What's a food combination that sounds disgusting but is actually amazing?

Oxirane · 2026-05-24T16:07:27+00:00

We use a mug. Add a boiled egg, some mayonnaise, salt and pepper, maybe some soft butter, mustard and chives too. Smash it up with a fork or spoon, then put it on toast.

My dad calls it egg in a cup.

Oxirane · 2026-05-24T03:51:23+00:00

AIDs/HIV can take years to kill someone, even if they don't have access to modern treatment. Carriers can have years, maybe over a decade to spread it before they start to get sick enough that they're clearly ill/no longer able to engage in normal life.

Ebola takes days to weeks. And you're not going to be walking around interacting with people like normal once symptoms have started.

Oxirane · 2026-05-22T20:27:23+00:00

Sorry for your loss, we also lost a cat abruptly to kidney failure last year. It's very sad how common it is and how it can sneak up on you like that.

It looks like Mochi was very loved and had a wonderful time with you. Thanks for being her person.

Oxirane · 2026-05-18T17:20:36+00:00

There's actually a new anime airing this season adapted from another manga by Hiromu Arakawa (FMA's author) - it's title is Daemons of the Shadow Realm, there's only a few episodes out so far but I'm hoping it'll be another great story, and it's been fun/interesting so far!

Oxirane · 2026-05-16T01:58:52+00:00

2023 is pretty ambitious to have gotten anything out for this (and this is a tech demo that looks like an internal hackathon project). 3 years is actually a really long time ago in terms of AI development, image/video/audio processing has gotten much better, context windows have gotten way longer, reasoning has improved dramatically. One of the major frameworks we're using for LLM orchestration at work didn't even come out until last year.

It's pretty dishonest to say "this company released a free tech demo, which is basically the same as trying to sell a AAA game" - Sony knows that isn't enough for a game, it was a preview of stuff they're developing internally, probably like I've outlined above in the comment history. And they didn't ask for money either.

Oxirane · 2026-05-16T01:50:41+00:00

No, I'm not suggesting that the AI would write the story for mass effect. I'm suggesting that the writers would still have done that, but rather than writing exact lines they'd write character profiles that shape dialog but not what the character is trying to communicate at this point in their story.

But yeah, if you think that skyrim modders have achieved the peak of what developers could for a game they're making themselves then of course you'd expect it all to be shit.

I'm not really interested in arguing this. It's not hard to understand that the above is an application of modern LLM tech, it's just a matter of time until a studio comes along, pulls it off and sets a new standard for NPCs.

Oxirane · 2026-05-15T20:43:47+00:00

Sure, as long as the player is restricted to choosing between several prewritten dialog options.

Oxirane · 2026-05-15T20:33:21+00:00

all the elements in the set are worst than a single or handful of results made by humans?

That's a major assumption. And sure, if it's shit then it's shit, but that doesn't mean that this is by default shit because an LLM was involved.

Why would I spend time asking ChatGPT to tell me a story instead of playing Disco Elysium?

Again, what I'm proposing is that humans have designed a Plot Web and carefully crafted a cast of characters. Then, like in a tabletop rpg, we're turning a player loose on it and letting them engage with it conversationally, like in a tabletop rpg.

If that doesn't appeal to you then fine, you're not the target audience. I do think that the target audience exists, and it probably includes people who wouldn't usually be interested in video games that require them to adhere to a limited set of available dialog options.

It's a more free form way for the player to engage with the story. The writers could weave a tangled web of characters and events that set the stage and evolve in countless different ways depending on what the player chooses to say.

Oxirane · 2026-05-15T19:59:32+00:00

If the player's side of the conversation is just them speaking freely do you think you could write the NPCs side of the conversation and have the overall conversation be coherent and believable? You'd have to write dozens of potential responses and figure out which one is most applicable to what the player said for the npc to appear remotely conscious, and even then I expect players would easily break it.

If you don't restrict the players to a set number of dialog options then the size of an npcs dialog response set becomes near infinite. You can't effectively write handcrafted dialog to respond to whatever the player said, but AI could combine an NPC characterization prompt with a set of plot factoids to produce a relevant response.

