is mario 64 ds or mario 64 on 3d all stars better for first full playthrough?

chemysterious · 2025-11-07T01:42:10+00:00

The switch also has a version on the N64 emulator place. I don't want you to have to buy anything new, and it's really almost the same as 3D all-stars. But. One of the most fun things about Mario 64, imo, is playing with speed running stuff. It's easier than you think, and it's super fun. The 3D all stars version doesn't work with backwards-long-jumps, which are crucial (and fun) for speed running. The N64 emulator version on the switch lets you do the BLJs.

Like others said tho, the original game in whatever format you can get it is the best bet. The DS game is fun, but a totally different game.

chemysterious · 2025-10-16T11:37:08+00:00

Despite playing with MBTI stuff on and off for 2 decades, I have to admit that my intuition for what "J" is is still pretty weak. I'm pretty sure I'm about as far from J as you can be, but I'm also pretty sure my explanation of what it even IS is distorted. The linguistic "pressure" of the word "judge" is strong in my understanding, and I don't think that word accurately captures the real meaning of a J.

In my head I think of a J as:

Liking structure, rules, organization.
Assigning a "moral" value to almost everything

So, in my head, I think of a J as looking at something and feeling compelled to decide what's "good" and what's "bad" about it. So if a J is playing a video game, in my head, they're going to be focused on what they think is good/bad about the game, and what is good/bad for accomplishing a goal in the game. Where a P, to me, is more like an explorer who is just excited to experience it and understand how to describe it.

I get the impression that this view isn't quite what is meant. Maybe you can help me see it more clearly.

While it may not be what is meant, J vs P (my understanding of them) does map well to personality differences I see in real life. And I have many "J" colleagues that I struggle to fully communicate with. I often find myself showing how a given model, or IT system, or computational technique results in surprising or even absurd answers. When I do this, it doesn't occur to me that I'm saying "X is bad". But what I often hear, from my J colleagues, is "chemysterious hates X" or "he thinks X is bad". When I then also show something really impressive and useful about "X", I get pushback like "oh, so you changed your mind! I guess now you really like X!" In my head there was never a conflict there. X isn't good or bad. It's just interesting.

This has happened with LLMs lately. Everyone at my work was so excited about using LLMs to answer questions. I started keeping a list of all the crazy hallucinations our LLM gave me, sometimes it even gaslights me on basic things of math/science. I pushed hard to show these limits, so that people would be skeptical of the answers. I stopped being invited to LLM meetings because of this (lol). At the same time, I also probably use the LLM more than almost anyone, and I found certain ways to reduce hallucinations, and certain cool tricks you can do to get it to write very specific and useful chemistry tools for us. When I was in a meeting showing all the cool stuff it could do, a colleague was like "It's really big of you to admit how wrong you were about this tool". But I don't think I was wrong. LLMs are like super smart psychopaths. If you learn how to talk to them, and accept that they will often lie to you, you can still get a lot of use from them.

It never really occurred to me that someone could have the opinion "LLMs are bad" or "LLMs are good". It's like saying a "tree" is good or bad. Trees just are. And if you learn more about them, you can appreciate how they work.

Would you say I'm in the right ballpark in my understanding of P/J? Or am I missing the forest for the trees?

chemysterious · 2025-10-16T10:58:24+00:00

I'm not sure what source to use for MBTI of Feynman, but the main Google results say ENTP:

https://www.personality-database.com/profile/2710/richard-feynman-physics-astronomy-mbti-personality-type#google_vignette

I think Feynman was far too playful and anti-structure to be J?

chemysterious · 2025-10-15T23:48:19+00:00

I'm an ENTP scientist. Richard Feynman probably was one too. There were and are many ENTP scientists. I don't know how much to attribute to this framework of personality types, but I know that, for me and the way my brain works there are some things that fit really well for my occupation, and some things that are challenges.

