celluloid_dream
No bio...
User ID: 758
celluloid_dream
5mo ago
I think just awareness of the existence of epistemics might be helpful.
It's like math. Most people can't remember half of what they learned in high school math classes. Many can't even do basic algebra, but they're at least aware that algebra can and probably should be done to explain why an answer is correct.
Sometimes I'll be in conversation with a person and they'll make an assertion. I'll ask them why they think that. How do they know? Suppose I didn't agree. How would they convince me? Then their eyes narrow and their lips curl. I can see the gears turning as they mentally brand me enemy and then they just assert the thing again, but louder and with edge to their voice.
celluloid_dream
7mo ago
Dear Dame Caroline,
I can confirm that Mr. Brand is able to monetize his content on our network and will continue to be able to do so unless his content is found to violate our terms and conditions as listed here: <link>
Please refer to the same document for <company>'s policy regarding inappropriate and illegal behavior on our site.
Sincerely,
Some Person, PR Drone, <company>
Was that so hard?
celluloid_dream
9mo ago
I don't think it's that difficult to drop Hammerlock-style hints and not treat it as a big deal, especially if it wouldn't be a big deal in-universe.
Example, minor spoilers for Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, also tagging @TowardsPanna , who asked about it in the Friday thread.
There's a NPC character who is a "trans" woman. I put that in quotes because this is a universe where you can literally take a magic potion and permanently transform into the opposite sex (or, presumably, like, a giant spider if that's more your style). You only find out if you pick up some random junk item, then ask the character's spouse about it (spouse wants to keep it private and won't tell you the details), then ask the character about it again much later in the game. You could easily finish the game and not come across that detail.
That seemed totally fine? It respects the worldbuilding and doesn't come off as unrealistic, or in your face.
Contrast with the Hogwarts Legacy character that stood out like a sore thumb, not so much because she was a non-passing transwoman, but because the HP universe has transformation magic, and if that exists, why would any transwoman not avail themselves of it?
You could also do ambiguously-trans, like this character in the recent pokemon games. When I saw this market, I was pretty baffled - hadn't even considered that when playing through the games - but reading the evidence, it does seem plausible.
celluloid_dream
10mo ago
I'm coming around to the idea that the free+advertising model was the internet's original sin. A site like Reddit, maybe the largest and second most trusted repository of human text on the internet, apparently can't make money.
Reddit must look at third party clients scraping "their" data (especially LLMs training on it), using "their" site, then reselling it at an actual profit and feel like they should get a cut. Meanwhile the mods have a good argument that they're providing much of the value, and of course it's ultimately the users' generating the content in the end.
I wonder how the net would have evolved if something like Brave's basic attention token was around back in the day, with users paying in proportion to what they consume, with mods being compensated and ultimately the site not being beholden to advertisers like it is now.
celluloid_dream
27d ago
Even there, the street outside was dirty, garbage everywhere, unswept, sandy.
When I get the "oh, you spent a month in India? How was that?" small talk, scenes like this, and a hundred others flash through my mind before I politely lie: "it was fine", and change the subject. The pristine western retail stores with literal rubble half-blocking the entrances.. The designated landfill streets.. The street curs gnawing at their severed paws in the middle of the road.. The absolute state of the power infrastructure (live? wires pulled down to street level and woven into clothesline). The constant smell of rot and pollution and feces. I could go on.
It's not so much the squalor. It's the squalor plus dressing up in shirt and tie, working in an air conditioned office and pretending there's no problem at all.
celluloid_dream
2mo ago
That information was revealed and discussed. It's more that no one cared, I think.
