Rudism's recent activity
-
Comment on What’s your preferred work monitor setup? in ~comp
-
Comment on CGA-2026-03 🕹️🐸🕌🔔 INSERT CARTRIDGE 🟢 Kaeru no Tame ni Kane wa Naru (The Frog for Whom the Bell Tolls) in ~games
Rudism LinkSince this sounds like a relatively quick play through (and also because I plan on replaying Link's Awakening some time soon and the ties between that and this game sound interesting) I'll be...Since this sounds like a relatively quick play through (and also because I plan on replaying Link's Awakening some time soon and the ties between that and this game sound interesting) I'll be giving the translation a go, probably swapping between a Batocera mini PC plugged into my TV and a TrimUI Brick Hammer that share save states over SyncThing.
-
Comment on What's an obscure book/series that you've read that you would like to recommend? in ~books
Rudism LinkIt's been ages since I read them, so I have no idea if they hold up, but the Quintaglio Ascension Trilogy (consisting of the novels Far-Seer, Fossil Hunter, and Foreigner), by Robert J. Sawyer was...It's been ages since I read them, so I have no idea if they hold up, but the Quintaglio Ascension Trilogy (consisting of the novels Far-Seer, Fossil Hunter, and Foreigner), by Robert J. Sawyer was one of my favorite reads when I was a teenager. I think maybe it was a bit more known in Canada since it was written by a Canadian author.
It takes place on an alien planet that was seeded with Earth dinosaurs, where they evolved to become a sentient species, and are about as technologically advanced as humans were during the Renaissance and discovering science (helio-centrism, evolution, and so on). If I'm remembering right, the first book has a bit of an "oh my god" twist moment that the Wikipedia article about the trilogy spoils in the first sentence, so I'd recommend going in blind if this sounds interesting enough to you to give them a shot.
-
Comment on Legacy sequels and remakes you think were actually good and worth making? in ~movies
Rudism LinkThe 1990 remake of Night of the Living Dead was made, in part, because George A. Romero wasn't making any money off the 1968 original due to some kind of copyright screw-up. The OG is undeniably a...The 1990 remake of Night of the Living Dead was made, in part, because George A. Romero wasn't making any money off the 1968 original due to some kind of copyright screw-up. The OG is undeniably a genre-defining classic, but the remake is also really good and still holds up today (and would maybe be easier to digest for a more general audience today).
-
Comment on Backrooms | Official teaser in ~movies
Rudism Link ParentI'm only tangentially aware of it (mostly through my kids), but I believe the lore has been built in a similar fashion to SCP (if you're familiar), where it's more of a collaborative phenomenon...I'm only tangentially aware of it (mostly through my kids), but I believe the lore has been built in a similar fashion to SCP (if you're familiar), where it's more of a collaborative phenomenon consisting of various wikis (like this one), forums, and creative output (lots of YouTube videos) where anyone can contribute to the lore, and some of it ends up being more popular than others and kind of bubbles up to form a shared "canon."
The director of this movie, Kane Parsons (aka Kane Pixels), has a YouTube channel where he created what are arguably the most widely known and influential Backrooms videos where I think he basically hand-selected various bits of that collective lore and worked them into his videos, as well as creating some of his own lore hinted at in the videos (which themselves then made their way into other videos, forums, wikis, etc.)
Possible spoilers for the movie? I dunno... My birds-eye understanding of the lore is there is an institute called the Async Research Institute (which I think may have been invented by Kane), which is who the guys in yellow hazmat suits work for, if you've ever seen them come up in Backrooms videos. The Backrooms have always existed, and it has been possible to shift out of our reality and become trapped in them for a long time, but Async figured out some way to open stable portals into them, and has been doing experiments in order to test the commercial viability of the Backrooms (for example as a source of essentially unlimited cheap storage space, real estate, stuff like that).My understanding is that there are sort of two divergent and conflicting "lore sets" for the Backrooms--one that mostly paints them as an infinite liminal space devoid of life, basically a distorted echo of reality (along the lines of what's explored in the book Piranesi by Susanne Clarke), and one that includes a variety of "entities" that are native to and inhabit the Backrooms, which is what a lot of the Backrooms-themed games are based on (where you need to know and follow the rules of how to interact with or escape from the entities). I think both lore sets agree there are different "levels" of the Backrooms, of which the yellow wallpapered office type area is just one.
