Kilcundas's recent activity
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Comment on Tildes exclusive: the Ethoscore Project in ~creative
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Comment on Weekly thread for casual chat and photos of pets in ~life.pets
Kilcundas Link ParentThis is fantastic advice, thank you so much for sharing! A friend of mine has also suggested Maine Coon heritage, we'll keep an eye on his traits as he grows (he has tiny tufts in between toes for...This is fantastic advice, thank you so much for sharing! A friend of mine has also suggested Maine Coon heritage, we'll keep an eye on his traits as he grows (he has tiny tufts in between toes for now) and will flag that with our Vet.
I'm glad to hear yours has continued to settle! Buckley has been getting progressively better over time so we're feeling pretty confident, having him morph in to a lap cat is the dream. He's very affectionate but on his terms; he will rub up against us but isn't very receptive to pets or scratches unless if he's in a particularly cuddly mood.
After reading out your comment to my partner I've learned that he lets her rub his belly but not me. Typical!
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
Kilcundas Link ParentReading that sentence gave me a 'wow, I really am living in the future!' moment! Thanks for sharing, your life sounds awesome (and I hope it is)."I have been fine tuning [my AI assistants], trained my robot arm to play chess, and I have been developing on my space simulator like a madman."
Reading that sentence gave me a 'wow, I really am living in the future!' moment!
Thanks for sharing, your life sounds awesome (and I hope it is).
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Comment on Weekly thread for casual chat and photos of pets in ~life.pets
Kilcundas Link ParentThank you! I'll admit, when we were tossing up whether to adopt him, the story was a huge contributing factor: 'We can't turn him away... It's nearly Christmas! He's abandoned! Look, she loves...Thank you! I'll admit, when we were tossing up whether to adopt him, the story was a huge contributing factor: 'We can't turn him away... It's nearly Christmas! He's abandoned! Look, she loves him!'... I'm a sucker.
His whiskers ARE huge! We thought he would grow in to them but they just seemed to keep growing. We obviously don't know his history, but if anyone more knowledgeable than I can chime in I'd love to know what breed(s) he likely descends from. His tail especially has become incredibly bushy to the point where he'd make a possum envious.
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Comment on Tildes exclusive: the Ethoscore Project in ~creative
Kilcundas (edited )LinkThanks for sharing this, it's clear that you've put a lot of throught and effort in to the project already! After exploring the site for an hour or so, I've got a lot of thoughts. Please excuse...- Exemplary
Thanks for sharing this, it's clear that you've put a lot of throught and effort in to the project already!
After exploring the site for an hour or so, I've got a lot of thoughts. Please excuse the wall of text, I'll try to divide by function/area to keep things neat.
Score Impacts: I really appreciate the Score Impacts pages and found these to be the most useful for my purposes. While the overall score is important at a glance and can give a decent overview, being able to review the qualatitive information that justifies the score and verify via the sources is what I value most. That said, I feel like this information is a little hidden away and could be better integrated in each company's main page. Instead of clicking on a 'view score impacts' hyperlink, could these be expanded/hidden by the user? Alternatively, clicking on any of the Metric Scores currently takes the user to the 'how scoring works' page; could clicking on the Metric Scores instead expand a list of relevant score impacts with a seperate link for how scoring works (either when expanding, or always visible to the right of the metrics?)
Metrics/Politics Regarding the metrics themselves, I love the categories you've chosen but think Politics needs a bit of work. As you've outlined, the Politics metric is unique in that it is the only one that doesn't alter the overall score. That's great and I agree wholeheartedly with that decision, however I feel like the UI doesn't really reflect this. At a glance, the Politics metric has a number score with a colour gradient background. The only noticible difference is the gradient is red-blue rather than red-green (and that isn't immediately obvious as a distinguishing factor if the business is conservative when comparing to other metrics).
Another user has pointed out that the site is quite US-centric, and this is reflected in the colours: I'm assuming you've gone with the associations of the Democrats and Republicans with Blue and Red respectively, whereas in Australia our leading conservative party's primary colour is Blue and our more Progressive party is Red (Also our conservative party is literally called the Australian Liberal Party... Insert upside-down joke here).
