balooga's recent activity
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Comment on I made a satirical AI detector in ~tech
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Comment on The local weather in ~society
balooga LinkI’m not sure what to make of this. It’s an interesting, dystopian vignette. It reads like sci-fi but it’s not. I think it pretty effectively encapsulates the weirdness of the times we’re living in...I’m not sure what to make of this. It’s an interesting, dystopian vignette. It reads like sci-fi but it’s not. I think it pretty effectively encapsulates the weirdness of the times we’re living in right now. I wish he had more of a point to make, but maybe I’m just blind to the subtext. I’m not familiar with this blogger or other things he’s written, to be able to piece together more meaning.
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Comment on Mullvad CEO gives ≈€452,000 to the Örebro Party in ~society
balooga Link ParentNot sure I agree with that. Google may benefit from a standpoint of trademark security, but when everyone uses “google” generically they benefit from brand recognition, which is arguably more...Not sure I agree with that. Google may benefit from a standpoint of trademark security, but when everyone uses “google” generically they benefit from brand recognition, which is arguably more valuable to them. Especially in these hyper-competitive times, when the staying power of search engines as an entire category is on the rocks, they want their name on your lips. When no one is saying “google” anymore they’ve lost the mind share battle to Claude or whatever.
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Comment on Mullvad CEO gives ≈€452,000 to the Örebro Party in ~society
balooga Link ParentEww. That’s obnoxious. If we’re just talking about the tone of a company’s branding and comms… I want my VPN provider to be serious, professional, and responsive. Not puerile and vaguely...Eww. That’s obnoxious. If we’re just talking about the tone of a company’s branding and comms… I want my VPN provider to be serious, professional, and responsive. Not puerile and vaguely homophobic NSFW jokes. Instant red flag.
That’s not even mentioning the shady crypto-bro scheme. Don’t want my data going anywhere near a company that thinks like that. (It’s worth mentioning that Mullvad accepts payments in crypto, but that’s specifically to facilitate anonymity — it’s not a coin they devised or control being used as a side hustle.)
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Comment on Mullvad CEO gives ≈€452,000 to the Örebro Party in ~society
balooga LinkI’ve been mulling over (heh) this news since it was posted here and I’m really torn. Mullvad is a great service. It works well and the client is frequently updated with improvements. From a...I’ve been mulling over (heh) this news since it was posted here and I’m really torn. Mullvad is a great service. It works well and the client is frequently updated with improvements. From a privacy standpoint they’re doing everything exactly right… they’re the gold standard of what this kind of company should be.
I’m not anywhere near Sweden and don’t know much about its politics but obviously I don’t want to fund fascist anti-immigration movements anywhere. Ugh.
When I first started using VPN services many years ago I was proud of my decision to use Private Internet Access. They were doing everything right, and I loved the endorsement / involvement of Rick Falkvinge. After a few years I realized Falkvinge had at some point quietly parted ways with PIA — sus! — and of course their acquisition by Kape Technologies was bad, bad news. If you can’t trust your VPN provider, what’s even the point? Just from a basic opsec/privacy standpoint, I had to jump ship.
After a pretty lengthy research phase I landed on Mullvad. It was following all the same best practices that initially won me over to PIA, going even further in some respects. Not being operated from a Five Eyes country was a nice bonus. So is the fact that (AFAIK) Mullvad’s never been one of those spammy VPNs with all the aggressive YouTube and podcast marketing campaigns. As far as I’m aware Mullvad remains uncompromised by hacks, leaks, breaches, etc. and their third-party audits always come back clean.
So yeah, I’m torn. I’m a satisfied customer! I don’t think there are any better alternatives on the market right now. Mullvad has earned my trust.
…but fascism. Argh! Why is it always fascism?! 😩
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Comment on Tildes Game Giveaway: June 2026 in ~games
balooga Link ParentHonestly this is an old grudge of mine that I guess I've gotten over... but the lore and worldbuilding of the Animus and the present-day search for lost historical secrets in the first few games...Honestly this is an old grudge of mine that I guess I've gotten over... but the lore and worldbuilding of the Animus and the present-day search for lost historical secrets in the first few games was amazing. Particularly the Ezio trilogy. I was a huge fan of that. And then AC3 completely lost the plot. It set up a lame meme-y 2012 Mayan calendar apocalypse threat, failed to resolve anything meaningfully, and painted the franchise into a corner that it couldn't proceed from.
