1338's recent activity

  1. Comment on Double meaning Tildes post tag writing prompt in ~creative

    1338
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    slayer could be a band or a serial killer e.g. the Southside Slayer

    slayer could be a band or a serial killer e.g. the Southside Slayer

    5 votes

  2. Comment on What diagramming tools do folks use? in ~comp

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    I've been a fan of lucidchart for work stuff for years. Straightforward, usable, and interactive/shareable. Has all the various shapes you'd need with options for grabbing images when you want...

    I've been a fan of lucidchart for work stuff for years. Straightforward, usable, and interactive/shareable. Has all the various shapes you'd need with options for grabbing images when you want something niche. Great for professional software use.

    Though I'm not loving their recent AI nonsense push, but hard to find vendors free of that crap.

    3 votes

  3. Comment on For the first time, artificially created neurons can process signals from living cells without a device in between modifying the signals in ~science

    1338
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    Seeing the use of memristors is awesome. It's a fundamental piece of circuitry whose invention, perhaps aside from initial discovery, happened entirely in our lifetimes. It was only a decade ago...

    Seeing the use of memristors is awesome. It's a fundamental piece of circuitry whose invention, perhaps aside from initial discovery, happened entirely in our lifetimes. It was only a decade ago that they finally cracked how to make the things and now it's playing pivotal roles in tech like this.

    3 votes

  4. Comment on What creative projects have you been working on? in ~creative

    1338
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    I'm still working on my novel thingy. I'm so close to done to draft 2, like something like 90% done. Maybe one or two broader things I want to revisit (like consistency of certain nouns) but...

    I'm still working on my novel thingy. I'm so close to done to draft 2, like something like 90% done. Maybe one or two broader things I want to revisit (like consistency of certain nouns) but really most of the important things I got done as I was going page by page. Of course, hitting the ending is definitely causing me to slow down. The very end before the epilogue-bits I think needs some major work still.

    I'm down to 109k words. Probably won't hit 100k but I'm a lot closer than where I started at 123k. There's a few more things I could just kill but don't really want to. But overall it's definitely more concise now, especially in the parts that matter.

    I'm increasingly hitting a point of uncertainty in what to do next. I'm sure I could keep doing passes with incremental word tweaks forever, make a 2.1 then a 2.2 etc. But it's at a point where I could just call it. I've done what I set out to do, which is write something. I guess I could have called that done after Draft 1, but it was painfully obvious that wasn't at a state I could be proud of. At this point, I could just slam the drawer shut and focus on other things... but it feels hollow.

    2 votes

  5. Comment on The same-name club made up entirely of Shirleys is dying out in ~life

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    Before I deleted facebook I was in a group for people with my same first and last name. I also once sold a domain of my name to someone else with my name. I would totally join a real life social...

    Before I deleted facebook I was in a group for people with my same first and last name. I also once sold a domain of my name to someone else with my name. I would totally join a real life social group of my fellow {name redacted}s, but just the same first name feels too pedestrian for me to want to join it.

    4 votes

  6. Comment on Thieves steal crown jewels in four minutes from Louvre Museum in Paris in ~arts

    1338
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    There was Breitwieser so certainly not impossible it was for non-profit motives, but given the number of people and equipment involved that seems unlikely. Pretty much all the high-profile art...

    There was Breitwieser so certainly not impossible it was for non-profit motives, but given the number of people and equipment involved that seems unlikely.

    Pretty much all the high-profile art thefts seem movie-like if you dig into them--though some are comedies.

    1 vote

  7. Comment on What is your 'Subway Take'? in ~talk

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    The Halloween comment about t-shirts confuses me; Halloween is better when it's warmer so you don't have to wear coats over costumes. (also, I wish I was wearing t-shirts, been hitting freezing...

    The Halloween comment about t-shirts confuses me; Halloween is better when it's warmer so you don't have to wear coats over costumes. (also, I wish I was wearing t-shirts, been hitting freezing where I am)

    Agree with you on Christmas though. Feels weird having that at the start of winter.