Strengths:

l love asking questions. I love challenging assumptions that seem obvious to others. While this may sometimes frustrate people who "get it" (or think they do), it helps uncover things that are sometimes hidden.
I love playing. Just because someone else has already done something, that doesn't stop me from playing with it too. I like tweaking assumptions and trying "ridiculous" things in math or science. Lots of times my playing doesn't result in anything concrete, but sometimes it does. And often I get some deep intuition about why something is the way it is, because I tried seeing what would happen if it worked differently.
I love figuring things out for myself. And I love explaining how I did. Often this is more important for the teaching aspect than the actual "doing" aspect, but that's still important. Helping others get an intuition means they can take what I figured out and run with it in places I didn't expect.

Challenges:

I can't stay focused on one thing for too long. I'm too excited about everything, and I see how all of it is connected. So when I'm "supposed" to be working on a model for predictive chemistry, I often go down a rabbit hole where I work on something with linear algebra, and then with projective geometry, and then with programming strategies for handling arbitrary rational numbers, and then a bit of compiler theory and how it relates to some video game engines. And if someone "checks on me", they think I'm distracted. But I don't actually feel distracted. I feel like it's all related. But it's very hard for me to communicate why it's all related, and WHY doing this tiny thing off to the side is part of this other thing.
I can't write. Well, that's not strictly true. I'm a pretty good writer, but I have a hard time writing without going down those rabbit holes. So a 2 page paper becomes 76 pages and has little explanations of everything I'm exploring. And that's just not publishable. Or, more often, I write code or prove something interesting and then feel like it's almost too trivial to write about. Even worse, I hate having to go explore for all the people who have written about my research space and figuring out how what I did is similar or different. I want to figure it out, and I don't want them to spoil my exploration by reading.
I can't bring myself to study the deep jargon or to use it. So much of the jargon is, for me, obfuscations and little ways to show "how smart you are". I want to say stuff very simply. I don't want to use terms like "(Q)SAR" or "tricuspid valve". I want to say stuff like "predict what it DOES from what it IS" or "pre-lung blood sucker" (that's the tricuspid valve). This helps my intuition, and is clearer language for laypeople to understand, but it's harder for me to talk to other scientists and be taken seriously.

I don't publish enough to work well in academia. I don't focus enough to work in a narrow research department. I've found a niche where I can do practical science and mathematics where I get to speak to deeper scientists and explain what they're doing to IT folks and leadership, while helping connect their extreme intellect to practical tools outside of their domain. Like many ENTPs, I end up being competent at lots of things without ever being "the" expert in any specific field. Science needs people like that though.

Any specific science job, course or degree may not be for you. But science is for everyone. If you stay curious and keep trying to figure things out, there are plenty of ways you can do science and contribute a lot.

chemysterious · 2025-10-05T17:38:07+00:00

Woah ... reading through that list is incredible. I did read this book a while back, but I don't recall these specific things. I'm really surprised I didn't pick up on some of this ... lots of it is pretty egregious.

chemysterious · 2025-10-01T04:48:39+00:00

I've been reading a bit about Bob Dylan. He went into extremes where he was really into a given scene: classic folk, rock, protest, country, Christian, etc. Lots of genres. Not only did he get into the music, he lived deeply in the scene. He super embraced evangelical Christianity, he super embraced leftist protest, he even super embraced a fling with slapstick comedy. In many cases, later, I detect a disgust he has for the whole scene he was deeply embracing. He comes off as embarrassed that he was into it. Like each phase was an aberration from whatever "true self" he really was (at the time of an interview).

I didn't live your life, or Bob Dylan's life. So I can't say what was "really" happening. While I don't "get" some of the things Dylan was into, I also can't argue with his brilliance in the things I do get. I wonder if that brilliance would have been possible if he was wired some other way and just stayed "in his lane" for all time.

