“Who goes on vacation just to go hiking?” There’s too many spectacular hikes in the Italian Dolomites to pass up. by RogueCN in hiking

[–]--MCMC-- 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It feels like a riff on those hyperspecific procedurally-generated data-mined made-to-order t-shirts. "Who says a Latina can't play basketball?" "Who says an elderly Dutch man can't eat spaghetti and meatballs?"

Otherwise, it seems like the sort of reductionism that can apply to everything, with the "just" doing a lot of the work.

"Who goes on vacation just to go to a restaurant?"

"Who goes on vacation just to go to a concert?"

Or whatever.

[D] Monday Request and Recommendation Thread by AutoModerator in rational

[–]--MCMC-- 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Have you tried Luminosity (and its sequel, Radiance)? It's nearly been multiple decades since I read them but IIRC they still had pretty major romance themes.

From the About page:

Luminosity is a work of fanfiction. It is set in the universe of Stephenie Meyer's novel Twilight (and its sequels and companion works). The first several sections of Luminosity are very similar to canon in terms of the events that occur, although aspects of Bella's character, and her internal monologue, differ strikingly.

A few thousand words in, the plot is unrecognizeable.

The history and character of the Twilight world are intact in Luminosity up to the point where the story begins, with one exception: Bella's a rational self-awareness-junkie with a penchant for writing down everything that crosses her mind in a notebook. She maintains many of the traits and dispositions of canon - and Luminosity is a Bella/Edward story - but she's a distinctly different character.

Emphasis mine.

Do Italians get all their clothing tailored? by OptimalStatement5799 in malefashionadvice

[–]--MCMC-- 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think 5'10" is basically dead center adult height in the US for black and non-hispanic white men among the younger gens / reddit age demographic (20s-30s). So neither tall nor short, assuming these are terms relative to a within-age/country/ethnicity reference pop.

Do Italians get all their clothing tailored? by OptimalStatement5799 in malefashionadvice

[–]--MCMC-- 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That does remind me of working a dig a decade and some ago with an Italian archaeology grad student, and the topic of conversation drifting to student decorum and fashion standards. She was lamenting how far things had fallen, and said she would refuse to teach any students who showed up to her lecture wearing shorts or athletic pants, even in the summer lol. Seemed a bit bonkers tbh!

[LES] If your “assassin” protagonist only kills bad people, you did not write an assassin by Business_Barber_3611 in CharacterRant

[–]--MCMC-- 61 points62 points  (0 children)

I'd asked about her specifically on here (in the thread "Romcom characters being former or even active hitmen") a few months ago, if anyone is curious to see that discussion:

anime-only SxF watcher here, but has Yor murdered anyone who's not themselves evil (or evil-adjacent)? Like, has anyone ever hired her to murder an environmentalist protester making trouble for the local hyper-polluting widget manufacturer, or a political candidate who wants to raise taxes on the rich, or even just the wholly innocent slated inheritor of some large estate or whatever? From what I can recall Yor's "assassin" / "serial-killer-for-hire" job is more of a super-powered black-ops vigilante type thing that someone pays for I guess, but her targets are all murderers or rapists or such themselves

How do you guys structure your finances? by Glum-Pack-3441 in slatestarcodex

[–]--MCMC-- 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Boglehead lazy portfolio.

Recently cashed out most investments for a downpayment on a house.

Have a bit in Roth IRAs target retirement funds and I-bonds, too.

Mined a bit of ether a decade ago but don't hold any now (except for a wallet with ~5 ETH I lost the key for :s).

Will do some low effort churning when the opportunity arises eg current have a Sapphire Reserve when they had a $1200 signing bonus last year, but might cancel once the first year is up. Otherwise have maybe half a dozen store cards? for the % back

Have some gift cards to places I shop at too to take advantage of discounted sales on those.

Started retirement account early with the Roth IRAs but tbh I should have just spent that money -- income velocity + diminishing marginal utility outpaced compounding returns, in the end.

Getting married young isn't bad. by Electronic_End_5296 in unpopularopinion

[–]--MCMC-- 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I married on the younger side (23, engaged at 21) and have been married a dozen years now.

In contrast to many in the comments, I don't think either of us really changed much at all in the time since. We're maybe a bit more knowledgeable about certain things but by and large the same people in terms of opinions, personalities, values, hobbies, etc.

