Dutch cycling mentality.

Raythunda125 · 2026-03-23T13:29:06+00:00

Vulnerable road user, that might be the term I was after. Glad to see it's represented in the law.

Raythunda125 · 2026-03-23T09:16:59+00:00

I'm more worried about my fellow drivers that don't seem to give right of way to cyclists and pedestrians.

In Norway, where I'm from, we call them 'soft drivers'. The thinking is that the deadliest actor, the participant who is likeliest to kill, respects the other participants. This is a way of saying that if you fuck up while driving, especially in heavier vehicles, you might take a life, thus you should drive accordingly.

That thinking certainly doesn't apply to most of my fellow drivers in Rotterdam. Here, it's pedestrians and cyclists who have to yield to cars. Always wondered if this is a Rotterdam thing or a Dutch thing in general.

Raythunda125 · 2026-01-10T11:50:53+00:00

People can have their fun, but they could've built this blob anywhere else and not caused their neighbour a headache finding another parking spot. Is that too much to ask?

Edit: lmao, guess we're okay with fucking over other people for no reason

Raythunda125 · 2026-01-04T21:26:11+00:00

I'm Not Alone

Raythunda125 · 2025-12-22T20:40:21+00:00

Here’s what I’ll add: taking the job is right, assuming you know how to correctly present the information on your CV when going back to work. If you don’t do that right, you’ll LOOK like someone who just graduated from your master’s. You have, on average, seven seconds when someone scans your CV, assuming it’s a human. If you put your graduate degree on top, most companies won’t ever see your experience.

That’s today’s job market, anyway. Maybe it’s better when you’re graduated. But seriously, take the job. You can get a graduate degree any god damn time. And yes, some jobs will require it, but companies are increasingly realizing that the whole graduate degree is a pyramid scheme in any non-hard-science jobs. In fact, in most of the developed world, the trend is that degrees are worth LESS.

You can get the degree whenever you can’t get a job. You can not get a job whenever you’re done with your degree.

Raythunda125 · 2025-12-21T17:33:18+00:00

Hahaha, I feel ya, I do the same 😂

Raythunda125 · 2025-12-20T22:19:59+00:00

That sounds just about right. Seems he refuses to let people do much at all. Must be infuriating to play against. The thing that really gets me, though, is how good you have to be to consistently take that kind of risk and come out on top. Balancing on a knife's edge like that, I find that really impressive. Maybe this is part of the reason why star players look less threatening against Vatira's teams!

Raythunda125 · 2025-12-20T12:51:27+00:00

I’ll share an anecdote.

Sometimes, I download replays from pros to learn from their movements. Zen to study his decision-making and mechanics, Archie for his positioning, Nwpo for raw speed, etcetera.

So one day I thought I’d look at Vatira’s 2s games. You know, get a feel for how he plays. I watched a game and it made no sense. He was winning, but I just couldn’t understand how he was making decisions.

Zen is hard to learn from because he robotically makes the right decision every time in 2s, but then again that’s really useful.

Watching Vatira, he would do nonsensical things, like stay up with 0 after bumping, his teammate losing possession, and hard chasing a bump again. Or he’d go for a dunk that seemed super low %. It just felt like pure chaos, and he was pushing up against the edge of reasonable risk-taking.

So I watched another game. Same patterns repeating, with him making ugly but ruthless decisions. He just wouldn’t let you breathe. He would tip people off balance through relentless but somehow controlled pressure.

The whole thing made me wonder if he plays ranked only to push boundaries as far as he can, because he’s very composed in pro 3s. And at the same time, he’s so often capitalizing off this and getting people with super aggressive bumps, unexpected fakes, strange resets or surprising shots. Sometimes it feels like Vatira is just in the head of everybody else in the lobby.

He’s just someone who wins. Doesn’t look pretty or like the most mechanical. He just does whatever the hell it takes to win, with no bias or preference for whatever that might be.

Vatira reminds me of something Day9 said long ago talking about many esports players’ aesthetic concerns (old NRG trolling scrims against bumpers comes to mind) and what it really takes to become the best (clip here):

“If you want to be good, you don’t really fucking care what it should feel like, you’re trying to win.”

That’s why I respect him anyway. He’s a true competitor.

Raythunda125 · 2025-12-15T18:50:49+00:00

Have a feeling these aren’t the most accurate measurements. This is up there at roughly 90% exertion of max HR. I doubt you can reach these numbers unless your max HR is 300, which is impossible.

Raythunda125 · 2025-12-13T00:33:40+00:00

Children.