My reccomendation would be, if at all possible, to reconfigure this metric to present differently to the others to distinguish it further and clarify it's purpose. Perhaps chevrons could be used instead of a score/colour? (e.g. conservative > and progressive < with extra chevrons depending on the score i.e >> more conservative learning? ) Or could this be a visual scale with a value sitting further to the left or right as appropriate? If you did stick with the value-in-a-circle approach, I think at least offsetting Politics or having some sort of visual seperator would help distinguish it from the other metrics, i.e:
(E) (E) (H) | (P)
for Ethics, Environment, Human Rights and Politics.
User-specific issues and causes: @fnulare has given you some great feedback in their comment here which I think highlights the need for users to quickly compare to their own preferences. I don't entirely agree with their suggestion of having a user-weighted score for each company (I personally like the idea of having a universal score that I can then adjust myself in my head after reading the score impacts), but I agree that the site in its current form makes it a little difficult for users to identify issues they care about on a more granular level than the broad metrics you've provided.
This is a wild tangent, but if you'll endulge me for a moment... Have you ever played any of The Sims games? In each entry, players take control of characters and need to monitor their wants and needs. In The Sims and The Sims 2, this is communicated to the user by several bars/scales for each need (i.e Hunger, Social, Hygeine, Fun, etc, with 0/empty = low and 100/full = high). In The Sims 3, 'Moodlets' were introuced to the UI. These were essentially small UI elements with an icon reflecting different impacts (or potential impacts) to a Sim's needs. For example, a 'Well Rested' moodlet appears when a Sim has had a good rest in a quality bed in addition to the Sleep bar being full. This helps the player track what variables are impacting on the need values at a glance instead of just looking at the bars and working backwards from there.
You're already using tags for another purpose, so for a lack of a better term... Could you introduce 'moodlets' for different causes and issues? e.g. I care about plastic packaging waste and learned from Ethoscore that Coca Cola ditched many of their recyclable packaging goals in 2024. If Score Impacts were tied to 'moodlets', that could display a negative 'Plastic Waste' moodlet next to the specific score impact, and perhaps all 'moodlets' could be listed on the company's main page. These could be binary (i.e positive/negative) or have a value-score tied to them (though I'm assuming the former would be easier to implement) and would allow users to quickly check how companies are acting specific to issues they care about. Another example: I am progressive-leaning myself, but if I found that a company had been bribing an elected official I would be less inclined to buy their goods regardless of their political stance. A 'political interference' moodlet on the company's main page could communicate this quickly and, depending on how it is implemented, quickly direct me to the relevant Score Impact so I could read specifically about that issue.
... Of course that is a suggestion from a user with no appreciation or understanding of how difficult that would be to implement or if it would even work. But I thought it might be worth sharing to demonstrate some of the challenges and opportunities available to you.
RSS? - Lastly, would it be possible to push your blog updates to an RSS feed? I would definitely subscribe to keep up with updates to the site/project. As a stretch... I would also love it if Score Impacts had RSS feeds so I could subscribe for companies I use and track how they're acting over time (especially in our ever-enshittified world, I'm conscious good companies don't always remain good and would like to ditch as appropriate).
Keep up the great work!
Edit: Fixed the directions of the chevrons in my example.
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Comment on Weekly thread for casual chat and photos of pets in ~life.pets
Kilcundas LinkOur cat, Buckley, is nearly one year old! Buckley was dumped out of a car around the corner from us when he was roughly four weeks old. He was in a terrible condition; starving, dehydrated and...Our cat, Buckley, is nearly one year old!
Buckley was dumped out of a car around the corner from us when he was roughly four weeks old. He was in a terrible condition; starving, dehydrated and covered in fleas. He's a very happy and healthy boy now. Adopting him was a tough choice as we had a (then) twelve month old daughter and a lot on our plate... But it was just before Christmas and we fell in love with him. The rest is history.
My partner and I have both had cats before, but Buckley was our first kitten. It's been a steep learning curve, fortunately our daughter loves him to bits and plays with him lots (chasing balls, throwing cat toys, waving the wand around, etc) and we've quickly learned that toddler toys and kitten toys are practically interchangeable. There was a short, terrible period where we were worried we wouldn't be able to keep him due to scratching and biting, especially with our toddler being a toddler and my partner being immunocompromised. Fortunately that period has passed, he still occasionally nips when he gets too playful but is more receptive of us communicating when we don't like what he's doing. I know it's cliche to describe a pet as part of the family, but he really is. It's been heartwarming watching him and our daughter grow up together.
