thatKamGuy
@thatKamGuy@sh.itjust.works
- Comment on New NAPLAN results demand better deal for public schools 15 hours ago:
Our kid is due to enter primary school in a few years time, and the debate in our household is whether we can afford private, vs. moving to a catchment for a Top-50 ranked public school school, vs. using that money towards private tuition.
But it all feels like we’re just putting a lot more pressure on this generation to perform and succeed than what we had growing up. Surely that’s going to do more damage to them in the long term than any funding shortfall?
- Comment on Hollow Knight: Silksong Sparks Debate About Difficulty and Boss Runbacks 15 hours ago:
I’m ok with there being a conversation on this topic, even if the arguments devolve to ‘waaah’ vs. ‘git gud’.
Ultimately though, I agree that a small dev team shouldn’t have to focus on a game-mode outside their vision - and any such demand for an easy-mode or other additions can and should be left up to mod makers.
It’s a single-player game, so in the end how the individual user wants to play is how they should be able to play.
- Comment on ‘A fundamental part of growing up’: Why Aussie kids can’t swim any more 1 day ago:
Good question, actually!
I was educated through Catholic institutions in inner-Melbourne, and vividly remember taking swim classes in primary school. I’m sure they handed out some form of certificate of completion, but those would have probably been just a Xerox copy and nothing accredited or formal.
Similar to you, most of my ability to swim came from summers at the local public pool or beaches.
We also had the same competitive swim carnivals in high-school; and it was just taken at face value that every student could swim (and they could).
We also had some swim-focused PE classes if I remember correctly, but I could also be confusing them with swim club as it was so long ago.
Long story short, I don’t actually know how they actually track this metric either - but it does seem a bit wishy-washy, ‘ey?
- Comment on Caged eggs to stay on supermarket shelves until 2030 as Coles abandons pledge 4 days ago:
- Comment on @jack_toohey on why the housing crisis is not caused by migration 4 days ago:
Numbers can lie, or at the very least obfuscate the truth. Consider the following, as an example:
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Families are having fewer children, so the average number of people per home has dropped (eg. from 4/home to 3/home). That would mean we need 33% more homes just to account for the same population.
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New housing stock may not meet needs; a tonne of studio, 1 bedroom inner city apartments may not be suitable for the above families, so demand for existing stock just increases.
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- Comment on Hollow Knight: Silksong is out now on Steam - and it broke Steam servers for 15 minutes and counting now 4 days ago:
Activision/Blizzard have frequently had game launches where their servers were unavailable due to demand.
But that’s probably more due to terrible network infrastructure, than overwhelming demand!
- Comment on Sony is releasing a new PS5 console, but it's a downgrade 5 days ago:
Can’t; you are objectively correct.
- Comment on Australian film and TV industry calling on content quotas to revitalise struggling local scene 1 week ago:
I will admit that I don’t know of about half of those shows, but: Round the Twist!!! Thanks for unlocking that memory 😁
Might as well add Lift-Off, The Ferals and Feral TV, along with Blinky Bill. Clearly we were spoilt for choice in the ‘90s…
As an aside, it does feel like the local music industry has gone much the same way?
- Comment on Australian film and TV industry calling on content quotas to revitalise struggling local scene 1 week ago:
Maybe a few more conditions, mainly towards scripted content, so we don’t just end up with a glut of locally produced game shows, reality TV and panel shows.
We are more than capable of producing world-class content, even if my sleep-deprived parent brain can only think of The Wiggles and Blue right now…
- Comment on Inspiring. Innovating. 1 week ago:
In theory, hardware like this is designed to function as a solar sink, utilising surplus production during peak hours when storage devices (batteries, dams, etc.) are fully charged.
- Comment on Who is the enemy? 1 week ago:
I thought they’d absolutely love objects without flared bases - keeps them employ, and entertained!
- Comment on Over 450 Diablo developers at Blizzard have unionized 1 week ago:
As a bit of a thought exercise, I went through every mainline GTA game using that website to get an idea of each title’s respective headcount:
- GTA : 86 people (DOS)
- GTA2 : 170 professional roles (Windows)
- GTA3 : 185 professional roles (PS2)
- GTA:VC : 688 professional roles (PS2)
- GTA:SA : 780 people (PS2)
- GTA4 : 1,333 professional roles (PS3)
- GTA5 : 3,686 professional roles (X360)
So while the general headcount growth over time tends to track, as each generation of platform requires more and more people to churn out higher fidelity content, I can’t help but wonder what portion of that headcount is just there to churn out micro transaction and Games-as-a-Service garbage.
