I’m playing CoD Ghosts - multiplayer with bots. Not getting the time to game at the moment and 10-minute bursts of entertainment have their place.

Yes; I don’t think there’s much to gain by belittling and dehumanising your political opponent - you risk underestimating (and failing to learn) from them, but you also risk alienating the people you need to persuade to follow you (if a political shift is what you seek).

Articles like this feel like a missed opportunity; it’s a real shame because the author can clearly write.

Littering the piece with emotionally-charged language and pejoratives - while also attempting to dismiss Mr Kirk’s prominence and effectiveness (whatever one may think of him, his methods or his views) as “unremarkable” undermines the article’s credibility and leaves it coming across as a rant. Mr Kirk was killed for his political views; the way this is handled in the article almost comes across as victim-blaming.

The central messages - that the conditions have been set for extremist rhetoric and hate speech to proliferate, that Mr Kirk was but one of many who hold the same views and that there is real concern with how far things have got (with no clear pathway back to politics from the centre) - don’t therefore cut through to as wide an audience as it could.

I don’t follow.

I have been home with my poorly infant. Family and team at work have all been amazing. Child is getting better too.

Someone shared this with me years ago and I find it increasingly helpful in remembering how much bullshit our economies are built upon.

Link to the Financial Times here - “The parable of the ox” by John Kay

I think much of Geocities remained accessible until 2013/2014 before going completely (apart from Japan 2019 or so).

Holiday soundtrack for one particularly memorable break. Nice to revisit.

The soundtrack was fun too

Sniper Elite 5. I played V2 way back and fancied an updated experience. Going reasonably well so far and that x-ray cam experience remains gnarly.

Half-Life was my introduction to FPS gaming; I loved every game in the series that I had the pleasure to play - Half-Life, Opposing Force, Blue Shift and Half-Life 2 (Lost Coast, Episode One, Episode 2). I never got round to playing Alyx; I didn’t have hardware that would cope!

Half-Life also spawned the CounterStrike series; I sank way to many hours into them.

My favourite game remains the original; I enjoyed the narrative and the occasional puzzle. I purchased the upgraded graphics pack (which also fixed a few glitches) and prefer the original with this pack to the remastered version of the game (Half-Life: Source).

Things have changed a lot.

And you’re probably right about the crypto thing; if my defection had happened in ‘10 - ‘11 due to price increases that would have been more crypto and less financial crisis. Memory blurs a little.

You used to need to upgrade … every year or two

That’s what took me out of PC gaming; that and a price increase (possibly crypto related, possibly financial crash related).

I’ve got my eyes on AC Mirage.

Super helpful; also thanks for the channel recommendation.

I’ve never actually tried VR; a friend has offered to let me try their console VR at the end of the week so I’ll be taking notes.

I’ve certainly been tempted by pre-build (thank you for the link) but with parts costs (gradually) coming down some are becoming less competitive.

Thank you for the link; will take a look at that as well.

Sorry, I should have specified; I already have the 4K monitor that I would like to use.

The above build (with a suitable NZXT H7 case) can be built for around £3,800; such a generous budget might be doable but deep down I know this build is over the top and that I cannot really justify ploughing that much into something like this. Thank you for the PCPartPicker recommendation; I will try that.