characters. It looks so wrong. An example:

Like, shit. Cool character design but you gave the cat lady a chin. Cats don’t have chins, why did you give her a chin?

This. If I’m not mistaken, the system was meant to operate like a hybrid between patents and trademarks. Iirc, things weren’t originally under copyright by default and you had to regularly renew your copyright in order to keep it. Most of the media in the public domain is a result of companies failing to properly claim or renew copyright before the laws were changed. My understanding is that the reason for this was because the intent was to protect you from having your IP stolen while it was profitable to you, but then release said IP into the public domain once it was no longer profitable (aka wasn’t worth renewing copyright on).

Then corpos spent a lot of money rewriting the system and now practically everything even remotely creative is under copyright that’s effectively indefinite.

In a written statement, the ADL said the decision by Wikipedia was the result of a ”campaign to delegitimize the ADL” and that editors opposing the ban “provided point by point refutations, grounded in factual citations, to every claim made, but apparently facts no longer matter.”

You of all groups should know that the last part of your statement is a common right-wing dog whistle that gets used when someone doubles down after their “facts” get rejected for bigotry and/or inaccuracy. By using that phrase, you’ve automatically cast doubt on the legitimacy of your actions and statements. At best you’re ignorant of a common dog whistle, which is embarrassing for an organization who should be well-versed in this kind of thing; at worst you’ve signaled to everyone that you’re potentially peddling “alternative facts”, which casts doubt on everything you’ve done in the past. Either way, you’re ultimately hurting the Jewish people by making that kind of statement.

Mira Sucharov, a professor of political science at Carleton University, said Wikipedia’s decision represents a major opportunity to reflect on why the ADL is facing scrutiny and rethink communal approaches for fighting antisemitism.

“This is a sign that the Jewish community needs better institutions,” she said.

They really do, and I feel bad for them. The places that should be defending them seem more than happy to ignore them or even throw them under the bus in the name of Zionism.

Like, okay, personal beliefs on Zionism aside, if your organization is tasked with defending a group of people, you should ensure your actions aren’t going to endanger, delegitimize or otherwise encourage bigotry against said group. That means that even if you’re a Zionist Jewish organization, if your task is to fight against bigotry towards Jews, you shouldn’t be ignoring non-Zionist Jews nor should you be dismissing their views. Instead, you should be listening to what they have to say, condensing it and releasing it in an manner easy for non-jews to understand (which means providing political, historical and religious context, because many people, myself included, don’t understand as much as they think they do about Judaism).

In the current context, you should be giving people statements from Zionist and non-Zionist Jews about Palestine, and attempt to include non-biased historical, religious and political backgrounds for events that are occurring.

I think ethnically Jewish people could make an honest argument that they should have some portion of Palestine based on historical origins (I think it’s a weak arguement, but I think you could argue for it). However, that doesn’t excuse the way that the IDF and Israeli government have treated Gaza and the West Bank.

You can criticize the Israeli government while also believing that ethnically Jewish people should be able to have a country they have control over. Other countries do this all the time (get criticized for poor treatment of the “outside” ethnic group(s)), why is this somehow different for Israel? Why aren’t we allowed to criticize Israel? I can talk about how France, a white, French ethnostate, is mistreating Muslims without being a racist bigot; I should be able to talk about Israel the same way.

Honestly kinda sad I missed the “golden years” of MTV. I didn’t grow up with cable or satellite TV; so my sister and I would watch the shit out of Nickelodeon, cartoon network, discovery and animal planet when we were on vacation or at our grandparents house. However, I grew up with my parents waxing poetic about how MTV used to have the best music and they would have (supposedly) gotten a cable or satellite connection if only MTV still showed music videos.

Looking back it was obvious bullshit and they wouldn’t have gotten a subscription even if MTV only played their favorite bands and music videos; but at the time it meant I was always hoping MTV would start showing music videos again so my parents would get cable and my sister and I could watch cartoons, science, nature, history and engineering shows.

Just a reminder: whenever you see a white supremacist, Nazi or other racial supremist with a beard, it seems like 99% of the time it’s because they’re trying to hide a “”“racially superior”“” chin behind the beard. The guy in the bottom right with the immaculate beard is probably hiding a chin that merged with his neck.

The alternative explanation is that the employers have investments in corporate real estate and don’t want their investments to lose value. Personally, I think that the the people at the top probably have investments in corporate real estate, while middle managers are the way you describe.

I don’t think the people at the top usually care what the employees are doing so long as they’re making money, and being in the office means they’re keeping corporate real estate prices afloat. As such, being in office makes money for the executives, even if that money isn’t made directly through the company.

Middle managers on the other hand, likely don’t have any significant corporate real estate investments, nor are they as likely get significant bonuses for company productivity. As such, it makes more sense for their motive to be more about control than it is money.

That said, I do know some executives do indeed see employees the way you’ve described them; an infamous example comes to mind about the Australian real estate executive talking about how they needed to bring workers to heel and crash the economy to remind workers that they work for the company and not the other way around. I’m just not sure that many executives actually think about their workers in that much depth. I think if they did then we’d see a stark contrast of very ethical companies and highly abusive companies instead of the mix of workplace cultures we have now; because some ceos would come to the conclusion that a happy worker is a good worker, while others would become complete control freaks.

