MechanicalMagpie's recent activity

  1. Comment on Your partner asks for your phone, you refuse over privacy, they tell you they don't trust you. How do you respond? in ~talk

    MechanicalMagpie
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    My response would probably be "Damn, comrade, well it was nice while it lasted 🖖" I'm not a child, and if my partner feels it necessary to look through my phone like I am one, I'm out, full stop....

    My response would probably be "Damn, comrade, well it was nice while it lasted 🖖"

    I'm not a child, and if my partner feels it necessary to look through my phone like I am one, I'm out, full stop. Tbh if someone I'm dating gets to that point, then things were broken way beforehand and this is just the last straw.

    I also wouldn't hand my partner my whole physical journal or pieces of paper that I wrote down my social media logins on either, so it seems a bit weird to think of doing all that in one fell swoop by handing over my phone.

    And, in the spirit of fairness, I can't think of a reason I'd ask for my partner's phone either. If I thought they were cheating or doing something harmful, I'd either talk to them about it or get my shit and go, depending on the severity of whatever was going on.

    Edit: punctuation

    10 votes

  2. Comment on Longevity of tech equipment in ~tech

    MechanicalMagpie
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    i have a lenovo t450s thats basically my media center, and by "media center" i mean i threw fedora on there and i basically use it as a youtube/nebula/personal cloud storage media machine with the...

    i have a lenovo t450s thats basically my media center, and by "media center" i mean i threw fedora on there and i basically use it as a youtube/nebula/personal cloud storage media machine with the occasional foray to the high seas.

    The lenovo's predecessor was a samsung laptop from 2010-ish? It had no screen, no backplate, the battery was held in place with electrical tape, and and the only reason i had to get rid of it last year was because it drowned during a water heater incident and sadly didnt turn back on even after i dried it out.

    i also have an old kindle 2 somewhere, the kind with a physical keyboard. I got it secondhand off of woot back in like 2012, and its been happily chugging away ever since. Presumably it still turns on lol

    Edit: Saw someone else mention their 3DS - That too! it doesn't hold a charge very well but other than that it works just fine.

    1 vote

  3. Comment on Why do you live? in ~humanities

    MechanicalMagpie
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    When i was a kid, it was because i wanted to see if things would get better, and because i thought death might be boring, and for spite. Now, I'd say probably inertia? Like, im not particularly...

    When i was a kid, it was because i wanted to see if things would get better, and because i thought death might be boring, and for spite.

    Now, I'd say probably inertia? Like, im not particularly depressed, or miserable. My life is fine, i like my friends, my job is fine, i enjoy my hobbies. But I guess it just kind of feels like i achieved my goal, right? i got to see what was on the other side of hitting 18 and getting out and living a life and tbh its kinda mid lol. But its not bad so like ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

    1 vote

  4. Comment on How do people get over enshittification? in ~life

    MechanicalMagpie
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    For me personally, for clothes i just try not to buy too much new or online, and if i do buy new or online, i assume its gonna be dogshit quality regardless of the reviews. I'm fairly decent at...

    For me personally, for clothes i just try not to buy too much new or online, and if i do buy new or online, i assume its gonna be dogshit quality regardless of the reviews.

    I'm fairly decent at mending, so if something pops a seam or wears a hole, i can repair it (or repurpose it, if it's too damaged to be worth the repair). i also wash on cold and dry low/short, which, even if the fabric is trash, means its getting less wear-and-tear. Heat is the enemy of synthetics (and even natural fibers like cotton and linen, tbh, but they can tolerate it a bit better ime as long as the clothing article doesnt shrink so much that youre testing the seams whenever you wear the thing....which I've definitely done lol)

    Would i love to have sturdy non plastic clothing? absolutely, but that basically means either making it myself or spending a ton of money that i dont have, and while I do like making my own clothes, i also have a full time job and making clothes is A Lot Of Work.