Ever since then it's been a weird mishmash of concepts that don't really cohere. More vibes than story. I haven't played all of them but I remember being especially annoyed by Rogue (the weird Black Flag spin-off that released on previous-gen consoles at the same time Unity came out for next-gen ones). Origins was effectively a series reboot, not in terms of lore but it changed a lot of the core gameplay loops and mechanics, and added skill trees and light RPG-style progression. I like most of those changes tbh, though I miss the old-style parkour which was slower and more strategic. Anyway the present-day elements have really been sidelined and they basically just pay it lip service now so they can still justify the Assassin's Creed branding. I'd love a return to the mystique of the early series but I'm mostly okay with that if it means no scrawny white dudes in Detroit.
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Comment on Anyone want to try a theme? in ~tildes
balooga Link ParentTildes is a great candidate for custom styles! This one isn’t my particular cup of tea but I love that it exists. May others follow!Tildes is a great candidate for custom styles! This one isn’t my particular cup of tea but I love that it exists. May others follow!
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Comment on Anyone want to try a theme? in ~tildes
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Comment on Tildes Game Giveaway: June 2026 in ~games
balooga Link ParentI loved Origins too! Nobody ever talks about that one but it was great fun. Both Origins and Valhalla have educational modes, more like a museum exhibit than a game, where you can explore the...I loved Origins too! Nobody ever talks about that one but it was great fun. Both Origins and Valhalla have educational modes, more like a museum exhibit than a game, where you can explore the region with all the combat removed and learn some history. I give props to Ubisoft for adding that completely unnecessary content. It's not something anybody asked for but they did it anyway. It shows off the care they took in researching these eras and recreating the real-world environments digitally.
I might be wrong but I don't think the other Assassin's Creed titles included anything like that.
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Comment on Tildes Game Giveaway: June 2026 in ~games
balooga Link ParentValhalla's surprisingly good, I've logged many hours in that one myself. Never finished it, actually, I got lost in all the side content.Valhalla's surprisingly good, I've logged many hours in that one myself. Never finished it, actually, I got lost in all the side content.
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Comment on Tildes Game Giveaway: June 2026 in ~games
balooga (edited )Link ParentDamn, kfwyre! What a list! I’m interested in Monument Valley and Sonic Frontiers. Thank you! FYI your Stunt Paradise link points to the wrong URL. I didn’t check all of them but did notice that....Damn, kfwyre! What a list!
I’m interested in Monument Valley and Sonic Frontiers. Thank you!
FYI your Stunt Paradise link points to the wrong URL. I didn’t check all of them but did notice that.
ETA my reasons for those picks: Nostalgia, mainly. I’m an old-school fan of Ron Gilbert’s point-n-clicks (see the Secret of Monkey Island CGA I hosted awhile back) and 2D Sonic platformers. I haven’t been wowed much by Sonic since, well, I guess Sonic Adventure 2 (excepting the fantastic Sonic Mania) but the open world concept in Frontiers looks interesting and I’ve been curious about it.
Edited, again: Derp, I was thinking of Thimbleweed Park when I saw Monument Valley but I recognized the name because it’s another title I’ve been interested in. Oops! My request stands, lol.
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Comment on 4 × 3 in ~games
balooga Link ParentSounds like he’s not confident about publishing new daily puzzles over the long term. I hope he can! They’re tricky to design well! Because I wouldn’t expect any one person to commit to so much...Sounds like he’s not confident about publishing new daily puzzles over the long term. I hope he can! They’re tricky to design well!
Because I wouldn’t expect any one person to commit to so much for a (free) puzzle game, I wanted to see how good ChatGPT is at designing puzzles for it. I used the same prompt three times to see if it would produce unique ones or if it would keep revisiting the same themes. That’s too small of a sample size but I’m still impressed with what it came up with. Formalizing a list of previously used words/categories to exclude would probably help.
Puzzle 1
STOUT BREEZE CALL-UP SKETCH DRAFT LAGER OUTLINE GUST CONSCRIPTION Answers
Purple — Compulsory military recruitment
DRAFT, CALL-UP, CONSCRIPTIONBlue — Preliminary versions or plans
DRAFT, SKETCH, OUTLINEGreen — Beer terms
DRAFT, STOUT, LAGERYellow — Air currents
DRAFT, BREEZE, GUSTHub word: DRAFT.
Puzzle 2
SUMATRA RUBY EDUCATION JOE PYTHON JAVA BALI BEDROCK MUD Answers
Purple — Minecraft product/edition names
JAVA, BEDROCK, EDUCATIONBlue — Indonesian islands
JAVA, BALI, SUMATRAGreen — Programming languages
JAVA, PYTHON, RUBYYellow — Coffee slang
JAVA, JOE, MUDHub word: JAVA.
