balooga's recent activity
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Comment on What do you leave out for Father Christmas? in ~talk
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Comment on CGA-2025-12 🏴☠️🏝️🍌 REMOVE CARTRIDGE ⏏️ The Secret of Monkey Island in ~games
balooga Link ParentTotally legit critiques. The thing about games like this is, once you know the solutions you can never experience the feeling of your first playthrough again. I struggled through it 30+ years ago...Totally legit critiques. The thing about games like this is, once you know the solutions you can never experience the feeling of your first playthrough again. I struggled through it 30+ years ago and now the game’s a breeze for me… makes it hard to remember how non-obvious some of those puzzles were, to someone going in blind. I appreciate reading what was the most frustrating for a new player.
It’s funny, I do remember being so confused in Act 2 (all those decades ago) that I just tossed all my inventory into the pot, every item it allowed me to. That got me to Monkey Island and it wasn’t until years later that I realized the puzzle was in working out the substitutes. I’d just brute-forced it as a kid — and consequently always thought Act 2 was the weakest in the game. I appreciate it more now but the brute force method shouldn’t’ve worked.
Getting the fish from the seagull has always bugged me. Nowhere else in the game does it matter where Guybrush stands. Positioning him over in an area where there are no apparent things to interact with, and therefore no reason to walk there, flies in the face of the verb-noun system that drives the whole game. And there’s no indication that the plank is loose in the first place. Poor puzzle design.
IMHO in terms of gameplay Monkey Island is flawed, but notably better than all (most?) of the other point-and-click adventures of its era. That’s the important context for evaluating it. And what it does lack in certain areas is really made up for by its originality, humor, and charm.
I’ve been raving a bit about the Ultimate Talkie Edition but I think it’s just the way you’d like to play. Pixel graphics + voiceovers. The best of both worlds.
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Comment on Paramount launches a hostile bid for Warner Bros. Discovery in ~movies
balooga LinkBreaking: Larry Ellison Agrees to Personally Guarantee Paramount Bid for Warner Bros. in Revised Offer Personally I wouldn’t have a horse in this race apart from two observations: Crown Prince...Breaking: Larry Ellison Agrees to Personally Guarantee Paramount Bid for Warner Bros. in Revised Offer
Personally I wouldn’t have a horse in this race apart from two observations:
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Crown Prince Mohammed Bonesaw does not belong anywhere near an operation like this and the Saudis’ money should be refused unequivocally, no matter how small the percentage of the offer their blood money actually constitutes.
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Why the fuck wasn’t this entire merger DOA as a flagrant antitrust violation? Don’t answer that, it’s a rhetorical question. That used to be something people cared about. Nobody cares now. This sideshow of watching billionaires publicly jockey for ways to multiply their already ungodly net worth off the backs of the rest of us is sickening.
Tangentially, I just learned this week that Larry Ellison owns literally 98% of the island of Lāna'i in Hawaii. Nearly every single resident and business on the entire island pays him rent. Absolutely disgusting.
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Comment on CBS News pulls report on “brutal and torturous conditions” at El Salvador prison where Donald Trump Administration sent deportees in ~tv
balooga LinkThe good news is, Alfonsi is already on the record taking a stand against this. That memo is unambiguous. If Weiss was hoping to quietly sweep this under the rug, she’s already got more than she...The good news is, Alfonsi is already on the record taking a stand against this. That memo is unambiguous. If Weiss was hoping to quietly sweep this under the rug, she’s already got more than she bargained for.
Here’s hoping someone will find a way to air the report, with or without CBS’s approval. If anybody understands the table stakes, Alfonsi should.
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Comment on CGA-2025-12 🏴☠️🏝️🍌 REMOVE CARTRIDGE ⏏️ The Secret of Monkey Island in ~games
balooga LinkI mentioned this in the insert cartridge thread, but this month was my first experience with the Ultimate Talkie Edition. I've played this game dozens of times over the years, mostly with the...I mentioned this in the insert cartridge thread, but this month was my first experience with the Ultimate Talkie Edition. I've played this game dozens of times over the years, mostly with the original (VGA) version and also with the Special Edition. Going into it, I was on the fence about the talkie, but I've been completely won over. As far as I'm concerned, this is the definitive way to play.