- Comment on No Man's Sky: Voyagers update releases today, introduces customizable "colossal, fully furnished, completely bespoke Corvette-class starships" 1 week ago:
I don’t get how/why it’s still profitable for them to keep working on it - but I’m in full support.
It’s not to dissimilar to Minecraft in a number of ways, in a sense - there’s not really any drive to do anything in particular, it’s ultimately up to the player to do what they feel like.
It’s a literal sandbox, rather than a narrative experience. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, that’s perfectly fine!
- Comment on Over 450 Diablo developers at Blizzard have unionized 1 week ago:
According to the Diablo IV credits, over 9,500 people worked on that title in some capacity:
- Comment on PS5 may get more price increases in the US, analyst warns 1 week ago:
…and so it fucking should; the more pain average Americans feel, the better - honestly.
We are less than 8 months into this administration, and they are already doing their damnedest to rat-fuck the elections in an effort to fully seize power for at least a generation and remake the nation in their own twisted vision.
The last chance left to stop this takeover is the 2026 midterms, and the GOP are already pulling out all of the stops to stop that from happening:
- Gerrymandering the absolute shit out of Texas
- Closing polling booths in locations likely to vote against the GOP
- Imposing voter identification laws to further disenfranchise ‘undesirables’
- Rail against mail-in ballots to further suppress turnout
Hopefully the dam breaks and inflation well and truly begins to run away - so that the majority of the population feel the impact of this President’s policies to their wallets, and vote out his lapdogs and lackeys.
If not, then the nation and its people are truly lost and more expensive consoles are going to be the least of your worries.
- Comment on SpaceX says states should dump fiber plans, give all grant money to Starlink 2 weeks ago:
The actual history of Australia’s National Broadband Network (NBN) is actually needlessly complicated - primarily due to a (somewhat) successful sabotage attempt by our Conservative government in the early 2010s.
But basically, every single new home is built with Fiber to the Home, and every single metropolitan and suburban home either has Fiber to the Home (or Premises), or at the very least Fiber to the Curb through a remediation process to replace the Conservative-implemented Fiber to the Node boondoggle.
We also have a number of neighbourhoods stuck with HFC (again due to Conservstice sabotage) which while still delivering 100+ Mbit connections - are a bit of a technical dead end and will need to be remediated at some point in the future.
Basically, nbnCo serves as a national broadband wholesaler providing high speed connectivity (100, 250, 500, Gigabit) to something like >95% of the population.
The most remote communities are also serviced either through a fixed wireless option or satellite.
Basically though, unlike the US we don’t have a significant number of people still on dial-up and haven’t had so for a very long time.
- Comment on The average age of Disney princesses is 505y. 2 weeks ago:
Heck, even opting for median age over the mean would work in this case!
- Comment on Australia’s amount of plastic waste surges as recycling rates fail to improve 2 weeks ago:
Until a viable alternative is introduced to replace the defunct RedCycle program - best we can do is try to try to minimise - ie. only get the biggest bags of products (or try and make your own at home), or whenever possible get the ones in hard clamshells.
But yes, it’s depressing to see just how much plastic waste we produce currently - especially knowing what we know now about microplastics - compared to the 90s and earlier.
- Comment on Americans’ junk-filled garages are hurting EV adoption, study says 2 weeks ago:
It’s not so much about being built on a grid, but rather being built with a particularly high population density in mind - and further supported by a robust public transit network.
- Comment on UK | Man arrested in dawn raid after sharing Facebook posts backing Palestine Action 2 weeks ago:
Not all that surprising, typical Conservative double-speak (or is it talking out of both sides of their mouth?).
We had something similar here in Australia in the early 2000s, when we voted on a referendum on whether to ditch the Monarchy and become a Republic:
All of the Stay/Remain advertising focused on the message that “this [proposed] Australia’s Not The One”, and inferring that we could have another referendum in the near future with a different form of revised Government. Suffice to say, that was utter bullshit - and we haven’t revisited the topic since.