I started a blog recently and wrote a little bit about the experience of finding and adopting him, as well as our decision to keep him. Otherwise, here are a couple of photos of him then and now.
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Comment on Men in tech #YesAllMen in ~life.women
Kilcundas Link ParentI read this comment last night and it really stuck with me, to the point where I've saved a screenshot of it in my phone. I firmly believe in speaking up when witnessing inappropriate behaviour. I...I read this comment last night and it really stuck with me, to the point where I've saved a screenshot of it in my phone.
I firmly believe in speaking up when witnessing inappropriate behaviour. I also know that there have been plenty of opportunities where I should have done so and, for one reason or another, didn't. I'm hoping this will remind me (and others) how important it is to push through that uncomfortable feeling and do the right thing, or as you pointed out following up directly with the people affected in the event that we miss that initial opportunity to step in.
Feel free to tag this comment as noise, I just wanted to express how well articulated your advice is. Thanks for sharing.
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Comment on PHP warns it plans to release two emergency patches imminently in ~comp
Kilcundas Link ParentConsidering that neither of those exploits were subject to LLM agents, that's quite terrifying. Here's hoping that some of the slower moving systems (government, community, etc) are quick to adapt...Considering that neither of those exploits were subject to LLM agents, that's quite terrifying. Here's hoping that some of the slower moving systems (government, community, etc) are quick to adapt before too much damage is done.
Assuming that this impacts you directly - Good luck.
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Comment on PHP warns it plans to release two emergency patches imminently in ~comp
Kilcundas LinkAs someone with only a cursory understanding of IT vulnerabilities and no industry experience whatsoever, how does this compare with other recent exploits? The below quote gave me a moment for...As someone with only a cursory understanding of IT vulnerabilities and no industry experience whatsoever, how does this compare with other recent exploits? The below quote gave me a moment for pause:
PHP maintainers said Monday that they planned to release patches for two vulnerabilities, both with severity ratings of 9.2 out of a possible 10.
Considering this would affect WordPress and Mediawiki, as well as anything using "[any] PHP version from PHP 5, released in 2004, onward", I'm assuming this will be causing some serious headaches in the days ahead?
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Comment on What are your 'most-wanted' cover songs? in ~music
Kilcundas (edited )LinkIt's surprisingly difficult to find many studio covers of anything by Meatloaf/Jim Steinman, especially considering the critical and commercial success of 1977's Bat Out Of Hell. In particular, I...It's surprisingly difficult to find many studio covers of anything by Meatloaf/Jim Steinman, especially considering the critical and commercial success of 1977's Bat Out Of Hell. In particular, I would have thought Paradise by the Dashboard Light and You Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth would be better represented.
Another oldie in desperate need of some good covers is Slice of Heaven by Dave Dobbyn, It's a jam with a great hook, but I'm guessing it's not so well known outside of New Zealand/Australia. There's a great rerecording in Maori, though!
Lastly, while there are an incalcuable number of covers of tracks by The Beatles, I've found that many artists tend to play them straight and don't stray too far from the arrangement of the original. If anyone has any more transformative covers I'd love to hear them.
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What are your 'most-wanted' cover songs?
Do you have a song, band or artist that you can't find a satisfying cover of? I have a couple of musical white-whales of my own that I'll post as a seperate comment below. A few months back @kacey...
Do you have a song, band or artist that you can't find a satisfying cover of? I have a couple of musical white-whales of my own that I'll post as a seperate comment below.
A few months back @kacey posted an excellent thread on cover songs which I'm still working my way through to this day (and may shamelessly bump shortly to add a few tracks of my own). This post is inspired by that thread and is absolutely worth checking out if you missed it.
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Comment on Summer Eternal presents: Red Rooster, an incendiary RPG in ~games
Kilcundas Link ParentIt used to be good! I remember Red Rooster having the best chips in town when I was a kid. Or maybe that's just nostalgia talking I also remember Red Rooster being the only place open late on my...It used to be good! I remember Red Rooster having the best chips in town when I was a kid. Or maybe that's just nostalgia talking
I also remember Red Rooster being the only place open late on my walk home from one of my first jobs. I stopped going there after two visits, both times finding a chicken bone in mu burger.