Lots of little details elevate it beyond the low-effort hack job I expected it to be; it's obviously a true labor of love from the fan community. In my playthrough I only noticed one issue — when you're about to touch the parrot on Hook Isle, Meathook's terrified scream is interrupted by the cut to the close-up reaction shot on Guybrush's face as the crate opens. I assume that was a technical limitation that couldn't be overcome. Everything else worked beautifully.
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CGA-2025-12 🏴☠️🏝️🍌 REMOVE CARTRIDGE ⏏️ The Secret of Monkey Island
Warning: this post may contain spoilers
And so concludes Guybrush Threepwood's thrilling quest to learn the Secret of Monkey Island! He did learn it, right? The secret? Surely there was a secret learned in there, somewhere? Well... that's what you get for spending more than 20 bucks on a computer game.
What were your favorite (and least favorite) moments? Favorite puzzles? Most frustrating ones? There are, in fact, a number of SECRETS to be found in The Secret of Monkey Island! Like these:
Did you...
Enter the catacombs beneath the stump in the woods?Did you...
Drown in the harbor?Did you...
Find the rubber tree?Did you...
Meet the three-headed monkey?Did you...
Sink your own ship off Monkey Island?Did you...
Help the natives upgrade their hut security?Share your stories below. Was this your first experience with the game or a nostalgic return? How has it held up over the years, in your estimation? Timeless classic or overrated turd? Don't hold back, we can handle it. We've spoken with apes more polite than you.
So here we are at the end of another colossal month. Next up, we'll ring in the new year with @datavoid for our January 2026 play of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker! In the meantime, if you're so inclined, consider checking out the rest of the Monkey Island series:
- Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge
- The Curse of Monkey Island
- Escape From Monkey Island
- Tales of Monkey Island
- Return to Monkey Island
Month Game Host January 2026 The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker u/datavoid February 2026 Racing Lagoon u/Kawa March 2026 Kaeru no Tame ni Kane wa Naru
(The Frog for Whom the Bell Tolls)u/J-Chiptunator OK, that's it, turn off your computer and do something constructive.
Like play a little racquetball. Or wash your car. Or cook dinner. Or join a funk band. Or travel to a foreign country. Or run for president. Or talk to a member of the opposite sex. Or lube your car. Or host a weenie roast. Or dig for buried treasure. Or milk a cow. Or have a yelling contest with your neighbor's dog. Or perform brain surgery. Or paint a yellow line in the center of your driveway. Or write your name in the snow. Or teach basket weaving to clams. Or sing Welsh folk songs at the bank. Or plant trees on public property. Or confuse the person next to you. Or make a triangular table. Or hop, skip, and jump. Or ride a train. Or organize your sock drawer alphabetically. Or go bowling with your mom. Or train potato bugs to do tricks. Or make a quilt. Or publish a magazine about pencil shavings. Or eat lime jello with pineapple in it. Or pave a freeway. Or learn to draw. Or take up photography. Or learn to tell time. Or photocopy money. Or go out for pasta. Or sew a dress. Or bathe your iguana. Or go fishing. Or paint a stranger's house in the middle of the night. Or take up windsurfing. Or change your hair style. Or sharpen your whiteboard markers. Or feed a toucan. Or enjoy the sun. Or do a crossword puzzle. Or buy some cool clothes. Or go to the beach. Or play croquet with your dad. Or water your plants. Or build a doll house. Or invite some friends over for salmon and white wine.See you next month!
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Comment on The truth about AI (specifically LLM powered AI) in ~tech
balooga LinkI agree completely. The only thing more shocking than how good today’s models are, is how quickly people are to dismiss them. That said, I think a lot of these tools are hamstrung by context...I agree completely. The only thing more shocking than how good today’s models are, is how quickly people are to dismiss them.
That said, I think a lot of these tools are hamstrung by context window size and their inability to maintain focus on many parts of a complex system at once. That’s especially evident when working with code… the tools can produce huge amounts of standalone code from scratch, but are not nearly as good at updating existing codebases. They don’t understand how the existing modules fit together, or how the APIs work. They don’t understand the libraries. They don’t know your coding conventions.
I imagine in the future we’ll have workflows with long chains of checking and double-checking. Reasoning models that always ask themselves things like…
- What libraries are available in this project?
