The iPhone and a game controller have drastically different form factors. + there have been phones with removable batteries. My phone is almost as thin as the thinnest iPhone ever made (iPhone 6?, iirc) and I swap the battery in it every morning. Wouldn't have it any other way. Those days are limited though since there's maybe 1-2 other halfway decent phones left on the market with an easily removed battery.

Here's a counter-point. Imagine if a major power tool manufacturer attempted to sell a line of cordless power tools that couldn't accept an interchangeable battery pack. So when your drill dies you have to put the entire thing on the charger.

That would be the absolute worst product to ever grace that particular market.

Now obviously that isn't a perfect comparison either because you can still use a controller just fine while it's plugged into a charger, while most cordless power tools don't offer some sort of corded adapter, which further necessitates an interchangeable battery pack system.

But it's still a matter of convenience. And it's certainly not helped by the fact that PS4 controllers have maybe 1/4 the battery life of an Xbox 360 or Xbox One controller that uses good quality rechargeable AAs. And btw, I still prefer the DS4 over the Xbox One controller despite this (haven't tried DS5 or Series X, yet) but I'll still use my old ass Xbox 360 controller when I want a controller for some PC games. I like that I can swap the batteries when it goes dead and I like that it doesn't have abysmal battery life.

I even use my shitty TB Stealth 400s from my PS4 for PC games and Discord. Know why I never gave up on it? Because I rigged it up to take an 18650 Li-Ion cell after the USB charging port broke. (it now has 4x the capacity of the shitty 900 mAh internal battery.) Guess what? It looks ghetto as shit, but I love it. And it's especially nice that I don't ever have to plug it in anymore, I just swap cells.

Now would I like my phone with a plastic 18650 holder ziptied to the back along with a couple wires being run out the bottom of the phone? Hell no.

Because AA batteries and rechargeable 18650 cylindrical cells.... DO NOT WORK WITH A PHONE. AAs WORK PERFECTLY FINE IN A CONTROLLER BECAUSE A CONTROLLER IS AT LEAST 4-5x THICKER THAN THE THINNEST iPHONEs.

And sure, MS does what they do to cut costs, ok, that argument is settled. Doesn't mean I can't like the way it's able to benefit me or conforms to the way I like doing things. I like having controllers with easily changed batteries and up to 4x the battery life of the equivalent Sony product, simple as that.

+ I have other misc devices that use AA/AAA batteries anyways. My Multimeters (from my $300 Fluke to my shitty Tacklife Chinesium spare) use AA batteries, my label printer uses AAA batteries, my TV and Roku remotes use AAA batteries and my 3M earmuffs use AA batteries. And that's just off the top of my head.

If I have a bunch of devices that I need rechargeable AA/AAA batteries for anyways then it's REALLY not that big of a deal to use them in an Xbox controller as well.

If that means I'm carrying water for MS then whatever. The people who carry water for Sony's 1-1.5 Ah battery cells and the controller's overall poor battery life aren't any better though.

Imagine if the latest iPhone launched with a 1 Ah/3.85 Wh battery and it only lasted ~1/3 as long as an actual iPhone before needing to be recharged. Apple would not be a trillion dollar company if that's the sort of product they attempt to sell.

no way to a built in battery. Unless it lasts 50-60 hours per charge minimum. Microsoft should just go back to something like this, but make it standard with every controller sold. Or make a controller SKU for people who don't need the proprietary pack. And let them use whatever primary AAs or rechargeable AAs that they want.

Consumer choice > no choice.

Because having a wireless headset + a controller with bad battery life is a nightmare. I'm actually lucky that my Stealth 400 charging port broke. Because I took the opportunity to open it up and chuck the craptastic 900 mah battery and fabricated an 18650 holder to the headband. Now the headset lasts 60 hours per charge with a single 3500 mah lithium cell, swapping a new cell in is as fast as plugging in a cable, & I never have to wire it up or share a charging cable with the DS4.

mmm, not really.