I might have to check out Red Rooster (the game) to build some nicer associations.
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Comment on Summer Eternal presents: Red Rooster, an incendiary RPG in ~games
Kilcundas Link Parent.... Your honour, I'd like to retract my previous argument and rest my case. Brilliant..... Your honour, I'd like to retract my previous argument and rest my case.
Brilliant.
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Comment on Summer Eternal presents: Red Rooster, an incendiary RPG in ~games
Kilcundas LinkAs an Australian, its hard to disassociate this from Red Rooster, the fast food charcoal chicken chain store. I wonder if this would affect sales, how the game is advertised or even require an...As an Australian, its hard to disassociate this from Red Rooster, the fast food charcoal chicken chain store. I wonder if this would affect sales, how the game is advertised or even require an alternate name for our market?
Imagine Kentucky Fried Chicken, The Game or Olive Garden Quest, but played straight. I don't think there's a single Australian who wouldn't think of chicken, chips and gravy when reading the announcement article.
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Comment on Donald Trump strikes deal with Vladimir Putin to get diesel in sharp reversal of US policy weeks before midterms in ~society
Kilcundas Link ParentI just finished reading a great breakdown of this paradox in Timothy Snyder's blog in a post titled War Through Weakness. To quote the post: Wild times we're living in. For the record, I'm not an...I just finished reading a great breakdown of this paradox in Timothy Snyder's blog in a post titled War Through Weakness.
To quote the post:
The war is so important, Trump says, that it would be worth losing American cities just to stay involved in it. But… as everyone knows, Russia and Iran are close allies. Each supplies the other with weapons and intelligence, including targeting intelligence. Iran supplies Russia with drones and, at the beginning of the war, even sent trainers to occupied Ukraine to train Russians in their use. Russian nuclear experts are hard at work inside Iran right now. Russia is openly backing Iran in the war with the United States. In sending American hard currency to Moscow, Trump is helping Teheran. In trying to make friends with Putin, Trump is trying to ally with the country that is backing his enemy. He is, in effect, paying the other side to kill his troops.
Wild times we're living in. For the record, I'm not an American, I'm just a concerned citizen of the world.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Kilcundas (edited )LinkI've been playing When the TV Decides to Murder your Girlfriend - The Game by fellow Tilderooian (?) @talesofweirdfl, It's available to play for free on itch here, talesofweirdfl was kind enough...I've been playing When the TV Decides to Murder your Girlfriend - The Game by fellow Tilderooian (?) @talesofweirdfl, It's available to play for free on itch here, talesofweirdfl was kind enough to send me a link when his post in a What creative projects have you been working on thread piqued my interest.
It's a quirky interactive fiction game where you, the titular implied boyfriend, attempt to save your girlfriend from a murderous television with the help of several other sentient home appliances. The writing is a pulpy in the best possible way and is absolutely oozing with charm. Not sure if anyone else would get this reference, but it's like The Brave Little Toaster meets Toy Story meets Fightclub, with the occasional tentacle thrown in for good measure. Devices are sentient and I can't trust myself to know what's real. It's a ride.
The puzzles scratch that classic text-adventure itch without ever feeling obtuse or frustrating, which remains a surprisingly difficult achievement decades after the genre was established. If you have a spare half-hour and this sounds like something you'd enjoy, I strongly reccomend it.
The game is based on a book by the same creator I'd be keen to read after enjoying the writing and wanting to support the author. An ebook is offered with the physical paperback which would unfortunately cost a small fortunate to ship to Australia, so if anyone else enjoys the writing, lives in the US and would like a copy please send me a DM: Just promise you'll pay it forward next time you find a small creator you want to support :)
Edit: The offer has been claimed and a book is in the mail! I just opened up the ebook and read the foreward:
"To Autumn and Brita, for inspiring me to create murderous televisions, and to the creators of The Brave Little Toaster, for scaring the absolute hell out of me so many years ago"
Called it!!
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Comment on What creative projects have you been working on? in ~creative
Kilcundas Link ParentCongratulations on finishing it! I have a soft spot for text-parser games despite never growing up with them and enjoyed putting together a couple of shorter games when I was younger. Would you be...Congratulations on finishing it!