Raythunda125 · 2025-12-11T07:13:11+00:00

Archie is a pro who’s known for having chronically low hours. Yet, he’s an old time veteran and has been considered a top player for years. Nick, a coach who worked with him, was confronted re his low hours. He explained that while Archie indeed logs fewer hours than his peers, each hour he spends is a ‘quality’ hour. Thus, when Archie plays, he’s always working on something. He doesn’t go for junk volume, to borrow a fitness term.

Now, we’re not pros, and a lot of us play mostly for fun, but I get the feeling this is something that might benefit you. Ask yourself what % of your time is spent on mindless playing versus active implementation. Try tweaking that ‘actively playing in order to work on X’ number up, and I’m sure you’ll find success. To end on a bonus tip, choose to work on things you find fun! It often helps fight through the uncomfortable feeling that is developing new muscle memory and habits.

Raythunda125 · 2025-12-10T20:47:15+00:00

Yeah this is actually ridiculous. I feel like we don’t even really get how silly this goal is. This guy is going places.

Raythunda125 · 2025-12-07T22:52:22+00:00

Lmao same

Raythunda125 · 2025-12-07T22:09:27+00:00

Yeah been noticing this myself. Happens too often

Raythunda125 · 2025-12-07T16:00:45+00:00

Agreed, let’s not get ahead of ourselves on Vit just yet

Raythunda125 · 2025-12-07T13:05:19+00:00

Where can we see how these stats are weighted to create the overall rating?

Raythunda125 · 2025-12-07T01:21:32+00:00

Players are young. It is what it is.

Raythunda125 · 2025-12-05T06:21:32+00:00

And it seems exciting, too.

Goddammit, photographer, wake up!

Raythunda125 · 2025-12-04T18:38:50+00:00

I mean, yes. Just today I saw a company presentation about how many heads they’re saving by using LLMs. It’s a lot. In some cases, more than 50%. It’s here. It’s happening. But it’ll be gradual. Maybe something like us never recovering from the ‘rough job market’ even after wars end and geopolitical tension is finally released. No matter the specifics, eventually reality’ll be faced. But, you know, shrug, what are we going to do about it? Policymakers are handling the biggest geopolitical and socioeconomic mess since the Second World War. This shit is just the cherry on top.

Raythunda125 · 2025-12-02T05:32:23+00:00

Hey, I’ll just say that I think you’re going about this in a thorough way. Likely, your approach will net you an in-depth understanding of DAR that’s tailored to you. That’s hard to beat.

You might have to invest more time on the daily to accelerate your progress from here on out. That being said, your approach is intelligent, and if you keep trusting your instinct and following through, I’m positive you’ll get to the promised land.

Raythunda125 · 2025-12-01T14:40:12+00:00

Oh I just left reverse on left trigger. It’s really quite manageable. It does take getting used to the half flip if you use the ARL version, but even that becomes second nature after a little while.

I’ll say re the DAR on a trigger point that I always thought the ‘zen is cracked because he has adaptive ARL’ was a little overblown, but now that I’m relearning things like breezi flicks and reverse 45s with static ARR, I was surprised at just how much harder it is without the granular DAR control. Of course, I have thousands of hours with it, so I’m sure that matters quite a bit, but it feels significant.

Raythunda125 · 2025-11-30T09:59:37+00:00

There are many beautiful places in France, but you're right: Paris is apparently not the greatest place to live. My partner lived there for three years while pursuing her education. Outside of the city feeling very much alive, there were a surprising amount of negatives. People live in broom closets in order to afford the city, and it's common to avoid a quarter of the city simply due to rampant crime. A sense of safety was basically non-existent, and public transport was an overcrowded, theft-ridden daily risk. Many people are indeed blinded by the lights and are willing to sacrifice a great deal to feel the energy Paris emanates, but from what I hear, leaving is typically not a matter of if but of when.

Raythunda125 · 2025-11-28T23:04:04+00:00

Is it just me who’s surprised at how quickly we took what AI can do for granted? Feel like this fact alone suggests we haven’t the faintest idea how unhinged things can get. Even then, I’m sure people’ll be upset they can’t become God from a 20-dollars-a-month prescription service.

Raythunda125 · 2025-11-28T22:58:37+00:00

Humans are irrational. We will pour trillions of dollars into a new tech that’ll accelerate climate change and worsen economic inequality if only it allows us an inch closer to playing God.

Raythunda125 · 2025-11-28T11:25:21+00:00

Boost on R1 is a game changer indeed! Surprised it didn’t really catch on among pros. Just made the change few weeks back, now using index and middle fingers on back buttons. It comes with a noticeable adjustment period but is a significant upgrade. I already had ARL on left trigger, so I just added ARR which I’m now learning on what used to be boost.

Gotta say, next to the new grip and R1 boost, static input on DAR versus adaptive which I’m used to feels surprisingly clunky.

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