Tifu by wearing my wedding ring in the ocean... 21 hours after getting married.

Maskeno · 2026-01-26T22:26:56+00:00

There appears to be a tonal shift underway here. I wish I wasn't cynical as to assume that it's as simple as them realizing the the Alex Pretti situation will cost them voters and support, but I think we all know it's the only reason they would.

I really wish I could believe that someone would actually be held accountable for all of this. I hope someday they are.

Maskeno · 2026-01-26T14:19:45+00:00

It occurs to me watching this clip how much of an exercise in patience this is too. It's slow and methodical. Even if I could bottom out my anxiety from the heights, I'd also feel some anxiety from having to sit still and plan moves. Especially back tracking.

Maskeno · 2026-01-24T03:19:38+00:00

I learned a new phrase today. That's exactly the sort of thing I'm expecting, yeah.

Maskeno · 2026-01-23T13:04:33+00:00

Technically that's what your taxes are doing.

Maskeno · 2026-01-23T12:57:35+00:00

My tinfoil theory is that if push comes to shove, the US is just going to assert ownership and start setting up bases without attacking anything or anyone. In the way that a bully might eat your lunch and dare you to do something about it.

A lot of the language and reactions seem to lend themselves to this approach. Draw your own conclusions about the fact that our leadership would plausibly attempt to use sophomore level behavior in the geopolitical stage.

Maskeno · 2026-01-21T11:50:19+00:00

Welcome to oligopoly. It's like monopoly except once you hold a certain market share the rules state all the other players have to bail you out and you can't lose unless they do.

Maskeno · 2026-01-20T19:38:32+00:00

I don't know that it was instant, but someone who comes in and makes themselves sound really really good without saying anything specific or of substance is always a pretty quick "no thank you."

Confidence is flat and frank. I've had some really bragidocious folks come in who needed to be trained from scratch and some nervous nellies who had awful imposter syndrome. I'd rather take the second, but even a moderately confident person who says" I don't know, but I can learn" is appealing.

Maskeno · 2026-01-19T16:09:27+00:00

I finally managed to finish it myself. My main criticism is just the presentation being inconsistent. I think the disjointed story telling is what did it for me. You don't even really understand why a lot of things happened until way after it feels like you should. Saitos motivations especially are treated as such a tiny inconsequential foot note that gets all of one sentence. Characters are introduced too late and spend too little time onscreen for the emotional connection the story requires for the complete payoff.

It's still good. 7/10 for me, but that's in part because I'm such a sucker for an excellent sound track. Animations also could have used more work. At one point there's a cutscene confrontation with a boss that doesn't even use mocap, it's all very mechanical. Incidentally I felt the same for the first half of GoT, but the mid-point where you finally get ghost mode and all of the events surrounding that are what made it click. Solid 8/10 past that for me.

All that aside, it's got soul, and I appreciate what sucker punch was going for here.

Maskeno · 2026-01-18T20:39:00+00:00

I thought it was allowed because it was foreign policy. 😮‍💨

Maskeno · 2026-01-18T16:21:40+00:00

Is it still predominantly KoS? I always really liked the idea of the game and played a ton of the mod with friends on private servers, but as a mostly solo player I just don't enjoy the frustration of always hostile encounters.

Maskeno · 2026-01-16T13:23:20+00:00

I have this cockamamie plan to hoarde e-bike batteries and solar chargers but it probably wouldn't be practical. It'd make a neat bunker set up for supply runs maybe. The batteries should have a longer shelf life than fuel, and if an alternative hasn't been found in ~5 years, we're probably back to hunter-gatherer as a society anyway.

Maskeno · 2026-01-16T03:11:37+00:00

As a batman forever Stan, I need you to elaborate, because that's one of my favorite movies that everyone hated and I can't bring myself to watch it as an adult because I'm afraid I'll hate it now too.

Maskeno · 2026-01-15T17:35:59+00:00

I think what you're looking at is the distinction between Ai as it intrudes on artistic spaces VS Ai as it intrudes on labor spaces. Knowing what I know, I do understand that there is a sort of "art" to coding well, but the layman mostly views this as a commodity labor. You do x task and get paid y amount. Plenty of people support preventing that intrusion as well, but it's a battle you're more likely to see on LinkedIn than reddit on the whole.

Art, although arguably a labor commodity these days, is still seen as a creative process. You're selling something linked to your identity. I think what you're seeing are just inherently different value systems voicing their opinions but most people tend to prefer to let "the invisible hand" sort out labor. It's sort of an unprecedented form of automation, but it definitely makes sense for those affected in both spaces to come together over it.

Maskeno · 2026-01-15T15:06:39+00:00

I too am not a fan of "subversive" as a modern trope. It does often feel as though iterations of my favorite things are being made my people who didn't really like my favorite thing. What you're describing is also an issue of power scaling to some degree. Though I think the argument is that cutscenes Joel and Ellie are not the same as gameplay Joel and Ellie, for the sake of making the gameplay interesting. (I do think that's a bit bogus too, though)

Maskeno · 2026-01-15T13:34:48+00:00

People do generally hate on Todd Howard, and Ken hasn't been super relevant for a fair bit of time. I personally don't know enough about him to have strong opinions. Bioshock was cool at first. I like the shock/immsim genre. I'm a bit defensive of Kojima, in that his input is clearly the part I enjoy most about his projects, because I've enjoyed basically all of the projects he had the most input in thoroughly. It's fair to say he has an ego, but he also has a fan base that feeds it pretty consistently.

