balooga's recent activity
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Comment on The US Pentagon says it’s ‘lethalitymaxxing’. Why has ‘incel’ slang crossed into the mainstream? in ~society
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Comment on The US Pentagon says it’s ‘lethalitymaxxing’. Why has ‘incel’ slang crossed into the mainstream? in ~society
balooga Link ParentEverything’s a remix… I assumed the incels borrowed it from “min-maxxing” which is a gaming thing all about optimizing character builds in spreadsheety ways. I think? That’s not my scene either so...Everything’s a remix… I assumed the incels borrowed it from “min-maxxing” which is a gaming thing all about optimizing character builds in spreadsheety ways. I think? That’s not my scene either so maybe I just made that up but I thought that was a term in MMO circles.
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Comment on Colossal Game Adventure: February 2026 Voting Topic in ~games
balooga (edited )Link ParentMy instinct is to do something like this: Count the total existing rollover votes, r, and the total new votes cast in this round, n. I haven’t looked at the numbers for either but for example...My instinct is to do something like this:
- Count the total existing rollover votes, r, and the total new votes cast in this round, n. I haven’t looked at the numbers for either but for example let’s say there were 180 votes last time and 100 votes this time.
- Calculate n / r, so
100 / 180 ≈ 0.56which becomes the weight to apply to (multiply by) all rollover votes. Round to the nearest whole number for every title. - Add this round’s unweighted votes to the weighted rollover votes to get the adjusted results for this round. If any title’s votes got rounded to zero, wipe that title from the list.
- After winner selection, the remaining results will be used as rollovers for the next round, repeating the process.
Edit: I forgot to answer your first question. I voted for games I want to play! Of course my first ballot was invalid and that one was specifically intended to get Space Rogue on the charts lol
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Comment on The US Pentagon says it’s ‘lethalitymaxxing’. Why has ‘incel’ slang crossed into the mainstream? in ~society
balooga Link404 Media recently ran an opinion piece called We Have Learned Nothing About Amplifying Morons. I love and endorse the title, but IMHO the article itself is pretty meandering and ineffective....404 Media recently ran an opinion piece called We Have Learned Nothing About Amplifying Morons. I love and endorse the title, but IMHO the article itself is pretty meandering and ineffective. Still, it does refer back to Whitney Phillips’ groundbreaking 2018 report The Oxygen of Amplification: Better Practices for Reporting on Extremists, Antagonists, and Manipulators. Journalists today, including those from The Guardian, would do well to review the lessons from that.
Of course, the Trump administration isn’t journalists and their fascist agenda is engineered to be at odds with neutral truth-telling. So no one should be surprised they’re gleefully amplifying other fascist brain rot. It’s nothing but a victory for them if American culture is pulled deeper into the vortex of antisocial nihilistic idiocy. That’s brand synergy, baby!
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Comment on Device that can extract 1,000 liters of clean water a day from desert air revealed by 2025 Nobel Prize winner in ~enviro
balooga Link ParentMy gut tells me it would be negligible just because of the size difference between the wind farm and the amount of atmosphere above it. Feels like we’re barely skimming from the edge. I wouldn’t...My gut tells me it would be negligible just because of the size difference between the wind farm and the amount of atmosphere above it. Feels like we’re barely skimming from the edge. I wouldn’t think they would be more disruptive than a tall forest, or a city.
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Comment on AI’s memorization crisis (gifted link) in ~tech
balooga Link ParentSelf-replying to say it would be really interesting to see a clearnet site pop up with a big library of free downloads of popular media, in this extreme bootleg style. Blocky, borderline-legible...Self-replying to say it would be really interesting to see a clearnet site pop up with a big library of free downloads of popular media, in this extreme bootleg style. Blocky, borderline-legible book scans. Tinny, mono 96kbps encodings of the latest hit songs. Absolute garbage datamoshy MPEGs of movies that are still in theaters… a site explicitly designed to be lawsuit-bait, to challenge the idea of a “threshold” for what constitutes a copy of a protected work.
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Comment on Tell me about your favourite web-based logic puzzles! in ~games
balooga Link ParentI was just admiring that when I played a couple hours ago. I like it! Is the leaderboard new too or had I just missed it previously? It’s fun to see how I rank, I got #2 yesterday and again today...I was just admiring that when I played a couple hours ago. I like it! Is the leaderboard new too or had I just missed it previously? It’s fun to see how I rank, I got #2 yesterday and again today (so far). Need to find out who
********is, that’s my nemesis, lol. -
Comment on AI’s memorization crisis (gifted link) in ~tech
balooga Link ParentIMHO questions like these reveal the fundamental ridiculousness of copyright, and maybe of intellectual property in general. A couple more thought experiments: Suppose a big JPEG exists on some...IMHO questions like these reveal the fundamental ridiculousness of copyright, and maybe of intellectual property in general.
