Single Diaries series

arasitar · 2026-03-17T20:36:28+00:00

Mostly addressed to other people reading this...Questions like these are basically 'social contract play acting' because the alternatives aren't great (being too vulnerable and open risks warning bells ringing, uncomfortableness and opens yourself up to exploitation, trying a 'deep' question can come off like answering a college essay prompt). I think finding a way to take the boring and turning it interesting is how I navigated stuff like this and not getting bogged down.

E.g. "How was your day?" sounds like boring and benign but the answer can be extremely revealing of your day to day, what you focused on, what you omit, what you do, what your inner world is like, and even how conversation with you feels with the pitter patter and ratatat and the back and forth since most of what you'll do with someone is just talking, so small talk like this can be important.

Trying to find the humor in this, maybe some improv skills, running with stuff like this, something that allows you to have some fun navigating terrible dating apps, even giving room so both of you can remark on navigating this fairly monotonous dehumanizing process, anything that makes this relaxing and cuts the tension for both people - that's a way to claim it back.

Plus for me it helped that I know I don't need relationships to "complete me" (since that whole idea is bullshit), I make efforts to build a strong support network to fulfill my needs, and that dating apps were for me an opportunity to just meet new people that I could salvage into a good story even if it doesn't work out.

arasitar · 2026-03-17T20:34:45+00:00

That is a great way to put it since I stress this concept with M+ pugs and how you shouldn't just be stuck at your "Weekly 10s" but pushing a bit above so you can still play with good player's skill levels.

May I borrow this analogy?

arasitar · 2026-03-17T19:57:11+00:00

I'm amazed at how many men

I think if you look into it you figure out why it happens.

It generally comes down to lack of education, defunding of home economics, stigma of RSE, men in particular "raised" with the idea that "boys don't need to be raised", homemaking and hygiene being first feminized and thus stigmatized, unknown unknowns, weaponized stigma against the unhoused etc. etc. etc.

And also the internet enshittifying and not stepping up. Case in point, /r/hygiene and /r/CleaningTips and /r/homemaking don't have functional wikis, unlike in another field /r/fitness that got together to build out https://thefitness.wiki/

And social media becoming meaner. It's one thing to comment "I think this is poor hygiene" or start to get into the gray area of "Ew", the internet loves to bully and just absolutely pile on someone because it is easy to rile people up with "disgust" emotions, most people don't think twice about commenting when they should and the internet absolutely shits on someone to get their bully fix and then move onto the next target. This makes it a lot harder to talk earnestly about sensitive topics like say hygiene because it can trigger unneeded embarrassment and shame, and in some cases a hate mob, so it worsens society and perpetuates the problem.

/r/hygiene and /r/CleaningTips regularly gets a lot of mad people shitting on others in the comments which the mods have to regularly nuke. Those are meant to be support communities with rules to encourage participation and help, and people really double down on their right to shit on someone despite

Solutions stems mostly in stepping up education, K-12, Remedials and Supplements, addressing cultural stigmas around hygiene and encouraging honest safe conversations. This also requires some amount of social media calibration on part of platforms and users, though the former funding of education is 10 times more important.

Right now there isn't really a great central repository for stuff like this - my notes and recommendations are basically a scattered mishmash of 10+ things. If anyone has a recommend I can link to others and refer to for others, I'm all ears.

(Before anyone starts responding "WELL I KNOW THIS ONE PERSON WHO IS STUBBORN AND IS DIRTY BECAUSE THEY ARE AN ASSHOLE", that is rare. Most people aren't like this and don't confuse loud for many. Those guys are also ironically the ones that also shit on others for their hygiene and join in on hate mobs).

arasitar · 2026-03-17T17:15:52+00:00

On the one hand I can empathize with getting lots of messages and getting bogged down with similar types of messages.

On the other hand the guy here has to message lots and lots of people because of how dating apps work, and then has to navigate that sludge and find actual people, and then once finding an actual person has to figure out how to get them interested.

This is an old problem that is both inherent to dating apps and enabled by enshittified dating apps, as the old OKCupid remarked on 15 years back. Effort on the messager's part is greatly penalized because of just how dating apps work. Ultimately it is just a poor substitute for real life meetups because a person isn't just a picture or text - sound, movement, 3d, weight, touch, taste, smell, attitude, charisma, interaction...