    I guess, overall, my advice would be to either get into mending/making clothes, or find friends who are/are willing and trade them something in your domain of expertise. mending/making can definitely give you a feeling of....accomplishment? i guess? when you can look at something and go "i fixed that" or "i made that" or "my friend fixed/made that for me" and it really does counteract some of the misery about how shit-tier things are.

    (apologies if this comes off as preachy, im going for neutral to excited bc i really do enjoy sewing and mending and costuming and all that lol)

    6 votes

  5. Comment on Make it ephemeral: Software should decay and lose data in ~tech

    MechanicalMagpie
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    I'm pretty sure they're saying that "the trash bin pretty much only exists in email clients and operating systems, for the purpose of cleaning up old emails and files, respectively" but i read it...

    Yes, the trash bin was created as an appoximation of this, but the bin seemingly did not make it farther than file or email management software.

    I'm pretty sure they're saying that "the trash bin pretty much only exists in email clients and operating systems, for the purpose of cleaning up old emails and files, respectively" but i read it very differently bc the number of people I've encountered who store things in the recycle bin/deleted items folder and then get upset when those things are deleted is greater than zero and endlessly frustrating. if you wouldnt use your physical trash can as a file cabinet, dont use the digital trash can as a file cabinet either.

    All that aside, i dont really agree with their premise. Maybe i just dont use my technology the same way as them, but i cant think of a single piece of software that i would want to (or trust to?) auto-delete my stuff without my input. would i like my software to give me the option to easily set up rules/tasks to delete old files? i mean, maybe. but i feel like if i truly wanted something to be ephemeral, id just???? use paper???? like paper still exists. Something something use the right tool for the job or whatever.

    4 votes

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

    MechanicalMagpie
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    Time To Orbit: Unknown which can be read at the link for free. I loved it a completely reasonable amount, by which i mean i bought physical copies of the entire story and i have zero regrets. I'd...

    Time To Orbit: Unknown which can be read at the link for free. I loved it a completely reasonable amount, by which i mean i bought physical copies of the entire story and i have zero regrets. I'd describe it as far-future semi-hard sci-fi with a side of mystery novel and a small yet delicious helping of modern internet culture, but viewed through a funhouse mirror. Highly recommend if you like mystery novels, sci-fi, or both.

    1 vote

  7. Comment on Race Science Inc. | Undercover in The Human Diversity Foundation, the million-dollar race science company in ~society

    MechanicalMagpie
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    holy shit. At first it was just....garden variety "oh, these folks like to willfully misinterpret science and theyre also incredibly goofy" and then all of a sudden it was "oh...oh no, they're...

    holy shit. At first it was just....garden variety "oh, these folks like to willfully misinterpret science and theyre also incredibly goofy" and then all of a sudden it was "oh...oh no, they're genuinely making actual real-world steps towards committing violence in the name of white supremacy."

    perhaps i make too light of it but Absolutely wild that that one guy literally broke up with his girlfriend so he could spend more time.....peddling white supremacy and trying to become a cult leader???? That's. Sad, honestly. I can't imagine being so disconnected from the actual, real people around me that i think the best way to live my life is by trying to start a violent cult centered around a mythologised non-existent past, as though *I'm* going to be the super special dictator who solves all the world's problems (for me and my besties *only* 😤) and definitely won't get overthrown by my own henchmen (and/or literally anyone who isnt drinking the chūnbyō juice I'm peddling) for being an absolute, insufferable tit.
    6 votes

  8. Comment on What vegetable are you? in ~food

  9. Comment on D&D does dystopian children's fantasy: Looking for some ideas in ~games.tabletop

    MechanicalMagpie
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    something about this made me think of Inkheart series Basically, the main character and her father have the ability to bring characters from the books they read into the real world....for a price....

    My idea for the reason why the story went wrong is that someone is rewriting it, possibly due to hating children or hating happy endings or something. I wanted a BBEG but I can't think of one.

    something about this made me think of Inkheart series Basically, the main character and her father have the ability to bring characters from the books they read into the real world....for a price. For everyone who comes out of the books, someone from the real world goes into the books. iirc, the real world people who get pulled into the book world become part of the story, so it changes as its being read, and ofc bringing people with magic powers into the real world causes all kinds of havoc.

