balooga's recent activity

  1. Looking for a visualization of North American political boundaries over time

    ~humanities.history Ask (recommendations)
    Lately I've been taking an interest in American westward expansion and trying to get a better understanding of how the lines were drawn on maps in the past. Can anyone recommend a good video or...

    Lately I've been taking an interest in American westward expansion and trying to get a better understanding of how the lines were drawn on maps in the past. Can anyone recommend a good video or interactive visualization that I can scroll back and forward through time to see the changes in detail?

    Things I'm particularly interested in tracking:

    • Indigenous lands (specifically how the boundaries of traditional/ancestral lands evolved into modern-day reservations)
    • European claims like those of Britain, France, and Spain
    • What was considered US/Canada/Mexico territory vs. no man's land or frontier at different points in time, from the governance standpoint of each of those nations
    • Large and rapid settling movements like the Mormons into Utah, Oklahoma land rush, California gold rush, etc.
    • Other factors like homesteading programs (I don't know much about this) and the transcontinental railroad, confederacy borders, trail of tears, etc.
    • Notable battles/massacres marking bloody land disputes

    I mean I guess that's a lot, this is basically "tell me about all of American history." šŸ˜‚

    I feel like I have a pretty decent grasp of the general political timeline and important events, I'm just realizing lately that I don't have a cohesive mental model of how it all fits on a map and changed over the years. I did find the Wikipedia page on Territorial Evolution of the United States to be interesting but it's a bit overwhelming and not very digestible. It contains this animated gif, which is awesome but I can't scroll through it at my own pace, and it's USA only.

    11 votes

  2. Comment on US President Donald Trump pardons Silk Road dark web market creator Ross Ulbricht in ~society

    balooga
    Link Parent
    Trump attended (and spoke at) the LP convention? They had their own competing candidate. Why would they even invite him?

    Trump attended (and spoke at) the LP convention? They had their own competing candidate. Why would they even invite him?

    2 votes

  3. Comment on US President Donald Trump to make historic move towards revoking birthright citizenship in ~society

    balooga
    Link Parent
    Isnā€™t that a question for the judicial branch?

    Isnā€™t that a question for the judicial branch?

  4. Comment on US$ 30 million to reinvent the wheel (Bluesky vs. Mastodon) in ~tech

    balooga
    Link Parent
    Thatā€™s an interesting take, and of course how the name sounds to different people is really subjective. Personally I like the name. I think elephants are cool and kinda goofy, and big badass...

    Thatā€™s an interesting take, and of course how the name sounds to different people is really subjective. Personally I like the name. I think elephants are cool and kinda goofy, and big badass prehistoric ones are even cooler. And I guess this terminology isnā€™t widely known but I love that Mastodonā€™s equivalent of ā€œtweetsā€ are called ā€œtoots.ā€ Thatā€™s frigginā€™ adorable.

    I donā€™t have a horse in this race. I didnā€™t use Twitter and Iā€™m uninterested in anything like it. If I were to use one Iā€™d gravitate toward the decentralized, FOSS, privacy-oriented one that isnā€™t run by elites and funded by venture capital.

    The thing I know about Mastodon is itā€™s federated and I love the idea of that. But Iā€™m also intimidated by it because it sounds complex. If I were to start using it, Iā€™d need to develop a mental model of how it works and I (even as a career software engineer) donā€™t want to do that. I would be joining to chat with people, not to figure out how content is propagated and moderated across a distributed network. Those are implementation details an end user shouldnā€™t have to contend withā€” ESPECIALLY for mass adoption.

    Anyway, Iā€™ve heard that itā€™s not really that complicated to use, I dunno. Thatā€™s still the impression I have of it. I assume others who have considered it are in a similar boat. That seems like a bigger barrier to me than the brandingā€¦ overcoming the (appearance of) complexity is a big and important challenge for building a userbase. And I kinda feel like Mastodon has missed its chance. In the early days of Musk-era X chaos, it was as likely a successor as anything else. But they squandered their opportunity and Bluesky snatched it away. I think itā€™s too late now for Mastodon to reach #1. That ship has sailed.

    6 votes

  5. Comment on Proton CEO tweets support for Donald Trump's Department of Justice pick and the US Republican Party in ~society

    balooga
    Link Parent
    I was a satisfied PIA customer for many years but the Kape acquisition really soured me on them (as did degradation of the Mac client and increased connection flakiness in general). I bailed for...

