Contramuffin
@Contramuffin@lemmy.world
- Comment on descriptions of Demons and the arcane rituals required to banish them feverishly relayed by occultists in ghost/horror stories are a direct homomorphism to computers and actually how awful they are 2 days ago:
I’m not sure I understand the analogy. A lot of annoyances that people regularly deal with on computers are either intended mechanisms to stop human bad actors or unintentional bugs passing off as features. You can’t really say the same about demons.
I suppose you might be talking about ritualization, or the idea that the people who build protocols are so removed from the people who follow them, that the people who follow the protocols don’t know why they do the things they do, but only know that bad things happen if they don’t follow the protocols.
But even then, the analogy seems somewhat strenuous, since the point of occultism is exactly to try to study demonology and understand how to work with demons - ie, to try to understand why the protocols are the way they are.
If you wanted to talk about ritualization, there are significantly more apt comparisons. Most examples of culture or religions could be argued to be practical protocols that ended up gaining momentum and becoming more spiritual than they initially were.
- Comment on [deleted] 1 week ago:
Games, as with all creative media, by default improve over time as people learn what makes something enjoyable. I think people tend to forget that. So I think for older games, you have to keep 2 “ratings” in your head - how was it compared to the games at the time, and how is it compared to games now?
I loved GTA3 when I played it. But that was back then. I’m not sure if I would say the same thing now, comparing it to modern games.
I get that people like to clown on all the remakes and remasters that are coming out, and for the most part, rightly so. But I also think it’s really important to encourage high quality remakes for this exact reason - when a good game ages poorly, it doesn’t feel quite right to just tell new, younger players to deal with it if they want to figure out what the hype is about
- Comment on Mean world syndrome has reacted a fever pitch. 1 week ago:
The question is designed to be as divisive as possible. It categorizes large swathes of people into just 2 groups - man or bear. The man group contains mansplainers, but it also contains regular people who simply view humanity as naturally altruistic. The bear group contains people with concerns about men overpowering women, but also contains people who earnestly believe that most if not all men will try to do it if given the chance.
The problem is that people either are unable to or unwilling to acknowledge that these categories are not monolithic. And in claiming that all people in the man group are incels, you are inadvertently insulting everyone in that group. Likewise, in claiming that all people in the bear group are misandrists, you are inadvertently dismissing everyone in that group.
It is not productive to make claims about people based only on their answer to the question. In fact, it appears to be entirely the intention of the question to divide even rational people by exploiting the general human inability to see subgroups within larger categories
- Comment on Nintendo DMCA Notice Wipes Out 8,535 Yuzu Repos, Mig Switch Also Targeted. 2 weeks ago:
I would agree with you, but there was apparently evidence that specific patches were made that allowed TOTK to work. And then if you take a look at the link, there were screenshots of the Nintendo documents to suggest that TOTK apparently was not the Yuzu team’s first rodeo when it came to patching for pre-release games
- Comment on Nintendo DMCA Notice Wipes Out 8,535 Yuzu Repos, Mig Switch Also Targeted. 2 weeks ago:
I tried looking for it, but all my searches are flooded with articles about this current takedown wave. I did find a forum post talking about it, though, so I know I’m not crazy.
I might try searching again later, in which case I’ll edit this comment.
Also, I know this isn’t really relevant to the question, but the Yuzu team was doing some really shady stuff, even ignoring the development kit usage. For instance, they were collecting telemetry data from all of their users and were using illegally obtained roms to optimize Yuzu, to the point where the Yuzu team was able to get games to work before the game’s official release
- Comment on Morish Morals 2 weeks ago:
Doc Seismic from Invincible
- Comment on Nintendo DMCA Notice Wipes Out 8,535 Yuzu Repos, Mig Switch Also Targeted. 2 weeks ago:
So, I agree with your general points, but I think part of the reason Nintendo is so harsh towards Yuzu is because, as far as I’m aware, Yuzu does actually contain proprietary code from Nintendo.
My understanding is that the Yuzu team used a Switch development kit instead of reverse engineering the Switch as they had claimed, so the entire code is essentially tainted because it’s unclear which parts came from the development kit and which parts came from true reverse engineering
- Comment on Carl? 2 weeks ago:
It also crawls into the snail’s eyestalks and starts dancing in the snail’s eyes
- Comment on Are you prepared for the ramifications of windows 10 EoL? 3 weeks ago:
I’ve switched to W11 on my main rig, since Linux doesn’t have the sort of compatibility that I can rely on for my work. I installed explorer patcher to restore W10 start menu, task bar, and right click menu. I combed through the settings to deactivate all the data collection settings.
