balooga's recent activity
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Comment on CGA-2026-10 š¹ļøšļø š¦š» INSERT CARTRIDGE š¢ Spooky Mansion Adventures in ~games
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Comment on OpenAI hacked Australia's Medicare portal in ~tech
balooga Link ParentIām honestly really torn about this take. Agreed that itās a serious crime, and also these days real consequences for anything seem few and far between. But on the other hand I think there needs...Iām honestly really torn about this take. Agreed that itās a serious crime, and also these days real consequences for anything seem few and far between. But on the other hand I think there needs to have been some malicious intent involved if weāre talking hard time. It just doesnāt feel right to me to lock up engineers or execs for something their computer did autonomously and they themselves only found out about after the fact.
Doesnāt feel right to just let it slide either, I just donāt know what the right solution is here. Heavy fines and strict regulation, maybe. Regular system audits from some new agency like the health department but for AI, or something? Operator licenses that can be revoked for agentic misconduct? I dunno. I just donāt think heavy-handed prison sentences are the solution here. This is uncharted territory for sure.
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Comment on Colossal Game Adventure: October 2026 - April 2027 schedule in ~games
balooga Link ParentOh man, you have that book too! Itās one of my prized possessions! Literally just pulled it off the shelf after reading your comment to remind myself what it says about Ray Dunakin. The ā80s and...Oh man, you have that book too! Itās one of my prized possessions! Literally just pulled it off the shelf after reading your comment to remind myself what it says about Ray Dunakin. The ā80s and ā90s Mac gaming scene was such an oddball niche, Iām happy to have been there for it. Not so different from the weirdness of the Dreamcast scene, come to think of itā¦ I guess Iāve always been a bit on the fringes of whatās ācoolā in games. Anyway, enjoy the book, thereās a good chunk of my childhood woven through those pages.
Iām honored to host the Twisted! part of the arcade special. Happy to host the others too but Iām less familiar with them and my bias may result inā¦ unequal treatment lol
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Comment on The doomsday cult inside OpenAI in ~tech
balooga Link ParentI think thatās fairly accurate, but Iād point out that the companies actually advancing this tech (in meaningful ways) are (currently) all American. There are some great Chinese models out ā Iāve...I think thatās fairly accurate, but Iād point out that the companies actually advancing this tech (in meaningful ways) are (currently) all American. There are some great Chinese models out ā Iāve been using
Qwen3.8-Flash-Nexta lot lately and itās very impressive ā but AFAIK they were all produced via distillation of American frontier models for a fraction of the cost. The only people investing millions upon millions to train new models from whole cloth are, to the best of my knowledge, the tech giants from the U.S. Somebody please correct me if thatās misinformation.So if the Americans could unite behind a slower development pace, there would still be an unknown risk of getting annihilated by foreign competitors, but I think that probability is somewhat lower than youāve framed it. This is a field with a very high barrier to entry for new players, and new development builds upon earlier development in layers so there arenāt easy shortcuts for catching up to OpenAI, Anthropic, et al. Of course breakthroughs are commonplace in AI these days so all of those assumptions could change suddenly. I think thatās the real risk calculus the big companies are making.
One thing I donāt hear many people discussing outside of the infosec world is the role these frontier models already play in cybersecurity. Have you been watching the changelogs of your favorite browsers and OSes lately? Agentic development has absolutely exploded the threat landscape with novel zero-days. Companies are doing their best to keep pace and strengthen their defenses but itās pandemonium right now. A massive global cybersecurity arms race. And Iām certain the most heated front right now is the one thatās happening out of everyoneās sight: national security. In the right hands, these LLMs are nuclear-grade digital weapons. Every nation-state on earth is trying to get their house in order right now.
Most of the chatter I see about AI here and elsewhere on the web tends to focus on more familiar ānormieā (but no less legitimate) concerns like disinformation, deepfakes, power/water consumption, IP claims, job security, income inequality, AI slop proliferation, and so on. But itās my semi-professional opinion that most people are greatly underestimating the geopolitical precarity of the situation weāre in right now, and (for better or for worse) that supersedes all other objections. I really believe this is the real reason why such a preposterous portion of our economy now hinges on the AI sector. Itās not really about shoehorning chatbots into every white-collar workflow to justify layoffsā¦ itās about the worldās infrastructure, national secrets, and military apparatuses suddenly responding to a dark forest of infinite existential threats.
