atomicshoreline's recent activity
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Comment on Is LibreOffice Calc decent to use as my primary spreadsheet tool? What are your worst experiences with it? in ~tech
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Comment on Is LibreOffice Calc decent to use as my primary spreadsheet tool? What are your worst experiences with it? in ~tech
atomicshoreline (edited )LinkAnother option to consider is the up and coming GridCraft project. I don't know if you consider an optional CLI interface designed for agents to be "AI stuff" but its designed to mimic Excel...Another option to consider is the up and coming GridCraft project. I don't know if you consider an optional CLI interface designed for agents to be "AI stuff" but its designed to mimic Excel closely so you might be able to reuse tutorials for excel when learning it.
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Comment on Any tips for improving personal cybersecurity in 2026? (I'm concerned about rogue AI agents) in ~tech
atomicshoreline Link ParentI don't think there is a single website I use has passkeys as an option. Frankly I would be happy if I could use non-SMS 2FA codes because there is wide support for generating the codes across...For important websites that support them, I recommend starting to use passkeys to log in.
I don't think there is a single website I use has passkeys as an option. Frankly I would be happy if I could use non-SMS 2FA codes because there is wide support for generating the codes across many kinds of devices meaning I would not need to have a phone on me and give out my number constantly.
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Comment on Google receives response from Project Suncatcher prototype satellite in space in ~space
atomicshoreline Link ParentI suspect the middle line might be riffing on the poem All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace by Richard Brautigan which was referenced in Dario Amodei's essay Machines of Loving Grace.I suspect the middle line might be riffing on the poem All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace by Richard Brautigan which was referenced in Dario Amodei's essay Machines of Loving Grace.
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Comment on How do you handle being around other people? in ~life
atomicshoreline Link ParentI'm really fond of the music metaphor because it conveys how delicate the process can be but also when it goes right it's really fun and how a wrong note is something you can laugh off and keep...I'm really fond of the music metaphor because it conveys how delicate the process can be but also when it goes right it's really fun and how a wrong note is something you can laugh off and keep going until you get it right.
Sometimes I got too knee-jerk
Can you elaborate on what you mean by this?
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Comment on How do you handle being around other people? in ~life
atomicshoreline Link ParentI promise this is normal. I used to pride myself on my ability to explain this or that so failure to communicate really stung. In my experience their was a couple of problems Two people speaking...Sometimes we talk about things and their replies feel like consistently miss the point, despite how much I explain or describe.
I promise this is normal. I used to pride myself on my ability to explain this or that so failure to communicate really stung. In my experience their was a couple of problems
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Two people speaking the same language are still engaging in a translation exercise. An idea perfectly understood inside you own head and communicated with words that make perfect sense to you can easily be lost in translation. Remember, people make whole careers out of bridging this gap, it is not as easy as it looks.
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Much communication is actually emotional regulation in disguise. Social animals are still animals and much of our communication is actually designed to transmit our current emotional state as well as help us unload pent up feelings. The actual contents of the conversation is often discarded in cases like this in favor of looking at things like tone and body language.
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People are terrible listeners and that means you too. The human brain is constantly juggling novelty seeking and predictability. One theory about why people enjoy music is that its balanced to trigger both reward systems. Spending time with is like friends is like a well crafted song, predicable but novel in a nonthreatening way. Messing up this balance even a little bit is like playing a discordant note and it causes people to instinctively reject what you are trying to communicate.
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Comment on Tildes exclusive: the Ethoscore Project in ~creative
atomicshoreline Link ParentThat's a fair point. Allow me to elaborate on my reasoning. In order to exert market pressure on a company through coordinated purchasing decisions, potential alternative products and services...My thinking at this point is that, using your example, if Google is doing shady things at YouTube, it should ideally impact their profits across their whole ecosystem, Pixel included.
That's a fair point. Allow me to elaborate on my reasoning. In order to exert market pressure on a company through coordinated purchasing decisions, potential alternative products and services must be economically viable for both producers and consumers.
