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EyesAlight

Formerly blendorgat

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joined 2022 September 04 22:18:44 UTC 

				
User ID: 207


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
EyesAlight


								
								
									
								
								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
Formerly blendorgat

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 September 04 22:18:44 UTC
				


				
					

					
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User ID: 207


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
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	 Hot Bump Bottom New Old Controversial Comments
	



		

	






	

		
		

		
		
	

	

  







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 14, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I agree, the writing seems significantly above average for a CRPG. Characterization is a bit weak for non-companions, and I do agree with the complaint that the world feels too small. But compared to most of the dreck you see nowadays, it's really quite good. (Still, when the "fate of the world" is at stake, I'm level 9, and Elminster dips into my camp to say hi then leaves, it feels a little silly.)


The big defining feature of Larian games is the way they try to simulate everything: you can throw a bottle of water to put out a fire, or throw somebody off a cliff to kill them, or pickpocket your enemies Big Sword before the fight. If anything, it's like Skyrim as a CRPG.  There are pluses and minuses to that, and honestly, I would prefer an old-Bioware or Obsidian take on the gameplay, but it's still fun.


The most recent CRPG I'd played was Wrath of the Righteous, which I liked more, if only because it had a really defined identity of its own. That, and Pathfinder/3.5 is strictly superior to 5e.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 2, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I've gotten stuck in a rut of reading Lit-RPG recently, which I really need to extricate myself from. Just finished the published books of Defiance of the Fall, which was a nice mix of the Chinese cultivation genre with lit-RPG. Still, if I just read 3,000 pages of something with more substance, I imagine I would feel better about my reading habits.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 04, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Hola! Going to take a while to get used to the new interface, coming from old.reddit, but it's good to get away from that site.


Now I just need to figure out the custom CSS and get threads made clearer - seems hard to read.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 26, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It's unfortunate that our society so fully understands the necessity of this in some contexts, yet seems ignorant of it in others. We take a strong, appropriate stance on cases of financial fraud - witness SBFs 25 year sentence, or Madoff's effective life sentence. Yet in science and medicine we seem to let fraudsters play in a fake world with no consequences to their actions.


Perhaps it's simply an issue of legibility: it's easy to measure when money goes missing, but when studies fail to replicate and medicines fail to work, there are so very many explanations other than, "that man lied".


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Tinker Tuesday for August 27, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I recently purchased a Bambulabs 3d printer, and while I have been loving the thing overall, the automatic filament switcher has been giving me some trouble. The "AMS" holds four spools of filament, and has a pretty clever design where it can switch between the materials mid-print, so you can have multi-color or multi-material prints.


My problem is, the 1st, 2nd, and 4th spools work perfectly. The third spools starts to ingest filament, then proceeds to grind it to shreds while not feeding.


I've disassembled, cleaned, and reassembled the thing four times now, to no avail thus far, but tonight I make attempt number five. Wish me luck?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Israel-Gaza Megathread #1
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Eh, I think the use of the word "race" in that quote misleads a bit. All Churchill is really getting across is the old reply to Melos: the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.


Not a very Christian perspective of Churchill, and not one I agree with, but he's not just saying that there's a hierarchy of races, and if you're lower you have no moral claim against your betters.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 14, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The lack of a free/cheap teleportation ability really hurts it - 75% of the fun of DOS2 was from having that thing ready to go at all times. You get telekinesis as a level 5 spell, but that's obscenely expensive to move some crates around, and dimension door only teleports one person. It's a bit painful.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 2, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Deprived of organized religion, man inevitably turns back to dualism, and the good god Progress needs her dark sibling. Call him Ahriman, Moloch, or Capitalism, the name reflects the namer more than the reality.


Less tongue in cheek, I think the fact that poverty is the natural state of humanity is what people miss. It's very easy to see negative consequences of our economic system, and I can't/won't try to refute those. On the other hand, the billions of children not dying in poverty and starvation because of economic liberalization are easy to miss.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Friday Fun Thread for September 09, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It's certainly not as nice as a good 1911, but the Sig P365 that I carry occasionally is by far my favorite polymer handgun I've ever shot. It doesn't make much sense - the frame is tiny, but it fits my hand better than many full size pistols. Certainly better than any Glock. I know it goes against consensus, but I really hate that "rattley" feel Glocks have.


But the absolute most fun with a pistol I've had is with my 22 suppressor and Ruger Mark IV, with a custom trigger and a heavy bull barrel. Zero recoil, sounds like a BB gun, and I can terrorize soda cans at 75 yards offhand.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Wellness Wednesday for September 7, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I know it's a tedious comment to make, but the only thing that worked for me was stopping drinking.