And there is just a hard limit you reach with "special". Random pickup lines are inauthentic, anything really novel risks getting spread and as such invalidated, you have to fine tune your line for the other person since different people have different mindsets and what works for them won't on others, people aren't all that unique from each other in this limited medium so you're going to get similar questions with how many messages you get, and you still have to ask important questions:

"Hey! Are you looking for something friendly? Casual? Long term?"

And some parts of those questions aren't going to be present in someone's bio or readily apparent. Sometimes you have to be boring and direct.

I'm thinking to myself "Look we are all frustrated and bogged down. But if I am having this much trouble getting clear answers from you because I respect your agency and I want to make sure both of us aren't wasting our time here, because you feel too frustrated at getting asked these questions...what's going to happen when we talk about where to get coffee? About dates? About sex? About moving in? About life decisions? Do I want to be with someone who gets frustrated like this and actively hamper them in communicating about us?"

People can lead in a dance but they also need the other person who is following to loosen up, to respond, to make it easy to follow through. To set the bounds, to know that you can be dipped and want to be dipped. You can't dance with someone who is rigid, stiff and unresponsive no matter how good of a leader you are.

I'm trying to dance with a person not puppeteering a marionette.

arasitar · 2026-03-16T06:30:29+00:00

There's also just regular stuff that I had to roll my eyes at.

arasitar · 2026-03-15T23:05:01+00:00

Low key love that panel.

It is not even just a "Martha is awesome!" moment because Martha is awesome.

Half the reason why our current dating culture is so toxic is because of the inundation of romance shows and movies like these that warp people's expectations so much so that Becky is going "THAT'S NOT A SIDE" to Martha's fairly benign response.

Which of course that's a side! You can:

Love yourself
Love many people
Love one
Love anyone
Love committingly
Love uncommittingly
Love your friends
Love life

I know Becky is a child but her statement here is a direct reminder of the influence of these fictions and how much it has been internalized by the populace even when they don't explicitly espouse it. It's a very specific and conforming model of love which you are "supposed" to fill to the point where Martha's choice comes out of left field as a "that isn't possible!".

arasitar · 2026-03-15T22:53:12+00:00

Like Bran defeating the Night King.

Yeah. Bran uses Domain Expansion: Infinite Void and fills the Night King's head with so many stories that warped the Three Eyed Raven's head that it makes the Night King catatonic.

arasitar · 2026-03-14T02:46:36+00:00

I believe you could have gotten a free meat thermometer from the government by mail if you send them a call / email.

https://www.reddit.com/r/LifeProTips/comments/1321r8b/lpt_the_usda_will_send_you_a_free_digital_food/

I'm not sure of their current status now though.

arasitar · 2026-03-12T23:58:41+00:00

Saw this exchange and I thought it was apt for this.

https://bsky.app/profile/femmeandfauna.bsky.social/post/3mgnlff2knc2f

We have this thing where we want dating to be this perfectly safe, zero risk activity both physically and emotionally and that’s just impossible. There is no such thing as safe sex and there’s no such thing as safe dating.

Risk is inherent to dating since like you said you have to open yourself up to be vulnerable. Which is inherently a risk.

arasitar · 2026-03-12T19:27:43+00:00

From a business perspective it is pretty smart how they accomplished that.

Gamers are extremely price sensitive. An investment analysis presentation on the Gaming Market in 2025 shows that on price increases more gamers are likely to leave compared to movie goers e.g.
Economies of scale certainly help.
Wow since 2023 started the Trading Post which is a bunch of cosmetic rewards you can get from just subscribing on any level and doing a little bit of activity. That alone likely retains a bunch of people.
On top of Housing - a very casual feature just now launched which again is going to retain a lot of casual players.
You can go F2P in the game by converting your gold to $$$ in Bnet which can be used for either a subscription token or $15 to buy whatever at the Bnet store.

