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Buddahriffic

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Buddahriffic ,

Yep, 4 hours later and it still spoiled it for me.

Prosecutors say Alec Baldwin was ‘engaged in horseplay’ with gun before fatal shooting (www.theguardian.com)

Fewer than three weeks before actor Alec Baldwin is due to go on trial in Santa Fe, New Mexico, prosecutors have said that he “engaged in horseplay with the revolver”, including firing a blank round at a crew member on the set of Rust before the tragic accident occurred....

Buddahriffic ,

Or just make it a chamber modification that can be applied to any gun that reduces the size of the round that can fit in it to something that isn’t a standard size.

Buddahriffic ,

I assume it’s like the new car smell. Pleasant or not, it’s from inhaling plastic and paint particles and other chemicals as the excesses evaporate and loose pieces come loose and become airborne.

Steam Deck is probably similar. Plastics, anti-corrosion coatings on heat sink fins, trace metals and solder, inks from the PCB, maybe the occasional ion leftover if there’s any micro-arcing.

I’d guess it lasts a long time because the cooling airflow continually erodes whatever is in its path, while new cars don’t have that continuous erosion so eventually all the particles that were going to escape do and the ones left over are more stable.

Buddahriffic ,

Maybe your fan is broken. Do you notice any wild performance variations?

Though if you’re used to loud fans by desktop standards, the Steam Deck is pretty quiet compared to that. Like yeah, it’s audible, but I’d describe it as loud as a loud exhale. Some desktop fans were referred to as jet engines from how loud they got.

Buddahriffic ,

I wonder if people will soon realize that that rage they have for scalpers is just directed at the amateurs and that the upper class is full of people doing pretty much the same thing just in less obvious ways.

Your employer (if you work for a private for-profit company) pays you x for your labour and then takes the proceeds of the labour and sells it for y where y is (generally) much higher than x. A business is profitable when the sum of all y is higher than the sum of all x.

If it’s a non-profit, then the difference between y and x must be put back into the business in some way, which could be an investment into an expansion of its scope or it could be a raise for some or all of the workers (payroll is not profit, it’s an expense). And that could mean just the CEO gets a raise, because some of the leeching is via different pay levels for different people that isn’t based on just the difference they are directly making to the income.

Public services can vary. If the service is profitable, then the profit goes into the budget of the government entity(s) that run it, as determined by legislature. So everyone is acting as the middleman there. If it’s not profitable, then it’s covered by taxes, at cost. There’s still varying salaries but it’s subject to government oversight, so things shouldn’t get as unbalanced as they would in the private sector, at least in theory. Though even in the public sector, there’s this assumption that promotions should come with big raises, regardless of how the workload changes, so you can still have people at the top making orders of magnitude more than people at the bottom.

Buddahriffic ,

Putting all the eggs in the solar basket has risks, too. Like a large volcano eruption that reduces the amount of light that reaches the surface for a few years would be a double whammy, affecting food production as well as electricity production (which we’d need to rely on to try to offset the food losses). If we’re instead facing brownouts or full blackouts, that’s a recipe for a complete loss of stability. I suspect less solar energy reaching the surface would also reduce total wind energy (less localized heating would mean lower pressure differentials, but I could be missing other significant parts of this equation).

I’d be most comfortable with a nice mix of energy sources combined with mothballing instead of decommissioning some capacity as renewables are able to take over more and more of the day to day energy needs so that we’re prepared to deal with an emergency like that.

I’d also like to see more food production moved to vertical farms that can be powered by electricity rather than relying entirely on the sun and weather. But I do understand that the scale of food production would make doing that with a significant portion of the food supply very difficult. But with climate change (plus nutrient depletion of the soil), keeping so many eggs in the “just keep farming” basket also doesn’t seem like a great idea.

Buddahriffic ,

I’ve also been avoiding playing games that involve some third party launcher or login. I’m not perfectly consistent with this and have bought some games before realizing they had this, but even steam games can be subject to a company deciding they don’t want to support their game anymore (which IMO is fair) and just killing the game off entirely, which isn’t fair. I’d like to see a requirement that other steps be taken to keep it going without their active support. Like opening the source and relinquishing all copyrights on that code. If they want to keep parts of it, then pull it out into a library that they continue to maintain.