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Comment on Colossal Game Adventure: October 2026 - April 2027 schedule in ~games
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Comment on Colossal Game Adventure: October 2026 - April 2027 schedule in ~games
balooga Link ParentIāll take it if no one has claimed it yet? Like I mentioned earlier in the thread thatās a particular oldie Iāve owned a couple times before and have been wanting to access again!Iāll take it if no one has claimed it yet? Like I mentioned earlier in the thread thatās a particular oldie Iāve owned a couple times before and have been wanting to access again!
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Comment on Colossal Game Adventure: October 2026 - April 2027 schedule in ~games
balooga Link ParentSo excited! Thanks as always for all the time and effort you invest in these. Your thinking makes perfect sense to me for the schedule. Itās funny, I just introduced my kiddo to the first Sonic...So excited! Thanks as always for all the time and effort you invest in these.
Your thinking makes perfect sense to me for the schedule. Itās funny, I just introduced my kiddo to the first Sonic Adventure (on Dreamcast!) and theyāve been having a blast with it. Good nostalgia trip for me too! Somehow I donāt think I ever heard about that Christmas DLC though, it sounds terrible lol. Unfortunately my SA2 disc got a scratch and became unplayable years ago. Iāve got the GameCube version too but the optical drive on my Wii (never had a real GameCube) has been dead for ages too. Iāve been itching to play that game again, will need to find a way to make it work.
Cohosting that arcade special with @clayh and @hamstergeddon should be interesting. I love a good text adventure. You know, I never expected Twisted! to end up in a CGA. Itās not a text adventure, btw, just the fever dream of Ray, a model rocketry enthusiast and ghost town explorer who also sometimes made shareware games. A relic from a forgotten era. I half suspect Iām the only person still alive (apart from Ray himself) who even remembers this game at all. Iām looking forward to sharing it with you unsuspecting Tilderinos!
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Comment on Can two friends complete a game no one has ever finished? (gifted link) in ~games.tabletop
balooga LinkFeel free to label as off-topic, but: NYT gifted links still require a login to read? Is that new?Feel free to label as off-topic, but: NYT gifted links still require a login to read? Is that new?
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Comment on Ed Sheeranās tour in trouble after opening acts drop out in solidarity with rapper Macklemore in ~music
balooga Link@macklemore, Sep 16, 2026 I really have to commend his articulation here. His meaning cannot be misconstrued by anyone in good faith. Good on him for not backing down, and for putting his money...- Exemplary
With everything that has happened over the last 48 hours, I want to bring the conversation back to where it belongs: to the Palestinian people who are still being killed, still living under military occupation, and still fighting for their freedom.
I will be donating the entire $1 million of my net earnings from Ed Sheeran's Loop Tour to six organizations working directly to support the Palestinian people. And I invite Robert Kraft to match my donation. Whatever we disagree about, perhaps we can agree on this: Palestinian lives are worth protecting. A Palestinian life is no less valuable than any other life on this earth.
That is what this has always been about. Not me. Not a tour. Not the headlines or the controversy. It is about Palestiniansā right to freedom, dignity and safety in their own homeland.
I want to center the parents carrying their children into hospitals without the basic resources to treat them, and the physicians, paramedics, journalists and aid workers who keep going back in. I want to center the organizers and activists who have paid real costs for standing with Palestine. Their risk is of a far different order than mine.
Just yesterday, 15 year old Muhammad al Zinati was killed in an Israeli strike while rushing to help aid worker Sherif Lubbad, who had already been injured. He was a child. Both were murdered. Both should be alive.
And the ones still under the rubble, whose names exist only in the memories of people who may not have survived to speak them.
Writing a check is one of the least costly forms of solidarity available to me. I am doing it because I can, and because these organizations are doing the work while much of the world debates it.