On my laptop, I dual boot W11 and KDE Neon.
It’s the best that I can do given the circumstances
- Comment on If a universal basic income started today with the stipulation that you had to put 40 hrs/wk towards making the world a better place or solving societal problems, how would you spend your time? 3 weeks ago:
Isn’t that just a government job with extra steps? I thought the point of UBI is that it’s meant to be, you know, universal.
As a side note, people have this tendency to think that government programs must be means-tested. That is, there must be a criteria that is met before someone is eligible for the program. Same with your assumption in the post - you assume that it must be better to add a stipulation. There seems to be this natural skepticism that if there is no criteria, people will take advantage of the program. I want to challenge that skepticism.
Adding criteria for eligibility inherently means the government must establish a bureaucracy for checking that the criteria is met. This has two notable downsides that people tend to not consider. First, it causes an applicant to wait longer before they can hear back from the program. With existing programs, it sometimes takes months before someone hears back. This ends up discouraging anyone from applying, even if they meet all the criteria. After all, what’s the point of receiving aid in 3 months if you need the aid now?
Second, it causes the cost of the program to increase. A bureaucracy is difficult to maintain. The more money that is spent on checking for eligibility, the less money that people in need will get. And what is the work that such a bureaucracy will do anyways? How does it benefit society to hire someone to say that people’s needs aren’t “real enough” to get government aid?
Which leads me to a third, additional point - it’s morally questionable to require people to meet a certain criteria before they can receive aid. To put it in another way, why do you feel like you need to gatekeep other people’s needs? If a person says they’re struggling, why should anyone say that they’re not struggling enough?
- Comment on Possible Future of Social Media 3 weeks ago:
It’s like boiling a crab - people don’t realize how much they’re getting shafted if you enshittify slowly enough. And frankly, I fully predict that it’ll continue to get worse. Social media execs have proven themselves to be brazen enough (and dumb enough) to so openly exploit their userbase
- Comment on Crypt of the NecroDancer: Hatsune Miku Character DLC Trailer 1 month ago:
Didn’t expect that, but what a welcome surprise
- Comment on show them the big p-value 1 month ago:
Because when p < 0.05, the difference becomes significant
- Comment on show them the big p-value 1 month ago:
Correcting people is such small p energy
- Comment on acceptable screws 1 month ago:
Really not a fan of Hex (it just cams out way too easily) but Torx is like screwdriver orgasm. Philips just feels like intentionally bad design
- Comment on The Talos Principle: The Most Underrated Video Game of the Last Decade 1 month ago:
Bought it when it came out! Great game. The antialiasing is really funky, though. There’s a lot of ghosting no matter what antialiasing option you use. I suspect it’s probably a software bug. It does kind of detract from the visual quality aspect of its marketing.
Regardless, I don’t think puzzles sell well in general - bit of a niche genre
- Comment on Does mucous have calories? 1 month ago:
xePMBg9 learns the ways of the desert
- Comment on Caption this. 2 months ago:
Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria finds a new animatronic
- Comment on What are y'all buying on the steam sale? 2 months ago:
Heaven’s Vault, Hardspace Shipbreaker, and both Subnautica games.
Heaven’s Vault is a puzzle game where you have to learn to translate an unknown language. Haven’t gotten too deep into the game yet, but I picked it up because I liked Chants of Sennaar, which has a similar premise. Chants is 25% off right now, so I think that’s a decent recommendation
Hardspace Shipbreaker is a casual game where you break down spaceships for parts. It seemed fun, and I wanted to have something casual to balance out my library, which currently has more intense games than I would like.
Subnautica is a survival game where you’re stuck on an ocean world. I’m honestly not too sure if I would like this one too much, since I’m not too much of a fan of survival games. It just seemed unique enough from the other survival games, and it had a decent deal, and it was in my wishlist for a while. So I acted a bit on impulse and bought both games (Subnautica and Subnautica Below Zero)
- Comment on Caption this. 2 months ago:
Onlyfans users gain a new appreciation for a new fetish: head pics
- Comment on Please read and help 2 months ago:
Is the post cut off? I get the impression there’s supposed to be more text here
- Comment on [ISSUE] Layer is closer at one end than other 2 months ago:
Had a similar issue with my Ender 3 Pro. In my case, turned out the bed wobbled. A quick Google search said that it’s apparently a pretty common problem with Ender 3 Pro’s. I had to tighten the wheels that held the bed in place, and that completely resolved my problem.