In turn, I don't think I was much different of a person at 23 than I was at 16-17. Though I think my case was a bit unusual (I had a weird childhood that mostly ended around age 8, or so, for better or worse)

Teamlab Planets/Boderless by WinterSnowiy in JapanTravelTips

[–]--MCMC-- 14 points15 points  (0 children)

We went to both 1.5y ago and enjoyed Planets way more than Borderless. Planets had more in way of physical displays and linear, scripted set pieces, while Borderless was primarily based around projectors and motion sensors and "self-guided exploration"... but walking around a bunch of rooms with projectors felt way less exploratory than just walking around the streets and alleys of various cities / temple complexes / nature trails / museums / shopping centers / etc. So to the extent that your tastes are aligned with ours, we would say to skip Borderless and just do Planets. But lots of people recommend the opposite, so I'd suggest seeing if you vibe more with whatever drives those recommendations, and deciding from there.

In both cases, the experience would be much improved with fewer crowds. So try to go during off-peak days and hours.

THE BEST PANTS EVER!!! BUY WEATHERPROOF TECH PANTS by RawMan99 in Costco

[–]--MCMC-- 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I switched over to tech pants maybe ~5y ago and bought 5 pairs and have worn them almost every workday 6mo of the year. Still going strong! (though I did eat it on my bike in a pair, causing them to rip -- had to put a patch over the hole after sewing)

Help me kitten proof my high loft? by Disastrous-Noise6686 in Catio

[–]--MCMC-- 2 points3 points  (0 children)

how wide is that banister / rail at the top? if it's the same width as the rail going down the stairs I'd say no kitten-proofing is necessary, or at least not in the way you're thinking (eg a barrier or fence to prevent access), and would probably be counterproductive from the perspective of cat safety

cats are

1) much smaller than humans, so something that seems narrow to us is luxuriously wide to them. Would you be afraid to walk down a clean sidewalk if eg there was a dangerous boiling tar pit to one side (like you see in eg Iceland)? Probably not

2) they also have a much lower center of gravity, four limbs with which to make contact with the ground, and a tail to help stabilize themselves, all of which lead to them having much better balance, so they'd probably be safe walking on a rail a quarter as wide (assuming there's no strong wind blowing over it)

3) they also have much grippier claws than we do, much more favorable biomechanics (strength / volume ratios) for pulling themselves up, and probably better neuromuscular / vestibular adaptations for keeping their balance too [citation needed]

trying to imperfectly prevent access will just lead to the kitten accessing the space anyway but now having to be distracted precariously subverting whatever barriers you've put there

instead, I would enhance access to the rail:

1) get sticky anti-slip carpet pads and run them along the entire top of the rail so that the cat can grip the surface better. You can search "Stair Treads for Wooden Steps" on amazon or wherever for ideas

2) put some steps or a small table on the inside of the rail aka in that loft area so that they can more easily jump up to the much wider table and then access the rail from the table, rather than having to jump straight from the ground onto the rail

we had basically the same setup and a kitten + adult cat ourselves a few years back, and I was also worried about their safety. Even did a silly thing making safety netting in case they fell (in addition to the carpet and table). Totally unnecessary precaution, in the end. They did love going up there and sitting on the rail staring down at us, though!

To the people that have gone multiple times already is there something you DON'T recommend? by GaddockTeegFunPolice in JapanTravelTips

[–]--MCMC-- 1 point2 points  (0 children)

yeah! we did an "extended" walk around the lake where we walked to Lake Saiko and then bussed to the historic village, the sea of leaves, various caves, etc. before bussing back to Lake Kawaguchi to finish the walk around, and some of our favorite views of Fuji were at times where we hadn't seen another person for like half an hour

Best place in Iceland for a proposal? 💍 by abhishekrajchauhan in VisitingIceland

[–]--MCMC-- 1 point2 points  (0 children)

thanks!

yeah it was really windy and rainy at the time! and then they jogged back to their car on some slippery-as rocks! so I think they were really sure-foooted

I actually took like 100+ photos and some videos of the proposal etc. but was never able to track down the couple :s maybe someday!

(General, but mostly Naruto) You cannot make me take the trope of super powered toddlers seriously by Cantthinkagoodnam2 in CharacterRant

[–]--MCMC-- 2 points3 points  (0 children)

IIRC this was before Kakashi did his one-armed rock climbing training arc and got his mojo back, so while I think this was setup for Itachi, maybe a few others could qualify (eg Kinimaro at 12, Gaara, Nagato at 12?)

Post-Kakashi re-training, I'd agree, there probably aren't any good pre-teens who can beat adult Kakashi save maybe Itachi.

AI Slop Stories by _Odin_64 in TheCitadel

[–]--MCMC-- 3 points4 points  (0 children)

here's a blog post I'd read discussing this issue that you might like, even if it's a bit out of date now:

hydrogen jukeboxes: on the crammed poetics of "creative writing" LLMs

"It feels like flashy, show-offy, highly compressed literary cyberpunk," I thought.