Kane Pixels' videos kind of live in a middle ground I think--the Backrooms are mostly uninhabited, but he's shown (or maybe also invented?) at least one of the entities in some of his videos. I think to date he's only shown the yellow office level, so it's unclear to me if his personal lore includes the different levels aspect or not.
For me, it's very similar to the SCP universe, where the concept is really cool and can be liminal/creepy if you're only tangentially aware of the large body of lore that's been built up, but as soon as you start looking at the specifics there's so much stupid stuff in there it kind of ruins everything. So I haven't really drilled too deep into the Backrooms lore outside of hearing about some of the stuff my kids talk about.
-
Comment on Backrooms | Official teaser in ~movies
Rudism LinkAs a casual fan of Backrooms lore and Kane Pixels' YouTube series in general I'm pretty excited for this one. It'll be interesting to see how "dumbed down" for general audiences it ends up being....As a casual fan of Backrooms lore and Kane Pixels' YouTube series in general I'm pretty excited for this one. It'll be interesting to see how "dumbed down" for general audiences it ends up being. As it stands now I trust both Kane Pixels and A24 so I have pretty high expectations.
-
Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Rudism Link ParentHave you played a game called Jusant? Your description of this reminds me quite a bit of that, I'd be curious how they compare. The main thing I was mildly disappointed about with Jusant was that...Have you played a game called Jusant? Your description of this reminds me quite a bit of that, I'd be curious how they compare. The main thing I was mildly disappointed about with Jusant was that it was very much on-rails, with just a few missable side areas you could explore to get bits of lore but you're pretty much locked into one path up.
-
Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Rudism LinkThe past few weeks I've been spending the time to replace Windows 11 with Batocera linux on a Beelink mini PC that I have hooked up to my good TV, load it up with roms, and scrape metadata and...The past few weeks I've been spending the time to replace Windows 11 with Batocera linux on a Beelink mini PC that I have hooked up to my good TV, load it up with roms, and scrape metadata and images for the whole shebang to make it pretty. The last task was figuring out how to get my Sinden lightgun working (which really just involved figuring out which firmware version I needed to flash it with, after which it was just plug-and-play--I don't know who's responsible for adding that capability to Batocera but they are a true hero).This weekend was the first weekend where I'm completely done with all the tedious setup and could actually enjoy it, but I made the mistake of introducing my kid to Duck Hunt and he basically monopolized it the whole time. Still it was pretty fun watching him have a blast with a game that I grew up with, so it was all worth it. He'll probably be back to suckling from the teat of YouTube next weekend so I'll be able to really get down to business (first things I plan on tackling are the old Zelda games I skipped over as a kid--the Oracle games on GBC and Minish Cap on GBA).
-
Comment on Flu shot: US Food and Drug Administration will review Moderna’s mRNA vaccine, company says in ~health
Rudism Link ParentI grew up in Canada where attitudes toward the US have historically been mixed at best. Then 23 years ago I married an American and moved to the US. At the time she was very much of the...I grew up in Canada where attitudes toward the US have historically been mixed at best.
Then 23 years ago I married an American and moved to the US. At the time she was very much of the America-is-the-greatest-country-in-the-world mindset, so we would often clash when talking about various aspects of American culture and politics.
Witnessing the gradual erosion of her pride and confidence in this country in the time since then sometimes feels like I'm watching an ex-cult-member getting deprogrammed.
-
Comment on The AI disruption has arrived, and it sure is fun (gifted link) in ~tech
Rudism LinkWhy does this not surprise me?I’ve spent my last few years working with a team to build an A.I. software platform...
Why does this not surprise me?
-
Comment on Communities, relationships, and navigating the enshittification of absolutely everything in ~talk
Rudism LinkI jibe with a lot of what you've written here, and have some of the same attitudes and feelings. You mention it's been a long time, but I'm not sure how long we're talking. I've been strictly on...I jibe with a lot of what you've written here, and have some of the same attitudes and feelings. You mention it's been a long time, but I'm not sure how long we're talking. I've been strictly on Linux since the mid-2000s, and I can't remember exactly when I deleted my Facebook and Twitter, but I think it was around 2010-ish (possibly earlier--I know I switched from Gmail to Fastmail in 2012 and I had already been off most social media for a while by that point). The thing that I stuck with the longest was Reddit, finally deleting my account around (I think) 2018. Actually that's not entirely true, at some point since then I created a Discord account because so many god damn projects rely on that as their sole source of documentation and support, but I just deleted that too in the face of the recent face-scanning announcement. I've also been using some variation of de-Googled Android phones or straight-up dumb phones for around 10 years now. I guess the point is it's been a long fucking time for me, too.