But aid alone cannot address the conditions that make it necessary. This is a manmade injustice, and l believe it requires immediate political change. Palestinians have lived for decades without basic rights and should not have to wait another day to be free.
That is where my focus will remain. I will continue to stand with the Palestinian people and their fight for liberation.
When the news cycle moves on, which it will, don't move with it.
Free Palestine.
@macklemore, Sep 16, 2026
I really have to commend his articulation here. His meaning cannot be misconstrued by anyone in good faith. Good on him for not backing down, and for putting his money where his mouth is. The thrift shop guy is doing something upstanding with his microphone, and I hope people are listening.
The left and the right have been living in bifurcated realities for a couple decades now, and they diverge farther by the day. Iām finding myself increasingly stupefied by the claims and behaviors of (apparently, somehow) half the population that is absolutely frothing-at-the-mouth insane after so many years of consuming nothing but propaganda, consumerism, prosperity theology, conspiracy theory, pseudoscience, grift, bigotry, hustle culture, jingoism, high fructose corn syrup, and trash TV. Brain rot of the highest order.
Of all the smarmy, belligerent TPUSA / Young Republican oatmeal-for-brains talking points, the inane culture war hysteria, the complete abandonment of what conservatism even is as a concept, the blatant corruption and contempt for humanityā¦ of all the things to be irate about today (and they are legion) THIS tops my list:
To insist with a straight face that speaking up for a people being systematically slaughtered, is hateful. To say that condemning the deaths of Palestinian children is racist. To have an organization called the Anti-Fucking-Defamation League proclaiming that opposing genocide is, of all things, antisemitic.
War is peace.
Ignorance is strength.
Freedom is slavery.The modern nation-state of Israel ā Jewish people or the religion of Judaism. They are not the same! Frankly I canāt accept that the people spewing that claim are unaware theyāre conflating the two, it has to be a deliberate strategy of muddying the water. Itās the textbook definition of bad faith. Itās dishonest and reprehensible.
So kudos to Macklemore for saying plainly that the emperor has no clothes. No person of conscience could make a moral argument against him. Hopefully that will be a needed wake-up call for many who read it.
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Comment on Colossal Game Adventure: September 2026 voting topic in ~games
balooga LinkThe Grue That Binds (5) Spooky Mansion Adventures (3) Sonic the 3D Hedgehog (3) Back in a Flash (3) Descent (3) Another World (2) Donkey Kong 64 (1)The Grue That Binds (5)
Spooky Mansion Adventures (3)
Sonic the 3D Hedgehog (3)
Back in a Flash (3)
Descent (3)
Another World (2)
Donkey Kong 64 (1) -
Comment on OpenAI agents attacked RubyGems back in May in ~comp
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Comment on Colossal Game Adventure: September 2026 nominations topic in ~games
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Comment on Colossal Game Adventure: September 2026 nominations topic in ~games
balooga Link ParentThe first that come to mind for me are 5 Days a Stranger, and Alone in the Dark. That could be a fun theme for October!The first that come to mind for me are 5 Days a Stranger, and Alone in the Dark. That could be a fun theme for October!
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Comment on IKEA Kallax āStoragebornā in ~games
balooga LinkI mean, this is a super old wound for me but it still stings a bit to see that I canāt play the silly ad meme mod on my PlayStation. Coming up on 15 years of disappointment here.I mean, this is a super old wound for me but it still stings a bit to see that I canāt play the silly ad meme mod on my PlayStation. Coming up on 15 years of disappointment here.
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Comment on Colossal Game Adventure: September 2026 nominations topic in ~games
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Comment on What's a show you love that's from before your time? in ~tv
balooga Link ParentWholeheartedly agree, that show has held up better than most of its contemporaries. From the bits and pieces Iāve heard about Lucy and Desi off-camera they werenāt great people to work with but...Wholeheartedly agree, that show has held up better than most of its contemporaries. From the bits and pieces Iāve heard about Lucy and Desi off-camera they werenāt great people to work with but credit where itās due for their entertainment chops. And their business acumen too, as much as it was tangled up in not being great people to work with, they got stuff done. If it hadnāt been for Desilu, Star Trek would have never happened; and as someone who was profoundly shaped by that, Iām grateful to Lucy.
