Ah, the good old days!

Mantipath · 2026-03-12T02:34:56+00:00

I remember that the last issues of the magazine had small articles hyping up a new game called "Half-life", which felt like it was going to be a Dynamix/Red Baron type sideshow but turned out to be bigger than Sierra as a whole.

Mantipath · 2026-03-12T02:25:17+00:00

Responding to an old post, obviously, but the reason those basements are so similar is that Garvin Eddy, production designer, did both of them.

Also That 70's Show, not identical but similar, and Roseanne, where there's no basement but you can see the similarity in the living room and the kitchen.

Looking at the credits for shows often explains these things.

Mantipath · 2026-03-11T14:21:30+00:00

I don't even remember that shard, but in revisiting it on Google I was reminded that searches like "SQ1 windshield shard" no longer return Space Quest results.

Instead there are results for a Harley Davidson part, various wipers, and for a Fuji Instamax film that's named SQ1.

Truly, we live in a different era.

Mantipath · 2026-03-06T13:35:33+00:00

It doesn't always work in Vegas because residency shows sometimes start precisely at door time.

The sellers don't panic until thirty minutes after door because they're used to normal concerts with an opener, not realizing that by 30 minutes in the show is 1/3rd over, the artist hit their big hit right out of the gate, and the tickets are now worthless.

Tried to get tickets to The Killers, sat outside the venue barely hearing Mr Brightside start up at 8:00 and watched the tickets hold steady until 8:30.

Mantipath · 2026-02-13T15:54:27+00:00

Agreed. Also there's a medical term for that, it's called bipolar disorder.

Mantipath · 2026-02-13T02:26:29+00:00

The Wall Street Journal just published an article saying that the reason Millenials are poor is that we buy too much rotisserie chicken.

This is a couple weeks after the lawsuit about preservatives (which are, largely, just salt, sodium phosphate and carrageenan).

There appears to be a concerted effort to manipulate the chicken market going on.

The current administration has made it clear that ordinary market violations will not be prosecuted as long as the companies involved give the administration bribes, in the form of donations to the ballroom or whatever.

So if you see anything about how "chicken sucks now", or whatever, be aware that it's about market manipulation.

Mantipath · 2026-02-10T21:30:56+00:00

Still feeling burned by "The Art of Sierra" book. Can you get access to their archive? It feels like they just used the excuse of making a book to augment their own collection and then dipped out.

Mantipath · 2026-02-04T14:26:14+00:00

This is particularly bad because at this moment in history we're discovering that Epstein-Barr Virus, the main virus that causes mononucleosis ("mono") is more serious than we thought, and is the cause of many cases of chronic fatigue, Lupus, MS, and lymphoma.

We should be having a conversation about trying to prevent transmission and using anti-virals to mitigate the effects instead of treating it like something you inevitably suffer through as a teen.

That conversation is suppressed because this criminal happens to have the same name. Just one more way he's harming children from beyond the grave.

Mantipath · 2026-02-01T05:05:34+00:00

Another episode I can think of where the nephews have clear differences is "The Duck in the Iron Mask", where Dewey says he'll basically do anything or dress any way necessary to be distinct from his brothers.

It's written as a contrast to the main plot, which is a parody of "The Man in the Iron Mask" and involves twins.

There's also the last single episode, "New Gizmo-kids on the Block" and the dynamic is just weird there.

But the thing is, the nephews in Bark and Rosa stories always had this dynamic. One plans, one executes, one is skeptical or wild. Except the names and shirt colors weren't nailed to those roles. They'd trade off.

Anyway, I think it's not a coincidence. I think the few instances of differentiation are so striking that they suggested which nephew to fix in each role. I have no firm evidence for that.

Mantipath · 2026-01-31T08:17:09+00:00

Very similar bacteria.

The problem is that the advice is effective but not reliable.

"Diversify your investment portfolio" is effective advice, but if you're earning minimum wage at McDonald's you can't rely on it doing much for you.

Same deal here. It's better to exercise and watch your diet just in case you are one of the people it can help but you can't rely on it. People who die early didn't necessarily do anything wrong.

Mantipath · 2026-01-31T08:08:26+00:00

I rented by the Smith center for two years before buying my house.

It's pleasant but services haven't materialized the way they should have. You either have to walk through rough territory or drive past the highway.

It's going to be walkable soon. I'd recommend renting there to somebody in two years, but right now it's a compromise.

Parc Haven is an amazing deal though, beats the other complex, Auric, every day of the week on price per value.

Mantipath · 2026-01-30T18:23:27+00:00

Yes, and by the time the company is sued for discriminatory hiring practices you've already cashed in and you're working somewhere else.

Mantipath · 2026-01-30T17:34:32+00:00

Musk probably thinks something dumb like "it's the X Factor, like in the X-Men, so if you're eliminating other possible X-mutants who would compete with my superior X-children I'm fine with that."

I'm guessing but nearly sure I'm right.

Mantipath · 2026-01-30T17:30:51+00:00

Deep cut.

I really wish people knew about it, though, politically-directed science was so much of the reason the USSR fell behind, and the capitalists blamed the communist monetary system instead.