    I was a satisfied PIA customer for many years but the Kape acquisition really soured me on them (as did degradation of the Mac client and increased connection flakiness in general). I bailed for Mullvad and havenā€™t regretted it for a moment.

    6 votes

  6. Comment on Proton CEO tweets support for Donald Trump's Department of Justice pick and the US Republican Party in ~society

    balooga
    Link
    Everybodyā€™s lining up to kiss the ring. I guess court politics are back in fashion!

    Everybodyā€™s lining up to kiss the ring. I guess court politics are back in fashion!

    30 votes

  7. Comment on Does a picture prove anything anymore? in ~arts

    balooga
    Link Parent
    I want to know more about that photographer controversy. Every photographer Iā€™ve known has edited their pics in Photoshop for things like color correction, cropping, blemish touch-up, and so on....

    I want to know more about that photographer controversy. Every photographer Iā€™ve known has edited their pics in Photoshop for things like color correction, cropping, blemish touch-up, and so on. Their clients expect that, itā€™s considered professional.

    I assume youā€™re talking about larger-scale modifications than those examples. But thereā€™s a spectrum of how much exactly might be considered too much. Thereā€™s no such thing as a perfectly ā€œtrue to lifeā€ photo. Even the best, most realistic, completely unedited photos are just approximations of reality. I guess my point is, photography has never been the stalwart chronicle of truth that some are claiming.

    4 votes

  8. Comment on Five Disney animated canon films will be destroyed and you can choose, which five do you pick? in ~movies

    balooga
    Link
    Song of the South The Black Cauldron Planes Pocahontas Sleeping Beauty
    1. Song of the South
    2. The Black Cauldron
    3. Planes
    4. Pocahontas
    5. Sleeping Beauty
    3 votes

  9. Comment on There is no safe word: How the best-selling fantasy author Neil Gaiman hid the darkest parts of himself for decades in ~books

    balooga
    Link Parent
    I thought Picard was a safe choice tooā€¦..

    I thought Picard was a safe choice tooā€¦..

    4 votes

  10. Comment on This land is not your land ā€“ the ethnic cleansing of Native Americans in ~humanities.history

  11. Comment on Gunman shot dead nine years after opening fire on diner over ā€˜Pizzagateā€™ conspiracy in ~news

    balooga
    Link Parent
    I take my wallet out of my pocket all the time. I just reach for it. Itā€™s instinctive. The fact that this could get me killed, and that it might be blamed on me for not following your steps is...

    I take my wallet out of my pocket all the time. I just reach for it. Itā€™s instinctive. The fact that this could get me killed, and that it might be blamed on me for not following your steps is troubling.

    Granted, Iā€™m a respectable looking, well-dressed non-minority so it would probably go alright for me. Even soā€¦

    14 votes

  12. Comment on BYD's self-driving U9 jumps over obstacles in ~transport

    balooga
    Link Parent
    Ahem. The jump button wasnā€™t introduced until Crazy Taxi 2. Sorryā€” I just couldnā€™t participate in this thread without upholding my Sega nerd cred.

    Ahem. The jump button wasnā€™t introduced until Crazy Taxi 2.

    Sorryā€” I just couldnā€™t participate in this thread without upholding my Sega nerd cred.

    4 votes

  13. Comment on BYD's self-driving U9 jumps over obstacles in ~transport

    balooga
    Link Parent
    It was being tailed by the camera drone. Can those fly so fast in such a controlled way? I know basically nothing about drone photography so maybe the answer is ā€œof course they canā€ but the...

    It was being tailed by the camera drone. Can those fly so fast in such a controlled way? I know basically nothing about drone photography so maybe the answer is ā€œof course they canā€ but the thought gave me pause as I was watching.

    2 votes

  14. Comment on Starting a community-maintained Tildes source code fork in ~tildes

    balooga
    Link Parent
    Iā€™m concerned that ā€œcherry-pickingā€ features into the upstream repo is going to become increasingly complex over time as the two codebases diverge. If the goal of this project is to take some of...

    Iā€™m concerned that ā€œcherry-pickingā€ features into the upstream repo is going to become increasingly complex over time as the two codebases diverge. If the goal of this project is to take some of the pressure off Deimos, it will have the opposite effect in this regard.

