balooga's recent activity
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Comment on CGA-2026-09 š¹ļøšāāļøš¹ INSERT CARTRIDGE š¢ Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 in ~games
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Comment on CGA-2026-09 š¹ļøšāāļøš¹ INSERT CARTRIDGE š¢ Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 in ~games
balooga LinkI remember first encountering THPS as a teenager. I wish could recall the circumstancesā¦ I was at the house of someone who had a PSX. It wasnāt a friend of mine, probably a friend of a friend. I...I remember first encountering THPS as a teenager. I wish could recall the circumstancesā¦ I was at the house of someone who had a PSX. It wasnāt a friend of mine, probably a friend of a friend. I was blown away by the coolness of the game. It had the perfect combination of pick-up-and-playability and authentic teen-culture vibes. The music was unlike anything Iād heard in games prior to that. I loved the pace of the game ā 2-minute runs were quick enough that it didnāt feel like a time sink, and the controls were easy enough for anybody to start doing cool stuff in game almost immediately. Of course the real secret sauce was that the controls actually have a lot of hidden precision and depth, and the game really does reward practice and experimentation. It feels immensely satisfying to finally nail a particular goal youāve been struggling after for days.
I never went back to that guyās house, whoever he was, but eventually picked up the game (and THPS2) for Dreamcast and it took its place as a cornerstone of my high school years. One thing thatās worth remembering is how dramatically video games were evolving at that time. Just within my childhood I watched skateboarding games go from this to this! THPS was revolutionary, and it was part of a larger revolution in games.
Of side interest to me was that Tony Hawk himself seemed to be the model of what a ācool nerdā could be. He was obviously a tremendously talented athlete, but also had great tech and business savvy. I was (and I guess I still am, to some degree) an Apple apologist and I remember geeking out about seeing him featured in MacAddict magazine talking about graphic design and video production. I loved seeing this example of an adult doing what he loved and appreciating technology and charting his own course in life, and finding success.
TBH I didnāt stick with the series after 1 and 2, despite the hundreds of hours of good times I had with them. I picked up the PS5 remake of them a couple years ago but they just didnāt grab me the way the originals did in their heyday. I blamed the controls being different from my muscle memory but maybe I just outgrew them. Iāll definitely be firing up the olā Dreamcast to play the OG this month with yāall though!
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Comment on Dolly Parton, country music legend, dies at 80 in ~music
balooga Link ParentIāve never come across that before, thanks for sharing! Itās funny, just this morning I introduced my kiddo to the original Zeppelin version and later regretted not putting some Dolly on to...Iāve never come across that before, thanks for sharing! Itās funny, just this morning I introduced my kiddo to the original Zeppelin version and later regretted not putting some Dolly on to commemorate her passing. This wouldāve ticked both boxes if I knew about it! Great cover.
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Comment on US judge to baby: file an asylum application in ~society
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Comment on The magic is in the language in ~tech
balooga Link ParentNot exactly true, the early ones worked like this and had huge hallucination problems. Nowadays theyāre trained to search the web for facts instead of trusting their gut. But I agree with your...LLMs have everything baked into the weights.
Not exactly true, the early ones worked like this and had huge hallucination problems. Nowadays theyāre trained to search the web for facts instead of trusting their gut.
But I agree with your main point, having an actual auditable knowledge graph thatās integrated with the LLM but separate from it is going to be more and more important in the near future. Because weāve been pretending that a web search is a way to find truth, but we all know the internetās absolutely flooded with misinformation. Now bad actors are actively trying to exploit the gullibility of LLMs to mislead them in various ways. And theyāre doing it at AI slop scaleā¦ you canāt trust everything you read online, but LLMs often do, so theyāre right in the crosshairs of a bunch of nasty AIEO schemes.
I think that problemās only going to get worse. Seems like the big vendors like Anthropic and OpenAI will soon need to maintain their own internal, curated Wikipedias and set up their agents as frontends to them. Nobody wants to be the worldās arbiters of truth though, itās a thorny problem.
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Comment on Craft - A new AI powered TTRPG engine in open beta in ~games.tabletop
balooga Link ParentLooks more like the AI is the game master. This is a game engine layer built on top of Claude/Codex agents that creates an open-ended TTRPG-like experience for a single player, I think. So, no...Looks more like the AI is the game master. This is a game engine layer built on top of Claude/Codex agents that creates an open-ended TTRPG-like experience for a single player, I think. So, no actual tabletop (or other humans) required.