I have a soft spot for text-parser games despite never growing up with them and enjoyed putting together a couple of shorter games when I was younger. Would you be willing to share or link to your competition submission? I would love to give it a try (and an honest review, again if you're willing) next time I have some spare time available.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Kilcundas LinkRailroads Online As a new father with very little downtime, this has become my go-to dad-game whenever the rare opportunity to play something presents itself. The game allows you to build and...Railroads Online
As a new father with very little downtime, this has become my go-to dad-game whenever the rare opportunity to play something presents itself.
The game allows you to build and operate a narrow-gauge railroad set in the US during the age of steam. What really sets this game apart from other train games is the focus on building the railroad itself in a physics-based sandbox. There are plenty of games where you can build a railway and manage it from an strategic/economic perspective (e.g. Sid Meier's Railraod Tycoon series, Transport Tycoon and Transport Fever,) and probably just as many pure train-sims (Microsoft's Train Simulator series, Trainz, and to an extent the more recent Railroader). But Railroads Online incorporates both, and does so fairly well. You build tracks between industries accounting for gradients and avoiding obstacles, then run trains between industries to earn money and use that money to buy more rolling stock and more powerful locomotives. While an update introduced a 'fly' mode, most of the gameplay is designed for a first person perspective and the UI does a surprisingly good job of accommodating this.
In fact, the game has essentially pioneered it's own genre: Infinirails is in early access and seems to be a very similar concept with an infinite generated world, and Century of Steam is an upcoming title from Railroads Online devs that have splintered from the studio to create their own game (more on that below...).
The game ticks a lot of boxes for me personally. I adore games that allow me to build my own world and have enjoyed setting up props around stations to make towns look as realistic as possible. I have my own experience with steam engines and narrow gauge heritage railways, enjoy historical settings and really appreciate that the game allows me to set my own goals and complete them in my own time, which is great as an adult and even better as a parent. Progression isn't tied to skill trees or experience points (though these are required to unlock more powerful engines in the game), for me it's been finally finding a route to an ore mine on top of a hill that doesn't exceed a 2.5% grade, or finally setting up a depot in a way that's realistic, usable and looks pretty. It's really become my comfort game, y'know?
Unfortunately, there are a lot of shortcomings and disappointments when it comes to the game, namely:
- The game is, without a doubt, unfinished despite having exited Early Access. I suspect publisher interference, as the game went from a big period of large, regular, high-quality updates to quickly dropping two DLC packs and releasing version 1.0 before going completely AWOL. A couple of developers recently announced they were still working on the game on Reddit and Discord, but many others have subtly indicated something is preventing them from further development.
- Probably related to the above, the actual engine driving simulation is bare-bones and offers pretty much no challenge whatsoever. Engines have functional reversers (forward/backward) and regulators (how much steam is provided to the cylinders for acceleration), and the engines require the player to shovel coal or wood semi-regularly, but that's about as complicated as the driving gets. There's no simulation of water levels, for example, which is crucial in running an actual steam engine. Boiler pressure barely affects the running of the engine, which prevents the game from offering up any interesting gameplay opportunities such as firing heavy before a steep grade or maximising efficiency over a long distance. Fortunately the breakaway devs at Studio 346, developing Centaury of Steam, are really prioritising this aspect of the gameplay and are doing so in fun and interesting ways. Apparently there were some creative differences during development that lead to the split, which is a shame since with the right planning different difficulty or 'realism' levels could have accommodated players whether they enjoyed these features or just wanted to drive around.
- This may seem like a petty complaint, but Railroads Online is a terrible name for the game. Yes, you can play the game multiplayer, but that doesn't really seem like the focus and from my limited experience doing so the performance just doesn't compare to single-player. It's neat, it's nice to have, but it's not the main show that the title implies it to be. It's also such a broad term (irony unintended) for a game specifically focused on narrow-gague railroads in America.
- The last DLC included a lot of placable props, which would be great if most of them weren't already models present in the game. In other words, players have to pay to place their own trees and rocks, despite both being present in the world. This felt particularly distasteful, at the time of purchasing I didn't mind supporting the devs considering the quality of updates that had been released since I purchased the game, but in hindsight I kind of regret supporting this kind of behaviour. Again, I'm guessing this was probably something pushed by the publisher, but I'll never know for sure.
