fakeman_pretendname

@ fakeman_pretendname @feddit.uk

Posts

7
Comments

677
Joined

3 yr. ago

fakeman_pretendname @feddit.uk 16h ago

It's on my to-do list when I have a bit of time :)

1d ago

"It's going to be a very long goodbye" - Peter Molyneux's last game will be Masters of Albion, but that's not necessarily as simple as it sounds

He genuinely did some quality stuff in the 1980s and 1990s. Populous (1989) and Powermonger (1990) were genre-defining, and in their era, were amongst the best games available on the Atari ST/Amiga.

He seemed to have a run of innovative classics - Theme Park and Dungeon Keeper were quality...

...and then at some point he just started promising things he couldn't deliver. Black and White still turned out pretty good, despite the broken promises...

... then in the last handful of years, he's worked hard to destroy his previous reputation by churning out overhyped shit.

1d ago

We do what we must to keep going

They get given weaker spiced food at curry houses.

1d ago

Former Daily Mail editor tells hacking trial allegations are 'preposterous'

"Dacre admitted wanting to clear his name, but also said he cared about the "honest and dedicated" staff at the paper."

Honest staff at the Daily Mail? Must mean the office cleaners.

1d ago

James Van Der Beek’s Friends Launch Fundraiser For His Wife & Kids After His Death, Saying Actor’s Cancer Treatments “Left The Family Out Of Funds”

I was meaning the NHS in the UK. I'd not heard the phrase "single-payer healthcare" before and sort of assumed it was some form of "health insurance" thing, but one significantly less insane than the American system.

I tried looking at the Wikipaedia page for it, but now it's even less clear - it says "The term was coined in the 1990s to characterize the differences between the Canadian healthcare system with those such as the United Kingdom's NHS", suggesting it very much means "not the NHS" - though it also mentions UK healthcare elsewhere on the page???

Anyway, the essence of the point is the same - the way the American system works is insane and barbaric, and there are better, proven to work, options available which are currently used in other countries :)

2d ago

James Van Der Beek’s Friends Launch Fundraiser For His Wife & Kids After His Death, Saying Actor’s Cancer Treatments “Left The Family Out Of Funds”

Or a National Health Service?

2d ago

I started a Forum (leaving Discord) - would love if you would check it out!

Lovely idea, and I'm glad to see a "real forum".

2d ago

Let's all have a Star Trek wash party

When you take the actual soap out of the packet, does it have the image or writing embossed on it, or is it just a plain bar of soap with a cool box?

2d ago

Oatly banned from using word ‘milk’ to market plant-based products in UK

magnesium hydroxide (wiki link)

Yet we can still buy "Milk of Magnesia" for poorly tummies.

2d ago

Media Power Can Make People Elect A Monkey

If you vote for the monkey, you might find it's little more than a figurehead and it's actually the unelected organ-grinder who has all the power.

3d ago

Me while waiting for a passable alternative

Discord is shit as a forum anyway - it's a chat room.

It was a lot easier to find answers or reply to questions on phpbb forums.

3d ago

bit rude, innit?

It depends on where you live, but generally you leave stuff out the front if you want to get rid of it (fridges, freezers, ovens, mattresses, sofas etc) - either officially, by arranging a "bulky goods" collection from the council, or waiting for someone who wants/needs it to take it. Large appliances generally get picked up by "rag and bone" men who weigh the metal in for scrap.

Remember that a large chunk of urban population don't drive at all, and the majority that do drive small vehicles for short journeys - so not many people can take stuff like that to a recycling centre themselves.

3d ago

bit rude, innit?

I think you're overestimating the amount of nice, sunny days available in British weather :)

3d ago

£700m ‘fish disco’ plan could save 90% of marine life, says Hinkley Point C study

I want to know what this sounds like.

4d ago

AOC melting Jake Paul

fakeman_pretendname @feddit.uk 4d ago

Who's the guy in the 'cowardly boxer' meme?

4d ago

Labour risks election wipeout unless it improves Britain’s high streets, study finds. Decay of town centres a top issue among voters, especially Reform UK supporters

fakeman_pretendname @feddit.uk 4d ago

Some of it is definitely connected to that - but the majority (at least in places I live and work) is the unit rents being kept artificially high by the landlords, which are often investment or pension companies.

They won't drop the rent, and in fact keep increasing it - then of course small businesses close down and large businesses move to these out-of-town retail parks with cheaper rents and huge carparks, but they are generally only accessible to richer people with cars (which is good for their business, too - those people can buy trolley-loads to fill a car instead of basket-loads to fill a carrier bag).

The reasoning behind keeping the rents high and shops empty is roughly:

If a shop unit was once (in its heyday) worth £20,000 a year in rent, then if they dropped the rent to £10,000 they'd get someone using it, and there'd be a shop on the high street... but their "investment asset" is only "worth" £10,000 a year.

If they instead keep the rent at £20,000, then nobody uses it and there's no shop on the high street, but their "investment asset" is still "worth" £20,000 a year. They can borrow money and spend against this theoretical value.

When every shop on the street is owned in this way, the shops are all empty and useless to people, but their theoretical rent value stays high, so the investment company can keep using it as an asset and doing cunty money stuff with it to make extra money. Meanwhile, there are no shops.

This (edit: in the article) isn't a bad plan, but it's a bit of "wallpapering over the cracks" - letting people use the empty shop units is good, but it would be better if they weren't all squatted by these investment companies in the first place.

If they were to do something like "City centre compulsory purchase orders without compensation" for long-term absentee commercial landlords, then I think the problem would solve itself pretty quickly. That might be a little extreme, but moving a few steps in that direction would probably be worth looking at.

5d ago

John Falter - Sunday Gardening (1961)