Buddahriffic ,

If they can’t keep their committed date (or fold entirely), then the source goes open. If every copy happens to get deleted during the bankruptcy, treat it as criminal fraud by the top levels of the company and go after everyone that could have decided to improve backups and other IT methods of avoiding that but didn’t. That’s assuming it was accidental, higher penalties if it can be proven to be deliberate.

Buddahriffic ,

IMO a fumbled and later recovered launch is different from the enshitification of video games like P2W, MTX in general, lootboxes, releasing what should be patches as paid DLC, invasive DRM and anti-cheat. I’d file all of those under bad design, while a bad launch is more of a bad execution. There can be overlap, like if they fully intended for early players to fill the role of beta testers.

The way I approach it is I try to avoid the bad design stuff entirely but just avoid buying new games at release and definitely never pre-order. I’ll also support games in early release if I really like the concept and want to give them a better chance at being able to pull it off, but I go into those with the understanding that it’s not complete right now and there’s a chance it never will be. But I don’t see any reason to hold anything against the games that have messy launches but later recover.

Though I’ve learned to not jump on the hype train and that makes it much easier to not take any of this stuff personally.

Buddahriffic ,

Yeah golden parachutes are such a joke in this society that likes to pretend to be a meritocracy.

Though on that note, I’d love to see a law that limits golden parachutes to the lowest paid position in the company. Hell, I’d be ok with that being scaled to full time. Not because disgraced executives deserve even that much but because it would give some incentive to increase pay rates across the company. I’ve also long thought that executive compensation should also be limited by some multiple of the lowest pay. And yeah, I’d include stock options and grants in that (for both employee and executive compensation).

‘Will I ever retire?’: millennials wonder what’s on the other side of middle age (www.theguardian.com)

Claire*, 42, was always told: “Follow your dreams and the money will follow.” So that’s what she did. At 24, she opened a retail store with a friend in downtown Ottawa, Canada. She’d managed to save enough from a part-time government job during university to start the business without taking out a loan....

Buddahriffic ,

Yeah, I bought fairly recently (as interest rates were starting to climb) and it was 100% a qol decision rather than a financial one. I’m paying more in interest now than I was paying in rent before, so instead of giving my money away to a landlord, I’m giving it away to my mortgage company.

The only way I’ll come out ahead financially is if the value goes up. But I have mixed feelings on that, too, because the housing situation is fucked here and value continuing to go up will mean that the situation is still fucked. I don’t want this place to be my home forever, so if the price here goes up, then the price of better places will also go up and it ends up being a wash until I don’t need to own and can sell, but even that would be tough because inheritance is probably going to be my daughter’s only way of ever owning her own place.

Or, on the other hand, if they fix the housing issue here by limiting the number of residences any person can own and barring corporations from owning at all (or at least not having them count as new people for number of places they can own), then prices will crash and most people who currently has a mortgage will end up owing more than their house is worth and will still be fucked in that way. Unless the government makes the banks eat some of that or does a bailout for homeowners.

But anything in the above paragraph would probably take a revolution to actually happen because all of these bugs for regular people are features for those that have the wealth to influence the political power.

Buddahriffic ,

frezik claims “only Siths deal in absolutes”

Statement itself is an absolute

Therefore frezik must be lying, mistaken, or Sith. Or exaggerating. Or quoting. Or this whole thing is just a hallucination.

I think that covers all cases. At least the most common ones.

Buddahriffic ,

Next thing they are going to say asbestos is dangerous even though I’ve touched it before without dying!

And in a recent survey, 9 out of 10 tobacco executives say, “Don’t worry about safety, just have another smooth tasting premium filtered cigarette!”

Buddahriffic ,

Also missing from those stats are the stats on how often someone tries to be a hero and either makes a dangerous situation worse or misreads the situation entirely and makes a peaceful situation violent.

The well regulated militia part was pretty important and the judge(s) that ruled it wasn’t should have been impeached for overextending his power.

Buddahriffic ,

Or a more general “stickers must adhere stronger to themselves than to whatever they are stuck to”.

Buddahriffic ,

Also exclusivity deals should be treated as the monopolies they are.

Buddahriffic ,

And then at some point, games started saving inside documents. Ok, it makes sense to have game save files in a user area instead of a subfolder in the game install area, but they aren’t documents. Just make a new game saves folder or something like that, don’t just stick all my game save files in the same area, cluttering up my own organization.

Though I did solve it kinda by just making a new documents subfolder in my documents where I put my actual documents.

