balooga's recent activity

  1. Comment on Are you still using social media? in ~tech

    balooga
    Link Parent
    I don’t know what “social media” actually means but you included Tildes in that list so I guess all of us reading this use it, by that definition. Discord, too, doesn’t feel like it fits under...

    I don’t know what “social media” actually means but you included Tildes in that list so I guess all of us reading this use it, by that definition. Discord, too, doesn’t feel like it fits under that umbrella to me.

    I signed up for Facebook (then known as Thefacebook) and MySpace back in the heady days of 2004 or so. I didn’t stay on MySpace very long but stuck with Facebook until maybe 2013. I haven’t touched any of the big platforms within that category since then. Oh I just remembered I was on Google+ for a while too, lol.

    I was pretty into Reddit for over a decade. Survived a number of blackouts and exoduses until I finally said enough is enough and jumped ship for good. This one hurt because there are legitimately some great small communities on there and good content continuing to be posted despite the gradual decline. I still find myself landing there from time to time when searching for things, because it remains one of the better sources of quality info. Leaving was a matter of principle for me because I was so sickened by the way the admins kept steamrolling the users with impunity, knowing that blowback was always temporary and a userbase would always remain regardless of what they did. I had to put my foot down and do my small part to stand against that. I suspect other Tildes folks can relate.

    By the time the industry shifted over to junk-food video feeds (I guess Vine, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, TikTok, etc.) I had already long since washed my hands of social media, but this particular shift really rubbed me the wrong way. Just seemed like a really concerning new evolution of the formula for engagement-optimized addiction in an app. My opinion on this hasn’t changed in the years since, if anything I feel more strongly about that now and blame these platforms in part for the shitty state the world is in today. I get the same feeling watching people swipe through TikToks that I do wandering through a labyrinthine Vegas casino full of zombified retirees feeding slot machines.

    I’ve never used any of the social features of YouTube but it remains a great source of great long-form content. I use FreeTube, a FOSS desktop app that doesn’t always work but when it does… it strips out all of the algorithmic bullshit, social junk, ads and traffic. I can subscribe to my favorite creators and it’s all managed locally without sending any metrics to Google.

    I have mixed feelings about Discord. I’m a member of a bunch of servers but I’m not really active in them. I have these completionist tendencies that want to read every message and that impulse is completely overwhelmed by Discord. There’s just no way to keep up. And that’s liberating in some way because I just have to come to terms with the fact that it’s chaos in there, and I can navigate that at my leisure without needing to feel like all the checkboxes have to be ticked.

    I do sometimes feel like all the ways I’ve disconnected from social stuff online have made me rather antisocial. I have some FOMO about limiting my exposure to a broad range of news and ideas. But I still generally feel like this is the right path to be on, and I’ve seen the absolute insanity suppurated by social media echo chambers, so I don’t think getting into modern platforms would help with that problem anyway.

    I’ve been really prioritizing my real-life relationships over my digital ones, since the pandemic; my introversion ran rampant in ‘20-‘23, having been emboldened by all that social distancing and remote work. My social life was reduced to embers that are just now getting rekindled. And it feels really good. I’m going GOLFING tomorrow. I don’t golf. I’m over 40 and I’ve never golfed. I’m scared shitless about golfing. But also — I have friends now who care about me and want to take me golfing and dammit that is a wonderful feeling. I never got that feeling from a website or app.

    Well, apart from @kfwyre‘s game giveaway threads, that is. 😉

    9 votes

  2. Comment on Pope Leo, on Christmas Eve, says denying help to poor is rejecting God in ~humanities

    balooga
    Link Parent
    Disappointed that christmas.merry was removed. That @mycketforvirrad is such a Scrooge! Humbug!!

    Disappointed that christmas.merry was removed. That @mycketforvirrad is such a Scrooge! Humbug!!

    2 votes

  3. Comment on King Air autolands in Colorado in ~transport

    balooga
    Link
    Does this system communicate with air traffic control? What stands between today’s implementation and full self-piloting from terminal to terminal? I don’t know anything about piloting (and flight...

    Does this system communicate with air traffic control? What stands between today’s implementation and full self-piloting from terminal to terminal?

