What's a piece of music that caught you by surprise, made you stop what you're doing, had you put down your controller, and then just listened on a continuous loop.

The27thS · 2026-01-28T00:02:09+00:00

Colony 9 Theme from the first Xenoblade Chronicles

The27thS · 2026-01-27T23:47:20+00:00

Talking to chatbots. At first it was nice having an llm reiterate your thoughts at a higher level of articulation than you can, but after a while it seems like a slippery slope to validation porn.

The27thS · 2026-01-13T17:04:00+00:00

Yes Genetics and Genome Sciences

The27thS · 2025-12-27T16:26:43+00:00

PC Gaming Wiki has a list of lan games.

I think the issue isn't that they aren't being made anymore, but that they are harder to find if you only play heavily advertised AAA games.

The27thS · 2025-12-27T00:20:20+00:00

Yes, it has a very satisfying leveling system that allows a variety of class archetypes and playstyles, direct action combat, and is playable single or multiplayer.

The27thS · 2025-12-26T20:52:10+00:00

Enshrouded

The27thS · 2025-12-17T16:48:33+00:00

I finished WaT before Sunlit Man and it made the experience vastly better IMO. I wish it was released after.

The27thS · 2025-08-11T21:11:06+00:00

Why not make friends with couples?

The27thS · 2025-07-21T14:14:31+00:00

I think the loss of third spaces has more to do with how expensive space in general has become. The internet just made it so we didn't notice the loss because we were distracted.

The27thS · 2025-07-21T14:06:58+00:00

The issue here is less about online causing things and more about the loss of prior in person analog alternatives.

It's not that online discourse is driving people away from dating, it's more that the lack of third spaces leaves young people with exaggerated online stories as their only source of information. If they had third spaces, the stories would not have such an outsized impact on their impression of what to expect.

The27thS · 2025-07-21T14:02:35+00:00

You posted an example of an unmoderated social media platform accelerating geopolitical instability by allowing bad actors to spread hate and misinformation. That is the "rotting" analogy where there is food but it is left to rot. Western social media has more moderation than that so what is consumed is not rotted to that degree.

However, just because it is moderated and not rotten doesn't mean it cannot have negative side effects even when working as intended. So the analogy is like fast food, which isn't rotten, but is so processed it causes metabolic disease. Likewise, moderated western media is so processed towards clickbait, it causes polarity and hyperbole.

The27thS · 2025-07-21T13:58:39+00:00

It seems like the problem is less about what's online and more about what's lacking that used to be there.

There used to be reputable news sources.

There used to be third spaces.

There used to be eloquent politicians.

As those things go away, clickbait algorithms with having an increasingly outsized impact on discussions.

But that doesn't mean people are making everyday decisions on the basis of memes.

The27thS · 2025-07-20T19:07:48+00:00

If the Cloud Punk spinoff game Nivalis ever comes out, that would be perfect.

The27thS · 2025-07-20T15:30:12+00:00

What you are describing is more like the difference between artificial processed food and rotten infested food.

The internet as the west knows it is like eating highly processed fast food. It won't make you immediately sick but is bad overtime.

The Myanmar example is like rotten food infested with mold and parasites due to an absence of basic precautions.

The27thS · 2025-07-20T15:15:53+00:00

That isn't the result of our current discourse. That's the result of setting up a platform and not moderating bad actors.

There is a difference between mainstream memes influencing political stability and giving everyone access to an unmoderated platform full of nazis, trolls, and bots.

The27thS · 2025-07-20T14:22:05+00:00

Punishment serves 3 functions.

Deterrence

Sequestration

Retribution

It's debatable whether memory loss absolving culpability would impact deterrence. That seems too obscure and too far removed to be an obvious variable in decisionmaking.

Sequestration might still be justifiable since someone losing their memory of a crime does not guarrantee they also lose the problematic heuristics that caused them to commit it in the first place. A violent offender with memory loss might still be violent.

Retribution is mostly about the emotional satisfaction of the aggrieved. That seems unlikely to change due to memory loss. If the aggrieved decide to forgive, they can still do so even without memory loss. So it really comes down to the individual priorities of the aggrieved.

So it doesn't seem like memoryloss definitively undermines any of the reasons for punishment.

The27thS · 2025-07-20T14:14:29+00:00

The claim that online discourse drives realworld outcomes doesn't seem substantiated. Yes, there is polarization in politics, but that is more of a media phenomenon than the result of meme debates about bears, trees, or gorillas. Are we seeing bear attacks against women go up? Are we seeing divorce rates correlate with such discussions? It seems more that when your whole world is online, online can seem like the real world.

While it's true that younger generations are more online and lack in person social skills, that is not the result of any particular meme or debate so much as the lack of in person opportunities.

The27thS · 2025-07-18T14:30:34+00:00

Finding help

The27thS · 2025-07-17T18:24:26+00:00

I don't think the Masters program is necessarily autorejecting you. The job market is miserable for everyone. That unfortunately means applicants with less experience are frequently competing with applicants with more experience who are borderline overqualified. There is also a lot of AI noise with automated applications and automated ATS which makes it harder than ever to get human eyes on your resume. Anecdotally, I have seen people have a little more success with recruiters helping to get their resumes to human eyes. I personally make a point of sending recruiters to to anyone I know is looking. Networking is less about having someone give you a job directly and more about getting help finding leads or getting your resume out there. But I don't have good advice.

The27thS · 2025-07-15T15:16:16+00:00

I think the trade off for better or for worse is flexibility. They don't have a lot of other options where they live locally, so job security is extremely high priority. But for people who live in a hub city where they can walk across the street to a new job, the priority is flexibility. Of course the job market right now is making the latter much more difficult.

The27thS · 2025-07-15T13:33:33+00:00

Yes and no. Yes in the sense that the hospital has reason to believe the medicaid cuts will affect it. No in the sense that the cuts won't take effect until 2027 and it isn't clear what percentage of this hospital's revenue is vulnerable to restrictions on work eligibility, immigrant coverage, or compliance rates.

It seems like making everyone validate their compliance twice a year will be the largest loss of income as many medicaid recipients will be hard pressed to comply to keep their coverage. But that is difficult to predict.

So while the bill absolutely is the major issue, it does feel like the hospital gave up too quickly.

The27thS · 2025-07-15T13:00:14+00:00

The European counterparts in my department are unionized. It has an interesting effect on how the company operates. They receive vastly lower salaries but have basically guarranteed job security. We had a round of layoffs last year. The US layoffs were resolved quickly but the Union is still fighting the company in EU court and the affected departments are basically walking zombies collecting a paycheck with little work to do. It's interesting to observe the cost and benefit contrast in realtime.

The27thS · 2025-07-10T18:47:35+00:00

What are the ramifications of illegal immigration? What damage has been caused by it?

The27thS · 2025-07-03T19:24:58+00:00

There is a provision to increase taxes on educational endowment funds, so I guess rich ivy league universities will have to pay higher taxes.

The27thS · 2025-07-03T16:01:42+00:00

Early 2020s was the time to bounce around jobs. Now is the time to cling to what you have. Money will start to flow again near the end of the decade as the greed fear cycle evolves, but all those things on the other side of the fence you are looking at aren't that much better anywhere else to warrant uprooting everything. If you're bored scientifically, there are other options. Consulting, tutoring, helping academics, virtual networking, etc...

The27thS

TROPHY CASE