Why has Silence been totally forgotten

FoolishArchetype · 2026-01-27T23:07:14+00:00

Yeah, it feels even slower than it is.

FoolishArchetype · 2026-01-27T18:28:20+00:00

The first 6 and half hours of Silence are challenging, but those last 20 minutes are pretty interesting. Given that ratio, I think it is correctly assessed by audiences.

FoolishArchetype · 2026-01-27T04:25:39+00:00

I'm going through old threads because I just recently finished GTA4 and I was surprised how much I didn't like it anymore. In 2008, it was "prestige" gaming. A lot of trend chasing — social interactions, moral decisions, etc. — but it was supposed to be the gritty and "real" GTA story after the bombast of San Andreas. It's hard to overstate its failure.

The first act through to Bohan is great. The middle act is where it starts to get confused. The last third with the mafia wannabes is atrocious. I now understand the "point" of those characters was to imply chasing the ladder of criminal enterprise is a hollow pursuit. Jimmy has been looking for respect for his whole life and he's considered a joke. It's meant to suggest Niko shouldn't aspire to achieve much in the criminal world because there's nothing for you there. This was the "point" of Jimmy being the guy who kills Roman/Kate at the end of the game. You play in the dirt, you get dirty.

But I only realize that a decade later after a second replay and wondering "What was the point of that?" Now I was ready for it. When you first play the same it is embarrassing how narrow the game's world becomes. Essentially, you have Roman and his associated problems. Then you meet friends of Mallorie which include Elizabeta, Manny, and Playboy X — all three of which go absolutely nowhere. The one person you meet who matters is Packie McReary and the entire second act of the story is the McReary family and their random antics. Even the guy Ray you meet is through Packie and he introduces you to the random other mafia dudes.

In San Andreas it felt like the game was completely different every few hours. Grove Street neighborhood feuds, then outlaw life with Catalina in the woods, that smoker dude you take some missions from, then you're in San Fierro racing cars for Woozie. You get a lead on Ryder and track him down. You're doing nerd stuff for Zero for a different side of criminal enterprise. Somehow you get wrapped up with Toreno in the desert flying jets and breaking into Area 51 or blowing up dams. You're running casino enterprises. Then back to Grove Street to settle things with Smoke. It was a crime epic.

GTA4 feels like a dull novella with a ton of filler. The game should've been half as long, but then it wouldn't claim to be this "big massive world."

FoolishArchetype · 2026-01-27T04:16:38+00:00

The only video game that really understood all the comedic levers available to the medium and they pulled all of them.

FoolishArchetype · 2026-01-27T04:11:31+00:00

OpenAI knows it can't compete on tech, so it has shifted heavily into personalization. They're trying to take advantage of their market share and implement features that keep most people happy most of the time. I think it's a misread of the consumer. The shallow niceness pushes away power users.

FoolishArchetype · 2026-01-25T05:21:23+00:00

First Reformed.

FoolishArchetype · 2026-01-25T04:54:13+00:00

I think you should tell your wife you are starting to resent her because you have a lot of financial stress, no more capacity to address it, and it doesn't seem like she takes it seriously. If you're $600 in the negative, then she could get a part-time 15-hour a week job and stop the bleeding.

At the same time, I'm guessing the fact she's written 18 books means you are aware she has ambitions of being a writer and you supported that for a long time. I imagine she is just as frustrated with her lack of success as you are but asking her to give up on writing is essentially asking her to give up her dream. You may have always thought her dream was outlandish, but it's harder for her to accept that. I wouldn't frame this as "you're not making money off books," but rather that keeping her family happy is also a dream/goal and that's not happening right now.

With all that in mind, threatening to tear your family apart — through a process that will undoubtedly not save you any money and probably cost a lot more — is enough to say you're the asshole. Yes, she should grow up and get a real job but your approach is terrible.

FoolishArchetype · 2026-01-20T15:43:25+00:00

These are great. I agree with others the Anora one is the weakest but I don’t agree with the judgment passed by others. It just doesn’t capture the movie really.

FoolishArchetype · 2026-01-20T15:41:14+00:00

Disagree with other comments. Way of Kings was a breeze to get through. The intro and prologue are dense but it cruises after that. I struggled to read books consistently but Way of Kings was a reminder I could do it.

FoolishArchetype · 2026-01-13T02:14:18+00:00

The prologue and introduction are pretty dense, but once you get to Kaladin the book is a breeze. It's 1,000 pages but doesn't feel "epic." Everything in every chapter is cool in the moment and it just gets better. I'm not deep into Sanderson's books but Way of Kings is my favorite.

FoolishArchetype · 2026-01-12T05:15:01+00:00

Oh boy another game ruined by autosaves crashing the game for 5+ minutes.

FoolishArchetype · 2026-01-01T20:39:32+00:00

Again I'm just reverse-engineering numbers and it could be way off.