    1 vote

  10. Comment on Researchers make mouse skin transparent using a common food dye in ~science

  11. Comment on Friends. How / how often do you keep in touch? in ~life

    MechanicalMagpie
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    well, im neurodiverse, but i dont think im terminally online? (how much online is considered terminal? lol) and i dont think i have social anxiety. But, pretty big caveat, i strongly prefer my own...

    well, im neurodiverse, but i dont think im terminally online? (how much online is considered terminal? lol) and i dont think i have social anxiety. But, pretty big caveat, i strongly prefer my own company, so "normal" friendships (like what i see depicted in media or by some of my friends with their other friends) sound horrendously suffocating to me so that definitely flavors my friend-making and friend-keeping skills.

    Im in my mid-30s, and my friend group consists of my current partners (poly), most of my ex partners (i consider us friends anyway) and a couple other friends who i acquired over the years.

    I have no friendship decay, so for example, if one of my childhood friends suddenly messaged me out of the blue, I'd be perfectly happy to strike up a conversation as though the intervening decades hadn't occured. until and unless someone does something worthy of backing off a friendship, i default to the assumption that we are still friends (and i pretty much only have one friend like that. i dont consider us not-friends, but im not gonna go out of my way to talk with them or hang out with them or help them unless its a dire life-and-death emergency.)

    I pretty much only initiate conversation on people's birthdays (if i know it) holidays that are inportant to them (if im aware of them), or if i find a particularly relevant meme. My friends are all pretty much the same, and honestly if they were the sorts of people who needed constant contact and reassurance that we're still friends, we probably wouldn't have ended up being friends lol.

    As far as moving on from friendships, im not sure im statistically relevant lol. I left a high-control environment as a young adult which pretty much made me persona non grata with all my friends parents, and since all my friends were all also moving on with their lives, none of us ever really reconnected. they all kind of followed the proscribed life path, and since i didnt it kind of made us fundamentally incompatible lol. Im still fb friends with some of them now, but we never really interact (possibly bc im never on fb, but im never on there bc theres no reason other than to make sure nobody i know died lol)

    I have noticed that friendships of circumstance (such as sharing college classes) didnt really last for me, but that could have been for a lot of reasons. On the other hand, some people i went to college with and didnt really click with then are actually pretty solid friends now that we're all actual adults.

    as far as re-making old friends, i actually did have that happen with one very old friend who also didnt follow the standard life path (though for different reasons than me). We were moderately close as kids and teenagers, they lived close to my cousins, and we did a lot of the same activities, but we definitely drifted apart after i left. we pretty much just occasionally wished each other happy birthday for...gosh probably a decade or so? and then one day we just.....started talking about something and realised we had a lot more in common now, and now we hang out occasionally (work permitting lmao) and text relatively infrequently but theyre usually good solid convos.

    idk. I feel like drifting apart and then reconnecting (for any reason!) is actually pretty common. Like my boss is married to someone he dated in hs, and they didnt see each other for ages after graduation. i think most people i know have one or two relationships like that.

    I think adult, especially mid 30s+ adult, friendships are very much defined by circumstance. For instance, one of my friends is divorced with two kids and is recently in a relationship with her partner who is also divorced with a kid, and they each have different friend groups but their friend groups are very much defined by the fact they have kids. Im solo poly, so most of my friend group is other poly people and occasionally the extended polycule. some of my coworkers are married with no kids, and they (i hear) tend to gravitate towards hobby-based friendships. (which ive also heard as advice for making friends as an adult. Put yourself in situations where youre forced to Do A Thing with people who also chose to Do The Thing and see what happens.)

    1 vote

  12. Comment on No, intelligence is not like height in ~science

    MechanicalMagpie
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    When i was a kid, i loved taking online tests, including IQ tests (which, i am aware are even more useless than the "real ones" but hear me out) So anyway, there i was, like 14? years old, and I'd...