Zvi: OpenAI: The Battle of the Board (Nov. 22, 2023)
Sam Altman then attempted to use this (potentially manufactured) drama to get Toner removed from the board. He used a similar tactic at Reddit, a manufactured crisis to force others to give up power. Once Toner was gone, presumably Altman would have moved to reshape the rest of the board.
celluloid_dream
4mo ago
If you take a look at the top posts on /r/Canada right now, we have:
- Canada’s Immigration Plan Is Not Viable In Any Version of Reality
- Canadians Flee The Country In The Fourth Highest Volume In 73 Years
- Rents would be tapering off if not for high immigration, hints BoC governor
- Hunger in the house next door: What relying on food banks looks like
- Canada has added more than 1 million people and counting in 2023, it’s unsustainable
- Nova Scotia sees spike in military personnel living in tents, couchsurfing amid housing crisis
I didn't cherry-pick these. That's what's at front of mind for a lot of Canadians right now, as best I can tell, and I think people have already updated. If you look at the polls, the Conservative party has shot up to a clear projected majority starting in about September of this year.
celluloid_dream
4mo ago
- For the first time in my life, I get the sense that public opinion is turning on immigration. Canada has always had a sort of left-wing nationalist pride in our immigration intake. It's only in the last few years I've started to hear murmurings of dissent. Even so, people don't blame immigrants themselves (rightly!), but the government.
- There would be some transmission from failure in office to electoral results. It's just delayed because we don't do fixed electoral terms, so the sitting PM gets to sometimes squeeze out an extra few years by calling an election early like Trudeau did in 2021. If the election were held today, it would be a Conservative blowout. I can't imagine it will be any less of a blowout in 2025 if things continue to get worse. There's also the impending mortgage crisis forecast to hit just in time for election season.
celluloid_dream
6mo ago
Don't have data for you, but I wanted to add:
- Fire alarms - It's gotten to the point where schools/companies doing fire drills have to send around staff to make people go outside.
- Emergency phone alerts - In my area, these also get used for AMBER alerts, which everyone ignores. When they need to warn everyone about the big west coast earthquake, there's going to be a lot of phones left in pockets.
- Screaming in public - In a healthy society, it'd be normal to pay attention to this, right? I'm totally desensitized to it. I assume others are as well.
celluloid_dream
8mo ago
Well, since AFAIK, themotte.org never defined what the arrows mean here, I can't say you're wrong, but this community emigrated from Reddit, where the arrows did have an intended meaning
"If you think something contributes to conversation, upvote it"
"Please don't.. Downvote an otherwise acceptable post because you don't personally like it."
I think it's fair to assume that on this Reddit clone, the arrows have inherited that meaning. In my opinion, a measure of value is better feedback than a measure of agreement because I want to optimize for good participation. Optimizing for agreement is how you get an echo chamber, or audience capture.
"So don't do that then, and ignore the downvotes", I assume you would say? Sure, but I think you admit the vote score do matter. That "cheap dopamine rush" exists and affects how people feel about their posts. I worry when I see threads like the pronoun one where someone is patiently laying out a minority opinion, and getting negative reinforcement for it.
- I hate rests as a resource system. It feels like it breaks power fantasy when a character can only do things a few times a day that they ought to be able to do at will, especially the weapon maneuvers. There's no believable reason why my character can only do a flourish with their sword once an hour. It certainly wouldn't cost them more energy than leaping 5 meters, which they can do every turn.
- Related: The game expects you to rest a lot, and weaves in story progression during each night. .. but it also rewards you for not resting. There are incredibly powerful buffs that get applied once to your party during various story events and then last until your next long rest, and then you can't get them back. (Eg. +1d4 radiant damage on weapon attacks, +1d6 to attack rolls, ability checks, saves)
- Some builds and features are so good/broken/fun that they make everything else feel lacklustre. Eg. Tavern Brawler (+str to attack & damage for unarmed + throwing). Eldritch Blast (The best damage cantrip for only 2 levels in warlock, long range, deals 1d10 + cha, pushes enemies, and gets extra beams scaling with character level without any more investment).
- Common for CRPGs like this: Items and ability features are a total clusterfuck. With the exact same rules text, some items work on all weapon attacks, some only on melee. Some apply to throws. Some don't. The only way to know for sure is to test. There are some bonkers interactions where one effect procs another, which procs the first again and so on.
celluloid_dream
11mo ago
It's a useful distinction, and I see you've taken care to avoid "good/bad" judgements, but it's interesting you're still making positive claims under aesthetics which I think demand justification. For instance, that certain colours "will work". Oh will they? Why? Because something something colour wheel theory? What if I like the wrong combos? On what basis can you object? Pure appeal to popularity?