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Comment on "Over the course of this article, we'll unravel the mysteries of elevators. The way you push their buttons, and how they push yours." in ~engineering
balooga LinkAnyone else remember the game SimTower? Ostensibly itās a skyscraper development / management sim but as your building grows it increasingly becomes about elevator optimization. If folks today are...Anyone else remember the game SimTower? Ostensibly itās a skyscraper development / management sim but as your building grows it increasingly becomes about elevator optimization.
If folks today are interested, they may also enjoy Elevator Saga, a web game specifically about this kind of problem-solving, with none of the extra cruft. Requires familiarity with JavaScript programming.
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Comment on Jumanji: Open World | Official trailer in ~movies
balooga LinkWhat I wouldnāt give to hear Chris Van Allsburg speak frankly about this.What I wouldnāt give to hear Chris Van Allsburg speak frankly about this.
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Comment on From millionaires to Muslims, small subgroups of the population seem much larger to many Americans in ~society
balooga Link ParentThanks for calling that out. We have trillionaires now, being a millionaire is hardly uncommon in 2026. Not that I fall into that category, nor would I be blasĆ© about joining itā¦ all Iām saying is...Thanks for calling that out. We have trillionaires now, being a millionaire is hardly uncommon in 2026. Not that I fall into that category, nor would I be blasĆ© about joining itā¦ all Iām saying is that word is less of a flex now than it was back when it described Thurston Howell III.
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Comment on From millionaires to Muslims, small subgroups of the population seem much larger to many Americans in ~society
balooga LinkI suspect this has as much to do with peopleās inability to reason about large numbers or intuit relative scale as a percentage, as their biases about social groups. In other words, equal parts...I suspect this has as much to do with peopleās inability to reason about large numbers or intuit relative scale as a percentage, as their biases about social groups. In other words, equal parts math illiteracy and demographic misperception.
Ninja edit: Illiteracy may be too strong a word. Understanding big numbers and their relative scales is a cognitive difficulty we all share.
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Comment on Omega Mart: You have no idea what's in store for you in ~arts
balooga LinkIāve not been to Omega Mart but Iāve done the original Meow Wolf in Santa Fe and the one in Grapevine, TX. Both are absolutely worth the visit. The great thing is, every Meow Wolf location exists...Iāve not been to Omega Mart but Iāve done the original Meow Wolf in Santa Fe and the one in Grapevine, TX. Both are absolutely worth the visit. The great thing is, every Meow Wolf location exists in the same narrative universe, but no two are alike. Each one is totally unique.
If you ever find yourself in St. Louis, check out City Museum. If you dig Meow Wolf, youāll absolutely love it. Itās quite a bit larger and just as densely weird and amazing. Itās not as narratively cohesive but thatās not a slight. One of the coolest places Iāve ever been. If you go, wear knee pads and thank me later.
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Comment on What pre-NES games do you still recommend today? in ~games
balooga LinkI recommend 1976ās Colossal Cave Adventure, generally considered the first text adventure game. Because there are no visuals, itās not held back by the graphical limitations of the era. Assuming...I recommend 1976ās Colossal Cave Adventure, generally considered the first text adventure game. Because there are no visuals, itās not held back by the graphical limitations of the era. Assuming you have an imagination and an attention span (admittedly not something one should assume in 2026) the game holds up rather well.
There have been a lot of different versions of the game over the decades, and thatās one of the more interesting things about it. Will Crowtherās original game (just called Adventure) was found on Stanfordās computer systems by Don Woods, who is really responsible for what happened next. He significantly expanded the game, retitled it, and distributed it WITH the source code so others could make their own versions too. Itās delightfully organic and collaborative. A fun bit of open-source chaos from the early hacker scene of the ā70s.
Itās also the namesake of Tildesā own Colossal Game Adventure, and for good reason!
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Comment on Offbeat Fridays ā The thread where offbeat headlines become front page news in ~news
balooga Link ParentSpeechwriters, your jobs are secure after all. Note: This version of the comment should work better than your original draft, which mainly consisted of ālol what an idiotā repeated with different...Speechwriters, your jobs are secure after all. Note: This version of the comment should work better than your original draft, which mainly consisted of ālol what an idiotā repeated with different punctuation.