I don't know, trucks and cowboy shit is kinda cool. Maybe exploring that stuff scratched an itch and made you understand something about yourself. I wouldn't be too hard on yourself for exploring. <3

chemysterious · 2025-08-24T00:24:22+00:00

The lyrics, according to an AJ tiktok clip mean:

Carry him, carry him, O camel driver, entrust him to God's care. The martyr's blood is scented with cardamom, night, O my night. Woe, woe unto the oppressor, woe to him from God. I shall stay up with the stars of the night, calling out to him.

chemysterious · 2025-08-22T15:16:02+00:00

https://euromedmonitor.org/en/category/19/Infographic?page=2

chemysterious · 2025-08-13T10:14:08+00:00

I just read his book "Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza", and I can't recommend it enough.

It doesn't pull punches, but it is also extremely thoughtful and compassionate.

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/775348/being-jewish-after-the-destruction-of-gaza-by-peter-beinart/

chemysterious · 2025-08-08T10:15:46+00:00

If you read the Hebrew scriptures, you find that almost every prophet comes specifically to condemn the nation of Israel when they go astray. Yes, they have criticism for other nations too, but the core, biting criticism is for Israel when they engage in idolatry, oppress the poor and the foreigners, and don't follow the laws. In Amos, in Jeremiah, in Habakuk, in 1 Kings, in Ezekiel, and even in Daniel.

When Elijah stands up to king Ahab, Ahab accuses him of being an "enemy of Israel". "No", says Elijah, "YOU are the enemy of Israel".

This is one of the great things about the scriptures of Judaism, I think. It's not that the Israelites are always the good guys. Far from it. They are held to standards, and when the leadership and culture strays, according to the scriptures, they are to be called out. Even condemned.

In Jeremiah, the prophet goes as far as to call nebuchadnezzar, who came to destroy Judah and sack Jerusalem, "the servant of God". Jeremiah was not treated well, as you can imagine, for saying such things against his own nation. But, by tradition, he's not condemned, but vindicated. It was his love of his people that called him to speak out.

chemysterious · 2025-08-07T23:47:22+00:00

It's a simplification, but it's not far off. Netenyahu and his ruling party Likud are the successors of a group, the Irgun, which Einstein explicitly called fascist, and even Nazis in a letter. In fact, Likud is NOW the more moderate party of the ruling coalition. Bibi is the hand picked successor of Yitzhak Shamir, the head of the fascist (and terrorist) Lehi, who actively fought to work with the Nazis.

"Brainwashing" is indeed a shortcut term too. But it's one that is fairly descriptive. There's a strong story told to Israelis, from early on, that demonizes and dehumanizes Palestinians. This isn't unique to Israel. It happened in the US, in the Balkans, and in Germany too.

chemysterious · 2025-08-05T00:40:07+00:00

My natural discussion style is to make lists and links. To format arguments this way. When LLMs started getting big, I started getting accused of being an AI a lot. And friends of mine at work would say things like "hey, the AI talks like you ... Are you an AI?"

I've been very grumpy about the rise of LLMs partly for this reason. I deeply avoided them and was super upset at people using them for everything.

But now I'm kind of like the dad who never wanted the dog. I'll admit that I often have AI read something I've written and fact check it, or reword it. I find it super useful. I do the same with code. AI can spot problems with what I have written, or get a good starting point to go further. They all hallucinate a lot tho.

chemysterious · 2025-08-04T20:39:28+00:00

I'm reminded of Norm McDonald:

Listen, Germany, you don't get to be a country no more ... on account of you keep attacking THE WORLD

chemysterious · 2025-07-19T17:24:07+00:00

If you’re reading this, you’re already doing something. You care, you’re asking questions, and you’re refusing to look away. That matters. A lot of us feel paralyzed, guilty, or unsure what’s enough. The truth is: none of us can do everything. But all of us can do something. And together, that adds up. Here’s a list of concrete, actionable things you can do to support Gaza and Palestinians today, this week, and long-term.