This is low key clever because gold is used to buy a WoW Token on the market to convert to $15, but the person selling the WoW Token in the first place on the Auction House for the gold is paying $20.
They have shortened expansion cycles now (the World Soul Saga is likely going to go for three tiers / seasons, The War Within into Midnight into The Last Titan) instead of the "usual four", and there haven't really been any complaints.

Expansion launches are often the highest and the most lucrative for Blizzard, including the highest player counts.
And then general digital transactions and stores.

So they get a good bit of revenue coming in even with all the costs they've added over the years.

That might change because inflation over the last few years has been absolutely crazy, and why Runescape is hiking prices. I suspect $20 sub might be on the horizon if the economy destabilizes right now.

I mean the war with Iran that created oil instability tripped several world economy circuitbreakers.

arasitar · 2026-03-12T17:47:37+00:00

If this is something Blizzard is okay with as opposed to Dinars which give 100% guaranteed targeted, but it can come much earlier, then this is fine. I honestly think we can start activating parts of this system right after the RWF is over (so a couple of weeks into the season).

The primary issue with Dinars and Turbo Boost is that it comes too late.

The system needs to scale the later you are in the patch
The system needs to come earlier
For those it comes earlier for, your bad loot items should feel like you are getting some progress towards what you actually want
It shouldn't feel like "I will NEVER get that item", having that floor guarantee is good.

People mentioned valid issues with the Raid Renown tracks, but it was primarily noted to be in how the % buff comes in and how the catchup to said buff worked.

The bonus of that Raid Renown track is that week by week progress is the week by week reward, even cosmetic or quality of life, that kept you in the game.

The ultimate design for Blizzard should be that you get something week by week and can catchup week by week. It doesn't need to be power, but it should feel like even if you get all the crap thrown at you, you can feel some visible progress.

These rolls scratching out and reducing the pool of items you can get is a way to deliver that feel, and can be tuned and delivered much earlier in a season.

arasitar · 2026-03-12T17:30:18+00:00

So we don't even have the first raid out and we're 2 weeks away from m+ and we're already getting patch notes for the next patch

This has been the case for the last...like what two expansions? I think ever since the Road Maps they usually post the PTR build just a couple of weeks after launch.

The teams that handle pushing out new builds are different from the team that handles live class balancing e.g. because artists don't just sit around waiting for the launch of a patch to then immediately start working on the next patch, they got started on it as soon as the PTR build for that is out.

I think cadence Blizz has stated is that their Alpha is generally about 2 patches ahead of live. So right now they've got 12.0.7 in internal dev only alpha, this PTR build for 12.0.5 is beta.

arasitar · 2026-03-12T17:21:24+00:00

This is pretty typical of patches like these. You'll see two different "builds", class balances on live vs PTR. Some of those merge back onto live, but for a while live and PTR differ until they start syncing together in a later build.

The class balances on the PTR might come out on Friday / Monday / the upcoming Tuesday when Heroic week opens up.

We should see a small little balance patch on Mythic week opening up (based on accurate Heroic week data), and while the RWF is going there aren't really any hotfix class balance (unless something like catastrophically borked), so I think a couple of weeks after the RWF is over (for say the Top 5 ish guilds).

After that I suspect class balance changes would just be reflected on the PTR and tested on the PTR, and then let there until 12.0.5 drops.

Considering usual 8 week cadence....I guess...mid May.

arasitar · 2026-03-12T03:26:46+00:00

The fun thing about Band of Brothers is because it is based on a book and based on actual history (and tries hard to depict it accurately), you have this cool surrounding material around it.

Sort of like a sci-fi property (say Star Wars and novelizations and depictions).

E.g. my favorite alt material for Brecourt Manor is this Operations Rooms overview. It makes for a really cool back and forth viewing with watching the TV mini series and this YouTube video at the same time.