By then again, we wouldn’t even pass a referendum to allow the Aborigines a Voice in Parliament a few years ago - so we’ve probably rolled backwards also.
- Comment on The notion that "old is bad and new is good" is a seriously damaging part of western capitalism brainwashing 2 weeks ago:
I think it has just as much to do with the decline in population, impacting overall demand, as it does with not seeing housing as an investment- but rather a depreciating asset.
- Comment on The notion that "old is bad and new is good" is a seriously damaging part of western capitalism brainwashing 2 weeks ago:
In Australia, at least in terms of housing - those in the know, tend to want to avoid new builds due to the sheer number of cut corners, sub-par materials and lax regulations.
Homes made in the post-asbestos, pre-2000s are highly coveted as a result.
- Comment on Americans’ junk-filled garages are hurting EV adoption, study says 2 weeks ago:
Chicken and egg situation, Americans drive because that’s how their cities and suburbs are laid out (excluding NYC, for the most part).
They don’t rely on alternatives because they are slow, inconvenient or non-existent; alternatives can’t be built up as the costs can’t be justified based on existing patronage levels.
- Comment on UK | Man arrested in dawn raid after sharing Facebook posts backing Palestine Action 2 weeks ago:
Fuck me, it’s got to be pretty miserable being British at the moment?
It’s not like the Tories were doing anything to better their lives, but hold crap Labour are definitely on world record pace speed-running Fascism any%.
- Comment on Steam: Updates to User Review Scores Based on Language 2 weeks ago:
That’s awesome to see!
Print media is basically dead here in Australia, though I did just discover Edge is apparently still a thing - I adored that publication back in the pre-WoW days.
- Comment on Steam: Updates to User Review Scores Based on Language 2 weeks ago:
Which magazine? I’m legitimately surprised that (m)any have survived, to be honest!
- Comment on Elden Ring on Switch 2 Is a Disaster in Handheld Mode - IGN 2 weeks ago:
I wouldn’t hold my breath, but at least a port to ARM would also give Mac users access to Elden Ring - and God knows macOS is in dire need of more natively compiled games in order to be taken as even a semi-viable platform.
- Comment on Australian Government funnelled $2.5B to Israeli arms manufacturers 2 weeks ago:
OP is arguably editorialising with post title, as it doesn’t match the headline - Billions in Israel defence contracts put Australia at risk. Yes, that sentence does appear in the article proper, but we all know just how many people don’t actually click through - and just go off vibes.
Yet even then, the article has questionable content at best - and this is coming from someone who generally supports Michael West and journalistic transparency.
It’s referring to $2.5b spent since 2004 (ie. since Howard FFS), so the first question any honest journalist would ask is - how much of that occurred, or was contracted to occur before October 7, 2023?
Secondly, this money hasn’t been ‘funnelled’ to Israel for them to commit genocide on the Palestinian people, it was payment for the procurement of military vehicles, services and technology. Again, most of which was contracted to occur before Israel began committing genocide on the people of Gaza.
Under the Arms Trade Treaty, to which Australia is a signatory, governments are required to block weapons transfers if there is an overriding risk they would be used to commit serious violations of the Geneva Conventions.
Thirdly this entire argument is a bit of a red herring, as this isn’t referring to transferring weapons TO Israel - but rather buying from. Now again, there is a whole seperate matter of any money paid in the past, now being put towards genocide - but that quoted paragraph is trying to conflate these two.
Don’t get me wrong, this is not an attempt to apologise for Israel - fuck Netanyahu, Gvir and their ilk for the war crimes they’ve committed, let them burn in the pariah state that they have created… and fuck each and every member of the IDF willingly going along with it.
But honestly, I am somewhat embarrassed to share political ideology with such a disingenuous reporter. Do better, Stephanie.
- Comment on They'd just appear out of nowhere 2 weeks ago:
Ah, I found that mine were largely caused by prolonged squinting to try to account for the astigmatism; along with some combination of dehydration, lack of sleep and/or excess caffeine consumption.
- Comment on They'd just appear out of nowhere 2 weeks ago:
Do you happen to have astigmatism or relatively poor vision, by chance?
I used to get these every month or so since I was like 10 until a few years ago, when I finally pulled the trigger and got LASIK. Have not experienced one since, which is a Godsend given that they would usually last for an hour or two and be accompanied by a gnarly headache which would otherwise render me useless.
