If you want to bypass grinding entirely then you’d need something like that, but it might trivialize certain parts of the game. Won’t trivialize all of it though since several of the key fights rely on strategy.

That was someone’s insane interpretation of the ending of the first Mother game (a.k.a. Earthbound Beginnings). It’s not as out there as the guy who filled the Silent Hill wiki with claims that it was all symbolism for circumcision trauma (yes, really), but it’s still kinda nutters.

Yeah, you do have to grind a bit. Nowhere near as much as some games (looking at you, basically every Final Fantasy game) but the leveling is designed around you doing some extra fights for XP. Every new area generally has a “grind spot” that is moderately to incredibly obvious, typically some grouping of enemies that are enough to fight but not enough to overwhelm you, placed within reasonable walking distance of a bed, hotel, or other way to refill your HP/MP for cheap/free.

For the first town, before you take on the punks roaming the streets you should get some levels fighting crows, dogs, and snakes up near your house. Once you can kill them in two turns or less head into town and try taking on a single punk. If you survive that fight without being nearly dead, keep fighting punks. If you almost die, go heal up and farm a little more. And if you DO die… well you only lose half the money you have on you, so as long as you keep most of it in the ATM you haven’t lost much of anything.

EarthBound was the first JRPG I ever completed and the first JRPG I ever enjoyed. Before it I’d never been able to get into JRPGs: there was just too much complexity while also having too little going on. Wandering an overworld only to be randomly pulled out of it for no apparent reason was maddening. As a kid, trying to piece together the backstory of some undefined thoroughly detailed fantasy world while also taking in the emerging plot in the opening sequence wasn’t anywhere near as appealing as firing up Mario or Mega Man and getting straight to the action.

EarthBound neatly sidestepped all of the things that had stopped me from liking JRPGs. The equipment system was simple without being braindead. The setting was a pastiche of suburban life that I could easily understand. The stakes were high but the tone was still whimsical and amusing. And above all I knew why I was suddenly getting dragged into battle with a snake or a crow or a dog instead of just being clotheslined by combat.

EarthBound still is my go-to recommendation in the (increasingly unlikely) event that someone says “I’ve always wanted to get into JRPGs, what should I start with?” It is the perfect “intro to JRPG” game without feeling trivial or like it cannot stand on its own. It singlehandedly made me love the JRPG genre, and I probably would not have played literally every other JRPG I’ve ever played if it wasn’t for EarthBound.

Let 'em frown. You have Cinnamon Toast Vodka now.

Seconding NewPipe. It’s the easiest to get set up, and once you get it set up you basically never have to touch it again.

YouTube Revanced is more user friendly and has more features once it’s set up, but the install process is more involved and updating it essentially requires you to redo the install process again. It’s nothing crazy, but NewPipe is the “set it and forget it” option IMO.

Try to see if there are any that do that little Javascript-evaluation-to-render-the-client-side-site thing, and if there are, have them mine cryptocurrency for you.

Using your evil powers for good I see.

My high school had a “no hats indoors” rule and even that was regarded as dumb. No hats at all? Screw you if you wanna keep the sun out of your eyes I guess?

No hats. Toques are allowed, everything else is banned.

It’s always rough when a gang of Chefs take over a school.

Supposedly there was a similar policy at my elementary school early on, which led to a kid being forced to eat something they were allergic to. As the story goes, they vomited violently all over the lunch monitor and then had to be taken to the nurse’s office. Their parents were not amused. The policy did not stay in place.

LTSC also doesn’t get incremental updates other than absolutely critical vulnerability fixes. It’s specifically meant for machines that need everything to function exactly the same over a long period of time, e.g. point of sale machines, the accounting/inventory machine that hangs out in the back office, so on. You aren’t going to get any major update or overhaul pushed to an LTSC version of Windows.

LTSC can also be a pain in the tuchus to get your hands on as an individual. If you have an MSDN account however (like through work or school) they often come with a bunch of keys for Microsoft products, including LTSC products. You can check here, just try logging in with your work/school email - even if it’s non-Microsoft - and see what happens.

If you can’t get your hands on an LTSC copy, then at a minimum try getting a copy of Windows 10/11 “N”, which comes without Windows Media Player and Skype pre-installed. It’s nowhere near as clean as LTSC, but every little bit helps.

This is what Andrew Tate actually believes.

Really early on, too. It was one of the things that made me go “oh wait this isn’t just fart jokes in space”.

Though to be fair, the reality is that no matter how advanced we get there’s still gonna be fart jokes in space. That scene in the cafeteria where everyone’s getting Bortus to eat random things seems like a far more realistic vision of a space-faring post-scarcity future.

Wait what happened to Risa?

As others have said, adblockers do still work on YouTube. Specifically, uBlock Origin works great on YouTube, as long as you don’t use it with any other adblockers.

Also if you’re using Chrome, stop using Chrome. uBlock Origin still works on Chrome most of the time but Google is doing their best to kill it off. Switch to Firefox.

It’s to cover the stink of Kai Winn. Even venting the room into the cold vacuum of space can’t sweep out every stray “my child” that gets stuck to surfaces.

I’ve had great luck with pine- and corn-based cat litters for low/no scent and low/no dust. Only problem is that they usually don’t clump, though they do make ones which do. Oh, and they’re all much lighter than the normal stuff. I’d say give one of those a try.

They’re more like AndroidTV boxes with a full menu and HDMI-CEC support, only they came out back in the day when Chromecasts were just for casting. They were also dirt cheap; unfortunately that’s because they were made with bargain-basement parts which often failed or started to overheat easily a few months in.

Can’t fool me. That’s clearly a Cellular Peptide Cake.

Funnily enough I think the percentage use of adblockers is going to go up a fair bit thanks to what Google is doing. My amazingly sweet “just go along with anything” MIL actually complained to me about YouTube ads the other day, then ads on websites in general. She jumped at my offer to install a different YouTube client and a good adblocker once I explained that it was a possibility for her tablet.

If they wanted to pull this off they needed to do it quietly, not draw attention to the fact that adblockers exist and are apparently so effective they need to do something very public about them.