I don't think aesthetics are so quantifiable because year after year I see things that were once explained to me as hard fast prohibitions with hand-waving justifications like "because it would ruin the silhouette, obviously" then become the next big trend. Maybe I'm misreading here and you mean aesthetics are totally value-free. There's combos on the colour wheel axes and off, but it doesn't weigh in on whether either is more correct than the other.
celluloid_dream
1yr ago
Becoming Trader Joe - after learning it existed in this viral tweet
This probably seems weird to Americans, but up in Canada, we have a certain reverance for those uniquely American food chains. We have burger joints, but they're no In-N-Out. Donut shops, but they're no Krispy Kreme. Grocery stores, but no Trader Joe's. Trader Joe's occupies a special place in this pantheon because its products can be brought back. "Oh my god, Sasha went down to Seattle on the weekend and brought back cookie butter from Trader Joes! Cookie Butter! eeeee!". For a while, we even had a guy running a grey market Pirate Joe's.
celluloid_dream
1yr ago
I think this requires a fair bit of reinterpretation of the story's events. I wondered about it while reading, but ultimately rejected it.
Evidence for: The Judge is more often seen counselling the gang, encouraging them, teaching them, but not seen committing the deeds himself. We see the aftermath and assume he is responsible. He is almost inhuman, impossibly skilled, knowledgeable, strong. His being the personification of evil/violence/war/his philosophy, he certainly doesn't seem real.
Evidence against: But on the other hand, he does act a fair bit himself and can't easily be removed. I'm not sure how to reassess scenes like the stand-off with Toadvine, Brown, Tobin, and the Kid toward the end without the Judge there as a real character. Holden negotiates on behalf of the gang with some of the more cultured/learned characters in the story. He teaches the gang how to make gunpowder, etc. Sure, these events could be waved away, but.. who did it then? Is that another aspect of Glanton's personality? If so, why is it the Judge the more intellectual, rational part rather than the violent, impulsive part that is still attributed to Glanton.
I thought it worked better if he was a real, though possibly supernatural character. The confrontation at the end is the two of them committing to their respective philosophies. The Judge again lectures the man on war and the way of the world. The man again rejects it. "You aint nothin".
The Judge will have him anyway, but not willingly.
celluloid_dream
1yr ago
It's the combination of "I love the island" and "I love the palm trees" that returns 0 results. Now, maybe I'm wrong about this. Maybe those two phrases have truly never appeared on a single page, but it seems very unlikely. Of all the personal blogs, facebook posts, travel diaries, fanfiction, forums, auto-generated SEO text, etc. etc., I would expect it to have happened once. There are a lot of people in the world posting a lot of text on the internet.
celluloid_dream
1yr ago
why should there be anything with the incorrect spelling?
Because there are tropical islands full of palm trees that are very nice, and people love them. "I love the island" and "I love the palm trees" are basic, common sentences that you would expect to see in a review or travel blog about such an island (eg.), and it seems extremely unlikely to me that they have never appeared on the same page together on the internet.
I think there should be a lot more results with the correct spelling too, for the same reason.
celluloid_dream
1yr ago
I'm guilty of voting to restore balance, but let me explain:
I think the voting ethics ought to be something like the original reddiquette. If a comment adds to the discussion - if it expresses something relevant clearly, even if you disagree - then you should upvote. If you can't bring yourself to do that, then at the very least, you should not downvote. In a well-behaved forum, the score of an unpopular, but valid comment should never fall below 1.
On this site (but not on Reddit for some reason) I noticed posters who play devils advocate, or disagree with the majority were regularly be downvoted below 0. Examples: ( 1 2 3, all negative at time of linking ). This is bad. These might not be quality contribution material, but they're fair comments and shouldn't be downvoted. To quote the rationalist maxim, "Bad argument gets counterargument. Does not get bullet. Never. Never ever never for ever". I see a lot of bullet holes here. I do my part to patch them up as best I can.
celluloid_dream
1yr ago
Interesting. So the obvious workaround would be for existing retailers to close during declared emergencies and reopen as (or sell their stock to) a new company "Emergency-Mart!" that has never previously sold that merchandise, who can then freely sell it at the higher price customers are willing to pay.