In summary, I've really enjoyed my time with this game but mostly appreciate the genre it's spawned. Very much looking forward to Century of Steam filling this niche for me in the future.
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Comment on Hate-reading? in ~books
Kilcundas Link ParentNow that you mention it, I DNF'd A Gentleman in Moscow a dozen or so pages in as we went in to lockdown during the pandemic shortly after I picked it up. This could probably become it's own thread...Now that you mention it, I DNF'd A Gentleman in Moscow a dozen or so pages in as we went in to lockdown during the pandemic shortly after I picked it up. This could probably become it's own thread at this point!
Out of curiosity, did you read both versions of The Stand? I haven't read it myself but I'm familiar with the history of the two versions and I'm curious. I usually reread at least one book per year, but the only time I've ever read a different version of the same book would be two different translations of The Count of Monte Cristo.
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Comment on Hate-reading? in ~books
Kilcundas Link ParentOh I can definitely look back on it now and laugh. I did end up having to go back a few weeks later with a nasty post-surgery infection and was almost certain Tsar Peter had cursed me. I can...Oh I can definitely look back on it now and laugh. I did end up having to go back a few weeks later with a nasty post-surgery infection and was almost certain Tsar Peter had cursed me.
I can honestly say it's the best biography I've ever read, and one of my favourite non-fiction books. It won a Pulitzer prize, and very much deserved to in my opinion. I've since purchsed Nicholas and Alexandra by the same author and hope to read that soon - I already know how that story will end and I'm fairly certain I won't suffer the same fate!
(And thank you for your well wishes. I won't go in to details for obvious reasons but the surgery fixed an ongoing issue for me that has greatly improved my quality of life. Thanks, modern medicine!)
Thanks so much for the kind words and detailed response!
I hope the US-centric feedback wasn't too harsh. It's important to work with what you know, and it's impossible for any website to be completely geoculturaly -agnostic. Completely understandable.
As mentioned in my edit, I managed to confuse the directions of the chevrons in my own example so they're probably not the best idea. I do think that the UI element should visualise the left-right political spectrum somehow, though. I know it's not perfect, but it's a shorthand that I think users would appreciate.
... I genuinely have no idea how I managed to so completely misinterpret tags. I can assume the why would have something to do with scrolling through your site at 4am due to a restless toddler waking frequently. It's well documented, and the functionality is clear when interacting with tags on each company's main page. You've essentially already implemented exactly what I was suggesting. From memory, I may have first noticed tags when exploring the lists functionality and assumed only lists were taggable? Unfortunately, this was just a good example of the Dunning-Kruger effect. I was confidently incorrect.
In spite of myself, I'm going to extrapolate from there and explore how you could make the concept sleep deprived parent proof. I think the main reason why I wouldn't have noticed tags straight away is that they're separated from the Metric Scores by the Brands and Subsidiaries section. Ideally, it would be great if the UI elements for tags themselves had icons rather than acronyms, but I'm guessing either A) the acronyms are placeholders or B) icons would be a lot of work. Otherwise, I love that I can hover over them to see a brief description. Good stuff! Other than that, maybe a few tags for businesses could be present in the search list? (perhaps limited to 3 with a '+2 more' descriptor if there were five, for example), but I get that would interfere with the icons you currently have to demonstrate when a business has been included in a list.
Honestly, please feel free to chalk this up to my ineptitude and not reflective of any poor UI decisions!
Oh that's absolutely fair enough. I hadn't considered that, and I now understand why so many of the feeds I used to subscribe to have gone dark after 2023. I know I would use them, but I'm probably an edge-case and well outnumbered by bad-actors. An in-app notification would serve this purpose well for the vast majority of users I think.
Tangentially related, but depending on how you want to use your blog/mail list it might be worth checking out Open Street Map's Weekly OSM - Rather than drip-feeding every single update via RSS they aggregate major updates, news pieces and stories in to a weekly summary. I'm guessing something similar would be administratively burdensome at the moment but even just a highlights reel of notable new Score Impacts on a regular basis would be neat.
Cheers!