    I don’t know anything about piloting (and flight deck instrument panels are horrifyingly complex so I know there’s a lot to account for there) but it’s always seemed to me that autonomous passenger aircraft are likely an easier nut to crack than self-driving cars. Mainly due to the unpredictability of road conditions due to construction, traffic, wildlife, pedestrians, other obstructive hazards, weird one-off exceptions to normal rules of the road that require reading signs and improvising, nonverbal driver-to-driver communication, and so on. Ground vehicles are insanely hard to automate. Yet progress is being made there. I’ve always heard that takeoff and landing are the hardest things about flying a plane, and it sounds like this tech has half of that taken care of. Makes me wonder if airline pilots’ days are numbered.

    4 votes

  4. Comment on What do you leave out for Father Christmas? in ~talk

    balooga
    Link Parent
    Now that’s a tradition I can get behind! Prost!

    Now that’s a tradition I can get behind! Prost!

    1 vote

  5. Comment on What do you leave out for Father Christmas? in ~talk

    balooga
    Link Parent
    POW! Straight in the nostalgia! I forgot about that ad.

    POW! Straight in the nostalgia! I forgot about that ad.

    3 votes

  6. Comment on CGA-2025-12 🏴‍☠️🏝️🍌 REMOVE CARTRIDGE ⏏️ The Secret of Monkey Island in ~games

    balooga
    Link Parent
    It’s a funny gag that Toothrot has a ship of his own, but it always bugged me because it’s pretty clear in-game that he arrived at Monkey Island on the Sea Monkey, which was sailed back to Melee...

    It’s a funny gag that Toothrot has a ship of his own, but it always bugged me because it’s pretty clear in-game that he arrived at Monkey Island on the Sea Monkey, which was sailed back to Melee Island by a crew of chimps. So where did the second ship come from?

    If I were me writing the game, I think it would’ve been the cannibals who offered Guybrush a ride home. Probably on a fancy high-tech yacht or something, haha.

    1 vote

  7. Comment on What do you leave out for Father Christmas? in ~talk

    balooga
    (edited )
    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 doorstep overnight,...

    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 doorstep 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.

    7 votes

  8. Comment on CGA-2025-12 🏴‍☠️🏝️🍌 REMOVE CARTRIDGE ⏏️ The Secret of Monkey Island in ~games

    balooga
    Link Parent
    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...

    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.

    4 votes

  9. Comment on Paramount launches a hostile bid for Warner Bros. Discovery in ~movies

    balooga
    Link
    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: 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:

    1. 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.

    2. 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.

    4 votes

  10. Comment on CBS News pulls report on “brutal and torturous conditions” at El Salvador prison where Donald Trump Administration sent deportees in ~tv

    balooga
    Link
    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...

    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.

    24 votes

  11. Comment on CGA-2025-12 🏴‍☠️🏝️🍌 REMOVE CARTRIDGE ⏏️ The Secret of Monkey Island in ~games

    balooga
    Link
    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...

    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.

    5 votes

  12. CGA-2025-12 🏴‍☠️🏝️🍌 REMOVE CARTRIDGE ⏏️ The Secret of Monkey Island

    ~games Text 572 words
    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:

    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!

    18 votes

  13. Comment on The truth about AI (specifically LLM powered AI) in ~tech

    balooga
    Link
    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...

    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.

    4 votes

  14. Comment on Tildes Game Giveaway: Holiday 2025 in ~games

    balooga
    Link Parent
    I would love Full Throttle: Remastered, please!

    I would love Full Throttle: Remastered, please!

    1 vote

  15. Comment on Most parked domains now serving malicious content in ~tech

    balooga
    Link Parent
    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...

    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.

    6 votes

  16. Comment on CGA-2025-12 🏴‍☠️🏝️🍌 INSERT CARTRIDGE 🟢 The Secret of Monkey Island in ~games

    balooga
    Link
    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...

    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!

    2 votes

  17. Comment on The US Government unconstitutionally labels Immigration and Customs Enforcement observers as domestic terrorists in ~society

    balooga
    Link Parent
    Truly, they have a dizzying intellect.

    Truly, they have a dizzying intellect.

    10 votes

  18. Comment on The US Government unconstitutionally labels Immigration and Customs Enforcement observers as domestic terrorists in ~society

    balooga
    Link Parent
    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...

    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.

    25 votes

  19. Comment on Rob Reiner and wife Michele Singer found dead at LA home; homicide suspected in ~movies

    balooga
    Link Parent
    Christ, what an asshole.

    Christ, what an asshole.

    12 votes

  20. Comment on Disney inks blockbuster $1b deal with OpenAI, handing characters over to Sora in ~tech

    balooga
    Link Parent
    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...

    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.

    2 votes