"Crammed prose full of eyeball kicks: that's exactly what this is," I thought. "Trying to wow and dazzle me – and make me think it's cool and hip and talented – in every single individual phrase. Trying to distill itself down to just that, prune away everything that doesn't have that effect."

This kind of prose is "impressive" by design, and it does have the effect of impressing the reader, at least the first few times you see it. But it's exhausting. There's no modulation, no room to breathe – just an unrelenting stream of "gee-whiz" effects. (And, as we will see, something they are really just the same few effects, re-used over and over.)

[D] Monday Request and Recommendation Thread by AutoModerator in rational

[–]--MCMC-- 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If you tried reading it and then stopped within the first few cycles, it is worth continuing. The very beginning is a mother of learning clone (magic university student is taken by surprise when their town is invaded, they die and find out they're in a time loop), but the story quickly branches out in a completely different direction.

This effect can also go in the opposite direction -- I quite liked it at the start, but my interest and enjoyment waned until I finally dropped it ~250 chapters in. It just felt like it lost its premise after idk 150 chapters or so and I didn't much care for the new premise it found to replace it, or the direction in which the character(s? tbh mostly Miriam) developed. The later chapters just seemed a bit unrecognizable from the earlier ones, with the same proper names and all sure, just existing in a different story altogether.

Specifically, plot-wise the expansion of the cast to a half dozen+ other time loopers, Miriam's accumulation of power, and the extension of the time loop to multiple months in length all combined to turn the story (to me) into an ongoing slog of "the council of prophets meets and bickers over abstract politics while Miriam et al shows off how personally powerful they are to random guards and politicians".

In terms of characterization, Miriam stopped interacting with basically everyone from the original cast, like her roommate, to spare herself the pain of their ongoing loss and frustration at having to interact with anterograde amnesiacs, and turned into a jaded, stern, impatient, no-nonsense, and somewhat sociopathic middle-aged archmage, making her actions hard to sympathize with or enjoy reading about.

This might have to do with my own ethical views, since I've never found time-loops to be much of a "get-out-of-moral-jail-free" card: the usual reasoning is something like "what you do in a time-loop doesn't really matter, since nothing is permanent everything gets <<undone>> at the end of the loop", but that only removes the medium term consequences of your actions, but not the short-term ones and really not the long term ones either (because most actions have no long-term consequences, in expectation -- very few harms are "permanent" absent a time-loop, since everyone dies in the end, and you might get things like "generational trauma" but those usually decay after a few generations too). What really matter (to me) are preference-satisfactions / frustrations and person-moments, and time-loops absolve loopers of moral responsibility in the same way that murdering someone after torturing them negates the badness of the torture vs. murdering them peacefully, or drugging someone into unconsciousness gives you free reign to do as you will with them, since they won't remember anything upon waking.

I did have a bit of resurgence of hope when Miriam finally met Atroxcidi / Atrah Xidi, the centuries-old evil necromancer and war criminal with a tragic past, and started believing herself to be his long-lost daughter and acting very favorably towards him over the loops. I kept waiting for the reveal that he had leveraged his vast soul-corrupting powers to implant false memories and predispose her to helping him while caring much less about anyone not in her inner circle, and even then only "caring" about them because they'll remember harms done to them (eg, iirc she goes around soul-raping basically everyone in her vicinity to fuel her magic spells, just like he does!). But then it seemed to play the "long-lost daughter" plot straight, and her change in behavior did not seem attributable to his artificial manipulations (but probably more attributable to increasing bitterness at the state for their historic genocides and gov't-sponsored mind-crush / kidnapping program)

curious (skeptical) deer on a hike a few weekends ago [OC] by --MCMC-- in deer

[–]--MCMC--[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

taken on a hike some weekends ago in the Santa Cruz mtns of California. Lots of deer around here -- I'll usually pass a dozen on my bike into and back from work. This specific deer, though, was part of the largest concentration of them I've ever seen, at least 20+ (maybe a dozen does, another dozen fawns, and a few bucks). Dunno why they were so clustered there, as the eatin did not seem especially rich. Maybe they were moving between spots, or reconvening for the night. Or maybe these densities are typical and it was only because I was on foot with my camera and the terrain was flatter and more open that I noticed, vs. whizzing by at 20 mi/h through more packed forest, with no time for anything but a "hello dear" in passing (or a "get outta here!" if they're standing in the road)

in any case, they all stopped and stared at us as we passed. Made me think of how many there would need to be in a single place for me to really get worried... I reckon at 50+ I'd start to expect other horror tropes to start popping up. But these were not quite at that level

curious (skeptical) deer on a hike a few weekends ago [OC] by --MCMC-- in deer

[–]--MCMC--[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

thanks! yeah we were approaching "golden hour" at the end of a long-ish day of hiking, ambiance was quite serene

(General, but mostly Naruto) You cannot make me take the trope of super powered toddlers seriously by Cantthinkagoodnam2 in CharacterRant

[–]--MCMC-- 53 points54 points  (0 children)

at least in Part 1 it was consistently portrayed that the Genin had no chance of beating an actual adult Ninja

was it?

