Whatever it takes to get a foothold to alternate content.

Space deniers.

They are a sub-set of flat earthers. Not all flat earthers are space deniers, but every space denier I’ve seen is a flat earther.

Some of the more prominent ones like Level Earth Observer spend innumerable hours picking apart International Space Station live footage as “fake”. Things like space rocket launches need to be picked apart to absurd degrees as well. Every camera glitch, every stutter, every little movement is hyper-analyzed and declared to be a fraud.

I find it all fascinating. Some of these deniers put forth their own lay theories, which are usually very Biblical in bent, but many of them like LEO will twist themselves into incoherent knots refusing to admit they have a viewpoint and that they are “just asking questions” despite pushing back in a very particular way to all the answers they get.

Some of them like “CC from New York, Westchester County” are just totally off the deep end, not even playing word games, just conspiratorially ranting without even internal consistency.

I’ve only ever interacted with a space denier directly once and it was as equally interesting as it was frustrating.

There’s a big flat earth/space denier overlap with other fringe ideas like young earth creationism which gets you into Kent Hovind territory. That’s interesting in its own way but also full of slime.

He was the better Jack for the show. RDA has a Bruce Campbell like quality where even when he says or does something that should make him unlikable, he’s still likable. In a show this is good because we like likable main characters.

The movie version of Jack needed legitimate friction with Daniel that felt serious.

I completely understand how overcluttered and distracting some HUDs can become. I have found however that fully HUDless experiences tend to be more of a novelty than an increase in immersion.

If I’m playing a shooter and don’t have information on, say how many magazines I have, I find that more distracting than immersive. In real life I could quickly pat my vest to know. A HUD can be a replacement for information that seems intuitive to have because in a real situation we’d have kinesthetic feedback.

Basic information like health while injured is simply too useful. Realistically my health isn’t defined by a single variable bar nor is it restored instantly from a grievous wound by a using a syringe, so I find that seeing the bar is useful for succeeding in the game even if it is equally as unrealistic.

Something like the iHUD mod for modern Fallout games is my ideal HUD. It is modular and I can define what information I see, what information I don’t, and for how long the information I do get stays on the screen. Health can be set to only show at certain thresholds, the compass directions or map markers can be disabled unless I ask to see them briefly. Other elements similarly made optional.

I’ve played fully HUDless in both Metro games and in modded STALKER games, and each time I do I find myself going back to having at least a minimal informative HUD.

I don’t hate HUDs and I think most people who try HUDless don’t actually hate them either. What is hated are obnoxious tool tips, flashy HUD animations, and floating intrusive quest markers. If UX designers do their jobs right, people don’t know they did anything at all.