A couple more thought experiments: Suppose a big JPEG exists on some website which contains scans of every page of a Harry Potter book. It’s extremely high resolution and you could totally read the whole book by scrolling through it. Copyright violation? Absolutely. What if you re-saved the JPEG at low quality (high compression) to save disk space? Most of the text is still legible but some words are obscured by artifacts, though they can be inferred contextually. Is that image a violation? Maybe. What if you lower the quality even further? If you take it down to zero you get a completely meaningless blocky smear. Is that a violation? Doubtful. So where’s the threshold, exactly?
Suppose I wanted to record myself narrating the Harry Potter text for an unlicensed audiobook to sell on Patreon. That’s a crime! What if in my recording, I accidentally misread the word “for” as “from” on page 236, meaning that my narration is not a verbatim transcription of the work, would it still be? I’m sure it would. But what if I substituted nonsense sounds for every other word in the whole story? The recording would be unlistenable gibberish. But would it be illegal?
What if it’s 1988 and you’re watching a local broadcast of the movie Gremlins with your rabbit-ears TV antenna… the station has been licensed to show the movie, but in a cunning display of defiance you bought a VCR and are recording the whole thing to sell on the black market later. Piracy! But what if your house isn’t so close to the transmitter, and the signal’s kinda fuzzy? Still piracy — people expect bootlegs to be like that. What if you don’t really have any signal to speak of, and the whole recording is just snowy static? Not piracy? Where’s the threshold there?
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Comment on US Pentagon declares Anthropic a threat to national security in ~society
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Comment on Colossal Game Adventure: February 2026 Voting Topic in ~games
balooga Link ParentI mean, I'd been chewing on vili's awesome pitch and thought it could be a fun wildcard. Forgot about the vote max (which is quite sensible) and figured I'd try putting a finger on the scale for...I mean, I'd been chewing on vili's awesome pitch and thought it could be a fun wildcard. Forgot about the vote max (which is quite sensible) and figured I'd try putting a finger on the scale for that one. C'est la vie! I've corrected my ballot.
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Comment on Colossal Game Adventure: February 2026 Voting Topic in ~games
balooga Link ParentAh whoops, lol, I shouldn't have skimmed over the fine print. Can I edit my ballot or do I have to post another?Ah whoops, lol, I shouldn't have skimmed over the fine print. Can I edit my ballot or do I have to post another?
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Comment on The fifty most underappreciated movies of the 21st century in ~movies
balooga Link ParentYou can click on any of them to read the writeup!You can click on any of them to read the writeup!
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Comment on Colossal Game Adventure: February 2026 Voting Topic in ~games
balooga (edited )LinkSpace Rogue (5) The Grue That Binds (5) Red Dead Redemption (5) Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 (5)Space Rogue (5)
The Grue That Binds (5)
Red Dead Redemption (5)
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 (5) -
Comment on Is higher education still valuable? in ~life
balooga LinkI got a BA twenty years ago. For me, my college experience had four purposes: Good times with great friendships, treasured memories, formative experiences, and so on. I got involved in a couple...I got a BA twenty years ago. For me, my college experience had four purposes:
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Good times with great friendships, treasured memories, formative experiences, and so on. I got involved in a couple student organizations and got plugged into a pretty fantastic social life. My friends and I did everything together, had some hijinks, it was just a really great time that I look back on fondly. For me, entering a university away from my hometown, where no one already knew me, gave me a clean slate to reinvent myself for a new group of peers, on my own terms. Of course this chapter of my life only lasted a handful of years (seemed like forever at the time) and I haven’t kept up with any of those people since graduation.
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A training-wheels transition to adulthood. My campus was a little microcosm of the real world; I lived in a dorm, went to class, visited my friends, and worked my job all within its borders. Coming directly after growing up under my parents’ roof, it was a gentle way to adjust to independence and responsibility.
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Education. I really, really value the fullness of the curriculum. That was my first serious exposure to the humanities, philosophy, new moral and political ideas, as well as basic nuts and bolts like economics, accounting, and post-HS math and science. I don’t use all of these things that much but I am grateful for the way they broadened my perspective on the world and my place in it. The college also gave me access to resources and experiences I couldn’t have had otherwise. I honestly think I’m a better person today because of it.
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The degree. I majored in Communication. It’s been absolutely useless to me. In my entire adulthood no one has ever asked to see it or a transcript proving I earned it. I launched a tech career with titles evolving from webmaster, to web designer, to web developer, to software engineer. The Communications degree was and is irrelevant. I put it on my resume and maybe that ticked a box for interviewers reading it, but I think my real hireability was always demonstrated through my work history and the tech interviews themselves. All the knowledge I needed to do the job was stuff I taught myself and getting real-world job experience under my belt. That said, I’ve often wished I had pursued a formal CS education; maybe that would’ve laid a stronger foundation and taken me further, faster. Hard to say for sure.
Full disclosure: I was very fortunate to go before tuition prices absolutely exploded everywhere, and also very fortunate to have most of my costs covered by scholarships. I knew the student debt problem is serious today and I feel like I dodged a bullet. I did take out a tiny student loan at the very end but it was easily paid off within a year or two. I did not have any kind of college fund set aside for me as a kid, and my parents did not foot any bills.
