HelmetTesterTJ's recent activity
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Comment on Observation: Video links go unwatched in ~talk
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Comment on What are the most iconic songs? in ~music
HelmetTesterTJ LinkBillie Jean – Michael Jackson Crazy – Gnarls Barkley Valerie – Amy Winehouse Walking on Sunshine – Katrina and the Waves These are the most iconic ones from my exercise playlist. They also...- Billie Jean – Michael Jackson
- Crazy – Gnarls Barkley
- Valerie – Amy Winehouse
- Walking on Sunshine – Katrina and the Waves
These are the most iconic ones from my exercise playlist. They also approximately match the average BPM of your list, near as I can tell.
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Comment on Not sure where to start or how to approach massage tools in relationship in ~life
HelmetTesterTJ Link ParentIt definitely gets easier over time. It's my grip strength that gives out before anything else, but I've been building that up by squeezing a tennis ball.It definitely gets easier over time. It's my grip strength that gives out before anything else, but I've been building that up by squeezing a tennis ball.
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Comment on The enshittification of tech jobs in ~tech
HelmetTesterTJ Link ParentPlace your bets, but my money is on Musk. I miss the good ol' days when it was the Koch brothers.When he's gone people will have a different word for "evil negative force that is destroying the planet".
Place your bets, but my money is on Musk. I miss the good ol' days when it was the Koch brothers.
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Comment on What fashion trend will you refuse to let die? in ~life.style
HelmetTesterTJ Link ParentI've got my head in a toboggan from September to June (Wisconsin, babyyyyy, it's mid-40s today). I don't know if it's fashionably in or out, and I consider myself post-fashion anyway. I've got my...I've got my head in a toboggan from September to June (Wisconsin, babyyyyy, it's mid-40s today). I don't know if it's fashionably in or out, and I consider myself post-fashion anyway.
I've got my goin' out toboggans - whenever I'm in the Big City, I swing through the Men's Wearhouse clearance section. A few years ago I snagged a few decent quality knitted hats for $3 a pop.
My utility toboggans - these Temu Trash headlamp toboggans are pretty damn sweet. When the sun goes down, I've probably got my very useful and highly unfashionable light toboggan on, even in the summer months. I always feel dumb when I wear these instead of my fashionable toboggans into a Slack meeting.
My barn toboggans - if I'm cleaning in the barn or doing any of my other gross chores, I've got my odd hats: my Schwans toboggan, my cultural appropriating rasta weed 420 toboggan, my Packers toboggan with ear flaps, etc.
All in all, it's not helping my bald spot any.
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Comment on Have I been conversing with bots or humans? in ~tech
HelmetTesterTJ LinkA few weeks ago my reddit headcanon shifted a bit. Regarding all the confession/off my chest/AITAH subs that consistently hit All - Top in the Last Hour (the only way I browse), I previously...A few weeks ago my reddit headcanon shifted a bit. Regarding all the confession/off my chest/AITAH subs that consistently hit All - Top in the Last Hour (the only way I browse), I previously assumed all the AI-generated stories and comment responses were third-party karma farmers, but more and more I'm coming to believe reddit is generating them or contracting out to someone else to generate them.
Most of the time, the stories are too unbelievable to be true (AITAH for leaving my husband, fifteen years my senior, after discovering he's got four other families in four other cities?), but the comments, thousands of them, take the stories at face value (NTA wow I'm so sorry you're going through that ❤️❤️❤️). Reddit is perversely incentivized to keep people scrolling through ads every four comments. Maybe I'm overly cynical, and I've got zero evidence, but I'm solidly convinced it's Reddit themselves pumping many of these posts and comments out.
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Comment on Podcast recommendations thread in ~talk
HelmetTesterTJ Link ParentOh, hey, you're me. Also critical analyses of Sam Harris and DFW, important in balancing out my parasocial bonds.(all things Lynchian, Star Trek comes up a lot, a disdain for generative AI, weird fiction, the list goes on)
Oh, hey, you're me.
Also critical analyses of Sam Harris and DFW, important in balancing out my parasocial bonds.
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Comment on Podcast recommendations thread in ~talk
HelmetTesterTJ LinkNerd Poker - Favorite D&D campaign podcast. It's Brian Posehn and some friends playing reasonably decent D&D, probably usually pretty high. Season 3 (Cloddenheim) is a good place to start. Dispel...Nerd Poker - Favorite D&D campaign podcast. It's Brian Posehn and some friends playing reasonably decent D&D, probably usually pretty high. Season 3 (Cloddenheim) is a good place to start.