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Comment on Natural language autoencoders in ~tech
balooga LinkThis kind of research is exciting to me! Anything that demystifies the āblack boxā ā even if imperfectly ā is a step in the right direction. It also has the potential to improve the safety and...This kind of research is exciting to me! Anything that demystifies the āblack boxā ā even if imperfectly ā is a step in the right direction. It also has the potential to improve the safety and alignment of future models.
On the other hand, probing the thoughts of AIs to suss out their motivations and secrets feels kinda Blade Runnerā¦ itās like the Voight-Kampff test in real life. Strange times we're living in.
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Comment on New $500m artillery shell plant failed to produce any 155mm parts in ~society
balooga LinkYet another story about the dire state of American manufacturing, but considering weāre talking about a failure to produce life-taking instruments of war Iām not exactly sad to read it. If only...Yet another story about the dire state of American manufacturing, but considering weāre talking about a failure to produce life-taking instruments of war Iām not exactly sad to read it. If only the rest of the military-industrial complex and surveillance state were as incompetent.
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Comment on 'VPNs are lawful technical tools,' says EU court in landmark Anne Frank copyright ruling in ~society
balooga Link ParentItās almost as on-the-nose as that time Amazon deleted books people had purchased off their own Kindles, and the book was Orwellās 1984.Itās almost as on-the-nose as that time Amazon deleted books people had purchased off their own Kindles, and the book was Orwellās 1984.
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Comment on Hong Kong police raid independent bookstores and arrest five people in ~society
balooga Link ParentIām proud to be an American, where at least I know Iām freeā¦ to be white, cisgendered, straight, Christian, anti-abortion, anti-science, pro-capitalism, pro-police, and pro-military. Whyās canāt...Iām proud to be an American, where at least I know Iām freeā¦ to be white, cisgendered, straight, Christian, anti-abortion, anti-science, pro-capitalism, pro-police, and pro-military. Whyās canāt everybody just fall in line with that freedom? Itās the freest freedom that ever freed.
Oh yeah, and we have freedom to bear arms too, in case we ever need to take a stand against TYRANNY. But only the specific kind of tyranny thatās done by people who want the wrong kinds of freedom, who actually have no social standing or real political power but are making us uncomfortable just by existing where we can see them. THOSE tyrants. Certainly not the people who are already in power and are using it to further marginalize and disenfranchise. Thatās not tyranny, thatās, uh, freedom.
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Comment on Claude Code is the ceiling on vibe-coded software in ~tech
balooga LinkThere are too many different strategies and techniques that get layered onto Claude Code to declare Anthropicās results the ceiling. This is still an active field of experimentation and people are...There are too many different strategies and techniques that get layered onto Claude Code to declare Anthropicās results the ceiling. This is still an active field of experimentation and people are trying wacky new things all the time. Iām talking about stuff like Ralph Wiggum loops, caveman speak, and Gas City. Things Anthropic never dreamed up, that originated in the user community and are reshaping expectations about how to use Claude (and competitors). Some of these ideas get fed back into the product, others get dropped, and many live in an in-between space of contested ābest practicesā for harnesses, prompts, workflows, and the like. Eventually the cream may rise to the top but at the moment this is all still very much in flux. I donāt think itās reasonable to assume the Claude Code team knows better than anyone else how best to use it.
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Comment on Cryptocurrency and AI scams bilk Americans of billions in ~finance
balooga Link ParentStill, one could be forgiven for thinking they are the party of law and order, traditional values, and honest hard work. It takes a nontrivial amount of effort for most folks to see past the branding.Still, one could be forgiven for thinking they are the party of law and order, traditional values, and honest hard work. It takes a nontrivial amount of effort for most folks to see past the branding.
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Comment on Peter Jackson says the next film heās directing is āThe Adventures of TinTin 2ā in ~movies
balooga Link ParentIāve been in anticipation the whole time! The first movie was criminally underrated. Iād given up hope of this ever happening. Really hoping the magic is still there, after so long!Iāve been in anticipation the whole time! The first movie was criminally underrated. Iād given up hope of this ever happening. Really hoping the magic is still there, after so long!
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.