    Wild speculation ahead because Iā€™ve never actually looked at the code and donā€™t know what would be entailed:

    Could the initial work in the new fork be to rearchitect it to be fully modular and themeable, with everything based around a plugin engine of some sort? But with an explicit goal of leaving all the existing functionality unchanged and introducing no new features? Iā€™m sure that would be a heavy lift. But it might be worth it, if it effectively isolates features from each other. Deimos would need to migrate the site to that new backend (also a big risk on his part) but after that it would be a lot simpler to pick and choose what community fork code gets promoted to tildes.net. It would also foster an ecosystem of plugin development, a bit like WordPress.

    As long as Iā€™m making ridiculous pie-in-the-sky suggestions, this would also be a good time to introduce federation protocols. Some way of allowing separate Tildes instances to communicate with each other. That might mitigate some of the community splintering thatā€™s bound to happen as people start spinning up their own clones.

    9 votes

  15. Comment on Starting a community-maintained Tildes source code fork in ~tildes

    balooga
    Link Parent
    Backticks. Itā€™s a bit of a shift away from Tildes.

    Backticks. Itā€™s a bit of a shift away from Tildes.

    16 votes

  16. Comment on Starting a community-maintained Tildes source code fork in ~tildes

    balooga
    Link
    This sounds like a good idea! Eager to see what becomes of it. Has Deimos indicated this is something he will facilitate, or is it just a hopeful wish at this time? I like the idea of a...

    This sounds like a good idea! Eager to see what becomes of it.

    The hope is that Tildes can merge relevant changes back into the official upstream repository. If we implement things useful and desirable for Tildes, it should be possible to get those improvements onto the website.

    Has Deimos indicated this is something he will facilitate, or is it just a hopeful wish at this time? I like the idea of a constellation of sites running their own Tildes instances, but Iā€™m mainly concerned about the ongoing development of this site.

    26 votes

  17. Comment on Your favorite game OSTs in ~games

    balooga
    Link Parent
    Nice! Much appreciated! As thanks, I offer this pair of JSR-inspired fan mixes I archived from an old Reddit thread too.

    Nice! Much appreciated! As thanks, I offer this pair of JSR-inspired fan mixes I archived from an old Reddit thread too.

    1 vote

  18. Comment on Your favorite game OSTs in ~games

    balooga
    Link Parent
    Oh man, Iā€™m gonna need that link!

    Oh man, Iā€™m gonna need that link!

    1 vote

  19. Comment on Your favorite game OSTs in ~games

    balooga
    Link Parent
    Thanks for mentioning both Grim Fandango and Astro Bot. Both of those are great! (Even if Astroā€™s theme rips off Museā€™s song Starlight lol)

    Thanks for mentioning both Grim Fandango and Astro Bot. Both of those are great! (Even if Astroā€™s theme rips off Museā€™s song Starlight lol)

    1 vote

  20. Comment on Your favorite game OSTs in ~games

    balooga
    Link Parent
    I share your love for Sonic music, including Sonic R. Snatched that game up when it released for Sega Saturn and never looked back! Honestly the game has aged very poorly, but at the time it...

    I share your love for Sonic music, including Sonic R. Snatched that game up when it released for Sega Saturn and never looked back! Honestly the game has aged very poorly, but at the time it knocked my socks off. The graphics were were on par with N64 games and the sense of speed was very good. The severe pop-in and limited number of tracks and racers were not. Of course we were still getting used to hearing so-called "CD-quality" audio in games, so I think the sheer novelty of it in '97 elevated the soundtrack somewhat for me. Honestly these songs were sooo cheesy even then, but they grew on me over time.

    In my head there's a whole category of related music from this time period that is distinctly SEGA. Earnestly cheesy, catchy, and cringy. This includes the music from Nights into Dreams, Daytona USA, Sega Rally, and Metropolis Street Racer. I wouldn't recommend these soundtracks to anybody but they capture a unique moment in gaming history that's entangled with a lot of nostalgia for me.

    As for Sonic, the classic soundtracks were legitimately, unironically great, from the first game through Sonic & Knuckles. Sonic 3 famously included uncredited contributions from Michael Jackson. I have to give a shout-out to Sonic Mania here for revisiting so many of the original bangers, and even improving on them in a lot of ways. (That whole game was an utterly fantastic love letter to the original 2D games and I highly recommend it if you're a fan of those and missed it somehow.)

    4 votes