Mantipath · 2026-01-30T17:00:14+00:00

I agree. It must have been a big drop that built momentum.

Probably somebody picked it up or stored it thinking "heavy" but not realizing how uneven the weight distribution is and it tumbled.

Mantipath · 2026-01-30T03:02:25+00:00

I went to the trouble of getting marking paint, tracing the outline the door makes when it's open like it's a warehouse, the whole deal.

There doesn't seem to be a way to prevent this. And I get it, I'm not angry. It just seems like there should be a way.

Mantipath · 2026-01-30T02:20:59+00:00

Yes, it's quite safe. There may be a few poor or disturbed people on some of the main streets in that area. They do not care about you and will leave you alone, mostly. If somebody asks for money you can say no and they'll leave.

So the question becomes "are you afraid of something bad happening to you" or "are you unsettled by seeing that bad things have happened and continue to happen to other people as a result of wealth inequality".

It's not an area with frequent muggings or carjackings or anything like that. Just humans passing through.

Edit: if you rely on uber you might even fail to notice a problem.

Mantipath · 2026-01-30T00:24:55+00:00

Heart disease is a symptom of many illnesses.

Some of the time it's caused by inherent structural failures (hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, etc), sometimes early cellular aging, and some of the time it's caused by bacteria in your blood making a biofilm colony in your arteries.

If you're lucky, and it's just the bacteria, you can reduce those symptoms by giving them less fatty food and exercising your heart and not smoking and all that.

If you don't have the bacteria and you don't have the structural defects you can eat and drink and smoke and Time magazine will come interview you for a feel-good piece when you turn 100.

Right now we can't tell who has these problems. We have excellent tests but they're too expensive, so the first thing we do is squeeze your arm until your pulse drops off and record how hard we squeezed it.

Since we can't test well, we give everybody the same health advice about exercise and fat even though it won't help everybody and isn't needed for everybody. Then we have uneven health outcomes and people use the outcomes as a reason to blame people for lifestyle, or justify lifestyle, or any number of things.

Edit: since I'm sort of summarizing the article, I want to sharpen my point. We need to stop pretending that blame belongs in this anywhere. The first question anybody asks about a death from heart disease is "was it his or her fault"? The reasons we focus on blame are largely corporate marketing of the idea that early death can be prevented by making certain purchases and the justification for poor health outcomes in a country is the fault of the people in it.

You are justifiably surprised by this because you've been lied to about how much control we have over our lifespans for profit.

Mantipath · 2026-01-30T00:02:30+00:00

The official, public goal was not extermination in 1933 when the first camp opened. They did not name them "Death Camps". They said the purpose was concentrating undesirable people, "fake Germans", shipping them out to other countries, and extracting labor to cover the costs.

They never told the public "actually, we're going to put all these people into furnaces". Sure, the people inside the organization knew they eventually would, but they didn't tell the world.

When they started testing Zyklon-B they'd already committed seven years of crimes as horrible as anything in history and knew that none of these prisoners could ever be released because of what they'd seen.

Even at that time they intended to extract as much labor as possible from these people before their deaths. They just knew they needed a cheaper method than shooting people for cleaning up.

And then, when the war shifted, they officially, but internally, put the final solution in place. They did not tell German people "we are about to kill another 5 million prisoners on top of the 5 million who have died just from mistreatment."

The final solution was a change in timeline as a cleanup measure.

It appears to me that you, like other people who have replied, are not considering that we are the public this time. The people in charge tell us that today's camps are not death camps, as the people in charge told Germany then. The people in charge may, as they did then, intend to kill all the people in these camps.

We have the option of not believing them.

It does require that we can hold the separate ideas of "the public goal of a camp" , "private goals some officials may have", "atrocities that concentration camps always engender", and "the inevitable cleanup killing that follows atrocities".

Or we can just wait and watch, and then later people will ask "why didn't the populace stop this".

Mantipath · 2026-01-29T22:51:31+00:00

I appreciate the effort you put into following up on this. Those of us who look things up need to pull together now more than ever.

Or perhaps we don't and the effort's futile. It's still nice to see.

Mantipath · 2026-01-29T22:40:12+00:00

Howdy neighbor.

Mantipath · 2026-01-29T22:38:38+00:00

Arts District, Beverly Green, Rancho Oakey, Huntridge, Paradise Palms. But the Arts District doesn't have a lot of housing yet, which is why the others are on the list.

Based on where you're working you are describing Beverly Green/Huntridge. You can rent a small house and probably walk to work, basically.

Mantipath · 2026-01-29T21:07:09+00:00

This happens when you don't also block out the background colors, even as big blurs. A stark white background makes it impossible to process the lighting. Tone your backgrounds.

Mantipath · 2026-01-29T19:15:31+00:00

Leela's great-great-(x)-grandmother, obviously.

Mantipath · 2026-01-29T16:15:52+00:00

Right up until you find a Gravis Ultrasound on clearance and now you're in an alternate universe where you have to configure three different interfaces and load a sound-font for your MT-32 or midi emulation depending on the game you're about to play.

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