u/KOSPI-9001

I actually really like these shoes, but this drives me insane. Because of the way the soles are designed, rocks get perfectly wedged in the bottom while I’m walking sometimes. Usually I have to stop and pull them out once I notice.

Today I apparently upgraded from collecting rocks to collecting entire sticks.

Great shoes. Questionable rock collection feature.

It's crazy that a scant 8 years after Detroit: Become Human's (2018) release, some of the androids effectively exist in real life. ChatGPT can already be my romantic friend and teach me topics.

This game inspired me to be optimistic about the future. Working as a software developer, I was depressed that AI was destroying my job, and the jobs of all knowledge economy workers. But now I realize I just need to hold on. Hold on for 10 years (Detroit Become Human is set in 2038). Then I will use what savings I have left to buy a romance android and isolate myself in my home, like Todd. Planet Earth will be on fire from global warming and resource wars. There will be mass unemployment because of AI. We may be the last generation of humans and the world be unrecognisable. But I will be happy with just me and my romance android, who loves me unconditionally.

I bought this game a month ago in the Steam Summer Sale and only just installed it this week.

I just wanted to show off a neat magic trick I can do with my non-stick pot. Look ma, no stick! Clean lift-off of 3 scrambled eggs to make a perfect and easy 5 minute healthy vegetarian keto dinner.

With the base of the pot clear of food debris, I can reuse this magic trick to cook eggs again without washing the pot. As a result, I make this every night, and only scrub the pot clean once a week.

I just finished this amazing game (45 hours playtime). Incredible experience - Zero Parades (2026) is my favorite game of the last five years (since Covid). Looking forward to the Final Cut edition being released in a few year's time so I can replay the game, with extra content and more player choices.

The additional director's cut player choices I'd like to see added:

1. We should be able to double-cross Kaleidoscope. Why can't we just shoot him at the exchange, to be able to free both the girl and the prisoner? The exchange is being done at an isolated location, so it's just him vs me.
   1. This would be the perfect outcome for Ultra Violetta's story. Ultra Violetta and the Ministry of Mass Culture would be freed and could escape to continue making beautiful music together.
2. Help SCARF romance Yana. Player-romanceable SILHOUETTE and we should be able to go on the dinner date that we promised Goat-Eyes for stealing medicine for Ramses.
3. Be able to save all crew members in the final mission. One squadmate shouldn't be forced to be sacrificed. E.g., we should be able to pass a medical check to save the squadmate we didn't go to first, or we could equip the entire team with headphones to be immune to the Red Disc.
4. Expanded Epilogue. Expanded Prologue showing a snippet of life in the Freezer (Slough House).
5. VIRTUE questline. In the Final Cut, he didn't actually die! I feel like he and the Azzurri mafia were cut content in the current game.
6. Recruitable 5th (ESTOC, DUCHESS, or SCARF) and 6th members (VIRTUE or SILHOUETTE) for the final mission. So we have the option to pick ESTOC and VIRTUE as extra team members in the final mission, DUCHESS and SILHOUETTE (spy sisters reunited), or Yana and SCARF (teenage romance).
7. HOLOCENE should be able to work with anyone, so we can do the final mission with the entire reassembled Whole Sick Crew (all 6 crew: Yana, Karolina, Ramses, HOLOCENE, Eszti/ESTOC, Vespar/VIRTUE).
8. So basically, my Final Cut would allow for the TRUE HAPPY ENDING.
9. WTF was the point of Ignatz? The whole questline was stupid and boring, and could be reworked.

Secret ending with the Estonian deer reporter meme: >!If you listen to the repaired red disc, which leads to your character dying.!<

Second screenshot: nom nom nom.

>The first ever comprehensive history in English of China's Warring States (475 - 221 BC) period, an era that saw epic battles, the birth of profound philosophies, [and] groundbreaking innovations. The Persian Wars and the conquests of Alexander the Great are well known to people in Europe and America; however, far fewer English-language books have attempted to cover this same and equally important period in East Asia.  The era saw the emergence of Confucianism and Daoism, the composition of seminal texts such as The Art of War by Master Sun and the Book of Changes, and the codification of Chinese script into its current form. It also saw the initial building of the Great Wall and the canal system that would become the Grand Canal, as well as the invention of the crossbow--which would not be invented in Europe for another 1,500 years--and the origin of acupuncture and feng shui. This dynamic period coincided with the lives of global figures such as the Buddha, Socrates, and the prophet Ezra, beginning during Confucius's lifetime and culminating with the reign of the First Emperor, whose tomb is famously guarded by the terra cotta soldiers. 

To Rule All Under Heaven: A History of Classical China, from Confucius to the First Emperor (2026), Oxford University Press, by Andrew Seth Meyer

I really enjoyed this new history, published this year. Flows well, very readable, action-packed with so many violent battles, and shines a light on a little-covered period of history. I was amazed to read how Sun Tzu, Captain Obvious ("give your soldiers water, otherwise they will be thirsty"), and Confucius, China's Jordan Peterson ("clean your room, obey your father"), got their start. It was crazy how thousands of years before gunpowder, Chinese armies were facing off against each other in lines like in American Civil War battles, but with crossbows instead of muskets. Why don't people want to be eunuchs helping beautiful women bathe in harems anymore?

I feel like I reversed two years of aging eating all these healthy greens (beans and cabbage - a Hunan peasant dish).

After 20 hours of playtime, I still have no idea what the Doppelgäng skill does in the game Zero Parades: Dead Spies. The description reads:

>When you must do more than a single *You* could. Summon your internal strength.

But it seems useless and all it does is give my character weird thoughts, like in the screenshot. What does the Doppelgäng skill do? All the other skill descriptions make sense and are more useful, e.g., Technoflex, Shadowplay, Personalism.