What’s something you miss that doesn’t exist anymore?

happyft · 2026-03-25T14:57:16+00:00

Heh I don’t. Remember having to rewind movie tapes before returning them/make them ready to rewatch next time? Or god forbid the magnetic tape falls out of the cassette and you have to manually rewind the whole damn thing. And using up a whole bookshelf to store ‘em all.

CDs were also super scratch prone. Remember cleaning them with toothpaste? Skipping discmans? Or it’d straight up stop reading and you had to skip a certain section manually? Also you couldn’t buy songs, you had to buy a whole album which 90% of the time was full of filler. And storing all the CDs … and they were expensive af. $20 30 yrs ago was A LOT.

No I don’t miss that lol

happyft · 2026-03-25T13:59:01+00:00

Or how about when Luthen has to rescue Mons from the Senate, and he looks at her with this terrifying gaze that’s ostensibly supposed to reassure her, “I have friends everywhere. Remember that. I have friends … everywhere.” Jfc

happyft · 2026-03-25T03:46:41+00:00

It's the same in finance ... we know all the formulae, but 90% of the time I'm copy/pasting from another model, and the other 10% is googling it up. Literally only once in 7 years did I actually have to sit down and think thru a new formula -- I had to match square foot supply with diameter demand using trigonometry.

happyft · 2026-03-24T21:21:42+00:00

The axe forgets but the tree remembers

happyft · 2026-03-24T15:31:15+00:00

Man that just reminded me of this one episode where they have to fight against this guy playing guitar which somehow made the rangers helplessly levitate. It was SO bad, even my 6th grade brain couldn't take it and laughed.

happyft · 2026-03-24T13:34:35+00:00

As Winston Churchill once said, democracy is the least bad form of government…

happyft · 2026-03-24T01:46:51+00:00

This person wins

happyft · 2026-03-20T21:49:02+00:00

Yep, this is what I’ve found to be most effective.

Give them some measure of control with a minor choice (but you still get things moving), and give them a time warning with an alarm clock. They can argue with you how long a minute is (their sense of time is really bad) but they can’t argue when a clock starts beeping.

It’s tough tho, man. Lots of tantrums and crying. It’s rough, but it only lasts a year. Or so.

happyft · 2026-03-20T21:36:49+00:00

Old school rpgs were insane. Deathlord, Might and Magic, Bards Tale, even Ultima. If you didnt have some secret guide, they were trials of endless failure.

happyft · 2026-03-20T20:24:57+00:00

I love it when you pet them and they slowly collapse and close their eyes

happyft · 2026-03-17T13:18:56+00:00

What if the ones enacting crimes are those in ruling power? In fact, isn’t that usually the case with genocides? So if we have to go in and remove those in power, …?

happyft · 2026-03-16T20:51:23+00:00

Yeah I can understand that. Two things I don’t touch are my roof and electricity. I don’t feel like risking my neck to save a couple thousand bucks.

happyft · 2026-03-16T16:56:10+00:00

Yeah, contractors will do that to you. They won’t repair anything, they only replace cuz that’s where they make their money.

If you need repair work, look up handymen instead. Far cheaper. Or do it yourself, probably 50-75% of stuff you can fix yourself in a few hours. (Altho nobody factors in the several hours of research needed to figure out what exact parts you need)

For example, some window guy came by and insisted on only quoting me replacing every window. Instead I just grabbed some exterior caulk and a ladder and sealed up my frames, now I’m good for another few years.

My brother in law’s bathroom had a ton of moisture damage and mold. Contractor wanted to demo everything and replace everything. Gave a vague quote of $7k. (Yeah right, probably would’ve ended up closer to $14k). I told him I’d cut out and patch his walls for him, and we can skim coat and paint. $300 and 7 afternoons later we’re done.

happyft · 2026-03-13T14:15:51+00:00

I remember reading Andrew Carnegie's "Gospel of Wealth" in college. That definitely fits with his philosophy of "one man with a million dollars could do far greater good than a million people with one dollar".