Dispel Magic - Favorite D&D discussion podcast. They take magic spells and creatures and extend the logic into a society that has sort of reached an industrial age of magic, e.g. factories of wizards producing Magic Mouth-imbued items to create audiobooks, etc. It's a fun podcast. They aren't always RAW, exactly, but I've nabbed a few ideas from them
Philosophize This - Favorite philosophy podcast. Goes through the history of Western thought in an approachable way. He made a pivot a year, maybe two, ago, where he started getting a bit more contemporary and introduced me to some philosophers I've been enjoying since (Susan Sontag, Byung Chul Han, others). The podcasts are short, go very fast, but leave me with an impression.
Runners up - Dungeon Masters of None (D&D), Very Bad Wizards (philosophy)
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Comment on What's your quirk? in ~talk
HelmetTesterTJ Link ParentHeeeey, that's a thing to try. Thanks!Heeeey, that's a thing to try. Thanks!
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Comment on What's your quirk? in ~talk
HelmetTesterTJ Link ParentSame problem as the acrylic: either it's too thin to block the light or it's enough of a glob to popped off. I am, to be clear, very rough on these headphones.Same problem as the acrylic: either it's too thin to block the light or it's enough of a glob to popped off.
I am, to be clear, very rough on these headphones.
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Comment on What's your quirk? in ~talk
HelmetTesterTJ Link ParentI sleep on my side, but I only use an earbud in the ear not on the pillow. It tends to fall out in the night, so if I find myself awake and unable to fall back asleep, I just pop it back in. I use...I sleep on my side, but I only use an earbud in the ear not on the pillow. It tends to fall out in the night, so if I find myself awake and unable to fall back asleep, I just pop it back in.
I use neckband earbuds - the Sony WI-C400, no longer in production. I'm on my third pair in 12 years. The battery life on them is crazy. They're light; I don't even notice them around my neck, day or night. But they're always right there, easy to find, even when I'm mostly asleeep. I don't know what I'm going to do when I can't find them on eBay anymore.
The only thing I'd change about them is the flashing blue LED, and I can't really find a solution. Duct tape covering it doesn't last very long, acrylic paint either goes on too thin or, with a big glob, eventually pops off.
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Comment on What's your quirk? in ~talk
HelmetTesterTJ Link ParentExactly. I suspect in twenty years I'll pull random geological facts out of my subconscious and impress everyone at the Christmas party.Exactly. I suspect in twenty years I'll pull random geological facts out of my subconscious and impress everyone at the Christmas party.
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Comment on Tildes Book Club - April 2025 - Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky in ~books
HelmetTesterTJ Link ParentI finished Elder Race quickly and loved it, so I jumped right to the Final Architecture series. I'm about halfway through book two, Eyes of the Void, and I have no question it'll get scooped up by...I finished Elder Race quickly and loved it, so I jumped right to the Final Architecture series. I'm about halfway through book two, Eyes of the Void, and I have no question it'll get scooped up by Amazon or Netflix at some point and get turned into a series, and I encourage folks to read the books.
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Comment on What's your quirk? in ~talk
HelmetTesterTJ (edited )LinkI go to sleep with an audiobook in my ear every night, and I keep it in throughout the night. Before I started this habit, it used to be that I would wake up and lay awake, panicking about all the...I go to sleep with an audiobook in my ear every night, and I keep it in throughout the night.
Before I started this habit, it used to be that I would wake up and lay awake, panicking about all the things I was doing wrong or failing to do in my life, and I'd lay awake for two, three hours, unable to shut my mind off. But with audiobooks, I can just (de)focus on what I'm listening to, and I fall back to sleep within minutes.
It's generally a book I've listened to a dozen times, not something I'm actually trying to take in. Right now, for example, it's Bryson's Short History of Nearly Everything. It's my bedtime book. It quiets the mind.
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Comment on What's a game that you feel like you missed out on? in ~games
HelmetTesterTJ Link ParentWow, thanks! Now I feel like I need to rebuy Minecraft. I lost my account in the migration to Microsoft. Sure, they emailed me 40 times about it and told me to migrate, but why didn't they email...Wow, thanks!
Now I feel like I need to rebuy Minecraft. I lost my account in the migration to Microsoft. Sure, they emailed me 40 times about it and told me to migrate, but why didn't they email me 41 times?
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Comment on What's a game that you feel like you missed out on? in ~games
HelmetTesterTJ LinkTwo come to mind for me, not because I missed the peak player time, but because I wasn't an early adopter: Eve - I would have loved to have gotten into Eve early. I have always dreamed of MMORPGs...Two come to mind for me, not because I missed the peak player time, but because I wasn't an early adopter:
Eve - I would have loved to have gotten into Eve early. I have always dreamed of MMORPGs in which quests/contracts/objectives were player-driven rather than NPC-driven. I like to feel like humans are the plot creators rather than just plot executors. But it got so min-maxed so fast. When I tried to get into it, it felt like I was showing up at a decades‑old poker table where everyone already knows every trick in the book and owns half the casino. Wealth begat wealth for the heavy hitters, borders were stagnant, and the game had moved from sandbox to spreadsheets. I deeply regret not getting into Eve the moment I could.