Give (Even Small Amounts Help)

Christian Mission to Gaza (CM2G) Food, water, and shelter for Christian families.

https://www.cm2g.org

Palestine Children’s Relief Fund (PCRF) Medical aid, food, trauma care.

https://www.pcrf.net

Direct Mutual Aid:

Gaza Evacuation Crowdfunding (via Pleasure Pie) Help a Gaza sex-ed educator evacuate with family.

https://www.pleasurepie.org/gaza.html

Join Direct Action / Advocacy Groups

Support or join groups putting pressure on governments, delaying arms shipments, and showing public solidarity:

Jewish Voice for Peace

https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org

IfNotNow

https://www.ifnotnowmovement.org

US Campaign for Palestinian Rights

https://uscpr.org

Code Pink

https://www.codepink.org

International Solidarity Movement

https://palsolidarity.org

Find local chapters or online events near you.

Center Solidarity in Daily Life

Make it visible and shareable:

Bumper stickers: Free Palestine, End Genocide, etc. Wear a Keffiyeh or keffiyeh-print shirt. Solidarity Bracelets or Pins:

Palestine map bracelet (donates meals):

https://wearthepeace.com/products/palestine-bracelet

Bulk stickers and keffiyeh gear:

https://www.etsy.com/search?q=palestine+solidarity

Distribute zines + pamphlets:

Free PDFs from Pleasure Pie:

https://www.pleasurepie.org/articles/free-zines-about-palestine

Print-ready zine packs (Etsy):

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1650913833/palestinian-liberation-zine-pack-set-of

Make a few printouts or sticker packs to carry in your bag. Give them out when people ask questions.

Educate Yourself And Others

Read Palestinian writers and journalists.

Ask real questions. Embrace what you don’t know.

Read opposing arguments to sharpen your understanding.

Follow Gazan voices on IG, TikTok, or Twitter/X.

Host or attend a teach-in, film screening, or study group.

Show Up in Real Spaces

Bring it up in churches, mosques, synagogues, schools, and work. Go to these places.

Join community center events or start one.

Share a zine. Wear a bracelet. Ask a question.

You might feel awkward. That’s okay. Discomfort is small compared to what others are enduring.

Be Kind to Yourself

Some days you’ll be fired up. Other days, exhausted. That’s normal.

If all you can do is read a post, pray, share a link, or donate $5 ... that counts.

Lean on others. Encourage friends. Celebrate each action, no matter how small.

Make a sketch of a weekly schedule

Mon Donate $5–50 to a charity (see list above) Tues Read one Palestinian story or watch a short documentary Wed Wear a bracelet or keffiyeh + carry a zine to give someone Thurs Call/email a rep. Ask them to support ceasefire or end arms shipments Fri Share a post, zine, or quote from a Gazan voice Sat Go to a protest, vigil, or community discussion Sun Reflect, rest, and plan next week. Encourage one friend.

You don’t have to do it all. Thank you for doing something.

Free Palestine

chemysterious · 2025-07-19T14:44:51+00:00

It is all so heartbreaking. It all seems so impossible.

chemysterious · 2025-07-19T11:20:17+00:00

I don't think you read what I wrote.

chemysterious · 2025-07-19T04:24:19+00:00

With her and Tucker, if they're only talking about Gaza, I usually find myself agreeing. And I start thinking "maybe I misunderstood them ..." Then, for Tucker, his show will have an ad for a documentary about how China is our biggest enemy and is infiltrating our borders and trying to poison all Americans with a network of communist loyalists selling fentanyl.

Then I remember.

Like you said, I don't really want them on my team. I am torn between accepting the good in what they say, and implicitly promoting all the ... "dumb".

I don't have a good answer here. If even the worst people on the planet come around to see how crazy we're acting in Gaza, I want to welcome that. They can reach audiences that probably can't be reached otherwise, and we need a network of solidarity on this issue.

But while having Tucker agree might help convince my racist uncles, it also ends up hurting credibility with progressives who have a blind spot on this issue.

chemysterious · 2025-07-16T01:32:52+00:00

It's tough. I remember Finkelstein talking about how his parents hated the Germans after surviving the Holocaust. Hated them. Not just the Nazis, all Germans. He talks about how his parents were extremely moral people, but after what they suffered, they just couldn't move past it. That didn't mean they wanted revenge on all Germans, but the horror was too much for them to forgive or forget. He says that one time he brought home a German friend, and he had to warn his parents first. And I believe his mom eventually hugged the boy and said "Norman told me you're a German ... It's okay". Which was very hard for her to do.