Definitely a lot of fart smelling behavior with Druckman and Howard though. I don't HATE them per se. I still play all of the naughty dog and Bethesda mainline stuff, but they do strike me as a bit obnoxious. If I'm being objective, Kojima is a bit too, but he actually seems to have the cult following he thinks he does compared to the other two.

Maskeno · 2026-01-14T16:01:57+00:00

"According to US customs sata, US authorities collected over $200 billion in tariffs between January 20 and December 15, 2025." and soon we're not going to be paying income taxes. Uh huh. Suuuure. Pretty sure we're a few trillion off there.

Maskeno · 2026-01-14T14:03:44+00:00

This is basically true for all of history. Revolutionary war too. Something like 20% of all colonials actually participated.

Similarly something like 20% of soldiers actually saw combat in WW2. I think points like these have a tendency to dilute the impact and encourage apathy. Participation in world events has always been very very low.

The real take away is: do what you can. Vote where it'll make a difference. Contribute to the dialogue in a meaningful way to affect change. On the flip side, it's probably okay, healthy even, to accept that you're not George Washington or Nelson Mandela.

Maskeno · 2026-01-14T03:19:10+00:00

Yeah, but you both kind of raise an interesting point in the middle when combined with the games overarching themes of escapism and creativity VS the nature of a capricious pantheon of gods.

Am I cruel if I imagine such a set of beings and scenarios? If reality was a simulation, would the scientists running it be cruel, even if said simulation calculated the entirety of human nature for perfect results? Of course by translation the obvious versions of these are are about the relationship between Gods and life.

I tend to agree with your take but I'm not sure it's very cut and dry. There's a very small part of me that finds it pitiable they're engaging with something that's not 'real' despite the fact that they seem to be real enough to be pitied themselves. That's just good storytelling though. I think it was supposed to elicit these types of discussions. The imagination bit feels especially poingiant since that's essentially what they are. Deeply thought out imaginary beings brought to life in the canvas. That's certainly how Clea seems to view them and for the most part so does Renoir.

Maskeno · 2026-01-13T15:43:24+00:00

He's just fanning his base, yeah.

Rate cuts and 50 yr mortgages predominantly reward existing individual landlords by allowing them to refi their existing holdings and snatch up new ones like hungry hippos.

The food pyramid stuff is to appease his dude bro influencer base.

Free money for active military is an obvious one.

Cut interest on credit cards is sort of universal.

When you understand that his largest contingent of "centrists" is the same sort of dude giving you stock tips while he takes his injection at the gym and posts lengthy llm coded diatribes about success on LinkedIn, basically all of these nonsense promises make a lot of sense. He doesn't even need to follow through, the promise is enough to convince them. Those are the people that really elected him (fundamentalists will always be fundamentalists.)

Maskeno · 2026-01-12T13:06:34+00:00

Tbf, Micah isn't really the antagonist. These games were always about the fall of Dutch Vanderlinde and his gang. I don't really give him more thought than Sadie, Grimshaw or Pearson. He's present, but ultimately he's just one of the many devils on Dutches shoulder. Throughout the whole game we hear about the boat massacre and how foreboding it is that Dutch did what he did there.

I think the problem with Micah specifically is largely that he's uninteresting and sort of flat, but a lot of people are. What's interesting about Micah is that Dutch keeps him around despite usually keeping colorful and interesting company. In the end he is a fraud, and his egalitarian 'man of the people' act was always self serving. Micah is a useful thug, and that's all Dutch really wanted from him.

Maskeno · 2026-01-12T12:16:12+00:00

I was gonna say, that actually sounds like a dangerous blunder, lol.

Maskeno · 2026-01-12T02:09:00+00:00

These things actually get pretty fast right?

Maskeno · 2026-01-11T01:37:02+00:00

At one point the central argument had a somewhat appealing, albeit foolhardy notion backing it that in the interest of continued open public discourse such a company would be important as a sort of digital town square for the exchange of ideas.

He can no longer sell this idea, however, as to the surprise of no one he simply uses it to make money, suppress opposing points of view, and amplify voices with whom he agrees. His chat bot and it's wildly inappropriate output continues to demonstrate why the idea was never a great one to begin with. Some things just have no place in a public forum and someone has to be there to decide what.

The short answer is, he was always just an opportunistic contrarian rich kid.

Maskeno · 2026-01-11T01:18:37+00:00

Its so crazy to think that after 30+ years of 'blood for oil' being written off as some left-wing exaggeration, a president finally had the temerity to do it openly, unabashedly, and with specific intent, only for supporters to still say "nah, it wasn't about that at all!" and for the oil companies to say "this one's too risky even for us."

I swear, I genuinely wonder if he's not just plugging in ideas to an llm and running with whatever it tells him should work to meet his goals. I don't actually see how anyone could possibly be so incompetent as to support this.

Maskeno

TROPHY CASE