balooga's recent activity
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Comment on CGA-2025-12 š“āā ļøšļøš INSERT CARTRIDGE š¢ The Secret of Monkey Island in ~games
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Comment on Cato Institute - The Government unconstitutionally labels ICE observers as domestic terrorists in ~society
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Comment on Cato Institute - The Government unconstitutionally labels ICE observers as domestic terrorists in ~society
balooga Link ParentIt still astonishes me that it hasnāt backfired on them spectacularly. āAntifaā is literally an abbreviation of āanti-fascist.ā Itās right there in the name. Antifa opposes fascism. If you are...It still astonishes me that it hasnāt backfired on them spectacularly. āAntifaā is literally an abbreviation of āanti-fascist.ā Itās right there in the name. Antifa opposes fascism. If you are anti-antifa you are pro-fascism. And sooooo many people are okay with that. You canāt make this shit up.
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Comment on Rob Reiner and wife Michele Singer found dead at LA home; homicide suspected in ~movies
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Comment on Disney inks blockbuster $1b deal with OpenAI, handing characters over to Sora in ~tech
balooga Link ParentThereās something grimly hilarious about the idea of Disney going all in on AI models trained extensively on AI slop, firing all their actual artists and animators, and officially releasing...Thereās something grimly hilarious about the idea of Disney going all in on AI models trained extensively on AI slop, firing all their actual artists and animators, and officially releasing feature-length movies of the most melted Elsagate garbage imaginable because their execs are too far gone sniffing their own farts to recognize itās all absolute shit nonsense. Sort of a 21st century Emperorās New Clothes story.
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Comment on UK and Denmark are demanding overhaul of European immigration laws ā Keir Starmer and Mette Frederiksen argue populists will continue to gain ground if something isn't done soon in ~society
balooga Link ParentWell Iām just one person but you asked for why I think this way so Iāll share it. This is hard to articulate, and still half-baked, so please bear with me. Iāve been thinking a lot lately about...Well Iām just one person but you asked for why I think this way so Iāll share it. This is hard to articulate, and still half-baked, so please bear with me.
Iāve been thinking a lot lately about the whole ādarkest timelineā and ābrain rotā and ādead internet theoryā trajectory the world seems to have been on for the past decade or so. About how a huge portion of MAGA influencers were recently revealed to be foreign trolls, and about the inexplicable surge in popularity of people like Andrew Tate and Nick Fuentes and Candace Owens, whose worst behavior only seems to propel them faster into the spotlight.
And Iāve been getting this nagging feeling that itās all fake. We know about Russian disinformation campaigns, troll farms, election interference, Cambridge Analytica, the Internet Research Agency, and so on. Not to mention bot armies and the shadow economy of social media follower accounts and reddit karma for sale to the highest bidder. There used to be news articles about this stuff, but I havenāt heard much about it lately. It hasnāt gone anywhere. Why should we believe that it has? Iād posit that mass manipulation online is more powerful now than itās ever been, and better at covering its tracks.
Weāre absolutely awash in invisible campaigns to shape our opinions and drive our discourse. The nature of the internet makes it nearly impossible to trace these campaigns or identify their sources of funding. And there are HUGE perverse incentives for the people behind these anonymous campaigns: Corrupt political gain, nation destabilizing, corporate interests, ideological coup, and metric kilotons of classic shameless money-making grift.
What Iām saying is, I think we might be being taken for a ride. Or rather, a bunch or rides in different directions, all at the same time. (This isnāt one carefully mastermind operation, more like turbulent ocean waves crashing into each other chaotically.)
How do we measure the popularity of āinfluencersā like the people I named, today? YouTube view counts, podcast metrics, social media buzz. All things that can be manipulated by those with enough motivation and resources. Itās all online stuff. Why do we trust those numbers? Do these influencers really have audiences as big as they purport? Can anyone (including them) even know?
Okay I know I said āitās all fakeā but thatās obviously not true. These populist movements are very real. What Iām getting at, though, is I suspect theyāre artificially inflated. Manipulators are putting their thumbs on the scale to tip sentiment in their favor. Theyāre kingmaking specific types of influencer voices that will produce a more favorable media ecosystem for them to exploit. Theyāre lining their own pockets along the way. And the result is this monumental shift of the Overton window that weāve been seeing, where suddenly the most insane fringe ideas and hateful rhetoric are now considered acceptable and mainstream. I donāt think thatās happening organically.
The thing that sucks about this is we know the metrics are inflated, the comments are from bots, the reels are AI slop, the algorithms are being gamed, the LLMs are trained with intentional bias, and outfits like Fox News and its myriad copycats are making hay while the sun shines. We know this. But we canāt point our finger at the responsible parties. We canāt produce admissible evidence of wrongdoing. We canāt quantify the boundaries or scale of the manipulation. We donāt know whoās behind the curtain and thereās likely no way for them to be held accountable even if we could. Theyāre as emboldened as ever and our hands are tied.