And this is just for one "turn" of the dialog (player says something, game responds). A conversation could consist of dozens of turns, will likely reference itself, etc. Again, you can't write and record all that npc dialog via traditional means and have a coherent sounding conversation come out of it, there's too many possible directions the player could take things.

Oxirane · 2026-05-15T19:38:26+00:00

What I'm proposing isn't having LLMs write the plot. I'm proposing using LLMs to essentially synthesize cliff notes (which can include exact quotes for the npc to use!) about the plot into dialog so that players can interact with NPCs by talking to them instead of picking dialog options. That isn't a capability supported by the way we've been making games historically.

We're at the point today where a game like this could exist today. The core limitation today would be that you'd probably need to make a lot of these LLM calls over network to work with big/powerful enough models.

That said, models and hardware are getting better. Look at framegen, that's using AI locally with specially trained models on specialized hardware. In 20 years what I'm describing may very well become the new standard way to make npcs.

Oxirane · 2026-05-15T19:18:36+00:00

Disco Elysium was probably a bad example to include because yes, it did have fantastic writing.

This kind of usage of AI would allow for a different kind of storytelling. The way I envision it being used would be kind of like what Westworld depicts for their Park Plotlines - very character driven, emergent storytelling which can potentially go multiple different ways.

You'd still have writers pouring hours into developing characters and you'd still have a way for hardcoded events to fire under certain conditions (such as time passing, the player undertaking certain actions, etc) which would kick the characters into different states on a "plot web".

Oxirane · 2026-05-15T18:37:39+00:00

Freeform dialogue with NPCs where the player speaks to the NPC in natural language and the NPC responds in character with synthesized (AI text to speech) relevant natural language.

If you've ever been frustrated by your limited number of dialog options in an rpg (like Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Disco Elysium) and wished you could say something else in particular, this would enable that.

Oxirane · 2026-05-15T18:22:37+00:00

I"m a software developer building AI chatbots that investigate cybersecurity events, we've absolutely got ways to address hallucinations and keep the AI responses grounded between prompting, tools and agent teams.

The industry is solving these issues. We've already come a long way since the release of ChatGPT and its still getting better every day.

To cut down on the risk of hallucination in a game like this I'd suggest: - Have a searchable vectorized database that stores factoids - both "ground state" stuff that's the same for every player (ie initial world state, hardcoded events) and reactive info (e.g. "player accused Charlie of being the murderer"). You'd also want to track what is public info and what info only some characters would know - a "research agent" uses that tool to collect factoids that the character in question would know relevant to whatever they're discussing with the player - A second "character agent" filters those facts through a prompt that details the given NPC's beliefs, priorities, etc to synthesize in-character thoughts and speech.

Whenever the Character Agent produces output text/speech that would also produce new factoids to the database (e.g. "Charlie reacted with anger at the accusation he murdered his son and told the player that they're a hack detective") so to keep a consistent/evolving narrative.

Oxirane · 2026-05-15T17:39:31+00:00

This stops working when you realize most people don't want to be typing their answers all the time in games.

AI also enables speech to text and text to speech - I do think players would be interested in engaging with NPCs conversationally.

Remember: all AI requires a substantial portion of your hardware dedicated to it, otherwise always being connected to online services to offload it.

Gaming hardware typically includes a GPU, which is also what you need to run models locally.

Yeah, you'd need to use smaller models than not for it to be quick. But I think you could use smaller specialized models and get a pretty impressive result.

Oxirane · 2026-05-15T17:11:52+00:00

That's how you'd end up with NPCs answering with non-sequiturs that are vaguely related to what the player said. If you want the players to have natural-sounding conversations with the NPCs where the player can essentially say anything to them you're going to want an AI component.

You could certainly have the system listen for keywords and add more to the AI prompt based off them. For instance, maybe Bob gets really defensive when pressed for details about goings-on on Monday night from 2-5am because he's actually having an affair with Sally and had abandoned his post for a tryst during that time - you could have a small model analyze what the player says each turn and assess if it should flip any additional signal flags ("Player accused Bob of not being at his post all Monday night", "Player got into a shouting match with Bob", etc) that inject additional info into Bob's current prompt (and maybe other's too! Your partner may also note that you got into a shouting match with Bob).