By looking at a company as a whole this becomes nearly impossible to achieve (good luck trying to replace every single way in you interact with Google). However if you can subdivide the problem it becomes more manageable. The YouTube and Google Pixel example was arbitrary. I wanted to show a place where viable alternatives exist (Pixel phone) and where they do not exist (YouTube).
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Comment on Tildes exclusive: the Ethoscore Project in ~creative
atomicshoreline LinkI snagged one of the 3 invites and my initial impression that I am skeptical of the methodology used to generate the scores and feel it fails to capture company impact adequately. The example I...I snagged one of the 3 invites and my initial impression that I am skeptical of the methodology used to generate the scores and feel it fails to capture company impact adequately.
The example I first noticed was Microsoft scoring a 76 despite constantly being in trouble for openly agreeing to lend the use of their data centers to regimes commiting genocide and having subsidiaries who poor track records for treating workers well I.e Activision-Blizzard, among many other issues.
I understand that a project like this is a difficult to scale but I can't help but feel the site is misleading in certain cases.
That being said I admire the idea behind this project and want to see it grow. The feature I would be most interested in is being able to drill down into specific products. I want to be able to see the ethics of using a Google Pixel phone but not have YouTube affect the score for example. Large companies are effectively composed of subsections that would ideally be scored separately.
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Comment on What do you watch on Nebula? in ~hobbies
atomicshoreline LinkPretty much just Jet Lag. I kind of can't stand anything anything else Wendover related. Sam's constant smugness grates on me.Pretty much just Jet Lag. I kind of can't stand anything anything else Wendover related. Sam's constant smugness grates on me.
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Comment on Become worthless (to tech companies) in ~tech
atomicshoreline Link ParentOffline is so much worse. At a computer you can unplug your router and turn off any devices other than the desktop you are using and know with relative confidence that you are not being surveilled...Offline is so much worse. At a computer you can unplug your router and turn off any devices other than the desktop you are using and know with relative confidence that you are not being surveilled at that moment. Outside is full of cameras, microphones, and Wi-Fi+bluetooth chipsets on cars, buildings, drones, other people's phones etc. all of which can be used to track you.
My musical chairs analogy was more about things that require plugging into the networks like paying for parking, sms-based 2FA etc. becoming more common. Its become harder and harder to avoid carrying a monitoring device in your day to day life.
I know people like to wax nostalgic for the past but I 100% would feel better if I lived in a pre-smart tech world.
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Comment on Become worthless (to tech companies) in ~tech
atomicshoreline (edited )LinkIs there a point where doing this is supposed to make you feel better? I did all the usual steps that are recommended and even a few of the more extreme ones most people don't do and I just feel...Is there a point where doing this is supposed to make you feel better? I did all the usual steps that are recommended and even a few of the more extreme ones most people don't do and I just feel like at best I am playing a game of musical chairs. The Sisyphean nature of the struggle makes it hard to get up in the morning. I lay there and think how little data I would generate if I were to just not get out of bed.
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Comment on Share your favorite live music performance recordings in ~music
atomicshoreline (edited )LinkI watch a lot of Vocaloid concert footage and there are many good options for a favorite but I think the one I've watched the most is the 2011 Mikunopolis concert many times. It was the first...I watch a lot of Vocaloid concert footage and there are many good options for a favorite but I think the one I've watched the most is the 2011 Mikunopolis concert many times. It was the first Hatsune Miku concert outside of Japan which makes it historically interesting, it has a early era set I'd imagine that at least a handful of people in the crowd were themselves Vocaloid producers so seeing the characters onstage that must have been extra special for them. My favorite detail are how visible the projection surface is compared to later concerts. You can see the light up wands reflecting on the projection surface in a way that looks like they are inside it. Just for one night Miku's world touches ours and we can cross over.