Puzzle 3
STING CREST CORK SEA OTTER PRINCE CAP WALRUS STAMP SEAL Answers
Purple — Mononymous musicians
SEAL, PRINCE, STINGBlue — Official marks or emblems
SEAL, STAMP, CRESTGreen — Close a bottle/container
SEAL, CORK, CAPYellow — Marine mammals
SEAL, WALRUS, SEA OTTERHub word: SEAL.
I think all three of these are pretty solid. Each took an average of 2:15 to generate with GPT-5.5 which is way faster than it would’ve taken me (and presumably also Hank, his intelligence notwithstanding).
The prompt I used
Create a new puzzle for Hank Green’s 4x3 puzzle game.
This is similar to the NYT Connections game, but there are only 9 words instead of 12. One of those words is the “hub” word, which appears in all four categories. All of the other words only fit into a single category. Each category contains only three words. Care must be taken to ensure that the categories are specific enough and mutually exclusive, so that no word fits into multiple categories (except the hub word, which fits in all of them).
What I need from you:
- The list of all nine words, shuffled.
- The list of four categories, each followed by the three words from the main list that belong to that category.
- The colors assigned to each category — purple, blue, green, and yellow, representing their relative difficulties from hardest to easiest respectively.
For our puzzle purposes, “words” are usually but not always single words; sometimes they are two or three words long but always as brief as possible. Proper names are allowed, as are occasional word fragments or words in foreign languages.
The categories themselves follow the same rules as those of Connections, which can vary quite a bit. Research examples of common category types in that game to understand the conventions that players expect.
Be clever! The best puzzles are the ones with red herrings, where two words that are not in the same category have something unrelated in common, suggesting a relationship between them, but no third word is present that would complete that set.
Before presenting your puzzle to me, double-check it thoroughly to ensure that all the requirements have been satisfied. Make sure each category has exactly three matching words, and that the hub word appears once in every category. Check for category specificity, accuracy, and overall puzzle cleverness.
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Comment on Signs you're a dangerous terrorist: using Signal, moving zines in ~society
balooga Link ParentYou’re both right, and I was stretching too far to suggest there was no crime committed. I’m sympathetic to Song and the others but they did some reckless, irresponsible shit. Not 100 years...You’re both right, and I was stretching too far to suggest there was no crime committed. I’m sympathetic to Song and the others but they did some reckless, irresponsible shit. Not 100 years reckless and irresponsible, but still criminal.
At the same time, I expect the person whose murder Song averted is grateful to still be alive. There’s no legal path to intervene meaningfully against impending police abuse.
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Comment on 4 × 3 in ~games
balooga LinkI love this! Thanks for sharing it. Some of the special scoring rules crack me up: 4 × 3 June 24, 2026 -100 points • RULE BREAKER 💀 🟪🟪🌟 🟨🟨🌟 🟦🟦🌟 🟩🟩🌟I love this! Thanks for sharing it. Some of the special scoring rules crack me up:
4 × 3
June 24, 2026
-100 points • RULE BREAKER 💀
🟪🟪🌟
🟨🟨🌟
🟦🟦🌟
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Comment on Re-watched the Bourne Trilogy after several years, I understand now why it was so influential in ~movies
balooga Link ParentIIRC the shaky camera was introduced by Paul Greengrass when he took over as director for the second and third movies. The first was directed by Doug Liman and had much steadier camerawork.IIRC the shaky camera was introduced by Paul Greengrass when he took over as director for the second and third movies. The first was directed by Doug Liman and had much steadier camerawork.
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Comment on Signs you're a dangerous terrorist: using Signal, moving zines in ~society
balooga Link ParentI've been reading up on it since @KapteinB posted about the sentencing yesterday. There is video of the incident. I've only seen it by way of these "What Really Happened" clips which are an...- Exemplary
I've been reading up on it since @KapteinB posted about the sentencing yesterday.
There is video of the incident. I've only seen it by way of these "What Really Happened" clips which are an unfortunate combination of cringe + LLM-backed conspiracy theorizing + some legitimately decent armchair detective work. Mostly they're hampered by too much squinting at the terrible-quality videos and filling in details about them that may or may not be defensible. The primary sources are a faraway security camera and the body cam of the officer who was shot, neither of which is very enlightening.
