ilinamorato

@ilinamorato@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨This Minecraft map that recreates, [Kowloon Walled City], one of history's most notorious slums made me reconsider what's important in 3D level design⁩ ⁨⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s a very good summary of the article. The things the author reconsidered were pretty nuanced, and trying to describe them in a headline without making the headline even longer than it is.

  Would you have liked this better?

  “This Minecraft map that recreates Kowloon Walled City, one of history’s most notorious slums, made me realize that 3D level design isn’t just about the complexity or the environmental challenge, but about the internal lives of the people who live there and the way that the game implies a greater reality that exists beyond the confines of the camera’s field of view”

  Because that’s too long to fit in a tweet.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨This Minecraft map that recreates, [Kowloon Walled City], one of history's most notorious slums made me reconsider what's important in 3D level design⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  I read the article. It appears to deliver on the promise of the headline pretty completely. The headline also isn’t sensationalized or misrepresentative of the content. Are you just upset because it sounds a little bit like a LinkedIn status in its construction?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Threads alternative⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  Mastodon has definitely improved, but more to the point, there’s really nothing else. Particularly not anything that anyone is using. Unless you widen your definition to include Bluesky.

  Honestly, I’d say that Mastodon’s perceived complexity in the past was kind of an illusion anyway. The problem of choosing a server was really made out to be this huge hurdle, when in fact it was no big deal at all; I was a member of several different servers over time, and I didn’t feel like my experience was substantially different on any of them. Just join one that seems interesting or is near you or whatever, and you’ll be fine. After that, it operates pretty much the same as Twitter did. Following people on other servers can be a little bit trickier on web, but in the app it’s pretty seamless.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨New tech pulls lithium from dead batteries cheaper than you can buy it⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  The process honestly sounds to me a little bit like decaffeination, which also feels like witchcraft to me. So it might work!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why do some Americans "feel ashamed" for being American even when it's not their fault?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Speaking only for myself: because the American government has, for 250 years, claimed to act on behalf of the American people. When it was liberating concentration camps and sending people to the moon, that was something to be proud of.* When it was upholding slavery and winking at Jim Crow laws, it wasn’t.

  It’s a government “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” and so he purports to speak and act on my behalf. That’s deeply embarrassing and shameful, even if I couldn’t have done anything differently to prevent it.

  • (Yes, I know that even those “good” examples are complicated. I’m just forming an example here)
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is it completely impossible to do age verification without compromising privacy?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  That…seems so obvious, now that you say it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is it completely impossible to do age verification without compromising privacy?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s not about Bob trusting Grace specifically (that’s a premise of the entire operation), it’s about trusting that the letter Alice handed Bob was actually signed by Grace.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I dunno⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Well and truly noted. I was unaware until I got called out on it, so the whole experience has made me wonder how often I do that sort of thing without realizing it.

  Pretty hypocritical on my part, since I’m usually on team hey-actually-read-it-before-you-comment.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is it completely impossible to do age verification without compromising privacy?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  That could very well work, yes; but I think that would require Bob verifying Grace’s signature, and that would require trusting that Grace didn’t make a unique signature that she only used for Alice, and making a note of who verified it.

  There might be a way to verify those signatures with public keys in a way that didn’t require Bob to tell Grace that he was verifying the signature, which is still rattling around in my brain.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Epic boss Tim Sweeney thinks stores like Steam should stop labelling games as being made with AI: 'It makes no sense,' he says, because 'AI will be involved in nearly all future production⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Are you kidding? I might actually stop buying new games and make it through my backlog now! This is great!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is it completely impossible to do age verification without compromising privacy?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m inclined to say no. Reducing the problem down to its most basic parts: Alice is authorized to talk to Bob, but Bob doesn’t know that. How can Alice prove it?

  Bob has to assume that anyone asking to talk to him could be Mallory, who isn’t authorized to talk to him but will always answer “yes” if asked whether she is. So the authorization he gets has to be from a trusted third party; it can’t come from Alice.

  Grace is a trusted third party. If Alice doesn’t care about privacy, and is okay with Grace knowing that Alice talked to Bob and with Bob knowing Alice’s identity, Alice can just tell Bob, “here’s proof that I’m Alice. Show this to Grace and she’ll confirm that I can be here.” This is SSO, essentially.

  If Alice doesn’t want Bob to know who she is, but is ok with Grace knowing that Alice talked to Bob, she can ask Grace to give her a secret code, and give that code to Bob, who can check with Grace to know whether or not that code corresponds to someone who is authorized.

  If Alice doesn’t want Grace to know that she’s talking to Bob, though, she runs into a problem. Because there’s no way for Grace to send Bob a message without knowing who Bob is, he can’t ask anonymously, and because there’s no way for Grace to confirm that Alice is authorized without knowing who she is, Grace will always know that Alice has asked for authentication to talk to Bob.

  Adding Dave in as a trusted fourth party could solve the problem—Alice asks Dave to check with Grace, and lock his answer in a bag with a unique key that only Dave has. Then Grace could give the bag to Bob, who doesn’t need to know who Grace is to pass the bag to Dave and ask him to unlock it. But Alice would be trusting that Dave won’t keep records on which bag corresponds to which person.

  I don’t think that’s a surmountable problem. I’ll have to think about it some more.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I dunno⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Nope, you’re right. I just read the words and assumed it was one of the terrible ones.

