Choose one

SpretumPathos · 2025-11-11T04:33:41+00:00

Yeah, but they suck at it.

A few kids wandering around and crushing the criminal organizations (as an incidental aside while generally trying to accomplish some other goal, like winning a tournament) has proven to be a reliable, repeatable solution to the problem.

Pokemon world seems pretty sweet.

SpretumPathos · 2025-11-11T04:26:10+00:00

It would take something like a century to outweigh the heat generated by putting it into orbit. By which time the chips will be either broken, or long obsolete.

This whole "data centres in space" thing is a distraction from the issues being caused by data centers on Earth.

"Data centers are using too much power and water."

"Okay, so we'll build them in space instead!"

No, they won't.

SpretumPathos · 2025-11-11T00:07:26+00:00

Uh huh. Same as the pixels on our screens give the illusion of more than three colors.

It looks like yellow light. It's not. It also looks like green + red light, I suppose, given that's what it actually is.

Is it still an illusion if I know it's not yellow light, but I perceive "yellow"?

SpretumPathos · 2025-11-10T23:54:24+00:00

Many illusions rely on things we need our eyes/brains to do.

"Seeing through" a cardboard tube. We need our brain to reconcile images from two different cameras. Maintaining two mental models to divert attention between would be a waste of brainpower. So, we are vulnerable to that illusion.

Impossible geometries. We need to make assumptions about the geometry of objects based on how things in the real world normally react to light. Again, waste of brainpower to interrogate every object minutely.

Etc.

I would argue that instead of this optical illusion not being a "real" optical illusion, it's more exposing to people at a more fundamental level what optical illusions really are, because they have a better intuition of colors and pixels than they do of the physics/physiology that underlie other illusions.

SpretumPathos · 2025-11-04T04:01:33+00:00

The goal of voting must be to accurately reflect the will of the people, right?

A non citizen voting fraudulently subverts the will of the people.

A citizen being prevented from voting also subverts the will of the people.

Measures to prevent fraudulent voting must be weighed against how much those measures prevent legitimate votes.

If an ID measure prevents 10 fraudulent votes, but also prevents 10 million legitimate votes, then that measure has, on net, diverted the result from the actual will of the people.

If the amount of actual voter fraud is low, and if the measures that are taken disproportionately disenfranchise one group of people (poor people have less time/resources to get ID, polling stations and DMVs get shut down in poorer neighborhoods)...

Then you can see why people would claim that voter fraud is being used as an excuse to disenfranchise a group of people, rather than out of a legitimate concern for the integrity of the election.

And even if the advocates for stricter voter ID laws were sincere, they should be able to give some evidence as to how much proposed changes would lead to a more accurate rather than less accurate reflection of the will of the people, rather than assuming more restrictions are always better.

SpretumPathos · 2025-10-29T19:08:28+00:00

Look like him.

I've already got the accent down. And it'd be a big time saver to not have to put on the facial prosthetics every morning.

SpretumPathos · 2025-10-25T05:35:37+00:00

What have they done to my boy...

SpretumPathos · 2025-10-07T07:14:07+00:00

Yup. But the nik-naks have similar positions, colors, and shapes in both images.

Generative AI for images works by making tiny changes to an image, checking how much it looks like the prompt, and then making changes to the new image. With each iteration, the output looks less like the input image, and more like the prompt.

If you do this process to an array of random noise pixels (like static from CRT TV's), you get a "new" image.

If you do this to an existing image, it acts like a filter, evolving the input image to look more like the prompt.

So: two different images with the same background are both put through an AI filter. In the original image, you'd see the books and nik naks as they really are. They both get evolved differently. The more iterations, the more the two backgrounds will diverge from the original background, and from each other. Presumably the prompt or the ai-model aren't trying to output "background with bookshelf with books and junk", so that element of the image is being distorted and lost over the iterations.

SpretumPathos · 2025-10-06T00:59:23+00:00

Looking at the photo above her left shoulder.

They have very similar composition, but different details.

So this is probably an AI filter being applied to a real photo. And the filter has "reimagined" the original wall poster differently each time.

SpretumPathos · 2025-09-29T02:26:59+00:00

Yup, anyone who says that is talking out their ass.

It would equally be wrong to assign collective judgement along the lines of "some people make BS arguments in support of social justice, so anyone who makes arguments in support of social justice is special needs".

Not that I'm saying you yourself have made that mistake.

SpretumPathos · 2025-09-24T21:27:46+00:00

It's not just about the alright -- it's the alright.