The video shows a series of impacts from suppressive fire hitting the ground well away from the officer, targeted across his path but not aimed at him. That corroborates this statement from Benjamin Song:
When I saw Lieutenant Thomas Gross stop pursuing and point his gun at the back of a running, unarmed protester, like he testified, I was terrified. As a firearms instructor and a United States Marine Corps veteran, I understood what I was seeing. I knew what it meant for someone to lean forward into a gun, like he testified, to prepare for recoil.
As the evidence shows, I did not want to hurt anyone. I never had the intent to hurt anyone. I tried my best to avoid hurting anyone.
It's not clear how the officer was injured. It seems perhaps he was hit by a ricochet from from the suppressive fire. It's possible Song also shot him deliberately but that seems at odds with what's shown in the video and Song's defense. A video on that page I linked speculates (irresponsibly, I think) that the officer also fired accidentally, and it was his own shot that ricocheted into his shoulder — a self-inflicted injury. There's a single frame in the video that appears to show a muzzle flash from the officer's gun and some handwavey suggestions about how the officer contorted himself to be in his own bullet's path. I don't find that argument compelling but either way his wounds were not serious and Song clearly didn't intend to kill.
Benjamin Song was sentenced to 100 years for the following...
- Riot with intent to commit violence
I see no evidence of a riot having occurred.
- Providing material support to terrorists
"Terrorists" only because of the Trump administration's political crusade against the non-existent "organization" Antifa.
- Conspiracy to use and carry an explosive, and using/carrying an explosive during a riot
As far as I can tell, these were typical fireworks of the sort millions enjoy every 4th of July. This incident happened on the 4th of July, which is why the fireworks were there. These weren't weapons of terror, as they've been construed.
- Attempted murder of officers and employees of the United States
A single person received a non-fatal gunshot wound from an indeterminate source, with abundant evidence that the intent was suppressive fire in defense of others.
- Discharging a firearm during and in furtherance of a crime of violence.
A meaningless point-multiplier in light of the other charges.
You don't have to search very hard to find the rabble cheering on this 100-year sentence, which is extremely disheartening. Anyone acting in good faith should be able to see plainly that the punishment was not even remotely commensurate to the crime. I think it's debatable whether there even was a crime other than being leftist. But even assuming the absolute worst about Song and the others — that they were violent terrorists with premeditated murderous intent, etc. — a sane person would never be able to justify even a 10-year sentence for what actually occurred. This was a complete miscarriage of justice, executed by an unaccountable farce of a kangaroo court.
These are real people's lives, tossed into a trash heap to score political points with the MAGA morons because of inane culture war nonsense. Disgusting.
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Comment on Signs you're a dangerous terrorist: using Signal, moving zines in ~society
balooga Link ParentIt’s like we’re all just supposed to forget that Signalgate was a thing.It’s like we’re all just supposed to forget that Signalgate was a thing.
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Comment on Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of June 22 in ~society
balooga Link ParentStatement from Benjamin Song, sentenced to 100 years (excerpted)People are being treated as if their lives do not matter. All of this is bigger than me. I know I am the person standing here. I know I am the person being judged. But I also know that a case like this can become a warning to everyone else: that if you speak, if you protest, if you try to protect someone, if you are associated with the wrong idea, you can be turned into a symbol instead of treated like a human being.
The government, in its secret motion to give me a life sentence, calls me the embodiment of Antifa. What does that even mean? I am not a member of a group called Antifa. I am not part of any terrorist organization. There is no group called Antifa. Everyone knows that, but this government is so blinded by hate, they’ve arrested 22 good people for nothing. They want to bury me with an idea. This idea that they hate is the very idea of being against fascism.
What kind of people are not against fascism?
When they killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti, they went on TV and they called them domestic terrorists, the same day, within the hour.
What will you do in this time of great failures and great injustices? What will you do?
How will you help each other?
How will you help yourselves?
Statement from Benjamin Song, sentenced to 100 years (excerpted)
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Comment on Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of June 22 in ~society
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Comment on In memory of the man who put red and green squiggles under words in ~comp
balooga LinkOkay that’s a touching tribute. And I’m a sucker for all things Penn & Teller, I appreciate the cute anecdote with them. Weird Al, too! As a frontend engineer for many years, it’s nice to see my...Okay that’s a touching tribute. And I’m a sucker for all things Penn & Teller, I appreciate the cute anecdote with them. Weird Al, too! As a frontend engineer for many years, it’s nice to see my usually unsung peers get some recognition.
I have plenty of criticism for the red squiggles but I’ll save that for a more appropriate place. RIP.
Not X. Not Y.
A full helping of Z.
That’s what makes it so tragically perfect.