What’s my verdict? Haha, all those words to say I don’t really know. If we’re being transactional about it, if the end goal is really just “I pay school money, school gives me ticket to lucrative job,” I can’t say that’s gonna be the way things pan out. At least not in my line of work, especially today. I’m sure there are exceptions, mainly for people who go on to get graduate degrees in specialized fields. The most rewarding parts for me were the intangibles, the personal growth, and so on. I can’t make a case for going into a decade of crippling debt to pay for that though. If I had needed that kind of loan to fund the experience I had, it frankly would’ve been a very bad deal.
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Comment on Colossal Game Adventure: February 2026 Voting Topic in ~games
balooga Link ParentIf I could be that guy, the game title isn’t hyphenated so we should probably correct it on our end?If I could be that guy, the game title isn’t hyphenated so we should probably correct it on our end?
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Comment on A nationwide LGBTQ+ book ban bill for public schools has been introduced in the US House of Representatives in ~books
balooga Link ParentThe worst part about this is that all of it's so technical people don't have a clue. They can't be outraged about something that's both invisible to them and too complicated for them to...The worst part about this is that all of it's so technical people don't have a clue. They can't be outraged about something that's both invisible to them and too complicated for them to understand. I really think we've crossed some technological threshold where most people have given up even trying to follow it. The floodgates are now open and this stuff is rapidly accelerating everywhere.
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Comment on Anthropic rejects latest US Pentagon offer: ‘We cannot in good conscience accede to their request’ in ~tech
balooga Link ParentxAI conspicuously absent from the conversation. Hmm, I wonder where they stand on the matter…?"They're trying to divide each company with fear that the other will give in," the petition said, referring to the Department of War.
"That strategy only works if none of us know where the others stand. This letter serves to create shared understanding and solidarity in the face of this pressure from the Department of War," it added.
xAI conspicuously absent from the conversation. Hmm, I wonder where they stand on the matter…?
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Comment on Colossal Game Adventure: February 2026 Voting Topic in ~games
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Comment on Colossal Game Adventure: February 2026 Voting Topic in ~games
balooga Link ParentThanks as always! I want to play all the games in your example ballot, can I just vote for those?Thanks as always! I want to play all the games in your example ballot, can I just vote for those?
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Comment on Looking for vibe-coding guides (best practices, etc.) in ~tech
balooga LinkI’ve been getting into it more too, with Codex since I already had a ChatGPT Plus sub which comes with a limited number of weekly tokens anyway. I’m not paying for more, so when I run out, the...I’ve been getting into it more too, with Codex since I already had a ChatGPT Plus sub which comes with a limited number of weekly tokens anyway. I’m not paying for more, so when I run out, the vibe’s over until Monday rolls around again.
Sorry I don’t have any links to guides. Most of what I’ve learned has been firsthand. I can share some basic “what works and doesn’t work for me” notes here if they’re helpful.
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Always be mindful of your context window. Auto-compaction has gotten better but can still really cause things to go sideways. I suggest using a separate task/thread for each feature you work on, and aim for completing that work before context fills up.
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Give the AI a formal spec (it can write that spec itself, btw). This is a Markdown doc in the project root that details the goals and implementation details of the project. Declare in
CLAUDE.mdthat this doc is the authoritative source of truth for all requirements, and that Claude must (a) always read it before beginning work; (b) never implement functionality that isn’t described there without your express approval in the chat; and (c) always keep the document updated after completing work so it remains current. If your code doesn’t exist yet, tell Claude to write a separate plan document based on that spec, and refer to that plan for initial buildout. -
Don’t rely on the AI to verify its own work. In my projects I’m usually wanting strict TypeScript typing, tests passing, and style guide adherence. This is a guard against the project drifting into slop. The AI will do great at implementing a feature but drop the ball on these “extra” things — even if you explicitly say they’re required. Better to encapsulate them in a more traditional, non-AI build pipeline that throws actionable errors if anything isn’t up to snuff, and just say in your
CLAUDE.md“Never consider any work complete until a full build completes successfully.” The more wordy/complex your instructions are in that file, the less effectively Claude will follow them, so keep it simple. -
It’s awesome that the AI can keep the spec doc updated as it makes changes, but it will tend to do so in ways that refer to old implementation details that don’t exist anymore. It’ll write phrases like “feature must do X instead of Y” where Y is now out-of-date and irrelevant. The more of this junk pollutes your spec, the less effective Claude will be. Periodically tell it to clean itself up, so the spec reflects the codebase as it is, without counterfactuals or obsolete references.
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I also periodically prompt it to do a full-project audit for dead code, irrelevant comments, inaccurately named components or files, etc. because it’s not always great at cleaning up after itself. Regular housekeeping can help a lot.
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It’s Pokémon GO to the polls all over again. cringe