    It's less a test of intelligence and more of a test of memorization and what I would call "public knowledge".

    When i was a kid, i loved taking online tests, including IQ tests (which, i am aware are even more useless than the "real ones" but hear me out) So anyway, there i was, like 14? years old, and I'd been homeschooled my whole life, by pretty strict christian parents. And i remember taking one of these tests, and just feeling so stupid because a solid third of the test was pop culture knowledge that I'd had no exposure to, a third was like. idk algebra? that i didnt understand because my mom gave up on teaching me by the time i was like 12, and the rest was like. word problems that were super hit or miss (shocking how much cultural knowledge gets passed along in schooling lol) and idk spatial reasoning type stuff that i did ok on.

    This test claimed that it was super similar to real IQ tests, and i remember feeling personally slighted because if that was true, I'd be dumb forever, because not only was i not part of the dominant culture that was being tested and i didn't have any of the requiste cultural knowledge, i also lacked an actual y'know. Education. That experience stuck with me, so i guess the test was good for something, even if it wasnt good for testing my alleged intelligence lmao

    6 votes

  13. Comment on A new AI model can hallucinate a game of 1993’s DOOM in real time in ~games

    MechanicalMagpie
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    maybe i just spent too much time absorbed in fair folk lore as a child but.......im so incredibly Suspicious of anything that likes to create non-euclidian horrors and convince people to wander...

    maybe i just spent too much time absorbed in fair folk lore as a child but.......im so incredibly Suspicious of anything that likes to create non-euclidian horrors and convince people to wander through them ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

    not that i need more reasons to be suspicious of generative AI and the people who profit off of it but hey

    3 votes

  14. Comment on PhD Simulator in ~games

    MechanicalMagpie
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    I finished in 6 years 8 months with 32 hope. Anyway it took me 8 irl years to get two simultaneous associates degrees and like 12 credits towards a bachelor's and that's why i work a dead end job...

    I finished in 6 years 8 months with 32 hope.

    Anyway it took me 8 irl years to get two simultaneous associates degrees and like 12 credits towards a bachelor's and that's why i work a dead end job with no chance of a promotion ever 👍

    fun game tho

    10 votes

  15. Comment on Blue and red US states were putting period products in schools — then came the anti-trans backlash in ~lgbt

    MechanicalMagpie
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    i wish i could say i was surprised but like. I work in higher ed in a very blue area of a purple state. Someone here had the brilliant idea that, in the name of equity, period products would be...

    i wish i could say i was surprised but like. I work in higher ed in a very blue area of a purple state. Someone here had the brilliant idea that, in the name of equity, period products would be available only in the gender neutral bathrooms. Of which there are three, on the entire campus.

    Cant have those filthy things in the Men's rooms for Men where Men go, amirite? /s

    So I'm not at all surprised that some absolute walnuts jumped on "hey maybe lets make period products more widely accessible for everyone, keeping in mind that menstruation can start in elementary school for some people" and turned it into "they're trying to trans the childrens' gender and attack women and girls with *checks notes* tampons!!!!"

    7 votes

  16. Comment on <deleted topic> in ~music

    MechanicalMagpie
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    10/10. Highly recommend the entire cinematic universe playlist

    10/10. Highly recommend the entire cinematic universe playlist

    4 votes

  17. Comment on What game do you consider an unconventional masterpiece? in ~games

    MechanicalMagpie
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    Man. The lore in Inquisition was *chef's kiss*. Going back and playing origins after inqusition, hell even playing DA2 after inquisition just.....Man. Flemeth? wandering through the Dalish origin,...

    Man. The lore in Inquisition was *chef's kiss*. Going back and playing origins after inqusition, hell even playing DA2 after inquisition just.....Man. Flemeth? wandering through the Dalish origin, knowing everything you know after inquisition??? being a grey warden, knowing what you know about Maric and Fiona and Corypheus???? about Morrigan and her ritual that you may or may not have participated in? 10/10. Also, Descent?? learning about the history of the dwarves, the titans?? slkdjfhlskfjghlskjgh
    I love this game a completely normal amount.....fuck the hinterlands though lol.