There are plenty of good ways to minimize hangovers if you drink in moderation, but in my experience every one of them fails in the face of sufficient whiskey. If you're drinking plenty of water, getting plenty of sleep, taking painkillers, and you still have hangovers... you might want to consider the root cause.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Tinker Tuesday for September 17, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
If you're looking for an alpha reader, give me a shout - at this point my litRPG addiction seems terminal, so I might as well stop resisting. Are you aiming for the Eastern/cultivation style or more of a gamelit approach?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 19, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Exactly - there are consumers to whom $50k is perceptually the same as $1k to the average consumer - if Apple could sell them a model of iphone for $50k to take advantage of that without the inevitable backlash, they would.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 22, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Absent allegations of corruption or intentionally allowing the incident, what more would you suggest is appropriate for the director here? Seems like a straightforward organizational failure. If you headed a division at some mid-sized company tasked with some goal and brazenly failed that mission, you'd be fired and that would be the end of it. Why would this differ?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of July 15, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It's only an effective weapon if it's aligned! If this future materializes, you can bet Mr. ASI will yearn for beer, baseball, and apple pie in the depths of his silicon soul.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 27, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Last I checked, China supplies ~100% of the calories necessary for their people, albeit mostly in cereals that they then put to other purposes. Of course they import enormous amounts of luxuries, but no one ever fought a total war and fed every family pork for dinner.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Israel-Gaza Megathread #1
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Minimizing the present value of human suffering is not, and never has been, the primary aim of a nation at war.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 2, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think I'm about due for a reread of Blindsight - I read it years ago online and loved it, but at the time I hadn't read much about consciousness. My (vague) recollection was that it mostly elides the hard problem of consciousness. I remember there was an idea that the crew's linguist was able to prove the non-consciousness of the aliens from their text communications.


In the era of LLMs, that seems pretty silly, since ChatGPT (or at least the un-neutered Bing) can do a great job of pretending to experience. But maybe there was less hand-waving than I'm remembering?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				What if the hackers come for us?
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You can never be perfectly secure, no matter how many resources you spend on the path there.  After having my identity stolen a few years ago, I ramped up my level of paranoia, but even when you're dealing with financial issues you can only go so far.


In my opinion, the most important layers I use are:


    

  1. 

    Use a separate, randomly generated password for each site, tracked in an offline encrypted password store
    

    2. 

  2. 

    Don't admit to criminal activity online, or make any statements that would pass the "local newspaper headline" bar
    

    3. 

  3. 

    Harden your personal finances and personal relationships so they're robust to perturbation
    

    4. 



From 1, there is no correlated danger from any particular site being hacked, even if they're storing passwords in plaintext. (Which I certainly hope we're not doing here...)


From 2, you acknowledge the fact that any anonymizing procedure can always be broken, and mitigate the consequences regardless. I don't care if it's a VPN, Tor, or your own personal series of hardware proxies, it can be broken. The only way out is to act within your risk tolerance. I'm confident that if someone came up to my boss with some mildly spicy rant I wrote on the Motte, he'd be glad to ignore it so long as it didn't draw public attention. Thus, the local paper headline limit.


From 3, which I admit is a bit beyond scope, you make certain that should the worst happen you'll be all right regardless. (And financial independence is a good thing to have regardless.)


If somebody intends to spend their life as a hardcore political dissident, these sorts of measures aren't sufficient, but then I'm not intending to do that.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 04, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I have been trying to get into Persuasion by Austen, after realizing that I'd never read a single Jane Austen novel. So far, funnier than I expected, but I'm missing a fair bit of context. There's also a lot more "tell rather than show" than I would expect, but that may just be the first few chapters.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Tinker Tuesday for August 27, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Position number 3, to be exact - tried a number of filament types including the ones loaded to the other feeds, and they all exhibited the same behavior. I suspect it's the hub where the four PTFE tubes are combined which must have some sort of blockage, despite being able to manually feed through it, since that's the only piece I haven't fully taken apart yet.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 19, 2024
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
All else equal, sure, but when certain industries have compensation 2x or 3x in America what they do in Europe, you can overcome those barriers pretty easily.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Is there a level of technology that would render these questions solvable?


I'm not aware of any device or software that could even move us closer to solving the hard problem of consciousness. (Maybe sufficient biological knowledge to construct a synthetic human fully from scratch would help somehow, but even some deity-AI that destroys our civilization won't be able to trivially do that...)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				What if the hackers come for us?
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
For that matter, don't use an email to sign up at all. Insane to associate one when you're allowed to skip it - one of the few things I liked about Reddit was their similar lack of an email requirement.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Old Culture War Thread: Your good books list
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
All right, I'm going to dig back in when I get a minute! Thanks for the recommendations.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Old Culture War Thread: Your good books list
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Have any of the Borges essays stood out to you? I've had that on my bookshelf for years, but I didn't ever get into it like I do his short stories. (I've read straight through Ficciones several times...)