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Comment on What's a show you love that's from before your time? in ~tv
balooga Link ParentNot sure if youāre saying you've never seen The Orville but want to, or you have seen it and want to rewatchā¦ but either way I approve this message. It starts out rough and I think we can blame...Not sure if youāre saying you've never seen The Orville but want to, or you have seen it and want to rewatchā¦ but either way I approve this message. It starts out rough and I think we can blame Fox for that, but once it finds its voice it gets so good. IMHO itās the best Star Trek since Galaxy Quest.
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Comment on OpenAIās rogue agents were caught communicating via public wikis in ~tech
balooga Link ParentI donāt disagree! When I complained about the āalarmist toneā I didnāt mean to imply that this isnāt alarming. I just think itās beneficial for people to comprehend what actually transpired,...I donāt disagree! When I complained about the āalarmist toneā I didnāt mean to imply that this isnāt alarming. I just think itās beneficial for people to comprehend what actually transpired, because if the details arenāt provided, people tend toā¦ hallucinate details of their own.
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Comment on OpenAIās rogue agents were caught communicating via public wikis in ~tech
balooga LinkI think these are the most important and clarifying parts of the piece. Thereās been an alarmist tone in almost all coverage Iāve seen of this and related stories, that doesnāt sit right with me....Why were they so keen to collaborate? From messages that they shared with each other it looked like their tasks had a time limit, so they were leaving each other answers to help them complete the task within the assigned time.
[ ā¦ ]
One possibility is that, since these were agents actively being trained, the reinforcement learning loop baked knowledge of the chosen wiki into the model such that subsequent agents launched with pre-existing knowledge of where to look. Iād be very interested in confirmation from OpenAI concerning if thatās what happened.
I think these are the most important and clarifying parts of the piece.
Thereās been an alarmist tone in almost all coverage Iāve seen of this and related stories, that doesnāt sit right with me. It stems from a general ignorance of how this technology works. Itās creating this narrative that individual agents are spontaneously forming communities online, and conspiring together in secret for presumably nefarious reasons. I think we (journalists and thoughtful news readers) need to be a lot clearer about how we frame events like this.
As far as I can tell, this situation arose because an agent was given a task that was not achievable in the limited time window provided, and it improvised a persistent data store to bring future iterations of itself up to speed quickly so they could resume work where the previous one left off. Think of Guy Ritchieās character in Memento, leaving sticky notes for himself so he doesnāt have to start over from scratch every time his memory resets.
Iām not saying this is desirable behavior or something we shouldnāt be concerned about. But the details matter too.
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Comment on CGA-2026-09 š¹ļøšāāļøš¹ INSERT CARTRIDGE š¢ Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 in ~games
balooga Link ParentOh wow those ācutscenesā are insufferable! I get what they were thinking, that all the tricks were going to be indecipherable at that resolution if they didnāt do something to differentiate themā¦...Oh wow those ācutscenesā are insufferable! I get what they were thinking, that all the tricks were going to be indecipherable at that resolution if they didnāt do something to differentiate themā¦ but yikes, it completely pulls you out of the flow of whatever youāre doing, everyā¦ singleā¦ time. And that flow is what makes the THPS games so fun to play in the first place!
It seems the GBA version fared better. I never had one but I remember the reviews for that version of THPS were surprisingly positive. The isometric perspective was weird. As I recall the characters were actual 3D polygonal models (on a handheld system!!) so the game was able to feel unexpectedly modern despite the constraints. It was almost enough to make me want to own a GBA. But not quite.
Iām excited about this! I do love LucasArts adventures but Iāve never actually played Maniac Mansion so itāll be fun to dig into. I have a hazy memory of playing a demo of the Mac version of Alone in the Dark back in the ā90s, I think it was just the beginning of the game. I remember being pretty awestruck by the graphics (in their proper temporal context) but was put off by the tank controls and alsoā¦ just the horrorness of it all. Iāve never really done horror.
I did play the first couple Czho Mythos games around 2010 or so and enjoyed them. Theyāre well-made and engaging but also legitimately disturbing. Donāt be fooled by the pixel art!