Buddahriffic ,

Yeah, ultimately the issue is probably more about an attempt to go from a completely unmanaged file system where it was just big free for all with the hope everyone would behave nicely to a more managed design that still needed to maintain backwards compatibility with the old system where there were a slew of programs that depended on a bunch of undocumented behavior.

Buddahriffic ,

I recall reading that he had just had a briefing about some actual research about something that was vaguely along those lines and was trying to be clever by “suggesting they do that” before any public information came out about it so he could claim credit. But because he didn’t really understand it, he instead said things that his followers interpreted as “drink bleach if you want protection from covid”.

Buddahriffic ,

Might be good for a few laughs if your internet is down and you lost the all the dice from your board games.

White Dad Apologized to the Black Superintendent He Pushed On Stage, But It Didn't Go As He Expected (www.theroot.com)

“The outreach was really to indicate that he, Matthew, understands his mishap in terms of what he did, what he’s caused. He’s remorseful,” Briggs continued. “I took that as some form of apology, but that’s not something I think at this time amounts to a solid apology, from my perspective....

Buddahriffic ,

But he gave him the satisfaction of looking like an idiot to people all around the world, which I’m guessing is a lot more satisfying that shaking his daughter’s hand would have been.

And I gotta wonder wtf goes on in his head to even worry about someone getting “satisfaction” from shaking hands at a ceremony. I’m pretty sure that, if there is any satisfaction involved, it’s supposed to be on the student’s side where the diploma and handshake are an acknowledgment of the work they did to receive whatever award or certificate the ceremony is about.

And it should have been entirely up to his daughter whether or not she wanted to receive that handshake.

Buddahriffic ,

No one was forcing anyone to do anything until the unironically dumb dad forced the superintendent back.

Buddahriffic ,

“We’ll force you to reuse the same username and password for these different functions!”

Buddahriffic ,

Or use it to implement a script that just downloads the video and cuts the ads out entirely for later watching.

Or, failing any of those, a script that pops up a reminder that YouTube has unskippable ads so you can back out and just do something else with your time.

Buddahriffic ,

How sad is it that Idiocracy overestimated people?

Buddahriffic ,

Assuming the show reflects corporate values and isn’t just propaganda like US police shows are intended to make the Korean public (and anyone watching from outside of Korea) think that that’s how that would be treated.

From what I understand, South Korea’s economy is dominated by a small number of mega corps (like Samsung) that try to do pretty much everything.

Buddahriffic ,

And if they didn’t develop the culture of sweeping safety issues under the rug at all levels, they won’t have much trouble keeping ahead because I’m sure that even at the height of Boeing’s safety ignoring, I bet most of the communication still looked like they took safety seriously. Just those in the know realized that they could make themselves look better by faking it and their management wouldn’t care. I’ve gotta assume that some number of them will think the current safety culture overhaul is really trying to send a message of “just be smarter about ignoring safety, don’t let it get to the point where doors fall off mid-flight and we need to kill some whistleblowers”.

Buddahriffic ,

Were the insults necessary or did they add anything useful to your comment?

As for the actual question in your comment, though your quick follow-up to insults suggests you meant it as a rhetorical question and just wanted to assume they were doing the same thing as they were criticizing, “fricken” (or “friggen”) was used in many cases by kids who were scared of getting in trouble for using “real” swear words. Which was the whole point of that comment: kids who were afraid to really swear casually used “retard” and many adults who would lose their shit over “fucking” didn’t bat an eye at “retard”. And even when they did, it was because of the insult to the one called “retard”. If anyone brought up mentally disabled people, it was more about furthering the insult rather than actually caring how they felt.

Buddahriffic ,

And there’s even one new cave variation!

Buddahriffic ,

I hope stealth gets a major rework, at least. Or maybe not stealth itself but how the AI handles interacting with it. No NPC should ever guess that it was just the wind when there’s an arrow sticking out of them or their colleague is lying dead in plain view (or even just doesn’t respond when they call to them).