    5 votes

  8. Comment on What is your 'Subway Take'? in ~talk

    1338
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    The fact that nudity is illegal-by-default globally is absurd. If anything, wearing clothing should be illegal. Clothing leads to unhealthy views, negative health outcomes (aside from skin...

    The fact that nudity is illegal-by-default globally is absurd. If anything, wearing clothing should be illegal. Clothing leads to unhealthy views, negative health outcomes (aside from skin cancer), and fetishization of the body. And the environment and society both would be better off if we were limited to parts of the globe where we can survive without clothing year-round.

    10 votes

  9. Comment on What's your video game comfort food? in ~games

    1338
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    Simon Tatham's Puzzles. Maybe can't always play it for a long time but if I'm not in a mental headspace to actually focus on something serious, doing the quasi-minesweeper or draw the rectangles...

    Simon Tatham's Puzzles. Maybe can't always play it for a long time but if I'm not in a mental headspace to actually focus on something serious, doing the quasi-minesweeper or draw the rectangles ones don't take much brainpower and help pass the time.

    18 votes

  10. Comment on Global Anglicanism split in two today in ~humanities

    1338
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    For other people like myself who refuse to get news from Youtube, here's the wiki blurb with links to articles. High level summary: "Archbishop of Canterbury is a chick? Ewww gross!"

    For other people like myself who refuse to get news from Youtube, here's the wiki blurb with links to articles. High level summary: "Archbishop of Canterbury is a chick? Ewww gross!"

    17 votes

  11. Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books

    1338
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    After finishing The End of the World as We Know it I decided to celebrate October with some more horror. I read The Phantom of the Opera, which was good. I hadn't seen the musical or any movies of...

    After finishing The End of the World as We Know it I decided to celebrate October with some more horror.

    I read The Phantom of the Opera, which was good. I hadn't seen the musical or any movies of it in a long time so the specifics of the story were quite blurred in my memory. I wasn't expecting it to go on so long about the 20k Francs and the envelope, but I guess that's part of the fact that it was meant to be a crime novel a la Sherlock Holmes and not actually a horror novel. The ending was interesting, even beyond the very very end. Like the tree room is unique insights into then-new technology even if he really stretched plausibility. But, honestly, I think the original isn't as good as the subsequent renditions.

    I also read The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. It would have been so much better without knowing so much about it from pop-culture. But knowing what the twist would be it doesn't work nearly as well (plus I feel like the "crimes" aren't shocking enough nowadays). I don't even want to say it didn't age well, it's just that its cultural impact far exceeds the bounds of the original novella. I can see why some people would like the writing but I didn't especially love it. But certainly good to have read for the historic/literary/cultural aspects.

    I'm currently reading Frankenstein as well as The M.D. by Thomas Disch. Both are good so far, feeling more optimistic about Frankenstein than the previous two classics.

    In parallel I'm reading a few non-fiction books. I'm deepest into The Trial of Socrates which so far hasn't taught me much about the trial, but I've learned a good bit about Socrates. I've realized I knew very little about him beyond "Socratic method" and "Plato's teacher." I'm quickly realizing maybe he's not the type of person whose method one should appeal to--sort of like those aphorisms we leave out half of and then use in ironic ways.

    3 votes

  12. Comment on Can we bury enough wood to slow climate change? in ~enviro

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    How about sequestering carbon in our own bodies? Save the environment by getting really fat.

    How about sequestering carbon in our own bodies? Save the environment by getting really fat.

    13 votes

  13. Comment on What ridiculous thing would you spend billions on? in ~talk

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    I know it's more a cost thing than a literal shortage but I thought I'd be a considerate billionaire by merely burning shitloads of rocket fuel instead of shitloads of helium. But fine, if you...

    I know it's more a cost thing than a literal shortage but I thought I'd be a considerate billionaire by merely burning shitloads of rocket fuel instead of shitloads of helium.

    But fine, if you insist, I suppose spending billions on firebombing the planet would be a sort of ridiculousness. Alright, red balloons filled with hydrogen and tied with ribbons of pure sodium. But only after I'm already safe in my pyramid.

  14. Comment on Reading challenges in ~books

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    I never used Goodreads so I don't really know how it compares. When I decided to use a tracker, googling told me SG was good for stats and it's a small, independent business. My ideal would really...