    2 votes

  18. Comment on Why is Donald Trump so obsessed with Hannibal Lecter? in ~society

    MechanicalMagpie
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    Man that last paragraph took me out at the knees lmao. Honestly Trump's reference reads like a joke, like he's got That One Good Dad Joke so he tells it all the time forever to anyone who stands...

    Man that last paragraph took me out at the knees lmao.

    Honestly Trump's reference reads like a joke, like he's got That One Good Dad Joke so he tells it all the time forever to anyone who stands still long enough. hell, I'd laugh, even if trump is the one delivering the line, bc i love puns and i think hannibal is neat ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

    4 votes

  19. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    MechanicalMagpie
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    mood. I actually started dai like 3? times before i finally made it all the way through the main plot for the first time, and i quit each time bc i burnt myself out on hinterlands. It helped me to...

    ll fight against my natural instincts to 100% every area I come across, lol.

    mood. I actually started dai like 3? times before i finally made it all the way through the main plot for the first time, and i quit each time bc i burnt myself out on hinterlands. It helped me to think of the hinterlands more like part of my home base like haven, as opposed to an area i had to complete before progressing in the plot. Like i said tho, i play for lore and rp reasons so for me its like....leaving haven, i have to pass through the hinterlands to get to all the other places in ferelden, so thats why i go there so much (it doesnt...quite work that way, game map wise but close enough lol)

    1 vote

  20. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    MechanicalMagpie
    Link Parent
    Honestly, i always play on easy (or normal if im feeling feisty) mode as a mage bc i enjoy roflstomping my enemies and ive been using the guides on this site both for my own build and for my...

    Honestly, i always play on easy (or normal if im feeling feisty) mode as a mage bc i enjoy roflstomping my enemies and ive been using the guides on this site both for my own build and for my companions. TBH, i treat it more like diablo and less like baldurs gate, as far as combat. Like. you can pause for tactical combat, but its....awful. Bad, 0/10. They nailed tactical combat in origins, and even in da2, it was fine but dai it just is bad. So i target my playstyle (and difficulty level) to account for the fact that tactical combat is worthless. Also, the AI sucks balls in dai, so especially if youre doing a higher difficulty, you'll want companions that dont need micromanaging.

    Also, there is actually a recommended order of areas/quests, which is....Unclear from gameplay since you can go anywhere you want (mostly) at any time. This is the case in all the DA games.

    Best advice i have there is

    1. dont do the whole hinterlands (or whole anywhere) in one fell swoop, it sucks ass and you'll be horribly overleveled when you leave.
    2. get all your companions asap, even if that means going to some place and then coming back to it later
    3. i pretty much follow what's listed in this discussion and heres a less descriptive version as far as quest order (or i just wing it bc im on easy mode and im just faffing about ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯ )
    4. im pretty sure the ocularums and astrariums are to convince you to do the last 5% of any given area. I hated every second of both of them but im gonna do it again bc i love the payoff. Then again, i pretty much play these games for lore more than gameplay? so im quite possibly the worst person to talk to about making gameplay more fun and less of a slog.
    5. if youre up for modding, theres tons of qol mods on nexus to make shitty annoying stuff less shitty and annoying. Like. No recharge on the search, instant war table missions, stuff like that. Frosty mod manager makes it mostly painless.

    So, tldr, treat it like an RPG and not a d&d type game, dont try to do whole areas at once, the game is designed for you to backtrack even tho they dont make that clear, use all the mods! and play for the lore and the roleplaying more than the gameplay. I hope you do have more fun this go 'round! And if you like the setting and the lore, i highly highly recommend picking up origins and 2, theyre solid games even now, and its really cool having played them and then going into inquisition like "oh hey i understood that reference"! and seeing places you've been before but newer and shinier.

    2 votes