They should use strategies and tactics that work against stealth. Patrols (including their own stealth patrols sometimes), roll calls, better lighting, positioning of guards to cut off entrance points, traps (and not just the dungeon traps, but NPCs setting new traps when they suspect stealth, where the trap could be as simple as a trip wire attached to metal rings that will jingle if someone disturbs them), spells that locate nearby people, using senses other than sight and hearing, dark vision. Sometimes stealth missions should be forced to end and come back later because the residents realize someone is trying to sneak around and kill or rob them and go on high alert with effective tools to negate stealth. Just sometimes, sometimes it should work like it does in Skyrim where a guard just doesn’t want to deal with whatever is shooting arrows at him and maybe just yells threats instead of using a stealth counter (just get rid of that memory of a goldfish thing).

I mean, stealth is fun, but it’s not as fun when every single character I make ends up becoming some kind of a stealth archer because the NPCs are effective at generating opposition to everything but that.

Buddahriffic ,

I read about a military AI that would put its objectives before anything else (like casualties) and do things like select nuclear strikes for all missions that involved destruction of targets. So they adjusted it to allow a human operator to veto strategies, in the simulation this was done via a communications tower. The AI apparently figured out that it could pick the strategy it wanted without veto if it just destroyed the communications tower before it made that selection.

Though take it with a grain of salt because the military denied the story was accurate. Which could mean it wasn’t true or it could mean they didn’t want the public to believe it was true. Though it does sound a bit too human-like for it to pass my sniff test (an AI wouldn’t really care that its strategies get vetoed), but it’s an amusing anecdote.

Buddahriffic ,

Also by selective enforcement when people are using drugs reasonably and responsibly. Or unreasonably or irresponsibly, for that matter.

Plus all the public wealth that went to the enforcers of laws that don’t benefit the public and the weapons manufacturers that armed them. And the political power that came with giving them that and letting them keep it.

Buddahriffic ,

In the whole bad times lead to strong people, which leads to good times, which leads to weak people, which leads to bad times, we’re in the weak people leading to bad times stage. Now things need to get bad enough to start making strong people.

Only problem is the fascists are smarter this time and are pushing everywhere, so this time might not have nation states on the good side.

Buddahriffic ,

While I’m not surprised if fascists use it, I don’t think it is disinformation if they do, seems like more of a human thing where people generally just want to live their lives but asshole control freaks want to take power and gradually do while most just focus on their own things until the control freaks cross too many lines and people decide the best way to live their best life involves removing them from power.

It all depends on how you define “strong people” and “good times”. The fascist version of this isn’t quite in sync with the one I believe in.

Buddahriffic ,

We should do a workshop for that, it sounds like my kind of week.

How does mid 2031 sound? You’re probably busy then. Yeah, I’m just going to assume you’re busy that mid-year and hope someone else reschedules and runs the workshop with a bunch of other people that aren’t me and that they figure out a great week so that I can one day read about sloth week having just passed and briefly consider trying to catch it next year because it sounds like my kind of week (assuming I can just passively experience it).

Buddahriffic ,

Not even necessarily more visibility, go back 20 years and this kind of stuff was popular. Go back another 5 years and anti-gay humour was also still popular. It wasn’t even considered anti-gay because anti-gay was the default option, so it would have just been called “gay jokes”.

Though it makes me wonder what is considered normal today that will be seen as problematic in a decade and popularly opposed in two.

Buddahriffic ,

When I was younger, I loved exotic sports cars and wanted something like a Porsche, though realistically expected to get something a bit cheaper but still fun like a WRX, Miata, or an S2000.

Now that I can afford something like that (well, assuming I’m willing to give up a lot of disposable income for it), I don’t really care as much. I can drive cool cars in Gran Turismo or maybe I’ll rent a supercar one day for a short time just to feel the acceleration for real.

But between climate change and the shitty direction car design is going in these days, even those moments that I get weak and think about how a new car would be nice don’t last very long.

What I want is a basic EV with just battery, motors, heater, AC, power windows, power locks (that require a button press), and a sound system would be nice. I’d maybe go for smart cruise control and reverse cam. I’d prefer an analog speedometer that overrepresents my speed by like 5km/h but could live with an accurate digital one (or let me add an offset). Cloth seats (not even sure why leather is so popular, cloth is comfortable in pretty much any temperature, leather gets cold or hot), sedan (or hatchback body with a frunk), spare tire, jack, and wrench (though I could maybe be upsold on tires that don’t ever need surprise changing, if such a thing exists in the consumer space). I don’t need it anymore, but car seat mount spots because they are trivial to add to a design. If it gets updates through the internet, make it via a phone app that does the downloading and then through USB because the car itself has no wireless connectivity other than AM/FM radio (and maybe Bluetooth, I’m neutral on that one). Another big thing I’d care about is how the drivetrain is set up (ie, how many motors and how are they usually engaged), because I’d want something capable of fast acceleration when needed but also efficient for general driving. I like having decent power still when driving around the speed limit so that I know I can pass quickly at that rate. Windows, wipers, mirrors… I think that about covers the main things I care about in a car these days. Oh also make the body aerodynamic and not stupid looking, and design it to be easy to do maintenance work.