Runner up pick: NicoNico Music Party 2015 VOCALOID Live specifically for its chaotic energy and rendition of マトリョシカ
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
atomicshoreline LinkI played Night Loops a sort of Yume Nikki and Majora's mask inspired adventure game. I love the atmosphere and art direction of the game but its constant timer (which also doubles as your health...I played Night Loops a sort of Yume Nikki and Majora's mask inspired adventure game. I love the atmosphere and art direction of the game but its constant timer (which also doubles as your health bar) makes it kind of a struggle to get immersed in its setting because I was increasingly concerned with optimal routing to save time because I was worried that the ending might be tied to how many loops I took to complete things. Having gotten to one of the endings I don't think that's the case but the damage was already done.
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Comment on How do you find new anime to watch? in ~anime
atomicshoreline Link ParentYeah I never really managed to shake the student mindset despite being out of university. Unless something feels at least vaguely like school its hard to justify it as an activity in my mind. Also...Yeah I never really managed to shake the student mindset despite being out of university. Unless something feels at least vaguely like school its hard to justify it as an activity in my mind. Also in general I have a strong compulsion to organize things into webs of connections.
Anime in particular is rather conservative about introducing new ideas and tends to recreate plotlines, characters etc. wholesale so tracing its influences is usually an exercise in finding the earliest anime featuring an example of a trope. Something that a contributor to tvtropes.org has likely already done the legwork for (Taiga Aisaka being an expy of Shana from Shakugan no Shana) or its very self-evident from my personal knowledge (Dungeon Meshi being heavily influenced by early roguelikes such as Nethack).
However if you recursively map tropes/references far enough, eventually you leave behind well documented 20th and 21th century work and start getting into the murky water of folklore where its a lot harder to find authoritative sources for but its also where a lot of the most obscure and thus most interesting connections are.
For example I was really interested in the connection Japan had with foxes after reading The Helpful Fox Senko-san and Tamamo-chan is a Fox!. In my reading I discovered that there was this strong tension between foxes being described as divinely good (likely stemming from their role in keeping pests out of rice fields), anxiety about foxes as outsiders/prostitutes who threaten social stability, and some in between like a fox that is a doting mother until their true identity is revealed (This trope that also applies to other creatures like the Yuki-onna. There is some interesting feminist analysis about male anxieties in folklore there but that's another topic)
Senko-san in particular is really aware of all three types and all of them influence its characters. Senko is of course the doting mother, and the anime in particular does a fake out where Nakano this she abandoned him. Shiro has the visual trappings of a divine messenger such as the white fur but mixes it with modern sensibilities by adopting magical girl motifs at certain points. Sora has the most prostitute like appearance and intrudes to destabilize the situation (side note there is evidence of competing brothels in the Edo period using yokai motifs for branding in a similar way as a modern maid cafes but that's also another topic).
Seeing Shiro's magical girl antics reminded me of watching Madoka Magica which led to me digging into what the deal was with Japan and witches was and the short version is that they had their own version of witch hunts that had some level of influence on the popular perception of witches even into the 20th century but sentiments were significantly influenced be the the TV show Bewitched getting dubbed and released there which softened perceptions and led to the creation of the show Sally the Witch which was foundational to the magical girl genre and as well as other positive depictions of witches like Kiki's delivery Service which is part of the canon of Studio Ghibli films that helped influence the whole anti-industrial cozy game genre.
Everything is connected and a even a niche work, dropped into the timeline at the right moment can have its influence grow over time as people imitate it and then are themselves imitated. It kind of makes me wonder what currently niche pieces of media are going to have a long term impact.
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Comment on How do you find new anime to watch? in ~anime
atomicshoreline LinkI like being in on the jokes and references so I if I like an anime I will use my existing knowledge of a works influences as well as its Shoutout page on tvtropes.org example as a jumping off...I like being in on the jokes and references so I if I like an anime I will use my existing knowledge of a works influences as well as its Shoutout page on tvtropes.org example as a jumping off point to explore other media. I treat it as a sort of mapping project. For particularly reference dense work like the above example this can take a long time but I enjoy the process of gaining a more comprehensive view of a work.