- Can I use library X in this way?
- Have I verified this in the docs for library X?
- Have I analyzed the source code of library X to understand what it’s doing under the hood?
- Have I considered 5 other alternative approaches, asking these same questions for all of them, and determined which approach is superior?
- How is this same type of problem being solved elsewhere in this project?
- Does my solution align with existing patterns in our codebase?
- Do my naming conventions, capitalization, filenames, directory structures, comment style, and indentation seamlessly extend those already present in the project?
- Does my solution solve the problem that was posed in the most recent prompt?
- Does my solution account for all of the context laid out in all the previous prompts, going back to the beginning of this session?
- Does my solution account for all of the rules I’m supposed to follow in my CLAUDE.md file?
- Does my solution adhere to all of my configured linting and formatting rules?
- Have I added or updated tests accordingly, in a way that actually tests this new behavior, specifically, and aligns with all of our existing patterns and testing philosophies?
And so on. Probably repeating this whole checklist multiple times, defensively asking “are you sure??” frequently along the way, refusing to consider a task done until every box is ticked. I’m thinking of an extremely self-critical, fastidious agentic system that is constantly reading local files and looking up information on the web, reading docs, validating assumptions, disproving hallucinations, etc. A chain of events that would be painfully slow and inefficient today but, if all these huge capital investments in GPUs and data centers are worth anything, maybe won’t be in a couple years.
The real pain point for me in all LLMs right now is “drift.” You meticulously prompt your way to a place where it finally seems like it’s got a good understanding of the problem domain. Then you continue working with it and… oops, it forgot some tiny detail you mentioned in the beginning. That’s the first crack that begins to show, but a few prompts later you realize it’s completely lost the plot. Everything you typed 5 prompts ago is dust in the wind. Extremely frustrating. But it feels like a temporary problem that will be resolved eventually. Hopefully without boiling the oceans in the process.
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Comment on Tildes Game Giveaway: Holiday 2025 in ~games
balooga Link ParentI would love Full Throttle: Remastered, please!I would love Full Throttle: Remastered, please!
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Comment on Most parked domains now serving malicious content in ~tech
balooga Link ParentAbsolutely sage advice. This behavior is known as domain tasting by the way. GoDaddy did this to a domain I was looking at ages ago (literally 18 years ago so I dunno if it’s still an active...Absolutely sage advice. This behavior is known as domain tasting by the way. GoDaddy did this to a domain I was looking at ages ago (literally 18 years ago so I dunno if it’s still an active problem). Thankfully they didn’t actually register the domain, they just held it for the five-day grace period mentioned in that wiki page. Because that was free for them to do, but actually registering domains people searched for would be unsustainable for their little hustle. I just waited it out, and bought my domain from a non-malicious registrar the moment it went back on the market.
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Comment on CGA-2025-12 🏴☠️🏝️🍌 INSERT CARTRIDGE 🟢 The Secret of Monkey Island in ~games
balooga LinkMy 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...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!
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Comment on Cato Institute - The US Government unconstitutionally labels Immigration and Customs Enforcement observers as domestic terrorists in ~society
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Comment on Cato Institute - The US Government unconstitutionally labels Immigration and Customs Enforcement observers as domestic terrorists in ~society
balooga Link ParentIt still astonishes me that it hasn’t backfired on them spectacularly. “Antifa” is literally an abbreviation of “anti-fascist.” It’s right there in the name. Antifa opposes fascism. If you are...It still astonishes me that it hasn’t backfired on them spectacularly. “Antifa” is literally an abbreviation of “anti-fascist.” It’s 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 can’t 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 ParentThere’s 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...There’s 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 it’s all absolute shit nonsense. Sort of a 21st century Emperor’s New Clothes story.
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Comment on UK and Denmark are demanding overhaul of European immigration laws – Keir Starmer and Mette Frederiksen argue populists will continue to gain ground if something isn't done soon in ~society
balooga Link ParentWell I’m just one person but you asked for why I think this way so I’ll share it. This is hard to articulate, and still half-baked, so please bear with me. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about...Well I’m just one person but you asked for why I think this way so I’ll share it. This is hard to articulate, and still half-baked, so please bear with me.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the whole “darkest timeline” and “brain rot” and “dead internet theory” 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 I’ve been getting this nagging feeling that it’s 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 haven’t heard much about it lately. It hasn’t gone anywhere. Why should we believe that it has? I’d posit that mass manipulation online is more powerful now than it’s ever been, and better at covering its tracks.
