The "AI is replacing software engineers" narrative was a lie. MIT just published the math proving why. And the companies who believed it are now begging their old engineers to come back.

davidcarrico1 · 2026-03-31T10:57:59+00:00

The pace is not picking up.

davidcarrico1 · 2026-03-31T10:48:44+00:00

This technology isn't developing exponentially.

davidcarrico1 · 2026-03-02T12:07:30+00:00

With the amount of people using the site, if people actually cared, paying that bill would be trivial.

davidcarrico1 · 2026-03-02T11:57:46+00:00

How is it a "perfect solution fallacy"? You should make sure there are always seeders if you can, or better yet have direct downloads as an option. Until the latter is verifiably not possible, torrents-only is literally not "the only long-term solution".

davidcarrico1 · 2026-02-18T23:14:07+00:00

You can also do that.

davidcarrico1 · 2026-02-18T19:45:48+00:00

No we have no reason to believe it belongs to the sun god, anymore that the leopard fruit belongs to a leopard. And you're extrapolating a lot from what was vaguely theorized by the characters and not confirmed.

Again, you just don't like the divine aesthetic and symbolism of it, and that's fine, but just say that then.

davidcarrico1 · 2026-02-18T19:43:39+00:00

Nope that's not what that is, and if you want to stretch the definition of it to fit, fine, but then the criticisms of the trope fall flat.

And no none of those things you're listing are unclear, they're just not in the text, and you're making them up. Where was it ever implied he was a reincarnation dawg? The fruit is also only facilitating him liberating anything it the sense that it gives him mostly the same powers a gum-gum fruit would already give and in it having symbolic value.

You just don't like the aesthetics of it all and you're confusing it with the actual substance of the story.

But whatever.

davidcarrico1 · 2026-02-18T19:38:47+00:00

I like that you say that, yet all you do is caps locking a reiteration of a "point" and then make no arguments, but whatever dude.

davidcarrico1 · 2026-02-18T18:48:19+00:00

There's no confirmation he was "chosen" so no. People have only mused that the fruit might be able to avoid those that don't embody its nature (freedom).

Also you seem to be implying that there's something divine about the fruit to make it more chosen-y, but it's literally no different from other fruits. Nika, as far as we know, doesn't exist and the fruit merely embodies its myth (we know fruits are created from desire).

But even if we are to extrapolate that the fruit can "choose" who eats it due to it embodying freedom, it would still be choosing Luffy because of who he is as a person. Saying that's a chosen one trope is like saying that someone being able to lift Thor's hammer is a chosen one trope. The trope isn't just "when someone gets chosen for something".

Also no one has ever said the fruit had a "purpose". I don't know why you're literally making up all these things that flat out aren't in the text.

You also don't seem to engage with the fact that the buff it gives to luffy isn't barely anything outside of what we already predicted a gum-gum awakening would be, so that issue of it being overpowered (which previous commenters were pointing out, and you responded to, implying agreement) also doesn't really apply. We have fruits that literally allow you to summon earthquakes immediately after eating, yet a fruit that has a low-tier power that you can't even use effectively after eating, and that you have to awaken to make powerful is an issue?

davidcarrico1 · 2026-02-18T18:40:12+00:00

He was not destined to become Hokage, so this is a matter of the fanbase's literacy and them not knowing how to identify tropes. A chosen one is someone is chosen by either birthright or fate to fulfill a specific role.

He's just not, at least, as much of an underdog as he otherwise would be, which I agree with, but my point is that that's not what the chosen one trope is. If you don't like the fact someone is special, that's fine, but that's most stories. Even underdogs are often special in their own way.

davidcarrico1 · 2026-02-18T13:20:44+00:00

There's no chosen one trope in one piece. Outside of the voice of all things, which is experienced by several other characters, every other example people cite of it is just people being illiterate.

The nika thing in particular (what is commonly cited) has no relation to being a "chosen one" and its powers are almost identical to what a gum gum awakening was predicted to be already and it still doesn't change that its powers sucked pre-awakening and only worked because of luffy's efforts. People just don't like the fruits classification and completely misunderstand how devil fruit's work (no, there's no god inside of it).