Yeah. I’m absolutely fucked. See you on the other side I guess.

Supposedly New Zealand straight-up denies people for ever recieving psychiatric help. It’s insane. I’m wondering about the shit show that’s going to happen when LGBT, POC and disabled Americans are actually forced to start fleeing the US, only to find that countries tend to have laws against US citizens seeking refuge, against people with disabilities immigrating, etc.

I’m… honestly kinda okay with it crashing. It’d suck because AI has a lot of potential outside of generative tasks; like science and medicine. However, we don’t really have the corporate ethics or morals for it, nor do we have the economic structure for it.

AI at our current stage is guaranteed to cause problems even when used responsibly, because its entire goal is to do human tasks better than a human can. No matter how hard you try to avoid it, even if you do your best to think carefully and hire humans whenever possible, AI will end up replacing human jobs. What’s the point in hiring a bunch of people with a hyper-specialized understanding of a specific scientific field if an AI can do their work faster and better? If I’m not mistaken, normally having some form of hyper-specialization would be advantageous for the scientist because it means they can demand more for their expertise (so long as it’s paired with a general understanding of other fields).

However, if you have to choose between 5 hyper-specialized and potentially expensive human scientists, or an AI designed to do the hyper-specialized task with 2~3 human generalists to design the input and interpret the output, which do you go with?

So long as the output is the same or similar, the no-brainer would be to go with the 2~3 generalists and AI; it would require less funding and possibly less equipment - and that’s ignoring that, from what I’ve seen, AI tends to be better than human scientists in hyper-specialized tasks (though you still need scientists to design the input and parse the output). As such, you’re basically guaranteed to replace humans with AI.

We just don’t have the society for that. We should be moving in that direction, but we’re not even close to being there yet. So, again, as much potential as AI has, I’m kinda okay if it crashes. There aren’t enough people who possess a brain capable of handling an AI-dominated world yet. There are too many people who see things like money, government, economics, etc as some kind of magical force of nature and not as human-made systems which only exist because we let them.

Oh my god, wallet chains are going to make a comeback, but for phones this time.

I’m really hoping valve does a public steamdeck OS release. I’d like to replace windows on my PC with Linux and have windows as a backup, but the Linux distro I’m the most familiar with is the steam deck’s distro, and that’s not available outside of steam decks yet.

Team Fortress 2

Cruelty Squad (okay, the game is only a couple years old, but the art style is so intentionally shit that I just can’t see it aging at all)

Jet Set Radio, Jet Set Radio Future, and (I predict) Bomb Rush Cyberfunk. BRC also is only a couple years old, but it shares the same style as JSR(F), which has aged very well.

Minecraft

Doom and Doom II (just remember to turn off texture filtering, or set it to nearest neighbor).

The Sims. No, really, I think The Sims games have all aged very, very well. Some better than others, but I feel like each one of them has a visual style that still works today.

I’m not sure valve really cares at this point. I think they still enjoy TF2, but I get the sense that they don’t really know what to do with it at this point and no one really wants to give it enough attention to figure out how to fix the problems it currently has, much less figure out how to expand the game further. Tbh it’s an old game, and they may even feel like they’ve programmed themselves into a corner, where any major changes would require reprogramming large parts of the game or even migrating the game to a newer version of source.

That said, I’ve signed it, or at least tried to sign it. It gave me an error about being blocked due to bot activity, though that might have been my fault. I hit the button and waited for a confirmation but nothing happened, so I hit it again, nothing happened, and then on the third try the site refreshed a couple times before telling me I’d been blocked.

However, hopefully it got through.

That would be an amazing marketing campaign. They’d lose money on it, but it’d be awesome.

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I want them to make the Sims 4 feel more chaotic. I’ve been playing the Sims 2 lately and weird shit just kinda happens all the time, either because of relatively harmless bugs that never got fixed or the amount of autonomy that Sims have (edit: or the fact that I recently discovered you can use the moveobjects cheat to place Sims on top of Sims, and if you do it right then they seem to get permanently attached to another Sim). The Sims 4 just feels weirdly flat or something in comparison. It just isn’t as interesting for some reason, and I think it’s just not as chaotic and seemingly determined to derail whatever plans you had for your sim.

Edit: also, something tells me that Project Rene isn’t replacing the Sims 4, and it’s going to be The Sims Online 2 or something. Ironic considering the issues with the Sims 4 mainly stem from it originally being “The Sims Online 2” but then getting hastily turned into a main line Sims game.

Anyway, I bet they’re doing all the bug fixes and performance improvements because EA has made it clear that they’re going to be stuck developing for The Sims 4 for another +5yrs. So now they’re trying to clean everything up so they can keep developing it.

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Are there any benefits to having a static IP, aside from self-hosting purposes? Is it somehow faster or more responsive? I’d think dynamic IPs would be better (ignoring self-hosting) because at the very least, they’d allow you to dodge (d)dos attacks (which can happen with games, people sometimes get salty enough to attack other players IPs if their IP is exposed).