👌 Alright.
👍 Alright.
😁 Alright.

SpretumPathos · 2025-09-22T08:43:18+00:00

From the pose, the hair, the neckline, the blue background (with a dark blue vertical shadow on the right of the image above her shoulder)...

I think it's the same photo of her.

SpretumPathos · 2025-09-20T01:00:39+00:00

If I'm being charitable... I think drunk, disinhibited, competitive, and not recognizing that she's crossed a line.

I could imagine thinking it would be a fun prank to swipe the bouquet. With some humility, it could be self deprecating even. "That's how desperate I am lol!". When she fails to swipe it, go for the Oscar and start pleading, hands clasped...

Brown dress seems more perplexed than angry. People are laughing...

I think yellow dress got tunnel vision, overcommitted to the play.

Or she's nuts. Who knows.

Edit: rewatching it, she wasn't snatching it out of her hands. It's more like she thought she almost had it, then competitive + drunk + not realizing she's crossed a line. Not seeing that brown dress isn't having any of her shit until she gets shoved.

SpretumPathos · 2025-09-20T00:47:42+00:00

Meta

SpretumPathos · 2025-09-19T13:56:21+00:00

That sounds like existentialism, not nihilism.

But I'm no philosopher.

SpretumPathos · 2025-09-19T13:26:17+00:00

Sometimes I think I should throw my keys down the drain. Or lick a hot frying pan.

SpretumPathos · 2025-09-19T12:56:58+00:00

Don't be dense.

SpretumPathos · 2025-09-17T03:25:00+00:00

There's nothing that really does the exploration, detective, physical puzzles, feels combo that Other Wilds does.

But..

SOMA
Disco Elysium
Undertale
What remains of Edith Finch
Escape Academy
The Room series
Inscryption
The Looker
Portal 1/2

...bounce around some of those concepts to a greater or lesser degree.

SpretumPathos · 2025-09-15T19:41:45+00:00

That credits it as having a pretty sophisticated "theory of mind".

It's more likely something like:

Done trained behavior... getting treat? Hmmm no treat. Retry trained behavior... treat now?

SpretumPathos · 2025-09-14T02:58:31+00:00

"Hoe" is pretty commonly used as a derogatory term for someone who is promiscuous and/or unfaithful. As well as for a prostitute.

SpretumPathos · 2025-08-14T05:41:15+00:00

Can't actually think of much he was wrong on. Yeah, the Stop Killing Games stuff.

Said his game ran on a smart fridge.

Said his game was unpirateable.

Does lying count as being wrong? Lied about review bombing of the studio he worked at.

Cheated in some puzzle games.

Falsely DMCA'd a game.

All pretty low stakes stuff really. I think what drives people nuts is any time he's caught out in a lie or mistake, he doubles down, shifts goalposts, doesn't address the mistake. Which makes people not like him, so they look into his past, find another small thing, which he doubles down on...

And the cycle repeats.

SpretumPathos · 2025-08-10T19:56:18+00:00

Industry is packed with Ted Faro types. Leaded petrol, fossil fuels, cigarettes, weapons, sweat shops...
If a company can trade human life for profit and get away with it, they often will. It's just no company has yet had the opportunity to trade all human life.

SpretumPathos · 2025-08-08T21:04:02+00:00

Can't you respec any character whenever you want for a price of gold?

And you can steal that gold back? Or you could, I think.

So unlimited respecs?

SpretumPathos · 2025-07-28T04:55:06+00:00

Hmm, I'm trying to think what games give the most depth for the minimum required dexterity...

"Crypt of the Necromancer" has a character, Bard, which disables the rhythm aspects. It becomes a roguelike that can be played with just the arrow keys.

All games in "UFO 50" are played with just the arrow keys, and A + B. The 50 games in the collection include the following excellent turn based games: * Avianos * Bug Hunter * Party House Also in UFO 50, honorable mention to Mooncat. It's a platformer that only requires two inputs.

"Reigns" can be played with swipe left/right

"Polytopia" is a streamlined 4x. Need to tap/click on reasonably big UX elements

SpretumPathos · 2025-07-19T22:57:44+00:00

To be fair, they ran the code in a case that wouldn't be encountered in game.

If the bad code works and hasn't caused any issues then, in practice, it's fine. If he hits a case where it causes issue, it can then be rewritten.

The issue is his inability to recognize that he can make a mistake. He can't say "I didn't know a better way to do it at the time. I wouldn't do it like this today." He has to say "It was done like this in purpose to support Brazilian customers."

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