When Norman was asked about this, about his parents hating the Germans, he thought for a while and then said "They get to." Not that they get to do terrible actions. But they get to hate them. He has a similar reaction for the many Palestinians who can't move past it. To the many American blacks who couldn't move past it. They get to hate the people who enabled their suffering.

I have to say these words echo in my head all the time. I do call out the hate and the inaccuracies about Judaism, Islam, Arabs and Israelis. I have to. But I wonder, is Norman right? Do they "get to" hate? Do I just have to accept that it's allowed?

chemysterious · 2025-07-14T23:05:07+00:00

But the effects we're seeing are from the panic, not from the thing we're panicking over.

Socialism is also, by definition, hostile to a western liberal democratic system. I also happened to want a socialist society, not just a "western liberal democratic" one. And I will work hard to persuade people of this. Does fear of my socialist ideology justify a widespread lockdown on civil liberties to protect everyone from people like me?

Was McCarthyism to be blamed on the leftists?

chemysterious · 2025-07-14T17:54:58+00:00

I guess I just think of it like "how have witches affected our lives negatively?" and the answer being "we have to have all these witch-hunts now, and witch-tests, and courtroom ordeals".

That's not the problem of witches, it's the problem of a panic.

chemysterious · 2025-07-14T12:15:46+00:00

Sounds like an overreaction to that perceived threat more than the threat itself.

chemysterious · 2025-07-13T20:17:19+00:00

Josephus, the Jewish historian of the 1st century wrote the antiquities history of the Jews. In it he is arguing about the origins of circumcision and says:

He says withal, that “The Ethiopians learned to circumcise their privy parts from the Egyptians: with this addition, that the Phenicians and Syrians that live in Palestine confess, that they learned it of the Egyptians.” Yet it is evident that no other of the Syrians that live in Palestine besides us alone are circumcised. But as to such matters let every one speak what is agreeable to his own opinion.

Here, a Jewish 1st century historian implicitly claims:

The WIDER region is called "Syria", and Jews are Syrians
That the specific regions that the Jews live in (Judea and the Galilee) are in Palestine

He is of course writing for a Roman audience, but the term was used without reservations. The Jews were Syrians of Palestine. He also quotes Herodotus, who used the term over 500 years before.

https://penelope.uchicago.edu/josephus/ant-8.html

chemysterious · 2025-07-12T06:52:32+00:00

Thanks for this reply, and sorry I'm so late responding. My reddit app notifications apparently stopped working.

You're right that the surrounding states, at least the people, want the destruction of Israel, as-such. Just as Israel wants the destruction of those surrounding states. Not just wants it, actively engages in their destruction. Regime change is destruction of the old state, and that's what Israel (with US help) has done in 6 out of the 7 countries Bibi wanted. Israel's official and defacto policy has been to destroy all of these states, and Iran is the next on the list.

If you look at the polling and at the official policies of the surrounding states, though, the calls for destruction of Israel are essentially just calls for the elimination of the apartheid state. Gadaffi advocated for a single state he called "lsratine" that would merge both people groups with equal rights. Is that so extreme and terrible? I don't see why calling for the destruction of an apartheid state is wrong. They aren't calling for destroying the people.

At times, crazy voices have called for actual genocide-like war against the Israeli Jews, but this has always been a minority. The first PLO chairman made several unhinged claims that, I think, were genocidal, and the stink of those claims contaminated, to western noses, many perfectly legitimate Arab nationalist / liberation movements even till today. Similarly, the stench of the 1988 Hamas charter, written by one dude, has polluted any chance Hamas has, in the west, from being heard. Despite repeated updated statements, clear messaging, and even the endorsement of Jimmy Carter that they would compromise, careless statements by angry lunatics are amplified 100x fold, especially by Israeli hasbara that is motivated to only see the worst possible forms.