Similarly, Civcraft. It was a long‑running, player‑run Minecraft server built around the idea of emergent civilizations, politics, and economy. It was tightly coupled to the subreddit /r/Civcraft, which acted as the game’s forum, legislature, newspaper, and diplomatic back‑channel all at once.
Players formed cities, built factories, conducted trade, had governments. It had just about the best set of server mods I could imagine, aiming for the same goal as that which I mentioned above: player-driven everything. There were no bans, no moderators, all mods. The design philosophy could be summarized as:
Pillar How It Worked in‑Game Why It Mattered Anarchy‑plus Minimal admin interference—players handled justice via prisons, wars, or treaties. Forced societies to invent courts, police, espionage rings, and terror groups—mirroring real‑world politics. CivMods Custom plugins (e.g., PrisonPearl, Citadel, FactoryMod, TradeSigns) replaced vanilla mechanics. Enabled long‑term towns, secure vaults, functioning markets, and real consequences for crime. Subreddit Governance /r/Civcraft hosted charters, treaties, war declarations, propaganda, trade ads, and journalism. Cities and organizations also had their own subreddits (I was from /r/NewAugusta, where you can still find some of my cringiest writing Kept record‑keeping public and gave newcomers a place to catch up on years of lore. Map Resets as Eras Each iteration (1.0, 2.0, 3.0) wiped the world but preserved the social graph. Allowed fresh land rushes and tech shake‑ups while maintaining rivalries. PrisonPearl and Citadel were amazing together:
PrisonPearl: If you had a Pearl in your inventory when you killed someone, they were transported to "prison," which was a repurposed the End they couldn't get out of. You could only leave the End if your Pearl was thrown on the ground. Your Pearl could be kept in someone's inventory or put in a chest, and you'd just be stuck in the end.
Citadel: Allowed block reinforcement. Reinforcing with diamond, for example, meant you needed to break the block 1,800 times for it to stay gone. Iron bar was 250 times, and stone was 25 times. You could set groups (like your town), so members of the group could toggle the protection on and off, allowing remodeling, fixing, etc.
These two mods together were absurdly fun. Griefers could still grief, and non-griefers could combat them. Cities would build huge vaults at bedrock, pyramids of diamond-reinforced obsidian with a chest in the middle, holding the Pearls of griefers (or high-ranking governmental officials from neighboring towns). There were bounty hunters, vault breakers, cactus producers, mayors, lawyers.
FactoryMod drove the whole economy. Put raw materials into the factory, get items out, based on the type of factory you built. It had so much depth.
Unfortunately, I got there late. I had a few good months with it, but it was just as it was getting too popular, drawing from HardCore servers, and pulling the sort of players that used transparent texture packs to dominate and steal everything. It was frustrating to watch cheaters win in the end, but, more than that, it was heartbreaking that my time with the game was cut so short. Close allies just slowly drifted to other games as our very well hidden bases were again and again ransacked by players who could see chests through layers and layers of dirt.
Sorry to wax long; I just miss CivCraft so much.
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Comment on Is it time to get offline? in ~tech
HelmetTesterTJ Link ParentOh, wow, noted. I was quoting the proverb: But copy that. I know for next time.Oh, wow, noted. I was quoting the proverb:
"The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second best time is now"
But copy that. I know for next time.
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Comment on Is it time to get offline? in ~tech
HelmetTesterTJ LinkThe best time to get offline was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.The best time to get offline was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.
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Comment on What have you been eating, drinking, and cooking? in ~food
HelmetTesterTJ Link ParentWorse things have happened in my food experiments; I'll keep you posted!I highly doubt overnight oats would work well with your savory recipe though. I suspect the yeast would basically turn it into bread dough by the morning.
Worse things have happened in my food experiments; I'll keep you posted!
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Comment on What have you been eating, drinking, and cooking? in ~food
HelmetTesterTJ LinkI got an electric kettle for Christmas and it's made oatmeal so much faster, so I've been making a lot of savory oatmeal for breakfast. 60 grams of oatmeal, 2 grams of mushroom bouillon granules,...I got an electric kettle for Christmas and it's made oatmeal so much faster, so I've been making a lot of savory oatmeal for breakfast. 60 grams of oatmeal, 2 grams of mushroom bouillon granules, 20 grams of nutritional yeast, 30 grams of chia seeds, a healthy sprinkling of spicy curry, and then just a ton of water.
No one else in my house will even give it a go, but I love my breakfast broth.
I am one of those that never opens YouTube. My reasons are: