Boojum's recent activity

  1. Comment on Bravely Default Flying Fairy HD Remaster released on Steam in ~games

    Boojum
    Link
    Hm. Denuvo, sadly. I've wanted to play this, but I can wait. (Got enough in my backlog anyway.)

    Hm. Denuvo, sadly. I've wanted to play this, but I can wait. (Got enough in my backlog anyway.)

    10 votes

  2. Comment on Hisense TVs show ads during normal operation in ~tech

    Boojum
    Link
    This is why I got myself a Sceptre dumb TV. It warms my heart seeing its on-screen display sometimes flash 12:00 Jan 1, 1980 in the corner. It's dumb enough that it still relies on me to set the...

    This is why I got myself a Sceptre dumb TV. It warms my heart seeing its on-screen display sometimes flash 12:00 Jan 1, 1980 in the corner. It's dumb enough that it still relies on me to set the time since it has no wifi hardware. It's just a pure HDMI display device. (Is the display quality as great as some? No, but it gets the job done.)

    4 votes

  3. Comment on What are people using instead of VS Code? in ~comp

    Boojum
    Link Parent
    I mostly just use it with the toolbar and menu turned off, plus some custom color and font theming. So I'm not really one to talk. But a couple of interesting looks that have crossed my radar: "I...

    I mostly just use it with the toolbar and menu turned off, plus some custom color and font theming. So I'm not really one to talk.

    But a couple of interesting looks that have crossed my radar:

    2 votes

  4. Comment on What are people using instead of VS Code? in ~comp

    Boojum
    Link Parent
    No need to abandon either one! Going kind of the opposite way as you, I've been using Emacs since mumble mumble cough, and in the last few months I've been experimenting with VS Code as an...

    You don't have to abandon VSCode immediately for Emacs. You could ease yourself into Emacs/wane yourself off VSCode, that's what I did, but the process of switching to Emacs is still... well, a process.

    No need to abandon either one! Going kind of the opposite way as you, I've been using Emacs since mumble mumble cough, and in the last few months I've been experimenting with VS Code as an environment for driving agentic coding at work. It's all ultimately just text files, so there's nothing to be lost from switching back and forth and using whatever works best for a given task. In my case, I kind of see myself as starting to develop a workflow of VS Code specifically for agentic coding, and Emacs for artisanal coding and everything else (Magit, Calc, Org notes, ...).

    1 vote

  5. Comment on Dox with Grok in ~tech

    Boojum
    Link
    Oh good. The hunting of this Snark won't be quite as easy as that, then. Verse... “‘You may seek it with thimbles—and seek it with care; You may hunt it with forks and hope; You may threaten its...

    The user Boojum appears to maintain anonymity under this pseudonym, which is inspired by Lewis Carroll's "The Hunting of the Snark" (a fictional creature). No direct links to a real name, location, occupation, or other personal details were found in their Reddit profile or cross-referenced accounts. They have no bio on Reddit, and their activity dates back to 2005, with consistent focus on programming communities.

    Oh good. The hunting of this Snark won't be quite as easy as that, then.

    Verse...

    “‘You may seek it with thimbles—and seek it with care;
     You may hunt it with forks and hope;
    You may threaten its life with a railway-share;
     You may charm it with smiles and soap—’”

    (“That's exactly the method,” the Bellman bold
     In a hasty parenthesis cried,
    “That's exactly the way I have always been told
     That the capture of Snarks should be tried!”)

    “‘But oh, beamish nephew, beware of the day,
     If your Snark be a Boojum! For then
    You will softly and suddenly vanish away,
     And never be met with again!’”

    1 vote

  6. Comment on Colossal Game Adventure Schedule: April - September 2026 in ~games

    Boojum
    Link Parent
    As I recall, Breath of Fire was pretty solid too.

    As I recall, Breath of Fire was pretty solid too.

  7. Comment on Colossal Game Adventure Schedule: April - September 2026 in ~games

    Boojum
    Link Parent
    Yep, many thanks to all the hosts for the last round. Also, let me know if I've been getting annoyingly nitpicky and I'll back off (what can I say, attention to detail, particularly in edge...

    Yep, many thanks to all the hosts for the last round.

    Also, let me know if I've been getting annoyingly nitpicky and I'll back off (what can I say, attention to detail, particularly in edge conditions is a big part of my day job; and if you prefer a more flattering spin it means you're keeping me engaged), but shouldn't Maniac Mansion have advanced? It tied with Beneath a Steel Sky and Crystalis in votes.

    Regarding the pastebin alternatives, I just let Tildes host some of the CSV files I was using to tally by PMing them to you :-).

    But an interesting hybrid alternative might be the simple paste system that Eric Wastl, creator of Advent of Code concocted: https://topaz.github.io/paste/. It doesn't actually store or host any pastes itself. Instead, it compresses and then base64 encodes the content straight into the giant URL link it generates for you. Copy that link into a forum post, and now the forum host is storing the paste with the post. Simple. And no possibility of spam.

    2 votes

  8. Comment on Colossal Game Adventure Schedule: April - September 2026 in ~games

    Boojum
    Link Parent
    I agree about the eliminated games, since I'd happily play a number of them. But I'm liking the fact that with the stronger decay now, all of those eliminated games still have an excellent chance...

    I agree about the eliminated games, since I'd happily play a number of them. But I'm liking the fact that with the stronger decay now, all of those eliminated games still have an excellent chance if renominated next time. Any single ballot could now compensate for what they lose in rollover points, so it hurts much less. And the ones that advance feel more like mere suggestions or a primer to get us started for next time rather than dead certs.

    The lobbying topic was fun! It definitely swung some of my votes to same games I wouldn't have otherwise considered. (And as a bit of enlightened self-interest, I was thinking the lobbying posts could also make for a good rough draft for hosting topics if they won.) I'd definitely lobby to keep the lobbying round. I suppose it could be folded into the nomination topic, but I think it's more fun separate.

    2 votes

  9. Comment on The average US college student is illiterate in ~life

    Boojum
    Link Parent
    On the flipside, with regard to driving, pedestrians stepping off the curb into an intersection and meandering through a crosswalk with their eyes glued to a phone is one of my major pet peeves...

    On the flipside, with regard to driving, pedestrians stepping off the curb into an intersection and meandering through a crosswalk with their eyes glued to a phone is one of my major pet peeves when I'm trying to make a turn. Put the damn phone down and have a little situational awareness; the phone can wait until you're out of the street and back on the sidewalk!

    10 votes

  10. Comment on Color game — how well can you remember colors? | Dialed in ~games

    Boojum
    Link
    Fun! https://dialed.gg/?c=P8JN79. 46.73/50, 98%. https://imgur.com/oDqf3A5. This was after moving to my main desktop and monitor and setting the website to dark mode so that the swatch would have...

    Fun! https://dialed.gg/?c=P8JN79. 46.73/50, 98%. https://imgur.com/oDqf3A5.

    This was after moving to my main desktop and monitor and setting the website to dark mode so that the swatch would have a neutral surround. On my first try on my phone last night, I think I got a 45ish and 94%.

    Nerding out because digital color science is something of a sub-hobby of mine:

    I do wonder how they're computing the color difference. Since they report the original and guessed colors as HSB, I really hope that it's not just Euclidean difference in HSB. At a minimum I'd expect them to use Euclidean distance in the L*a*b* colorspace (i.e., CIE 76). My current go-to color difference metric is CIE DE 2000, but that one is way, way more tricky to implement and complicated to calculate. That one can give inconsistent values if the reference and test colors are wildly far apart, but it's fairly well tuned for when they're pretty close. The nice thing about both CIE 76 and CIE DE 2000 is that they at least try to approximate the perceptual difference. CIE DE 2000 in particular aims to model or predict the MacAdam ellipses, where a color pair with a CIE DE 2000 score of 1.0 corresponds to the Just Noticeable Difference (JND) threshold, where the pair is just on the edge of what a typical person can tell apart.

    2 votes

  11. Comment on Colossal Game Adventure: February 2026 Voting Topic in ~games

    Boojum
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    Patch notes! Hah! I love it! (You could call it a hotpatch.) I checked the updated numbers, and they look correct to me except for the last two. Each of those are one lower than they ought to be:...

    Patch notes! Hah! I love it! (You could call it a hotpatch.)

    I checked the updated numbers, and they look correct to me except for the last two. Each of those are one lower than they ought to be:

    • Threads of Fate should be 6 (matching The Colonel's Bequest, where both had 21 votes in August.)
    • Tony Hawk’s Pro-Skater 2 should be 5 (matching Freddy Pharkas, where both had 18 votes in August.)
    Current tally with 14 ballots, as of this comment
    Game Votes
    Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow 31
    The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past 29
    Sid Meier’s Pirates 26
    Tony Hawk’s Pro-Skater 2 26
    Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals 25
    Space Rogue 23
    The Grue That Binds 22
    Another World 19
    Back in a Flash 18
    Tetris 18
    Mother 3 17
    The Genesis of Treasure 17
    Descent 16
    Resident Evil (REmake) 16
    Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist 15
    Beneath a Steel Sky 13
    Crystalis 13
    Maniac Mansion 13
    Red Dead Redemption 12
    Scroll Lock-on 10
    The Colonel’s Bequest 10
    Threads of Fate 10
    Behind the Wheel 9
    Metroid 9
    StarTropics 9
    Metroid Prime 8
    JSRF: Jet Set Radio Future 7
    Lode Runner 7

    Meta: One thing that I've just realized about the heavier decay is that, while it does help with new nominations not being at such a disadvantage, it also means that any games that get cut now can be renominated next time and still have a fighting chance. Getting cut right now would cost at most 4 rollover votes, which a single ballot could undo.

    1 vote

  12. Comment on Colossal Game Adventure: February 2026 Voting Topic in ~games

    Boojum
    Link Parent
    FWIW, there's a typo in your Lufia II that was picked up by the tallying script. It should be Sinistrals.

    FWIW, there's a typo in your Lufia II that was picked up by the tallying script. It should be Sinistrals.

    2 votes

  13. Comment on Colossal Game Adventure: February 2026 Voting Topic in ~games

    Boojum
    Link Parent
    As of the time I post this comment, here's the current tally under that plan: Standings Game Aug. Votes 70% Decayed Boosts Feb. Votes Total Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow 25 8 3 20 31 Sid Meier’s...
    • Exemplary

    As of the time I post this comment, here's the current tally under that plan:

    Standings
    Game Aug. Votes 70% Decayed Boosts Feb. Votes Total
    Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow 25 8 3 20 31
    Sid Meier’s Pirates 30 9 6 9 24
    The Grue That Binds 17 5 3 14 22
    Tony Hawk’s Pro-Skater 2 18 5 0 17 22
    The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past 17 5 3 13 21
    Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals 16 5 9 6 20
    Another World 27 8 0 10 18
    Space Rogue 0 0 0 18 18
    The Genesis of Treasure 0 0 0 17 17
    Mother 3 0 0 0 17 17
    Tetris 19 6 0 10 16
    Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist 18 5 0 10 15
    Back in a Flash 32 10 3 0 13
    Crystalis 21 6 0 7 13
    Beneath a Steel Sky 20 6 0 5 11
    Descent 25 8 0 3 11
    Resident Evil (REmake) 0 0 0 11 11
    Threads of Fate 21 6 0 5 11
    The Colonel’s Bequest 21 6 0 4 10
    Maniac Mansion 0 0 0 10 10
    Scroll Lock-on 20 6 0 4 10
    StarTropics 22 7 0 3 10
    Behind the Wheel 21 6 0 3 9
    Metroid 20 6 0 3 9
    Metroid Prime 27 8 0 0 8
    JSRF: Jet Set Radio Future 17 5 0 2 7
    Lode Runner 17 5 0 2 7
    Red Dead Redemption 0 0 0 7 7
    5 votes

  14. Comment on What's an obscure book/series that you've read that you would like to recommend? in ~books

    Boojum
    Link Parent
    I need to read that one, since I've heard good things about it and liked the Zelazny that I've read. I found "The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth" in an anthology in my middle school...

    I need to read that one, since I've heard good things about it and liked the Zelazny that I've read. I found "The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth" in an anthology in my middle school library. And in college, I picked up Amber and enjoyed it greatly. (Walking through shadow is such a cool concept!)

    1 vote

  15. Comment on What's an obscure book/series that you've read that you would like to recommend? in ~books

    Boojum
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    It's definitely one of my favorites of his. Out of all his works of fiction that I've read, it's the one that feels the most "mature". And by that, I mean that it seems like in many of his books,...

    It's definitely one of my favorites of his. Out of all his works of fiction that I've read, it's the one that feels the most "mature". And by that, I mean that it seems like in many of his books, he's trying to be accessible to as wide an audience as possible - keeping the language and the metaphors fairly simple, etc. Whereas in Til We Have Faces, it feels more like he put everything he had as an author into it and wasn't holding anything back trying to make it accessible. I love the richer, deeper "texture" of it for that. It's like dark chocolate compared to his normal milk chocolate.

    (It's also not surprising that it's deeper in that - while he wrote the first draft in a matter of weeks - he'd been mulling over the idea for decades by the time he finally wrote it.)

    (And I've long thought that if the mental dictionary in my head had an illustration for "oneiric", Part 2 of Till We Have Faces would be it.)