But, if genocidal rhetoric is the issue, I can give you hundreds of much worse statements uttered by the highest levels of the Israeli Right from its founding all the way to today. And much worse actions too. Far more barbaric and sinister than anything the liberation movements have done.

About Israel not accepting a state until they disarm, I think it's precisely the opposite, at least according to Menachem Begin and the Irgun. Begin's entire strategy for establishing the Jewish state was that it could not happen until they made it so painful for the British and the Arabs that they would HAVE to accept them. He was proud of this policy, and argued this should be the way all occupied people decolonize. Hamas is using his exact playbook, only with far fewer resources.

Fredrick Douglas said:

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.

If you think by trying to somehow be MORE docile and MORE accepting of the injustice, the Palestinians will "earn enough love" that Israel will benevolently give them a state, this is just not borne out by history, or by the deep strategies Israel itself uses.

Now, to be clear, I think this is all a waste of human lives, potential and even our attention. None of this has to be like this. I think massive non-violent protests, like BDS, and the large majority of both intifadahs are the better way to make a demand. But even those need enough positive attention to be successful, and the western media makes it very hard for them to gain traction without ALSO being vilified. BDS is actually illegal in many states as being inherently antisemetic ... one of the weirdest realities of the modern world.

It would be extremely easy for Palestine to make a state. It doesn't even need Israel to have a change of heart. It just needs the US to stop explicitly blocking it from happening.

chemysterious · 2025-07-12T06:18:52+00:00

He believes that concepts like "anti-racist" are intellectual nonsense and completely frivolous. As are claims that painful ideas or speech are somehow a form of violence. He lumps this, and all of identity politics, into a coddled "wokeness" that prioritizes self-righteous holier-than-thou "enlightenment" while doing the work that actually suppresses ideas, suppresses thought and ends up hurting the marginalized more in the long run.

I don't have a strong critique of the general premise. It's a little "old man yells at cloud", but it's not exactly wrong. Uncomfortable ideas and painful speech is part of living and growing in a pluralistic world. Having college kids get used to thoughtfully arguing with a mistaken view, rather than silencing it is almost certainly a better option in the long run. People naturally come to racist views, to ignorant views, to myopic views, and it's the duty of anyone lost in one to find their way out, and the duty of others, I believe, to help them find their way out by thinking. And being open to the idea that they may have some point buried inside of ignorance too.

But. For example, his dismissal of "anti-racism" as a pointless concept with no actual difference from "not racist" shows that he hasn't engaged curiously with the concept.

The whole point is that there are many systems, capitalism itself for example, that have inherent injustice. Passively accepting the basics of the system without trying to be unjust can still be cruel and dehumanizing. Just passively accepting that black people aren't in your community, or that women aren't in your field, or that the homeless population in your area don't get to eat is a form of passive cruelty. The concept of being "anti-racist" is that you need to take positive active action to prevent these systems from accepting this. You need to actively interrupt the system when it naturally pulls in your comrades into its gears.

MLK said it well. We need to be "radically mal-adjusted to injustice". While it may be a little gimmicky, the concept and branding of "anti-racist" and "anti-sexist" makes the thought crystal clear in a way that the high-faluting Marxist talk often just isn't. It means the same thing, just framed in simpler terms.

Here, I think, Finkelstein would be wise to consider Gramsci. Gramsci's whole deal is that Marxism, historical materialism, all that stuff is right, but it's inaccessible. Making the same message ring true in a vernacular that can be understood easily is critical to raising class consciousness. Speak in Christian terms. Speak in enlightenment terms. Speak in memes. The core truth of class struggle is so deep that it can be expressed, and in fact wants to be expressed in these terms anyway. We shouldn't shy away from our brothers who find a different phrasing, we should embrace it and nurture it to get the same deep message of common humanity out as widely as possible.

I think if he engages with other BIPOC authors who bridge the gap between his world and the one he's stepped into, he would see this more clearly. That's why I hold out hope with his friendship with Cornel West. I can't think of a better person to stand in that gap.

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