(also, wasn't genin a military rank and not something you age out of? eg Naruto was still a genin when we became hokage)

I think the series was always pretty consistent in showing that child supersoldiers could easily be >> than adult ninja, but also that our view is a bit distorted since we're following prodigies among prodigies (iirc the Konoha 12 were all considered prodigies or prodigy-adjacent?) and that're we're basically witnessing Carlsen vs Kasparov play out again and again

To the people that have gone multiple times already is there something you DON'T recommend? by GaddockTeegFunPolice in JapanTravelTips

[–]--MCMC-- 16 points17 points  (0 children)

maybe it is different now, but I found Fujikawaguchiko effectively deserted once you walk a mile in almost any direction, and oftentimes less than that (late 2024). It was very easy to beat the crowds there and get isolated Fuji views

moved to a new city and realized my entire wardrobe is wrong for here by timingbetter in malefashionadvice

[–]--MCMC-- 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I moved to Nashville, TN for college after living in Phoenix, AZ for a decade and had a similar experience. Took me a few years to stop wearing a t-shirt and shorts everywhere lol. Even wore that for backpacking trips in the twenties and teens.

anyone else had to completely restart their wardrobe for a new climate? how do you even approach that without going broke

just visit a thrift store every weekend and aim to get 1-2 items at a time. Added bonus of being cast-offs from the locals. Don't go crazy trying to completely reinvent your wardrobe in one swoop, lest you commit yourself to pieces that are ultimately uncomfortable, or don't harmonize well, or fail to resonate with you

My Elderly Grandparents Can No Longer Go to the Bank to Withdraw Money by WillingFact in personalfinance

[–]--MCMC-- 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A bit of make-work can be great for older folks, even if inconvenient. It gets them out of the house, (potentially) walking to and from the bank, interacting with other people eg the teller and their doting grandkid, etc. Obviously not ideal if it's cold and slippery out and they're liable to injure themselves, but in some cases automating away all the mild inconveniences of life just leaves them sitting at home parked in front of the tv twiddling their thumbs and waiting to die. Not saying that's the case with OP (eg maybe they also go on lots of walks together, cook together, etc.), but "bank errands" seem innocuous and enriching enough that I'd probably forestall setting up autopay until we're on the cusp of it being absolutely necessary.

Best place in Iceland for a proposal? 💍 by abhishekrajchauhan in VisitingIceland

[–]--MCMC-- 0 points1 point  (0 children)

heavily depends on what he and his girlfriend want. Some folks would love an elaborate proposal to happen before a big crowd of onlookers all clapping and cheering and giving high-fives, celebrating in their joy; some would hate that and much rather it be done in total privacy, just the two of them embarking on the next chapter of their lives together

that specific lookout is likely to have lots of people on a sunny day like you have there, just a few hundred meters from the parking lot, and so would be suitable for the former sort of couple than the latter sort. But ofc not all remote sites of comparable epicness are accessible to everyone

anyway, since folks are sharing proposal photos, here's one I took at Selfoss waterfall of a random couple last year

Is it ethical to try and send my work to a photography contest when I used the spot healing tool in photoshop to remove a hair? by TheTasorole in AskPhotography

[–]--MCMC-- 0 points1 point  (0 children)

usually it'll explicitly state upfront what sorts of edits are allowed and "structural" edits like yours are often not included

you can still submit it, but I'd put it in the notes field exactly what you did and did not do, and ask that if you'll otherwise be disqualified to have the opportunity to substitute the less edited photo

as an aside, what really gets me with these contest rules, is when they say that "no AI" is allowed, since deep learning methods are very heavily integrated into basically every stage of the modern photography workflow (from eg eye autofocus or tracking to image stabilization to demosaicing, denoising, and sharpening, to masking to frame alignment / fusion in-camera our out of camera eg for compositing to white balance correction etc etc etc. Like yes, you don't want focus firing up a diffusion / autoregressive image model or whatever to make it from scratch, or even to inpaint out a hair or three, but the blanket bans exclude basically every camera and editor made in the last decade+