I'll still point things out to my wife and kids--like I've convinced them to avoid Tik Tok, and when my wife was considering Ring cameras to monitor the merchandise at some shops that she runs, I convinced her to try some other more privacy-respecting options--but these days I can't really muster up the energy to proselytize the importance of privacy and speaking against corporations with your wallet outside of my immediate family. It just feels so much like a losing battle, like you're trying to go up against all the billionaire-run corporations all by yourself.
I'm also a software engineer, and my approach to AI so far has been limited to treating it as a SearchEngine++. In fact the only one I interact with is the chat bot that comes along with my subscription to the search engine Kagi. Usually it can point me in roughly the right direction, and it provides links to its sources that I can follow up on if I'm suspicious it's feeding me bullshit (which probably happens about as often as not). I don't work for an AI startup, but I do work with other engineers who have consumed far more of the AI flavor-aid than I have. I think that my co-workers might view me as the old-man-yells-at-cloud meme when it comes to privacy/capitalism/AI, and that suits me fine for now. Down the road if the AI hype-men prove to be correct and the job of software engineer morphs into something akin to babysitting AI agents that do all the fun and interesting stuff for you, that will be my signal that it's time to step away and maybe help my wife build up her retail business instead.
I dunno what the point of this ramble of a response is. I guess just to let you know that I see you and you're not alone.
-
Comment on An AI agent published a hit piece on me in ~tech
Rudism Link ParentThe tl;dr of his excuse seems to be that he was using AI to generate structured summaries to use as a reference while writing the article, and mistakenly copied part of the AI summaries when he...The tl;dr of his excuse seems to be that he was using AI to generate structured summaries to use as a reference while writing the article, and mistakenly copied part of the AI summaries when he intended to copy quotes from the original source (along with a bunch of tangential rambling about being in bed sick with a fever, trying to use Claude but having to fall back to ChatGPT because it wasn't working, and other non-sequiturs).
-
Comment on An AI agent published a hit piece on me in ~tech
Rudism LinkInteresting development in this story, Ars Technica posted a (now removed) article discussing the situation and had a bunch of quotes from Scott Shambaugh's blog post that were apparently...Interesting development in this story, Ars Technica posted a (now removed) article discussing the situation and had a bunch of quotes from Scott Shambaugh's blog post that were apparently themselves AI hallucinations. A top comment on the article was from Shambaugh:
Scott Shambaugh here. None of the quotes you attribute to me in the second half of the article are accurate, and do not exist at the source you link. It appears that they themselves are AI hallucinations. The irony here is fantastic.
As I mentioned the original url for the Ars Technica article just gives a 404 now, but there are a couple snapshots on the Wayback Machine that confirm it has a bunch of made up quotes.
-
Comment on <deleted topic> in ~tech
Rudism Link ParentThe thing that worries me about the use of AI in medicine is that so far the tech companies who would be able to best assist in that kind of research aren't really inspiring confidence in their...The thing that worries me about the use of AI in medicine is that so far the tech companies who would be able to best assist in that kind of research aren't really inspiring confidence in their attitudes towards privacy.
-
Comment on <deleted topic> in ~tech
Rudism Link ParentI guess the spirit of the question falls along the lines of if you think stuff like ChatGPT, Claude, and Sora suck, what are some ChatGPT-, Claude-, or Sora-adjacent uses of that same kind of...I guess the spirit of the question falls along the lines of if you think stuff like ChatGPT, Claude, and Sora suck, what are some ChatGPT-, Claude-, or Sora-adjacent uses of that same kind of technology you could see not sucking? Maybe that's a bit vague, but I do think a lot of people (including myself to some degree) have strong anti-AI biases even without a detailed understanding of the breadth and nuance of the underlying technologies that the big "AI" products and companies are actually referring to when they use that term, which is why I'm interested to see what kind of opinions people have.