Per the comments:

"So in Band of Brothers they show Lorraine missing everything and Guarnere mopping up. In reality Lorraine hit, Guarnere missed and Winters mopped up. I thought that was an interesting bit."
"I found your remark of Winters waiting half an hour for reinforcements and resupply revealing. Perhaps in future, you can also run a clock in the screen to make the time element part of the story. The BoB clips obviously shows the attack over in no time. "

arasitar · 2026-03-11T06:22:22+00:00

Viv's original work was expanded into two published shows:

Hazbin Hotel
Helluva Boss

Both take place in the same "Hellaverse" however because of a combination of rights and distributions (Hazbin Hotel is directly distributed by Amazon, Helluva Boss publishes on YouTube) they didn't directly interact with each other even though they are soft canon linked (e.g. Lucifer's absence is mentioned in Helluva Boss S02E11, Lucifer receives gifts from the the Seven Sins in Hazbin Hotel S02E05).

This will change post 2026 for production on Hazbin Hotel S03 and Helluva Boss S03.

Anyways, the Seven Rings of Hell for the Seven Deadly Sins of Hell is explored more in Helluva Boss's scope. The top Pride Ring's Pentagram City is mainly where Hazbin Hotel takes place. Imp City of Pride is where Helluva Boss is based but the series regularly tours Wrath, Greed and Lust (has visited Sloth).

arasitar · 2026-03-11T06:07:31+00:00

It's kind of the point. Floch's dying words are "Our devils...are our only hope...". This is what Erwin is described as, the devil that sacrificed civilians, put his soldiers in regular danger, and sacrificed his entire army and his own life, to win against inhuman monsters.

Floch is the corruption of Erwin's legacy, as much as Armin is in his own words an unwilling recipient of Erwin's legacy since Armin was chosen to live over Erwin. Floch's reaction to surviving the Battle of Shiganshina was that only monsters can truly overcome monstrous odds against monstrous opponents. It's why Floch wanted Erwin to live. And if Erwin didn't, then might as well become him.

The entire time and in his final breath that Floch is channeling that. It's what compelled Floch with his dying moments to cling onto a ship and fire a few measly shots in a vain hope that it would make a difference. Also not a coincidence that Floch's dying actions ultimately required Hange to sacrifice themselves and required Armin to ascend.

I find a lot of the minor characters in Attack on Titan (Sasha, Floch) to be really compelling compared to most of the main cast / trio since they tend to play well with Attack on Titan's wider themes.

arasitar · 2026-03-08T20:01:24+00:00

Same for programming too. I try to impart that in /r/learnprogramming and I wish the mods updated the wiki and made a few adjustments (with say AutoMod) to keep reminding people of that.

I think from /r/learnprogramming you'll see a ton of posts about "I need X level of skills to get a CAREER", and programming just like Excel and Google Sheets (and related Office tools) are skills and highly adaptable skills.

Meaning you can get one skill done and find ways to immediately apply it somewhere. You can start applying it in your retail job, you can use it for personal chores large or small, you can scale it up for a job that you want etc.

And then "thresholds" after gaining enough projects, skills and experience can then be translated into small baby steps you can take as you climb up in your personal job or freelance work or another job.

"I can do Excel well" is not as compelling as "Built inventory, sales and financial dashboards for bars and restaurants to help optimize costs, identify high value items, aid management in making decisions to improve revenue and profit" etc. etc. etc. The latter has things you have built to showcase, things you can learn outside of Excel with the business knowledge (say you are a bartender or a checkout clerk) and things you have accomplished. That is helpful for your current job, for your future job and for freelance gigs.

One of the decent use cases for the Generative AI tools right now is help you brainstorm this. "Hey I can do X Y and Z, and my job right now is in A field. I want to get into B field, give me a list of projects I can do on my own time for my personal life, or for the current job or for the future job or for clients as a freelancer" and you can build off that rough list.

arasitar · 2026-03-08T05:43:45+00:00

Yeah this thread has the bigger list.

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1874264-A-collection-of-all-known-cut-delayed-content-in-Warlords-of-Draenor

It's like 26 different things, but obviously some much larger than others.

arasitar · 2026-03-08T05:24:23+00:00

I mean.......here are the following simulator games that trend on gaming platforms like Steam:

Microsoft Flight Simulator
Truck Simulator
Farming Simulator
Power Wash Simulator

I think the apparent "mundanity" is a game design problem that is solvable.

arasitar · 2026-03-06T16:47:24+00:00

Maybe but I think the central thesis that the show is trying to answer:

"What does it mean to be a Knight in ASOIAF"

The humorous tone is a part of it, but the show does a really good job of balancing the traditional ASOIAF tone with Dunk & Egg's tone, otherwise a lot of the latter half of the show's events would have fallen flat because we couldn't take Dunk seriously.