    2 votes

  16. Comment on Colossal Game Adventure: February 2026 Voting Topic in ~games

    Boojum
    Link Parent
    I voted for games that I wished to play! I'll admit that back in August, I voted more strategically since there were so many more games and not enough votes to go around. So I cut my votes for...

    I voted for games that I wished to play!

    I'll admit that back in August, I voted more strategically since there were so many more games and not enough votes to go around. So I cut my votes for clear losers and reassigned those votes to games that were on the threshold of either top six or the rollover-cutoff.

    This time, though, I kept it very simple and just maxed 5 points to my top choice, with the remaining 15 divided as evenly as possible among other games that interest me (largely based on successful lobbying). The only case where the current scores affected my vote was in choosing which game drew the short straw to go a vote short - I picked Lufia II, since it looked like that was already in the lead.

    I'd be fine with retconning rollover votes, but it's possible I might want to be allowed to switch up my votes if so.

    Regarding /u/vili's suggestion, we had 49 voters in August, and 11 right now. So with that, we'd currently decay the rollovers an additional 78% (i.e., apply an 0.22 multiplier on them). Rounding that to the nearest, here's what the current standings would look like if we did that:

    Current standings with vili's scheme
    Game Count
    Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow 23
    Tony Hawk’s Pro-Skater 2 20
    Space Rogue 18
    Mother 3 17
    The Genesis of Treasure 17
    The Grue That Binds 17
    Another World 14
    The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past 14
    Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist 13
    Tetris 13
    Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals 12
    Resident Evil (REmake) 11
    Maniac Mansion 10
    Sid Meier’s Pirates 10
    Beneath a Steel Sky 8
    Threads of Fate 8
    Crystalis 7
    Descent 7
    Red Dead Redemption 7
    The Colonel’s Bequest 7
    Back in a Flash 6
    Behind the Wheel 6
    StarTropics 6
    JSRF: Jet Set Radio Future 5
    Lode Runner 5
    Scroll Lock-on 5
    Metroid 4
    Metroid Prime 4
    5 votes

  17. Comment on Colossal Game Adventure: February 2026 Voting Topic in ~games

    Boojum
    Link Parent
    Here are the standings by a couple of different measures, current as of the time of this comment: With rollover votes / boosts Game Count Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow 41 Lufia II: Rise of the...

    Here are the standings by a couple of different measures, current as of the time of this comment:

    With rollover votes / boosts
    Game Count
    Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow 41
    Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals 32
    Tony Hawk’s Pro-Skater 2 30
    Another World 29
    Sid Meier’s Pirates 29
    The Grue That Binds 29
    The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past 26
    Back in a Flash 25
    Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist 23
    Tetris 23
    Descent 21
    Beneath a Steel Sky 20
    Threads of Fate 20
    Crystalis 19
    Metroid Prime 19
    The Colonel’s Bequest 19
    Behind the Wheel 18
    Space Rogue 18
    StarTropics 18
    Mother 3 17
    The Genesis of Treasure 17
    Scroll Lock-on 16
    Metroid 15
    JSRF: Jet Set Radio Future 14
    Lode Runner 14
    Resident Evil (REmake) 11
    Maniac Mansion 10
    Red Dead Redemption 7
    Without rollover votes / boosts
    Game Count
    Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow 18
    Space Rogue 18
    Mother 3 17
    The Genesis of Treasure 17
    Tony Hawk’s Pro-Skater 2 17
    The Grue That Binds 14
    Resident Evil (REmake) 11
    The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past 11
    Another World 10
    Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist 10
    Maniac Mansion 10
    Tetris 10
    Red Dead Redemption 7
    Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals 6
    Beneath a Steel Sky 5
    Sid Meier’s Pirates 5
    Threads of Fate 5
    Crystalis 4
    The Colonel’s Bequest 4
    Behind the Wheel 3
    Descent 3
    StarTropics 3
    JSRF: Jet Set Radio Future 2
    Lode Runner 2
    Scroll Lock-on 2
    Metroid 1
    Back in a Flash 0
    Metroid Prime 0
    By current ballots
    Game Count
    Space Rogue 6
    Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow 5
    Mother 3 5
    Another World 4
    Maniac Mansion 4
    The Genesis of Treasure 4
    The Grue That Binds 4
    The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past 4
    Threads of Fate 4
    Tony Hawk’s Pro-Skater 2 4
    Resident Evil (REmake) 3
    Tetris 3
    Beneath a Steel Sky 2
    Crystalis 2
    Descent 2
    Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist 2
    Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals 2
    Red Dead Redemption 2
    Sid Meier’s Pirates 2
    StarTropics 2
    Behind the Wheel 1
    JSRF: Jet Set Radio Future 1
    Lode Runner 1
    Metroid 1
    Scroll Lock-on 1
    The Colonel’s Bequest 1
    Back in a Flash 0
    Metroid Prime 0

    (I had raised the issue to /u/kfwyre last night via PM, on noticing that the then-#7 was close to making the top six, despite having only rollover votes and one boost, with no immediate votes this round. It has now fallen to #8. He replied this afternoon that he'd noticed that too.)