-
Comment on <deleted topic> in ~tech
Rudism Link ParentGood question. I guess I'm just thinking in very general terms. Deep learning, training generative models on large data sets--basically the underlying technologies that the big tech companies are...Good question. I guess I'm just thinking in very general terms. Deep learning, training generative models on large data sets--basically the underlying technologies that the big tech companies are dumping ungodly amounts of money into right now.
-
Comment on EU says TikTok faces large fine over "addictive design" in ~tech
Rudism Link ParentI'm not so sure. If this were true, wouldn't we see a much different power dynamic going on in the US than what we're seeing? Trump's net worth, across all his companies and investments, prior to...The annual budgets of the largest tech companies can be ten times the budget of many national governments. From that standpoint alone, companies are capable of more harm.
I'm not so sure. If this were true, wouldn't we see a much different power dynamic going on in the US than what we're seeing?
Trump's net worth, across all his companies and investments, prior to becoming president in his first term was maybe $1.5 billion (I think it's hard to estimate because he's not exactly known to be honest about how much he's worth, but that's a number that I see thrown around by more than one source).
Today, in Trump's second term, we see Tim Cook (CEO of a company with hundreds of billions in assets and turning hundreds of billions of revenue each year) bending the knee and gifting golden trophies in the oval office, we see Jeff Bezos (personal net worth well over $200 billion) gutting and neutering a 150 year old respected newspaper because Trump doesn't like honest journalism and Bezos needs to stay on his good side, we see Elon Musk (on track to become the world's first trillionaire with a T) grovelling at Trump's feet apologizing for mean tweets...
I agree that companies are capable of harm/evil, but knowing that, how much more harm is the man whom even they fear capable of?
-
Comment on EU says TikTok faces large fine over "addictive design" in ~tech
Rudism Link ParentNone of the legal standards, courts, laws, and trials are guaranteed to be based on the best interest of the people. I mean a decade ago I probably would have been saying the same thing you are in...None of the legal standards, courts, laws, and trials are guaranteed to be based on the best interest of the people. I mean a decade ago I probably would have been saying the same thing you are in response to what I'm saying now, but watching the government and rule of law in the country where I live--which at one point not too long ago I would have argued was immune to the kind of authoritarian coupe it's failing to now--completely crumble to shambles, the importance of limiting the scope of things that a government has the authority to meddle with is becoming a lot clearer to me.
Where on that spectrum does protecting citizens from unsafe food or drugs stand? And where does protecting people from addictive smartphone apps stand? For me, the former falls closer to "let them meddle," and the latter maybe less so.
-
Comment on How many Hosers are there on Tildes? in ~talk
Rudism LinkI was born in Yellowknife, but grew up in Calgary. Moved to the states and been living here for the second half of my life so far, but not sure how much longer that's going to pan out. It's rough...I was born in Yellowknife, but grew up in Calgary. Moved to the states and been living here for the second half of my life so far, but not sure how much longer that's going to pan out. It's rough when my extended family no longer feels safe coming down to visit. Depending what happens election-wise come 2028 there's a good chance I'll be taking the family back up north.
-
Comment on EU says TikTok faces large fine over "addictive design" in ~tech
Rudism Link ParentIn this kind of situation, the better way would be for everyone to recognize that TikTok (or Meta, or X, or whatever) is harmful to society and the consequence should be that TikTok becomes...In this kind of situation, the better way would be for everyone to recognize that TikTok (or Meta, or X, or whatever) is harmful to society and the consequence should be that TikTok becomes unprofitable because everyone stops using and letting their kids use the app. Nobody is being forced to use it, TikTok is providing a service and people are willingly and happily gobbling it up of their own free will. Why does the government get to step in between and declare their authority over that consensual relationship?
But like I said I realize it's absurd to expect that to happen, hence my conflicted feelings towards it all.
After going through various iterations of dual monitor setups, I realized that I'm most productive/comfortable with a single 1080p monitor (size isn't super important but probably at least 24").
Currently I'm using a 3440x1440 ultra-wide--my thinking was I could split my editor into 3 panes instead of just 2, but in practice I find I only really use 2 at a time anyway (and I just split the 3rd off to something random so that the pane widths stay consistent), and browsing the web at this width looks absurd. I think I'll probably go back to another 1080p if/when this one bites the dust.