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Comment on What are your current pain points with Linux? in ~tech
atomicshoreline (edited )LinkPain points Being forced to choose between heavy desktop environments with sensible defaults such as automatic screen blanking after some time if media is not being played back versus minimal...Pain points
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Being forced to choose between heavy desktop environments with sensible defaults such as automatic screen blanking after some time if media is not being played back versus minimal desktop environment where you have to script those small bits of functionality yourself. My ideal would be something like i3/sway with just a few key bells and whistles from a larger DE.
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The constant battle of wrangling theming across applications. You have to deal with QT and GTK, crack open Electron apps and modify their CSS after every update (sometimes rebuilding the AppImage if its distributed that way). Deal with flatpak apps needing their own copy of the theme etc.
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Poor laptop support particularly in regards to power management.Nvidia optimus is such a pain.
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Poor handling of network drives. Its very easy for a process to hang while in uninterruptible sleep if copying large files over sshfs
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Poor security model generally and attempts to fix it like firejail are clumsy and require trial and error to figure out what permissions an application actually needs when error messages are cryptic.
Experience
Daily driver since 2018
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Comment on Twenty-year-old Xbox 360 game Blue Dragon now has a fantastic unofficial PC port that unlocks the FPS, goes 4K, and even adds mod support in ~games
atomicshoreline Link ParentI haven't played Pandora's Tower, can you elaborate on what makes its cursebreaking arc different from similar examples such as Shadow of the Colossus and Stardust Crusaders? Also do you know of...worthy of examination in the history of romance in games and the West's history of hesitance in accepting romance in games
I haven't played Pandora's Tower, can you elaborate on what makes its cursebreaking arc different from similar examples such as Shadow of the Colossus and Stardust Crusaders?
Also do you know of any interesting sources speculating on origins of the differences in perception of romance in games between eastern and western players. I have something of personal crusade in regards to getting video game romance stories to be taken seriously and an opportunity to hone my rhetoric is welcome.
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Comment on Who likes GTA? in ~games
atomicshoreline (edited )LinkAre you familiar with the Situationalists, particularly the concept of the spectacle? It posits that one of the consequences of mass media is a that individual lived experiences have been replaced...Are you familiar with the Situationalists, particularly the concept of the spectacle? It posits that one of the consequences of mass media is a that individual lived experiences have been replaced by partitioned and distilled images.
The Situationalists saw the physical geometry of urban environments as a driver of this partitioning and rebelled by vandalizing advertistments and staging highly public performance art
GTA taps into this same idea with its parodies of American culture (e.g. NASDAQ to BAWSAQ), and the highly permeable environment where you can enter any vehicle and drive it anywhere, upending the familiar urban environment in the process. Its basically a Situationist simulator and I think it scratches a itch for people that they often don't even know how to describe properly.
P.S. I am neither an avid GTA player nor an art history major so if someone with more experience in either of those things disagrees with my view I would love to hear it.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
atomicshoreline Link ParentI'm not sure if that opinion is a minority opinion about the two game but if it is consider me another party member in that fight. The thing that grated on me the most in TOTK specifically was the...I'm not sure if that opinion is a minority opinion about the two game but if it is consider me another party member in that fight. The thing that grated on me the most in TOTK specifically was the fact that you have a party fighting alongside you and they constantly teleport and block the camera. It was a constant nagging reminder that they had JRPGified the gameplay and broke the sense of isolation. I like a lot of what TOTK has to offer, particular in regards to the Depths mirroring the overworld (an element of the Zelda series I actually consider to be quite important) but I could just never get over it.
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Comment on Reminder to myself that my employer does not give a shit about me in ~life
atomicshoreline LinkDoes anyone else struggle to take PTO because the thought of figuring out what to do with the free time outside a typical routine is kind of painful. Its especially bad when I am on vacation....Does anyone else struggle to take PTO because the thought of figuring out what to do with the free time outside a typical routine is kind of painful. Its especially bad when I am on vacation. Whenever I am visiting my Grandparents I just end up hiding away in some basement room until some predetermined event like dinner happens. Its like I'm some kind of NPC with broken path finding,
I agree. Its nice to be able to script without relying on in document macros or third party Python libraries.