    I never used Goodreads so I don't really know how it compares. When I decided to use a tracker, googling told me SG was good for stats and it's a small, independent business. My ideal would really be a database tied to a graphing library that I can throw SQL and have spit out charts (I would totally switch from Premium to some Gold Premium Supermax plan if SG added a quasi-SQL to Graph feature). I like to glance at reviews and I like having the pretty pictures or else I'd consider switching to a spreadsheet.

    I get the occasional book that's not on there, often things by local authors or self-published. More often I'll find my specific edition isn't on there, largely because I collect a fairly niche publisher's series of books from the 60s. Once you get used to it it's really not hard to just add the book yourself, most complex part is taking the cover picture and cropping it so it doesn't look shitty. You can also import by ISBN often, even if it's not immediately in the SG DB--if it's not pre-ISBN that is.

    1 vote

  15. Comment on Reading challenges in ~books

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    I use Storygraph and did a couple of theirs this year. I did the "Storygraph reads the world" which was just 10 countries, I also added an actual read the world challenge (as in every country)...

    I use Storygraph and did a couple of theirs this year. I did the "Storygraph reads the world" which was just 10 countries, I also added an actual read the world challenge (as in every country) that's more a long-term project.

    I ran into the lemmy.world/c/books challenge, it's like an offshoot or similar vain as the /r/fantasy one I believe. It's not technically focused on fantasy but highly inclined that direction (very few prompts work for nonfiction for instance). But I liked it as it has several creative categories (like "orange" is one) that led me trying different things. Would love to find more challenges like this where it's clever categories not just like diversity or country or alphabet or book club, ideally ones where it's not focused on specific genres.

    I tried searching through some of the other storygraph challenges but so many of them are utter trash. At this point I'm just doing reading streak and books per year while working through my never-shrinking year-tall to-read pile.

    5 votes

  16. Comment on What ridiculous thing would you spend billions on? in ~talk

    1338
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    Does it even count a tomb if there's no traps? Will hire a coalition of TTRPG GMs and Escape Room architects to design them.

    Does it even count a tomb if there's no traps? Will hire a coalition of TTRPG GMs and Escape Room architects to design them.

    5 votes

  17. Comment on Forgot Chrome's unusable, any recommendations? in ~tech

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    Can't you just open another window?

    Can't you just open another window?

    54 votes

  18. Comment on What ridiculous thing would you spend billions on? in ~talk

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    I would ensure my legacy the way the ancient Egyptians did: building a massive (the massivest) pyramid to serve as my tomb. I would construct it on a pole of inaccessibility, preferably an oceanic...

    I would ensure my legacy the way the ancient Egyptians did: building a massive (the massivest) pyramid to serve as my tomb. I would construct it on a pole of inaccessibility, preferably an oceanic one, to protect myself from grave robbers.

    If that's not enough money, I would buy everyone an Ikea hotdog and a red balloon, filled using Helium extracted from the moon to help preserve Earth's supply.

    8 votes

  19. Comment on Recommendations for a Linux based job/ticket management system in ~tech

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    I use kanboard for keeping track of my tasks. Simple to use, super simple to run on a local server.

    I use kanboard for keeping track of my tasks. Simple to use, super simple to run on a local server.

  20. Comment on How do I convince my workplace we need SQL databases? in ~tech

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    Oh, so more of a centralization/data sharing issue. I see why your head is at database then. But keep in mind, a lack of coordination + centralization will quickly turn your problem into a version...

    Oh, so more of a centralization/data sharing issue. I see why your head is at database then. But keep in mind, a lack of coordination + centralization will quickly turn your problem into a version control problem. :)

    You might want to do a little googling about data architectures at a generic level. Some of your issues might be something you can alleviate with a super light "data lake" approach, which really is just a fancy networked file system with tooling. And if you do go down the database approach, I could see you easily running into traditional data warehouse headaches depending on your company's scale. Geospatial data complicates and limits your options unfortunately as a lot of tools that claim geospatial support have huge limitations like missing raster support or forcing things into WGS-84. But a lot of the high level concepts and approaches could be useful depending on your specifics.

    2 votes