So, my advice would be to check if your bed wobbles
- Comment on What are the strengths of the scientific method? What are its weaknesses? 2 months ago:
Researchers here. The scientific method is unbelievably tedious. Way more tedious than you would think. So much so that people are willing to pay researchers to do it for them. A simple yes or no question takes weeks or months to answer if you’re lucky.
But the upside is that we can remove our own biases from the answer as much as possible. If you see an obvious difference between any 2 groups, then there’s little to no point in doing the scientific method. But if the difference is less clear, like borderline visible, then biases start to creep in. Someone who thinks there’s no difference will see the data and think there’s no difference. And someone who thinks there’s a difference will look at the data and think there’s a difference. The scientific method excels in these cases, because it gives us a relatively objective way to determine if there is a difference or not between 2 groups
- Comment on Looking for emotional game recommendations 2 months ago:
If it’s emotional you want, you can’t beat To the Moon and its sequel, Finding Paradise. They’re walking sims, but they’ve got great stories that’ll make you ugly cry
- Comment on I hear phrases like "half-past", "quarter til", and "quarter after" way less often since digital clocks have became more commonplace. 2 months ago:
I’m not sure. Anecdotal evidence, but when I was little, we learned how to read analog clocks, and all the “half past whatever” terminology. Actually, I think most of us in my class at that time primarily used analog clocks. Even then, we never used those sorts of phrases. We would just round to the nearest 5 minutes if anyone asked.
That’s still what I do nowadays. Of course, there’s phones and computers now that can tell you the time, but if I want a physical clock, I prefer to get an analog one. And I still just round to the nearest 5 minutes.
In my interpretation, those phrases fell out of favor a long time ago
- Comment on What are you playing this week? February 19 2024 Edition 2 months ago:
Finished Patrick’s Parabox. Pretty good puzzle game!
- Comment on Inspired by Swift Memes 2 months ago:
This post: over-the-top satire of Americans
The comments: oh god no don’t give them any ideas
Yeah that sounds about right for America
- Comment on Alan Wake 2 is Remedy’s fastest-selling game yet, shifting over 1.3m copies, but hasn’t made a penny of profit 2 months ago:
It’s definitely possible, but we also have to consider that total sales doesn’t have a strict correlation with profit. It may be true that there will be a lot of sales upon a Steam launch, but then at that point the game would have already been out for a while, and (presumably) the game would be selling for less than the initial cost. So even if total sale ends up being the same, accepting exclusivity may still lower profits
That’s also assuming that total sales will end up being same. I don’t really have any hard numbers to back this up, but I’m willing to bet that there’s a sizable number of day one sales that can be purely attributed to hype. You know the type - a person who buys a game because they saw marketing materials but then never actually plays it. A delayed Steam release would be missing out on those hype sales.
Ultimately, I don’t necessarily think that exclusivity will always hurt the developers in the long run. I don’t even know if it hurts developers most of the time. But it does make me curious about what the exact numbers are - the amount of exclusivity money, the sales numbers over time, the total profit, that kind of thing
- Comment on Alan Wake 2 is Remedy’s fastest-selling game yet, shifting over 1.3m copies, but hasn’t made a penny of profit 2 months ago:
Same. I would have bought Alan Wake 2 day 1, but… well. Epic Store. Hopefully it comes to other platforms soon.
I do wonder sometimes how much a team shoots themselves in the foot by making a game an EGS exclusive. I mean, sure, they get money, but they are almost certainly losing out on initial sales. The numerical benefits and costs of accepting an exclusivity deal would be really interesting to see, even if no team would ever release that data
- Comment on Stomach fish tank 3 months ago:
To really understand the shittiness of this post, you need a bit of context. Many East Asian languages rely heavily on onomatopoeias to imply actions and verbs. Gulu gulu (also often written guru guru) is the onomatopeia that represents a tumbling sound, like something being tossed around in a rotating container. Essentially, it implies the verb, “churning.” The post is basically saying that it will make your stomach churn and give you a stomachache.