  This one is just…math.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I dunno⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  You’re right. I honestly just assumed it was one of those intentionally engagement-baiting posts when I saw it and didn’t even process the problem itself.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I dunno⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  In fairness, this one isn’t nearly as bad as most of the ambiguous problems that get passed around on Facebook with multiple parentheticals and such.

  Your word problem is excellent.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I dunno⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Whoa, you went from 0 to 100 on rage super quick. You ok buddy?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I dunno⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  it’s

  a badly

  written

  math

  problem

  Seriously, every time this comes up and everyone makes a huge deal out of it, I keep thinking, “none of the people writing these better be teachers.” You have to be more clear than this.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Art project about a cloud connected pan that has a moisture sensor in its handle and charges per wash. If the sensor breaks they sue you for breaking the digital lock.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s really clever. And dumb in exactly the way Silicon Valley would actually do something like this.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Gaming Pet Peeves⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Tutorial sections that just suck. Some don’t explain enough, others treat you like you’ve never played a game in your life. Or, when they interrupt you to explain a mechanic in great detail, but it’s too much of an info dump, and you’re just left wondering wtf they just said.

  The ones I hate the most are the ones that meticulously teach you “press A to jump!” (Cool thanks, yeah, I’ve been playing video games since Super Mario Bros, I’m pretty good on the basics) but then you get out of the tutorial and play for an hour or two and realize that you’ve never once had to jump, but that complicated combo that they didn’t even allude to in the tutorial is for some reason the core game mechanic.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Microsoft AI CEO pushes back against critics after recent Windows AI backlash — "the fact that people are unimpressed ... is mindblowing to me"⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Even if the Windows voice experience put Jarvis to shame, I wouldn’t be interested. I don’t want to use voice control on my computer. Just about the only time I actually need voice control are when I’m far away or my hands are busy; so it’s nice for turning lights on and off when I have my hands full, or controlling timers when I’m cooking, or turning music on without getting up from the couch. Sometimes I’ll use voice-to-text if I have a lot to say or need to think it through. But I almost never want voice control (even if it were completely perfect, which it is not!) for the same reason that I listen to podcasts on earbuds: I don’t want to bother other people! Certainly not while I’m working, and definitely not when it’s liable to take agentic actions for me.

  Buttons, knobs, levers, sliders, keys—all of those are better than voice control 999 times out of 1000. I don’t even like touch screens that much, and I’d prefer them over voice control.

  The Microsoft executives inhabit a different reality than I do.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If Valve creates an "entry point" for living room PCs, the console-beating Steam Machines will follow, argues Baldur's Gate 3's publishing director⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, that might not work as well. I’m on a Framework laptop that hasn’t been modified much.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If Valve creates an "entry point" for living room PCs, the console-beating Steam Machines will follow, argues Baldur's Gate 3's publishing director⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s what has happened to me. I haven’t installed a single driver yet, in about a year.

  But I dunno. Maybe I just won the lottery.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If Valve creates an "entry point" for living room PCs, the console-beating Steam Machines will follow, argues Baldur's Gate 3's publishing director⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Actually, you can get most of Valve’s work without SteamOS. I’m running Mint and it works great.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If Valve creates an "entry point" for living room PCs, the console-beating Steam Machines will follow, argues Baldur's Gate 3's publishing director⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I think he’s absolutely right, and I hope Valve has considered this (and they probably have). This needs to be a door-opener, not a powerhouse.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What's the name of this 80s song sang by a solo female singer? I only remember her saying "nothing really maaaa-tters" or "nothing truly maaaatt-ers". Has a vibe like I Feel For You by Chaka Kahn⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I assume it’s not, but are you thinking of the end of the first part of Bohemian Rhapsody?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Steam Hardware [new Steam Controller, Steam Machine, and VR headset Steam Frame, coming in 2026]⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Oh man, the Ouya. That’s a blast from the past. Play mobile games on your TV using a controller made out of cardboard and balsa wood and sized for a Roswell alien. Good times.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  This. It might be financially difficult, but you know what’s harder financially? Mental breakdowns, hospital stays, divorce cases, jail time. All of those are on the table when you work that much. Quit your job if you can, take as long a vacation as you can afford, remember why you enjoy your family’s company, and then ease your way back into working—at a reasonable schedule.

  It’s not a cure-all. You probably still need therapy (there are places that offer grants and assistance with counseling). But a good work-life balance makes everything else feel like something you can handle.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is Fast Charging Killing the Battery? A 2-Year Test on 40 Phones⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  No, they’re saying that some hardware manufacturers report 80% as 100% (as you noted) while others do not. Just like some manufacturers report 5% as 5% while others report 10% as 5% with the realization that most people misjudge when they’ll be able to charge.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Big Short Guy Just Bet $1 Billion That the AI Bubble Pops⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Well, the market will definitely contract. I would say at least one of the big AI players will go out of business or be acquired by a competitor over the next few years, and at least one of the big tech corps will sunset their AI model over that timescale as well. Nvidia stock is going to take a steep nosedive. I think the future for consumer AI is mostly in small, quick models; except for in research and data analysis, where just a few big players will be able to provide the services that most uses require.

  They currently have enough money to keep going for a while if they play their cards right, but once investors realize that the endgame doesn’t have much to offer them, the money will stop flowing.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m probably going to be allowing most of my streaming subscriptions to lapse over the next year or two. Gonna stick with Dropout and PBS, but that might be all.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨At this SF grocery store, you can't leave unless you buy something⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  True, though I think you might be able to use entertainers to overcome the rating drops long enough? I’m not sure.