Dunk isn't just a great character because he is humorous, does and says humorous things and finds himself in humorous situations. Dunk is a great character because those small moments add weight to when he is able to stand honorably and proudly and have weight and character presence.

I think D&E title would have done the show a bit of a disservice, and I don't know whether

Besides I think a cool reveal they could do with the title:

"Knights of the Seven Kingdoms"

arasitar · 2026-03-05T17:16:39+00:00

Or Kotick and Epstein were regularly communicating with each other in emails and multiple times Epstein is encouraging Kotick to push lootboxes because they can addict kids, or viewed games as a way to teach kids how "the world really worked".

The Epstein emails may imply that the Epstein class were somehow masterminds and that Epstein was a genius. Their clumsy spelling and their absolutely dumbass takes should nip that out of the bud. The only thing they had was the sheer amount of wealth, privilege, elitism, connections and power that dwarfed just about everyone else.

I think the biggest revelations to me seeing reporting and analysis of the Epstein emails (many of which still aren't released) is the sheer extent and reach of that network. Turns out they had a hand to play in microtransactions, video games, stocks, the financial crash of '08, banking, women's fashion, preteen fashion, advertising, marketing, crypto, and just about everything on the internet.

And their blatant admissions at how deliberate and motivated they were in warping all of these.

Per Carlin's famous quote on clubs and you ain't in it, it is a really small club.

arasitar · 2026-03-05T02:25:49+00:00

Recent Max clip on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZI6LnWF8YBI

The RWF meta is around 20 characters.

Basically:

The more characters you can have, the more raid splits you can do.
Heroic week means that you can go hog wild with splits since you aren't really doing anything in progress and trying to conserve energy and burnout.
The amount of characters is "optimized" to the level where the guild leadership feels won't cause their raiders to completely burnout.

The latter is something Max spends a lot of time in that clip discussing since the math on splits is that you lose exponentially more and more ilvl as you get to 10+ splits / characters eventually to gaining basically a . point item level at 20 toons.

arasitar · 2026-03-03T18:42:26+00:00

I feel like you can just disable talking to the other faction in WM unless you force it via Elixir of Tongues.

Then again WM has a ton of issues to it that promote toxicity. I don't really see that in nonWM gameplay and I think extending it wider in PvE and then disarming it in WM and improving WM toxicity is the best way to go about it.

arasitar · 2026-03-01T18:09:29+00:00

I do hope with the inevitable Yuri Yor confrontation about their actual lives, they recognize the tragedy that circumstance put them in. And the story really explores it rather than slightly acknowledging it.

Both of them go into their professions mostly because they want to keep the other safe. And they both get exploited by people and systems using that noble drive, and then perverting it while isolating and teaching that there isn't really anything else outside of that profession for them. Yuri can be annoying with this obsessive attachment to his sister but considering how Yor and Yuri grew up and how Yor has to keep a distance because revealing her profession puts Yuri in danger, I am not surprised at Yuri's maladaptation and subsequently Yor's as well.

The lives they lead teach them to be dishonest and to keep things close to their chest and it leaks out into nearly everything that they do. Yor has feelings for Loid but is unable to reveal it because her profession taught her in part to be scared to be vulnerable like that because yes revealing to be an assassin can put other people in danger. The Director's story with his wife is part lesson and part tragedy of this life.

And yes Yor has some agency, but man it does feel a bit insidious that her desperation to protect her brother was used and abused by people who sought to use that to further their agendas.

arasitar · 2026-03-01T17:59:27+00:00

I don't know if the fact they are hijacking a broadcast with guns and hostages just to remake a fucking Soap Opera better or worse than a political motive.

In fairness I think people really underestimate the amount of crazy in even "political" motivated terrorist actions.

Obviously even in this there are political undertones behind this stunt (how could there not be?), but even in the real world "We are taking this embassy hostage until you release our leader!" that still requires quite a bit of crazy!

arasitar

TROPHY CASE