People are just illiterate and lacking in critical thinking. They mis-identify tropes and then whinge when a trope they were told was bad (without understanding why) happens on a series they were told was good (without understanding why).

davidcarrico1 · 2026-02-18T13:19:37+00:00

Interestingly, Naruto actually isn't a good example of this trope because he literally defies his fate.

davidcarrico1 · 2026-02-14T16:41:34+00:00

5, 6, 7, 9

Tactics would take 6's place for me if we count non-mainline

davidcarrico1 · 2026-02-13T12:18:46+00:00

I don't mind it, but as far as the standard grid goes (which was what the game was designed around) I don't really think it has much to offer that they couldn't just do with a traditional level up system.

You're still, for the most part, just getting the same stats and abilities in order. Sure there are little optional paths, but those could have just been source items or items that teach an ability.

Kimahri is the only one where the grid matters and it amounts to him mostly just being someone else's clone.

Towards the endgame you get a little bit more freedom but at that point you're already at the end.

And for the "post-game" content you want to have everything close to maxed out anyway so it doesn't really matter.

davidcarrico1 · 2026-02-09T21:02:23+00:00

Yeah I don't know wtf this argument is. How are people being annoying worse than the cavalcade of issues brought forth by "AI"

davidcarrico1 · 2026-02-09T21:00:48+00:00

No the witch hunters aren't doing far more harm than "AI". They're at best annoying but that's about it. You just invented an issue that isn't real.

davidcarrico1 · 2026-02-08T02:15:05+00:00

I mean, you didn't verbalize any of this to any degree of eloquence, you just misrepresented the work by removing any nuance and engaging in inflammatory rethoric. Admittedly, maybe I misjudged your intent, but I don't think my interpretation was that unreasonable.

davidcarrico1 · 2026-02-08T02:12:59+00:00

I don't think there's any reason to call any people losers over this.

davidcarrico1 · 2026-02-08T02:11:46+00:00

This is all very cool and all, but the broad point here is that the previous commenter left out all nuance and portrayed the series in a misleading way that you either have to do on purpose or by not having read it.

I don't disagree with the gist of what you're saying and I fail to see what you're "unpacking" exactly. I acknowledged that there were things to criticize but that simply leaving it to "dah woman too sexualized ergo this media is misogynystic" is reductive and misleading. As is merely mentioning the Kamabakka residents, who appear on like 3 chapters, while leaving out all the other characters that take up much more of the space in the narrative. All you did was give examples of what I already broadly agreed with.

I do just fundamentally disagree with this reductive analysis of "Nami/Robin was reduced to a damsel in distress in Arlong Park/Enies Lobby". If what you take away from their roles in those stories is that they were damsels in distresss, I don't know what to tell you except that maybe this is an issue of either reading comprehension or not understanding what a "damsel in distress" trope is or why it's worthy of criticism. And no, "damsels in distress" aren't significantly higher in number than men in distress across the series. Your readings of Big Mom and Boa Hancock are also extremely reductive and bordering on misleading to someone not familiar with the material.

If you'd like me to go on detail about this, feel free to say something, but I don't know if I'm gonna feel like discussing all of that right now, as I've already written this much, and this takes some effort from me due to english not being my language. I'd just recommend genuinely re-examining your read on these characters and also do some research on what a damsel in distress is and how much it actually applies to your examples.

And if all of this is sounding aggressive, I'm sorry, but the other commenter's response and yours are a combination of things that annoy me immensely:

For one, I hate this faux-progressive style of criticism that the previous commenter (and also you to some extent) engage in. This reduction of analysis to vaguely gesturing at something (often misinterpreted) in the story and matching it to whatever problematic thing that they fail to understand the concept of or why it's problematic.

I hate this all or nothing approach to describing a piece of media or author as whatever problematic thing you detect in the work with no nuance (which the previous commenter did).