Red Alert 2 and Yuri's Revenge aren't much "newer" but they're the CNC games that hold up wayyyy better than anything else released around that era. Helps that they were some of the first 2.5D RTS games too. Which, imo, is perfect for the overall genre anyways. Because 2D CNC did not age well, at all.

And the cheesy FMV campaign was miles better than....whatever they were trying to accomplish with the CNC Generals Campaign.

So RA2 has an edge over most stuff that came before and after it. CNC3 is the only real exception, but that's far too "modern" to really bring up in such a comparison anyways.

There wasn't any Democratic lawmakers/politicians on that episode. Saw it the night it aired and I laughed the entire way through.

1) Bernie Sanders is an Independent. And didn't get duped into saying anything embarrassing. Confused out of his mind, yes.

2) The other person is a very liberal artist/art collector/whatever. But I get the feeling that she's not going to end up on CNN doing damage control. She got tricked into thinking she was helping a reformed prison inmate. Who used shit/cum/pube art as a way of rehabilitation. More embarrassing than the Republican couple who managed to stay respectful of Cohen's loony Liberal caricature? definitely.

And besides all that, she's still infinitely better than the lobbyist who finds the assault/murder of a Muslim praying in public as funny. Let alone all the other shit they were tricked into saying/doing. Giving a pube to a stranger doesn't really offer much in the way of negative externalities. Just harmless entertainment value.

I'm sure he'll get some actual Democrat politicians on his show. But they're never going to give him the quantity and quality that you can get from today's right. I mean we're talking about the one party that elected an incredibly rational technocrat (Obama) While the other elected an unhinged borderline illiterate dipstick.

It'll be another show that bashes on Republicans at least 75% of the time. But it's still sufficiently different from all the Daily Show spinoffs & nighttime talk show hosts.

All the best comedy has a left-leaning tilt. It's a fact of life.

Trump said he'd have more people covered and it would cost everyone a lot less.

How's that working out?

we already saw how that worked out with the 4870/5870/6970.

AMD even had DX11 "exclusivity" with the 5870 for ~8 months, but Nvidia's core userbase refused to deviate even then. AMD made next to nothing on their GPU division thanks to slim margins while Nvidia managed to rake in record profits as they pushed their power hungry overpriced crap. (a la GTX 280, GTX 480, etc)

AMD "getting it together" basically involves them making bank on CPU sales then going full loss leader for 2-3 straight gens of GPUs. They have to throw money straight to the fire just to get enough people actually thinking about them.

Most of these same people will still buy the same or slightly faster card despite the ~20%+ Nvidia tax. But that's only because they're more interested in the "status" of owning Nvidia, not the actual price:performance metrics.

well he's not exactly wrong about the YT channel in question.

That particular guy is a mouthpiece for riling up alt-right idiots. He does breakdowns of South Park episodes where they parody/mock SJWs. But conveniently ignores all the episodes where South Park parodies/mocks the exact same audience he's pandering to.

Probably because the audience in question also subscribes to a book that's similarly titled "Everyone Who Disagrees With Me is Literally a Marxist/Communist/Socialist"

It's almost as if the people who overuse terms like Nazi/Hitler or Marxist/Socialist/Communist are more similar than they'd like to admit. It's a nice example for anyone who subscribes to Horseshoe Theory, that's for sure.

And for a channel titled "No Bullshit" I'm seeing a helluva lot of bullshit. I'd expect more neutrality with a name like that, but instead we find ourselves back in the exact same reality where Fox News isn't nearly as "Fair and Balanced" as their slogan/watermark likes to claim.

The funny thing is that the people who love to throw around the term "Marxism" are the ones who're largely enabling it. Marxism is largely an economic ideology that failed horribly in Soviet Russia (and is currently failing the Venezuelan people.) But the irony becomes truly uncanny considering the Alt-right/Trumpublican base are the ones who've gone completely soft on a literal Stalinist who currently leads Russia. The same guy who's been working overtime to get Russia back to its pre-Reagan, USSR days.