We’re 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 I’m 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 isn’t one carefully mastermind operation, more like turbulent ocean waves crashing into each other chaotically.)
How do we measure the popularity of “influencers” 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. It’s 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 “it’s all fake” but that’s obviously not true. These populist movements are very real. What I’m getting at, though, is I suspect they’re artificially inflated. Manipulators are putting their thumbs on the scale to tip sentiment in their favor. They’re kingmaking specific types of influencer voices that will produce a more favorable media ecosystem for them to exploit. They’re lining their own pockets along the way. And the result is this monumental shift of the Overton window that we’ve been seeing, where suddenly the most insane fringe ideas and hateful rhetoric are now considered acceptable and mainstream. I don’t think that’s 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 can’t point our finger at the responsible parties. We can’t produce admissible evidence of wrongdoing. We can’t quantify the boundaries or scale of the manipulation. We don’t know who’s behind the curtain and there’s likely no way for them to be held accountable even if we could. They’re as emboldened as ever and our hands are tied.
That’s my theory, anyway. My conspiracy theory, I guess, albeit ironically. Occam’s razor says I’m being preposterous and the better explanation is that I’m just in denial about a political sea change happening that I don’t like. That’s fair. Maybe I’m just retreating into a form of solipsism because I’m mad about the state of the world and I’d rather believe everything’s still okay. Like, maybe if we could find a solution to this, we could get the train back on track. I mean that’s not exactly being hopeful but at least it’s something and it lets me hold onto some shred of faith in my fellow man.
Anyway, to answer your question: I’m having a hard time believing that our current situation actually IS “democracy doing democracy things.” 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 don’t know the answer to that, honestly. But it makes it hard for me to roll over and accept that this downward spiral is truly “what the people want.” Hell, even if they do want it, it’s 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 🏴☠️🏝️🍌 INSERT CARTRIDGE 🟢 The Secret of Monkey Island in ~games
balooga Link ParentThank you for sharing these! Super interesting! On a personal note, I’m 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, I’m 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 hadn’t considered yet is digital archival work. I’ve 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, let’s be realistic) but I’m 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. 🤔
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Comment on UK and Denmark are demanding overhaul of European immigration laws – Keir Starmer and Mette Frederiksen argue populists will continue to gain ground if something isn't done soon in ~society
balooga LinkI’m over on the other side of the planet so I should probably just keep my mouth shut about European politics. Even so, it’s curious to me how giving the populists more of what they want is...I’m over on the other side of the planet so I should probably just keep my mouth shut about European politics.
Even so, it’s curious to me how giving the populists more of what they want is supposed to prevent them from gaining more ground?
Now I’m going to reveal how hopelessly naive I am, but I’m generally of the opinion that IMMIGRATION GOOD. I like seeing the old ethnostates transition to multicultural pluralism. I think it’s a great way for populations to learn tolerance, if not empathy, and discover new strengths through diversity. And it’s a great way for people in hard situations to seek something better for themselves and their families. If I were in charge I’d 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. It’s good that I’m not in charge.
But still, capitulating to xenophobes’ cry of IMMIGRATION BAD is surely a move in the wrong direction too. If we’re worried about populism, perhaps the actual way to combat it is by promoting policies that don’t foment division, fear, marginalization, and violence.
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Comment on These travel influencers don’t want freebies. They’re 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 don’t want freebies. They’re AI. in ~travel
balooga Link ParentYikes! That’s atrocious. Thanks for the link.Yikes! That’s atrocious. Thanks for the link.
My spouse lived in Austria as a child, so we’re part of a privileged elite that gets visited by Santa early, on St. Nicholas Day, December 6. The kids leave their boots on the doorstop overnight, and wake to find them filled with goodies in the morning. Thankfully we don’t get visited by Krampus — but occasionally a switch or two will end up in a boot alongside the chocolate coins and oranges.
Unfortunately Santa skips right over our house on Christmas Eve, leaving the responsibility for those presents up to us. And nobody ever sets snacks out for it. Kinda feels like a raw deal if you ask me.