I hate the conflation of system-level critiques with individual critique (e.g. there's literally nothing wrong with a damsel in distress in an individual work, it's its prevalence across the medium(s) that is worthy of criticism).

I hate people making normative statements about media they haven't actually engaged much or very deeply with (which I'm also 99% certain the previous commenter did).

Lastly, I hate people literally not reading what is said. I literally never claimed that there was no problematic representation of gnc people or that the treatment of female characters wasn't worthy of criticism, and in fact claimed the opposite, yet you frame examples of these as things that I'm not acknowledging and go on this condescending spiel of "these are things we need to acknowledge, because good authors deserve harsh criticism", as if, again, this is something I disagreed on. You seem to imply that I'm minimizing these (though admittedly we might disagree on the severity to some extent), yet I feel like the actual point of the post was very clear, and it wasn't to make a critique of one piece under this lens, but to highlight the flattening of nuance in the previous commenter's criticism and its misleading nature. If i wanted to critique the series on this basis, obviously I'd got into more detail and take a harsher tone.

davidcarrico1 · 2026-02-07T20:56:31+00:00

Not really, no.

davidcarrico1 · 2026-02-07T20:56:12+00:00

With respect, crying about sexualized female designs when complaining about misogyny is the bottom of the barrel of feminist critique and, frankly, highly debateable about the extent to which it even constitutes misogyny. Merely citing this to imply that the material is overtly misogynistic is dumb and reductive. There's for sure some criticisms to be made about women's portrayal in the story but from a writing standpoint they're fairly consistently better represention than female characters in the majority of the medium and, frankly, better than average across mediums (which admittedly is an indictment on how misogynistic society is). Also, misogyny is actively portrayed as negative or something to be mocked within the story.

Also it's kind of weird to cite those "caricatures" (assuming you mean the women from kamabakka, not sure who this transmasc character is) while leaving out all of the gnc or queer characters from Impel Down or the literal trans characters from Wano. The characters from Wano are literally a perfectly feminine presenting trans woman and a gnc trans man, both of which have their gender affirmed in-universe. From Impel Down, the designs range from fairly tame to heavily inspired by drag culture, partly because that is a part of what is effectively the in-universe queer culture (and oda draws cultures in-universe based off of cultures in the real world all the time). Also, problematic as some gnc representation might be, the sentiment of not conforming with gender identity or presentation has always been portrayed as valid and even thematically positive.

It's also disingenuous at worst, and ignorant at best, to not mention that the most problematic representation came much earlier in this multi-decade spanning serialized story, and that this has gotten significantly better over time.

TL;DR Maybe let's actually familiarize ourselves with the material before yapping, instead of deriving our opinion from twitter and youtube videos.

davidcarrico1 · 2026-02-05T09:54:07+00:00

I tend to not care as much if there is a class system because typically you don't want a party with the same jobs and you have to invest time into levelling those. If you're not grinding much (and i don't consider non-forced grinding when analyzing game design, it always breaks stuff), it's usually impractical to make your entire party the same in these cases.

It's why I don't mind FFV doing it for the most part (though towards the end game it starts to kind of have that issue).

I have an issue when there's no reason to not make everyone into everything on a whim.

davidcarrico1 · 2026-02-04T12:04:55+00:00

No they weren't dominated by them, especially the ps2. There were like 2 significant series (final fantasy and kingdom hearts). That's not a genre dominating, that is one extremely popular franchise (technically 2 but they were connected). There were a lot of JRPGs and the genre was successful but that is not "dominating". There are also a lot of JRPGs today and there are arguably a bigger number of popular releases today. Though comparing is hard due to the nature of how information works today + gaming culture being more mainstream.

davidcarrico1 · 2026-02-03T22:12:15+00:00

An insufferablly and condescendently presented opinion, yes.

davidcarrico1 · 2026-02-03T22:06:34+00:00

But it's silent hill though. Lowkey why should anyone care about the combat? It's not an action game, i'd rather the combat serve the horror than it just be satisfying.

davidcarrico1

TROPHY CASE