Does that happen in New Jersey?
celluloid_dream
1yr ago
I view this as a societal problem, not just an individual problem with me. I saw a family of three at a restaurant the other day, mom and dad and a young boy, and all three of them were glued to their phones, ignoring each other. That made me very sad.
My excuse in these situations is that we're satisfying our preferences better this way. <Sibling> is reading about the latest sports happenings (don't care). <Parent> is playing an ad-ridden slot machine game (ew!), and I'm reading culture war insight porn (which would horrify them).
If we all tried to have the respective conversations that interested us, it would be awkward. I didn't see that ludicrous display last night. Neither <sibling> nor I want to talk about grandkids, and my family doesn't appreciate abstract argument the same way I do. They get *annoyed* at disagreement. They are allergic to contrarianism. They don't like philosophy. They're low decouplers. We can't even discuss pop culture: "Ugh. Must you overanalyze everything?"
So .. phones.
celluloid_dream
4d ago
Funny enough, I was hiking in the woods alone last weekend and crossed paths with a woman also hiking alone. She greeted me with a somewhat exaggerated "I'm glad to see you out here!" (I was unaware of bear discourse at the time, so it went over my head).
Anyway, I didn't eat her. She didn't eat me, and we both continued on and didn't die to the best of my knowledge.
celluloid_dream
21d ago
Sure, I'll grant they reduce auditory awareness, and possibly lead to accidents like this (though, snowboarder should have shoulder checked, and skier should have seen them since they were uphill).
On the other hand, accidents like that happen regardless, and if they're going to happen to me, I want to be wearing goggles that won't shatter into my face like sunglasses, and a helmet that will protect my noggin.
celluloid_dream
21d ago
"Seven hundred and sixty-six cases of snow sport head injuries were identified over six winter seasons. Of these cases..."
Without going into every study in that review, the obvious flaw is: people who aren't injured don't show up in the data. They're taking people who already have a head injury, and then noting helmet or no helmet.
Yeah, you're still going to have a bad time if you accelerate your head into something solid at a high enough speed, but given that it might happen, I'm 100% going to choose to put foam and plastic in the way to dissipate the impact. If you had to fall onto groomed snow and land on your head, say from a standing position, not even at speed, and I offer you the choice of wearing a helmet or not, would you really prefer not to wear one?
celluloid_dream
4mo ago
It's bad. Screenshot of the home page. I just want it to be a blog, and it insists on trying to be a whole social media do-everything site. I'm honestly disappointed when authors I follow encourage this by tweeting and chatting on it. (Apparently Substack asks them to? maybe pays them, or says it'll boost their engagement, not sure)
The main gripe I have with the subscribe reminders is that they pop up at the start of the page. If I'm reading something new, I obviously don't know if I like it yet. Why would I ever subscribe after only reading the first 5% of an article? If you must annoy me with a popup (and I'd really rather you didn't), do it at the end, please.
celluloid_dream
4mo ago
Your first takeaway is interesting, because when I used to play over a decade ago, the social aspect was the hardest part of winning. It was crucial to keep your team focused on the game, and not arguing in chat.
There was one strat - split pushing - that went against the expected meta at the time. It was basically an aggressive fork, going too deep, too quickly in order to make the opponent commit to defending one side, and gain momentum on the other. I was really good at it. Experience seemed to confirm it worked. The problem is that (at the time), it was just seen as a "thing you don't do". Doing it (or worse, letting the team know ahead of time I was going to try) would prompt such a raging backlash, it was actually counterproductive. The strat was sound, but tilted teammates typing in allcaps for thirty minutes don't win matches, so I stopped trying.
Cities speak saith Paul Graham.
Devon Zuegel thinks Miami says "Be entertaining and flamboyant"
Sasha Chapin thinks that Joshua Tree invites you to slow down and take the long view, that Las Vegas is a damned liar
Isaac Simpson thinks we should pay attention to what Montana is cursing under its breath
What does your city say? I'm interested in more articles that try and convey the vibe of a place.
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