Thatās my theory, anyway. My conspiracy theory, I guess, albeit ironically. Occamās razor says Iām being preposterous and the better explanation is that Iām just in denial about a political sea change happening that I donāt like. Thatās fair. Maybe Iām just retreating into a form of solipsism because Iām mad about the state of the world and Iād rather believe everythingās still okay. Like, maybe if we could find a solution to this, we could get the train back on track. I mean thatās not exactly being hopeful but at least itās something and it lets me hold onto some shred of faith in my fellow man.
Anyway, to answer your question: Iām having a hard time believing that our current situation actually IS ādemocracy doing democracy things.ā There are a lot of bigots out there but are we really overrun with them? Is xenophobia really the majority view now? Or is that just a perception that certain interests would like us to have? I donāt know the answer to that, honestly. But it makes it hard for me to roll over and accept that this downward spiral is truly āwhat the people want.ā Hell, even if they do want it, itās worth fighting back against.
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Comment on Whatever happened to _____? in ~talk
balooga LinkWhatever happened to the stunning, research-based, and wholly credible HHS conclusion that autism is caused by Tylenol? Surely the entire scientific and medical world has been flipped upside-down...Whatever happened to the stunning, research-based, and wholly credible HHS conclusion that autism is caused by Tylenol? Surely the entire scientific and medical world has been flipped upside-down by this revelation?
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Comment on CGA-2025-12 š“āā ļøšļøš INSERT CARTRIDGE š¢ The Secret of Monkey Island in ~games
balooga Link ParentThank you for sharing these! Super interesting! On a personal note, Iām actually at a midlife career crossroads at the moment, dealing with some major burnout and looking for possible new...Of course, if you're into stuff to do with game preservation, emulation, and all that, all 3 of these talks may be interesting albeit lengthy.
Thank you for sharing these! Super interesting!
On a personal note, Iām actually at a midlife career crossroads at the moment, dealing with some major burnout and looking for possible new directions to explore. One thing I hadnāt considered yet is digital archival work. Iāve always had a huge appreciation for what these folks do but never considered it as a possible vocation. These GDC talks are really inspiring to me. No idea how one would pivot into something like that (and still be able to pay the bills, letās be realistic) but Iām going to think on it a bit. I wonder if this is something that would require going back to school to study library science or if my technical background would be enough of an in. š¤
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Comment on UK and Denmark are demanding overhaul of European immigration laws ā Keir Starmer and Mette Frederiksen argue populists will continue to gain ground if something isn't done soon in ~society
balooga LinkIām over on the other side of the planet so I should probably just keep my mouth shut about European politics. Even so, itās curious to me how giving the populists more of what they want is...Iām over on the other side of the planet so I should probably just keep my mouth shut about European politics.
Even so, itās curious to me how giving the populists more of what they want is supposed to prevent them from gaining more ground?
Now Iām going to reveal how hopelessly naive I am, but Iām generally of the opinion that IMMIGRATION GOOD. I like seeing the old ethnostates transition to multicultural pluralism. I think itās a great way for populations to learn tolerance, if not empathy, and discover new strengths through diversity. And itās a great way for people in hard situations to seek something better for themselves and their families. If I were in charge Iād fling all the borders wide open and just let people go where they wanna go, live where they wanna live, and be who they wanna be.
That would probably result in absolute disaster as thousands of unintended consequences piled up in intersecting fractals, leading to total societal collapse. Itās good that Iām not in charge.
But still, capitulating to xenophobesā cry of IMMIGRATION BAD is surely a move in the wrong direction too. If weāre worried about populism, perhaps the actual way to combat it is by promoting policies that donāt foment division, fear, marginalization, and violence.
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Comment on These travel influencers donāt want freebies. Theyāre AI. in ~travel
balooga Link ParentOh wow, I'm out of the loop. Agreed, this year's is better than that but it's a very low bar.Oh wow, I'm out of the loop. Agreed, this year's is better than that but it's a very low bar.
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Comment on These travel influencers donāt want freebies. Theyāre AI. in ~travel
balooga Link ParentYikes! Thatās atrocious. Thanks for the link.Yikes! Thatās atrocious. Thanks for the link.
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Comment on These travel influencers donāt want freebies. Theyāre AI. in ~travel
balooga Link ParentDo you have a link to that? This is the first Iāve heard of it.Do you have a link to that? This is the first Iāve heard of it.