And for a group that loves to romanticize Ronald Reagan, they sure don't seem to understand what he the guy actually stood for. They just know that partisan right-wing media and propaganda mills told them to glorify him in ways similar to FDR or JFK. (and if these people saw his 1980 primary debate and his stance on immigration or trade they'd probably break down into an existential crisis)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/06/26/for-russians-stalin-is-the-most-outstanding-figure-in-world-history-putin-is-next/?utm_term=.0e6ec42685e5

"Stalin in Russia is increasingly portrayed not as the murderous architect of the Gulag, forced collectivization, mass starvation and political purges that claimed millions of his citizens' lives, but as the steely architect of the Soviet victory in World War II — called the Great Patriotic War here.

The defeat of Nazi Germany is central to the Putin regime's portrayal of itself as the logical outcome of Russian history. In the Kremlin’s view, saving the world from fascism was the greatest achievement of the 20th century. Russia inherited this legacy, and thanks to Putin, it has returned to its proper place as a global power, his supporters say."

"Several Russian cities have unveiled monuments to Stalin in recent months. A Levada poll released in May found that the number of Russians who consider Stalin's repressions to be “political crimes” has diminished from 51 percent in 2012 to 39 percent. The number of Russians who did not know anything about the repressions doubled over the same time from 6 percent to 13 percent."

But yeah. We really need to focus on the real issues instead.

Like how we can loosely attach Karl Marx's name to BLM or XYZ Feminist movement. While we also cry about how "Nazi" and "Fascist" are overused and how we're not snowflakes like all the other people we like to label snowflakes.

TFW you're just trying to stop the spread of "cultural Marxism", but you enabled a literal Stalinist to keep an even tighter grip on eastern Europe.

curbyourenthusiasm.mp3

-Obamacare did abolish the PEC. And it would've been a lot better if it had gotten the public option in the first place.

And I don't think they ever pretended that it was some great piece of legislation that couldn't have done with some more improvements. Obama admitted this time and again. He even encouraged Republicans to give him something better ( meaning there had to at least be: PEC coverage, lower prices, more people covered) but they never came up with anything until 2017. And Trump/Republicans pretended that this was an amazing piece of legislation.

Trump also bragged (during the campaign/primary & up until February 2017) about how his plan would cover more people, cost less & he wouldn't touch Medicare/Medicaid. The AHCA failed to every single one of his OG standards. It even weakened the PEC protections. But none of that stopped him from hyping it up as if it wasn't an absolute abortion as far as legislation is concerned. It was never about making things better for people, it was nothing more than undoing Obama's legacy. No matter how good or bad it actually was.

-And the vocal masses of low information voters who thought the unemployment rate under Obama was a huge lie, that the economy was a travesty and that Trump was undertaking a huge mess left by him. But as soon as Obama was out of office everything became suddenly better.

in fact, there's a whole slew of polls showing how much the Republican voter base flip-flopped as soon as they got their guy into office. All of a sudden it was OK to bomb Syria, while the Democratic voter base barely budged compared to a previous poll when Obama was President.

-Same way people wanted to credit Trump with everything and ignore reality. Thing is that this problem exists on both sides, I don't think anyone disputes that. But fact of the matter is that Republicans are much worse.

-Yeah, corporatism exists on both sides. But there's also the fact that one side created the CFPB while the other has spent 2017 gutting every way they can. One side understands that the will of the people REQUIRES NN rules to stay in place. One side has demonstrated that they're actually willing to listen to people and drop legislature that nobody likes. (see Harry Reid and the SOPA/PIPA Bill) One side managed to stop Insurance companies from denying people with pre-existing conditions. One side has no problem embracing tax cuts for the middle/lower classes rather than giving most of the benefits to the wealthiest 1%. One side was willing to lower Corporate tax rates but NOT give special interests various loopholes through the AMT. One side is actually interested in making taxes more simplistic for the average person (cutting out worthless middle men like H&R Block/TurboTax) One side has proposed election reform and is more willing to end gerrymandering. One side holds the key to ending Citizens United through the judiciary. One side was 100% consistent on legalizing gay marriage. One side does things to protect the LGBT community, while the other finds way to discriminate in the name of "religious freedom." One side hasn't turned CHIP into a partisan issue.