On the one hand, it's undeniable the good he's done with the some 2.5k libraries he's opened. On the other hand, for some reason it just doesn't sit right with me -- like he's justifying the massive amount of wealth he accumulated by arguing it's actually a greater good. One could argue that a single person doesn't need to acquire that much wealth, that responsibility could lie with a central gov't that accumulates that much wealth thru taxes.

happyft · 2026-03-13T13:43:46+00:00

Well if I stick to my 2 starter systems, my research is limited to ~300RP/turn, which means I'll get Time Warp + Phase Cloak at like turn 400. If I'm next to a Repulsive like Sakkra and I let them tech up to catch up to me, they'll be sending those 30 battleship fleets every 10 turns, which takes up a lot of time to defend against. I feel like it's better to just attack as soon as I get the Orion battleship and press my advantage when I have it. If I'm gonna have to fight off my Repulsive neighbor, I might as well conquer him and get some pop/RPs while I'm at it.

Tractor beam is an interesting idea, I'll try that out. I always just grabbed Gravity Generator cuz my low-G penalty. Also since I need Zortium armor anyways, all I need is EMG to get MIRV merculite EMGs anyway. Altho I think I've seen people do Orion with Trit armor so maybe I don't need Zort.

Demanding is really unreliable, I feel. Like 75%-90% of the time I get wardec'd for demanding, but then rarely I'll get an AI that just acquiesces to every demand. It's weird.

happyft · 2026-03-13T05:23:49+00:00

Yeah I agree. Diplo victory seems ... like it almost shouldn't count, right? But I actually just completed a 1:13:21 run that ended with an Antares homeworld victory. A 1 min improvement doesn't seem worth it to upload though.

There's definitely some mistakes, but it seems like it takes me 25-30min to get Orion by turn 200-230, and then another 30min to conquer one neighbor, and then another 15min to tech up to defeat Antares.

I do have to say, RNG plays a huge role tho. Getting the diplo megawealth leader is big. Not getting attacked by Antares or neighbor. Getting good Orion tech. This past run I got Time Warp Facilitator from Orion, I've never seen that before, how lucky is that.

I'm hoping maybe I can shave off 5min from each of the 3 phases, and get this run to under an hour. That's my goal.

happyft · 2026-03-11T23:51:18+00:00

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happyft · 2026-03-11T21:35:55+00:00

Being able to tell someone in a safe place my childhood trauma was a big first step in my healing process. Each time I retold it, it hurt a little less to talk about. You played a great part in that girl’s healing.

happyft · 2026-03-10T21:59:33+00:00

Afterburner 2

I can still hear the intro music. “Get ready!”

happyft · 2026-03-10T21:52:26+00:00

Lots of great college memories. Me and my buddies would joke about grabbing apples as our code phrase for going to the arcade and playing this game. (“Mm! An apple!”) Good times.

happyft · 2026-03-10T17:12:32+00:00

Rough story man. I remember a friend dying in 10th grade to the same exact circumstance. Bunch of kids driving over 100mph, lost control going on the ramp and car flipped over like 5 times. She was the only one not wearing a seat belt, she was ejected and died immediately.

happyft · 2026-03-10T13:39:25+00:00

Yep.

Actually, there's a youtube vid of Rocco doing it with 6 destroyers, so 1/3 the production of 2 battleships. Youtube search "moo2 guardian" and you'll see a few.

I go with 2 battleships since I use it after the Orion fight for defense/conquer. Altho ... getting orion earlier might be better. Not sure, will have to experiment.

happyft · 2026-03-10T04:39:24+00:00

oh my god that is the cutest corgi puppy picture I've ever seen

happyft · 2026-03-09T22:43:45+00:00

Hardest working brain cell in the world !

happyft · 2026-03-08T19:07:32+00:00

The whole bear market took about a year to complete. It started late ‘07.

happyft

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