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Comment on Moving camera forced perspective in ~movies
balooga LinkGreat video! I really loved a few things in particular: The admission that no one knows how to do these shots anymore because VFX has replaced practical effects and the last generationās...Great video! I really loved a few things in particular:
- The admission that no one knows how to do these shots anymore because VFX has replaced practical effects and the last generationās painstakingly learned institutional knowledge is not being passed forward.
- The callout that the shift to VFX has resulted in a culture that is no longer willing to commit to the level of planning that used to be required.
- The reminder that modern BTS footage is often straight-up faked to hide how shots are actually done (with the requisite nod to āNo CGIā is Really Just Invisible CGI, which I originally found here on Tildes and it radically changed the way I think about moviemaking today).
- The surprise inclusion of some other YouTube personalities, namely my boy Captain Disillusion. Always nice to see him pop up, wish it was in his own channel more often.
Also I just want to say, that one VFX shot they felt compelled to include in their final bitā¦ looked like crap. Sorry but it didnāt improve the overall effect at all. It immediately jumped out at me. Not sure if the problem was poor rotoscoping, unconvincing shadows, bad acting, or what, but it failed to sell the illusion ā and actually broke the illusion the forced perspective had created. I agree with their statement that VFX, used appropriately, can elevate a practical shot. But this one did not do that, IMHO.
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Comment on These travel influencers donāt want freebies. Theyāre AI. in ~travel
balooga LinkRandom technical thought I had about this: Iām sure the people behind these āAI influencersā are training custom LoRAs to preserve consistency of their charactersā appearance across many images....Random technical thought I had about this: Iām sure the people behind these āAI influencersā are training custom LoRAs to preserve consistency of their charactersā appearance across many images. But if theyāre being paid to promote specific places, their sponsors also have an interest in making sure the locations are accurately depicted.
I doubt theyāre doing this now but I could totally see high-profile destinations preparing their own LoRA packages for distribution to influencer account creators. Itās one thing to render a character in a generic vineyard or with a vaguely familiar structure out of focus in the background. But the next level is convincingly recreating those placesā unique real-world architectural details, works of art, vistas, etc. without hallucinations. Thatās going to be important to sponsors who want to avoid being misrepresented and feel like theyāre getting their moneyās worth. To do this right would require photographers to go on location and intensively image (and annotate) these sites for model training. I can totally see that becoming a new niche profession with real money involved, if this AI influencer trend has staying power.
I guess that idea goes further than travel content. Any brand sponsors are going to want to ensure their products are pictured accurately in AI imagery. If they want shots of the influencer wearing their clothes, eating their food, driving their cars, whatever ā to do that right is going to require lots of tailor-made LoRAs. Demand for that could conceivably lead to a whole new cottage industry.
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Comment on Day 7: Laboratories in ~comp.advent_of_code
balooga LinkTypeScript Yesterday was busy for me so I'm playing catch-up now. This was the first puzzle that tripped me up! I breezed through Part 1 with a nice single-loop solution but walked right into the...TypeScript
Yesterday was busy for me so I'm playing catch-up now. This was the first puzzle that tripped me up! I breezed through Part 1 with a nice single-loop solution but walked right into the trap of doing a naive recursive brute-force approach for Part 2 and hit my first OOM crash of the year.
I guess I've "done" dynamic programming in the past but never called it that. Usually I'm thinking in terms of managing React state and minimizing re-renders by memoizing expensive function outputs, etc. I'm not used to considering this kind of problem in the same way.
I don't think it's cheating to lean on ChatGPT a bit when you get stuck in AoC, as long as you're earnestly tackling the problem, and working through different approaches ā not just generating a full solution in one go. So in full disclosure, that's the route I had to take for this Part 2. Seems like most of you figured out the right approach straightaway, but it was not intuitive to me all! Just as I predicted, lol.