I don't think Democrats are god's gift to American politics. But holy shit, Republicans have next to no redeemable qualities.

Democrats are largely bad because they're just an unruly group of Conservatives and Progressives. The modern day Republican party has tethered themselves to Christian Fundamentalists and some gross mish mash of white nationalism/alt-right racism.

True fiscal conservatism isn't even compatible with these groups. Especially when they have 0 respect for secularism or evidence-based policy.

ex:

"I want to end abortion!" "I hate paying for people's welfare/foodstamps through MY taxes"

but...

"I also hate planned parenthood, it's nothing more than a late-term abortion clinic"

also...

"The state should take children away from unfit parents who should have never had kids in the first place." "And I don't see why we shouldn't throw their parents in jail as well"

(while they ignore the fact that fostering children and jailing all those people costs a metric **** ton compared to just giving people proper access to healthcare services in the first place.)

The healthcare debate is an better gem.

"Obamacare is terrible because it forces people to buy insurance when they don't want it."

"Yeah, sure, I support keeping the PEC, but I still want the mandate gone"

"People who can't afford insurance should just use the ER anyways"

"People who don't pay their ER bills can just have their wages garnished"

All common lines of thought from fiscally inept right-wingers.

-You can't have the PEC protection without getting healthy people into the insurance pools.

-ER use causes higher prices for everyone else. It's just a shit-tier version of socialized healthcare. And getting rid of the EMTALA just takes us back to the 80s where hospitals would engage in "patient dumping" Which was basically the transfer of people who couldn't pay even if they were in a condition where transferring them led to worse Healthcare outcomes. (death being very high amongst this group compared to everyone else)

-There's way too many fiscally inept Conservatives who seem to think you can price people out of healthcare then just garnish their wages when they don't pay their ER bills. Which is hilariously bad policy considering these people will end up with terrible health outcomes meaning they can't fucking work anyways. So these people just declare bankruptcy and pass the costs onto everyone else. Which again, is just a really fucking shitty version of socialized medicine.

But seriously, it'd be nice if the Republican party wasn't so fucking bad. I consider myself more of a Neoliberal (left socially, right economically) But there's literally no sound economic policy on the right anymore. Obama (and even both Clintons) were much better in those facets.

Who would you choose to best represent you as a person?

Obama or Trump?

How about as a country?

How about as a species?

The silver lining for us (the Obama supporters) is that we're constantly affirmed that we're on the right side of history.

The ~37% who still stick with Trump aren't even worth pitying.

and running a Dukakis/Mondale type would've been even worse. Like it or not.

Hell, it could've been the end of Liberal Presidencies if Bill Clinton hadn't come along and moderated the party for the interim.

1980: 489-49

1984: 525-13

1988: 426-111

and TBF, Hillary was actually a good candidate, in a way, because she was more likely to survive the Republican smear campaign. Considering she had already managed to endure 30+ years of it and retain relatively high broad appeal. (until 2014-ish)

and this is diametrically opposed to Bernie. Who was a relative no name and had it easy in the primaries since Clinton couldn't afford to completely disenfranchise his coalition.

And besides, his comments regarding Venezuela would've been a total death knell for him. The Conservative News machine would've hammered it 24/7. And Bernie would've bled moderates/independents.

And at this point he's now the GOP's #1 tool for dividing and conquering the Democratic Party. So you better hope he stands on the sidelines in 2020. also better hope he falls in line and endorses the Democratic nom, no matter who they are or what they stand for.

Then you better hope he (and his coalition) are wise enough to keep their noses out of races where his type does absolutely poorly. (ex: the BernieBros who think Joe Manchin and anyone like him needs to be primaried) Which is a monumentally retarded idea.

The Blue Dog coalition is absolutely vital for keeping some Democratic presence in the south/midwest. Otherwise you're just giving the Senate (and all Supreme Court noms) to the Republicans for a solid century.

RBG will not survive a 2nd Trump term and Kennedy (the most moderate GOP-appointee) will probably retire any day now.