Buddahriffic ,

Business majors confused that the things they were taught in school are failing to generate piles of cash.

Buddahriffic ,

More about monetizing everything, preferring services over products, designing for maximum profit, making anti-piracy a higher priority than performance (when pirates just remove that part entirely and end up with a better experience than paying customers), etc… they aren’t necessarily trained to produce bad content, but the bigger publically traded studios generally seem to be going down the enshitification path while smaller studios or teams continue to put out fun games that don’t just feel like a money sucking machine with a video game mask on.

Buddahriffic ,

Maybe they just thought they had a monopoly.

Buddahriffic ,

Seeing reality for what it is and not giving up is the opposite of pathetic. Pathetic is assuming someone who sees life that way is going to be overcome by their mindset. Denial isn’t necessary to function.

Buddahriffic ,

I’d modify the 2nd one from “don’t do it” to “understand that doing this might burn bridges if they care more about the hierarchy than competence, so have at least one option that doesn’t rely on them before you do this”. That’s with the mindset that I wouldn’t want to stay long at a job like that unless this could be resolved and am willing to burn bridges in situations like that.

Buddahriffic ,

“Call off the chase, suspect drove onto sand.”

Workers at TJ Maxx and Marshalls are wearing police-like body cameras. Here’s how it’s going (www.cnn.com)

Retail chains like TJX, the parent company of TJ Maxx and Marshalls, are equipping some store employees with body cameras to deter shoplifting and improve safety. This is part of a growing trend in the retail industry, as stores respond to an increase in organized retail theft and violence against workers. However, some...

Buddahriffic ,

Talk about meetings to get the union started and how it looks like we’ve already got enough committed votes in favour to get it going without worrying about what kind of propaganda they’ll try to throw at the staff once they realize it’s happening and that the other stores also seem to be on track and if they get the timing right, they won’t be able to just shut that many down to quell it. Then think aloud about how we shouldn’t be talking about this there because who knows what those fucking cameras are picking up and sending back to corporate.

Buddahriffic ,

Businesses shouldn’t be run by people who never have to even step foot on the premises. The people making the decisions (and proceeds!) should be the ones that actually have to live with those decisions and implement them.

Buddahriffic ,

How many fishing fleets will they attack (and fail to do much damage to) because the Kamchatka thinks they are Ukrainian torpedo boats?

Buddahriffic ,

It does depend on the way it’s said. Some people think aggression or condescension helps convince others when it might be more likely to make the person rather be wrong than agree with them. People like that can say a few words and increase resistance to their beliefs even if someone later presents them in a less offensive way. And unfortunately, Russian troll farms (and others wanting to sow division and discontent) know about this and lean into it.

It also makes a difference if you already feel that way. Like if you have a bad habit and know it but just have trouble stopping or reducing it, it’s easier to agree when someone points it out vs if you’re in denial about it and want reasons to continue.

Though I should have said some people because it doesn’t apply to everyone. Once you’re aware of how you might react to that, you can adjust. Personally, I’m of the mind that if what you think is true, then it can’t hurt to challenge it or follow other lines of thought that contradict it, and if what you think isn’t true, then it’s better to realize that.

I want to be right about everything, but in the sense that I will change my positions over time to align with my current experience and knowledge, not in the sense that I insist that what I’ve previously said is true. What past me believed is irrelevant, only current me matters, and future me will likely think current me is an idiot about some things, and then I’ll die later (or sooner, who knows) and it won’t matter either way.

Lemmy.ml tankie censorship problem

I feel like we need to talk about Lemmy’s massive tankie censorship problem. A lot of popular lemmy communities are hosted on lemmy.ml. It’s been well known for a while that the admins/mods of that instance have, let’s say, rather extremist and onesided political views. In short, they’re what’s colloquially referred to...

Buddahriffic ,

Or post about it and build a case for defederating from them or more users to block them individually.

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