Parts 1 and 2
import { RunFunction } from '../../../types'; type InputData = string[][]; enum Direction { L = -1, R = 1, } function formatInput(input: string): InputData { return input.split('\n').map(row => row.split('')); } export const run: RunFunction<InputData> = () => { const validatePosition = (grid: InputData, rowIndex: number, colIndex: number): boolean => { return rowIndex >= 0 && rowIndex < grid.length && colIndex >= 0 && colIndex < grid[0].length; }; const countBeamSplits = (grid: InputData): number => { let total = 0; for (let rowIndex = 0; rowIndex < grid.length; rowIndex++) { for (let colIndex = 0; colIndex < grid[rowIndex].length; colIndex++) { if (grid[rowIndex][colIndex] === '|' || grid[rowIndex][colIndex] === 'S') { if (validatePosition(grid, rowIndex + 1, colIndex)) { if (grid[rowIndex + 1][colIndex] === '^') { if (validatePosition(grid, rowIndex + 1, colIndex + Direction.L)) { grid[rowIndex + 1][colIndex + Direction.L] = '|'; } if (validatePosition(grid, rowIndex + 1, colIndex + Direction.R)) { grid[rowIndex + 1][colIndex + Direction.R] = '|'; } total++; continue; } grid[rowIndex + 1][colIndex] = '|'; } } } } return total; }; const countQuantumTimelines = (grid: InputData) => { let total = 0n; const startCol = grid[0].indexOf('S'); let curr = Array<bigint>(grid[0].length).fill(0n); curr[startCol] = 1n; for (let rowIndex = 0; rowIndex < grid.length; rowIndex++) { const next = Array<bigint>(grid[rowIndex].length).fill(0n); for (let colIndex = 0; colIndex < grid[rowIndex].length; colIndex++) { const count = curr[colIndex]; if (count === 0n) { continue; } const nextRowIndex = rowIndex + 1; if (nextRowIndex >= grid.length) { total += count; continue; } if (grid[nextRowIndex][colIndex] === '^') { if (colIndex - 1 >= 0) { next[colIndex - 1] += count; } else { total += count; } if (colIndex + 1 < grid[rowIndex].length) { next[colIndex + 1] += count; } else { total += count; } } else { next[colIndex] += count; } } curr = next; } return total; }; return [formatInput, countBeamSplits, countQuantumTimelines]; };Benchmarks: The median input formatting time over 50 iterations is 22Āµs on my machine. Part 1 is 74Āµs and Part 2 is 160Āµs.
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Comment on Paramount launches a hostile bid for Warner Bros. Discovery in ~movies
balooga Link ParentI just got the hang of looking for the phrase āprivate equityā as an increasingly frequent warning light appearing in articles like this. Now I have to train that same muscle to watch out for...I just got the hang of looking for the phrase āprivate equityā as an increasingly frequent warning light appearing in articles like this. Now I have to train that same muscle to watch out for āsovereign wealth.ā
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Comment on CGA-2025-12 š“āā ļøšļøš INSERT CARTRIDGE š¢ The Secret of Monkey Island in ~games
balooga Link ParentThanks for digging that up, thatās great. Part of me always wondered if there was some corporate mandate to include X number of unsolvable puzzles, to drive business for the pay-per-minute phone...Thanks for digging that up, thatās great. Part of me always wondered if there was some corporate mandate to include X number of unsolvable puzzles, to drive business for the pay-per-minute phone hint line, or to sell guide books. A bit conspiratorial but that was part of the model in those days.
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Comment on CGA-2025-12 š“āā ļøšļøš INSERT CARTRIDGE š¢ The Secret of Monkey Island in ~games
balooga Link ParentI keep forgetting that Monkey Island is a part of their war chest now. I donāt want them to make a movie, but Iām morbidly curious what one would be like. In competent hands it could be great, but...Nowadays, Disney of course also owns both IPs.
I keep forgetting that Monkey Island is a part of their war chest now. I donāt want them to make a movie, but Iām morbidly curious what one would be like. In competent hands it could be great, but I wouldnāt hold my breath for ten minutes about that ever happening.
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Comment on CGA-2025-12 š“āā ļøšļøš INSERT CARTRIDGE š¢ The Secret of Monkey Island in ~games
balooga Link ParentI hadnāt seen that article before! Itās a really well-organized piece, I agree with all of his points. Itās interesting that he does make a case for letting the player die in adventure games, yet...I hadnāt seen that article before! Itās a really well-organized piece, I agree with all of his points. Itās interesting that he does make a case for letting the player die in adventure games, yet eliminated that entirely from the Monkey Island games.
I do wonder how some egregious puzzles slipped through the cracks. The monkey wrench puzzle in MI2 is especially notable. What was Gilbert thinking when he designed that one?!
Incidentally, I really like how he chose she/her pronouns for the proverbial āplayerā in this article. That was not a common choice in the ā80s.
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Comment on Day 6: Trash Compactor in ~comp.advent_of_code
balooga Link ParentYeah, I just pulled up vim and pasted it in there. Thankfully it was an easy problem to solve, just a tricky one to identify in the first place.Yeah, I just pulled up vim and pasted it in there. Thankfully it was an easy problem to solve, just a tricky one to identify in the first place.
My kiddo just completed their playthrough this evening and loved it. Now I've played through the original version, the special edition, and the ultimate talkie edition, and talkie is where it's at! It's extremely well done, much more polished than I expected it to be. As I was watching the end credits roll I really appreciated that the talkie team added the full VO credits as well as credits for all the fan volunteers who contributed to the talkie project. I'd been under the impression it was just a quick and dirty hack but it was clearly more than that.
I think there's a talkie for LeChuck's Revenge also, I'm gonna look that one up next. As far as I'm concerned this is the definitive way to play!