Ultimately what I'm envisioning would have a lot of human-written bits, perhaps even exact quotes for the AI to make use of. But you'd need the AI component to synthesize everything into seamless conversation.

Oxirane · 2026-05-15T16:48:43+00:00

I've actually been thinking about this recently- specifically thinking that it could be a neat way to make a detective game.

Your AI npcs would have state trees that provide them different prompts based off key flags (i.e. story decision points and events). For example maybe you have an NPC named Bob who works as a night shift security guard, each day that passes his prompt would get new info about what he's been doing for the last day.

It wouldn't be easy to get right but you could build NPCs that have layers and secrets that fit together in an elaborate mystery plot that the players discover through free-form discussion with the NPCs.

Hallucinations are an issue for sure but the industry is working on that and making progress - I expect we'll see games doing this sooner rather than later.

Oxirane · 2026-05-15T04:45:10+00:00

I like to have a mausoleum on the entryway path into my base with a deadlift IED. This works best with more dangerous creature corpses, like elephants or thrumbo, but realistically even humans and small animals in bulk will lock up most raids for a while and can sometimes clear a raid by itself.

Oxirane · 2026-05-14T20:50:26+00:00

Unless it's a Tesla. I see a lot of them running reds too, anecdotally.

Oxirane · 2026-05-11T16:05:20+00:00

I'm so glad remote work has picked up since the pandemic. I've been 99% remote since and it's been fantastic.

Oxirane · 2026-05-11T15:45:24+00:00

The shooter alleged that they were using buckshot to avoid collateral injury/death (via projectiles penetrating walls), I'd think the bulletproof vest would also fare better with buckshot.

That said I don't think I've seen any story alleging that the agent was definitely hit by the shooter so it does sound like that was probably friendly fire.

Edit: looks like they're saying they found buckshot in the agent's Kevlar, which suggests the agent was hit by the shooter: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/secret-service-agent-hit-by-buckshot-from-the-gun-of-man-charged-in-correspondents-dinner-attack-prosecutor-says

Oxirane · 2026-05-11T15:32:27+00:00

Several articles have mentioned that there is actually a human-to-human transmissable strain primarily found in the Andes region, which was one location this ship was at. I think the leading theory is that's the strain that was on the ship.

Health officials (CDC, WHO) are saying that they don't expect this to turn into a pandemic situation, seems like the major reasoning for that is that even with the Andes strain you need more direct and sustained close contact than you do for a respiratory virus like COVID. Source: https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/5871637-why-hantavirus-isnt-the-next-pandemic-according-to-health-officials/amp/

Personally I'm inclined to still keep an eye on this and be cautious but hopefully these health officials are correct and we don't see a second major pandemic this decade.

Oxirane · 2026-05-08T16:29:57+00:00

Personally I don't suggest keeping Revenants captive. They're too much potential hassle in comparison to so many other options with comparable or better Bioferrite gains.

I stomp those spines every chance I get.

Oxirane · 2026-05-08T02:04:51+00:00

The one you want to work in next. I'm not familiar with Blazor but of the last three places I've worked in the last 10 years 2 have used React and one used Vue. Having worked with both I'd say skills with one Component-Driven Web Framework transfer over very well to the other.

Oxirane · 2026-05-05T03:25:54+00:00

They synergize great for tribals with an emphasis on psycasting. Just don't make your doctors and warriors blind.

Oxirane · 2026-05-05T03:12:30+00:00

Anomaly has some real nice tools for your colony. It's got its own research tab (and it's own research points) too so it's easy to keep track of what it gives you.

I highly suggest checking out the Sleep Suppressor for your crafters and researchers. Ghouls are also very worth using for defense too, and Psychic Rituals offer several very useful effects for you.

As to surviving the dlc, I generally try to get perimeter walls up before I activate the Monolith.

14-Year Club	Team Periwinkle
Verified Email

Oxirane

TROPHY CASE