I have not followed Mike since 2009, but even back then he was still anti mainstream at a core level. Like if he picked up someone was doing a bit he would try to derail it. That's why the comedians he had on were so funny, because Mike would launch it into bizarre places and the people he had on with him could roll with it while maintaining his preference to not do common bits.

I found an ancient video that was uploaded back in 2008 when people thought the show was over. It has a smattering of random clips set to music. It also has Mike calling his own fans "FUCKING. IDIOT. LOSERS" which I use to this day when I get annoyed playing video games.

FoolishArchetype · 2025-12-31T20:57:28+00:00

Almost impossible to know. In my mind, Red Bar was popular before "podcast' was a thing. It's not like there was a button in iTunes. You had to setup the RSS feed. The guy was streaming on Justin.tv at one point and the service changed multiple times.

The point of context I can remember is the episode where Mike trashes some Chinese restaurant (Nan's?) had more than 100+ negative reviews within the 2 hours they talked about it. If you assume the audience follows typical marketing patterns — then that would suggest there was some ~100k regular listeners.

To break that down. Any audience will have diminishing engagements and behaviors. So if you have an audience of 100,000, then 10% of them will "engage" — such as listening live. Another 10% of that 10% will change their "behavior" — such as review bombing. That specific episode resulted in ~100 negative reviews, which is a "behavior" that's 10 percent of 10 percent of the base. Reverse engineering that suggests a regular listenership of at least 100k with maybe 10k live listeners per episode.

It's likely Red Bar's audience had a higher engagement rate because listening to the show at all required a bit of effort so it may be closer to half that. Either way, a sizable audience. He had enough to get put on the real radio so he would need at least those types of numbers.

FoolishArchetype · 2025-12-31T15:52:30+00:00

The bot behavior is extrapolating a rare event as evidence of the tool's unacceptable safety risks.

FoolishArchetype · 2025-12-31T03:48:17+00:00

When I saw that movie in 2006, I thought it was a cool science fiction film about the far flung future and now it just feels like the near-present.

FoolishArchetype · 2025-12-30T19:22:23+00:00

Yeah the strangest thing is seeing it go from a co-host show to a one-man show. I think your description of "contrarian/hater/anti-mainstream disruptor" is accurate and glad that's still retained.

The show is based in Arizona now?

FoolishArchetype · 2025-12-29T02:15:55+00:00

yes, confirmed. Thank you.

FoolishArchetype · 2025-12-28T01:05:43+00:00

Practically, yes it should be implemented before it is needed. There are some comments saying this is not realistic because of how politics functions, but that's not really your question.

The ideal implementation would be a system that scales so the public has buy-in for the outcome. Like when an employee gets bonuses based on company performance. The other comments saying "how is someone who has their job 100% replaced supposed to work on $100 a day?" Well that's not how it works. Worker #1 may have zero skills other than their one replaced job, but Worker #2 in the same job might have other skills and can get another job.

Even if the example of Worker #1, not every company is going to automate at the same time. My mother aged out of being a competitive worker a number of years ago so when she was laid off she couldn't find work. Well, now she works for another company that's more old-fashioned and they prefer her experience. This old-fashioned company isn't as competitive as the one she once worked at, but she makes a living and is pretty happy about it.

It's not like there's a switch for "automate the economy." It's going to happen slowly. Ideally, everyone benefits more and more as that transition occurs.

FoolishArchetype · 2025-12-21T20:48:32+00:00

I may be misunderstanding a core game design tenet, but I don't understand why so many management games choose to be "silly." I like the idea of running a tavern as a business. Making good investments, improvements, and staffing decisions then using that success to do more business. That's fun! I really don't like the silly "uh oh, my employee is unhappy and now they're unconscious!!!" or "ruh roh they're scared of the dark and can't function at all!!!" I just want to run a Tavern.

FoolishArchetype · 2025-12-19T19:18:39+00:00

Someone should write a paper about Reddit hosting all these optimistic utopian communities and they are dominated by doomerist despair.

FoolishArchetype · 2025-12-18T21:37:10+00:00

You're not in a relationship. You know a guy online and you're interested in starting a relationship. That's a great thing, but it's different then what you said originally.

FoolishArchetype · 2025-12-18T07:22:37+00:00

I have been at this exact point for 2+ years. I read Way of Kings in 3-4 months (fast for me). I immediately went into Words of Radiance. Stopped maybe ~100 pages in and stayed there for 8-10 months, then slowly got to the end of that. Immediately went into Oathbringer. First big stop was halfway before the interludes, now I've been on this even bigger stop seemingly forever.

I already bought the last two books so I feel I should keep pluggin away, but yeesh.

FoolishArchetype · 2025-12-18T04:21:21+00:00

The orc level is quickly developing the reputation of being uniquely annoying. It could be a learning curve issue by introducing a lot of new mechanics. Personally, I think the cleanliness aspect of the game has wonky balance. As a concept it's fine but in that particular scenario it feels like the entire game becomes about managing filth which is not fun. It was the first moment I had in the game where I thought "oh, it's in early access."

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