There appears to be a lack of research supporting the use of transcutaneous electrical acupoint stimulation for motion sickness, but there are studies that support transcutaneous electrical acupoint stimulation for reducing/preventing nausea post-surgery/anesthesia or chemotherapy. Note: this is usually supported for addressing nausea, not once someone is actually vomiting. It definitely seems to help me prevent my own motion-induced nausea, though, so I still stand by my (admittedly anecdotal) statement that it could be worth checking out for someone really committed to finding a solution.

With the acknowledgment that the actual mechanism through which this works doesn’t seem to be well understood, here are some studies on the effectiveness of this therapy for nausea outside of a motion sickness context. Interested in your perspective on these studies. A lot of the challenge seems to be getting an appropriately controlled study based on what I’ve read, at least.

Comparative Efficacy of Acustimulation (ReliefBand®) versus Ondansetron (Zofran®) in Combination with Droperidol for Preventing Nausea and Vomiting

The ReliefBand compared favorably to ondansetron (4 mg intravenously) when used for prophylaxis against postoperative nausea and vomiting. Furthermore, the acustimulation device enhanced the antiemetic efficacy of ondansetron after plastic surgery.

The current study suggests that the efficacy of ondansetron can be enhanced by combining it with nonpharmacologic acustimulation therapy using the ReliefBand®device in plastic surgery patients receiving low-dose droperidol for routine prophylaxis. The enhanced overall antiemetic efficacy in the combination group may be related to the fact that acustimulation possesses relatively more antinausea activity than ondansetron.

The Use of Nonpharmacologic Techniques to Prevent Postoperative Nausea and Vomiting: A Meta-Analysis

Note: this meta-analysis was including all stimulation of the P6 acupuncture point and not making a distinction between the method of stimulation (electric vs pressure etc). It found that there wasn’t a strong effect for children, but did find an effect for adults. [edited to strikethrough the word “strong” to be even more direct that there was no statistically significant effect for children at all – I’m not trying to look for confirmation bias. I’m just trying to say, there is no clear indication from what I’ve read that studies have shown this is no better than placebo.]

Nonpharmacologic techniques were better than placebo at preventing early nausea (RR = 0.34 [0.20-0.58]; NNT = 4 [3-6]) and early vomiting in adults (RR = 0.47 [0.34-0.64]; NNT = 5 [4-8]). Nonpharmacologic techniques were similar to placebo in preventing late vomiting in adults (RR = 0.81 [0.46-1.42]; NNT = 14 [6-[infinity]]). Using nonpharmacologic techniques, 20%-25% of adults will not have early [postoperative nausea and vomiting] PONV compared with placebo. It may be an alternative to receiving no treatment or first-line antiemetics.

[edit explicitly noted and called out inline]

I have a lot of problems with motion sickness while gaming that only started as I got older. My solution is to wear a rechargeable Reliefband. It’s looks a bit like a fitness tracker, but designed for preventing and relieving motion sickness. It takes some getting used to because it uses electrical pulses that are noticeable while you are wearing it, but it’s way better than the drowsiness side effects common to medication based solutions.

It works for me, and allows me to play genres of games without getting sick that I’d previously been frustrated to give up on. Maybe give that a try and see if it helps you.

I am disappointed that this article, in its apparent attempt to appear objective and neutral, didn’t do a very good job of explaining why people are so angry. I was hoping for more signal amplification to inform more people who may not yet know.

The first part of the article makes it sound like the point of the backlash is that Reddit will charge for the API at all, not the punishingly high rates or the very small window of time devs had to respond after pricing was finally communicated. It does ultimately say how much Apollo would have to pay to operate under that pricing structure, but the article seemed to be burying the lede a bit to me. It also conflates the 3rd party apps with big AI training use cases, which I think misses the point.

The article also really downplayed how unprofessional Steve has been, especially during the AMA, and how powerful the recording Christian released was in terms of causing the monumental backlash that is now happening. It didn’t really describe the magnitude of the backlash itself very well, either. It was mostly trusting readers to go look at the embedded links to understand what was actually going on, and the summary snips in the article don’t do much to encourage anyone to do so.

I play on both PC and PS5.

Some builds are more annoying than others with a controller and the “helpful” targeting assist that seems to make me want to throw the controller at least as often as not.

BUT it’s nice to be able to chill on my couch when I feel like it, especially if I’m just mindlessly running around completing map or Lilith statues or something. It’s totally playable. Mechanics are more complicated than D3, but in a good way.

This long, well-written rant talks a lot about how we end up in this situation. It really resonated for me. The more we have people trying to extract maximum shareholder value on the backs of all of us, the more inevitable the death of any centralized social media platform becomes.

Stop Talking to Each Other and Start Buying Things: Three Decades of Survival in the Desert of Social Media