    (Sadly, my beloved ALttP has fallen a place today as well, and is no longer in the top six.)

    4 votes

  18. Comment on What would you do with a video game style inventory? in ~talk

    Boojum
    (edited )
    Link
    I would stash every emergency supply, every first aid, and something for every contingency known to man. My inventory would be like Milo Murphy's backpack. And since my bookcases are overstuffed...

    I would stash every emergency supply, every first aid, and something for every contingency known to man. My inventory would be like Milo Murphy's backpack.

    And since my bookcases are overstuffed with books, I might as well take my whole personal library too.

    Edited to add: Also, if I didn't care at all about my morals, I suppose I could make a killing as the world's greatest smuggler. Or I could be a kleptomaniac hero.

    1 vote

  19. Comment on What would you do with a video game style inventory? in ~talk

    Boojum
    Link Parent
    Yeah, I'm thinking of those segments in games where the strip your inventory, give you some presets, and then restore your full inventory later after. I also always liked the silly, in-universe...

    Yeah, I'm thinking of those segments in games where the strip your inventory, give you some presets, and then restore your full inventory later after.

    I also always liked the silly, in-universe way that Monkey Island 2 uses to reset your inventory of the stuff you were carrying after MI 1.

    3 votes

  20. Comment on Colossal Game Adventure: February 2026 Voting Topic in ~games

    Boojum
    Link Parent
    Rationale and thoughts: ALttP: I lobbied for it, so naturally I'm going to put as many points in as I can! (For the rest, I just spread the votes as evenly as possible.) Space Rogue: I wouldn't...

    Rationale and thoughts:

    • ALttP: I lobbied for it, so naturally I'm going to put as many points in as I can! (For the rest, I just spread the votes as evenly as possible.)
    • Space Rogue: I wouldn't have looked at or heard of this one but for /u/vili's lobbying. Sounds interesting. The description of it dredged up some old memories of playing the shareware game Solar Winds: The Escape
    • Another World: /u/CannibalisticApple lobied for this one. This one I have played before, though I don't recall if I ever beat it. I believe I rented the SNES version of it one weekend. I'm also old enough to remember seeing it running on a demo machine at a Babbage's store once, probably on an Amiga. And as a graphics engineer, the fact that the game engine is implemented as a tiny little vector graphics VM ([1], [2], [3]) is just too cool.
    • Aria of Sorrow: Lobbied for by /u/Lapbunny. I've played and beat the original Castlevania and Super Castlevania IV. (In fact, I still remember buying Castlevania with my allowance at Babbage's one dark and wet evening. The copy I had was a DOS PC port of all things, if you can believe it. Later, I became a bit jealous of a friend who got it for NES. Such smooth scrolling...) But I've never played SotN or the later games. I do like Metroids, though, so I figure I'll probably like one of the 'Vanias of the Metroidvanias. And if Lapbunny and /u/kfwyre recommend Aria as a good entry point, then I'm game.
    • Crystalis: I can't track down who said it, but I could have sworn someone here was lobbying for it as sort of a contemporary of Legend of Zelda with some surprisingly ahead-of-its-time touches. Sounded interesting.
    • Maniac Mansion: Nominated by CannibalisticApple and discussed recently. I do think an October spooky-wacky LucasArts trifecta of this, Day of the Tentacle, and Zombies Ate My Neighbors could be amusing. But I'll toss it some votes now.
    • StarTropics: I've never played this one that I can remember, but I do remember hearing of it. It sounds interesting as a non-Square early JRPG.
    • Lode Runner: I had this one on the family Apple II+ computer as a young kid. And I remember it later inspired some of my experiments in gamedev as a teen. I haven't played it in a very long time, but I certainly wouldn't mind revisiting it.
    • Lufia II: Boosted by /u/endymiion, /u/JCPhoenix, and /u/zod000. I once got pretty far playing this, but never quite finished it for some reason. I remember quite liking it, so I think I just got distracted by something else. But I'd certainly be up for giving it another try! (I'd have given this two votes like I did for other games if I could, but I'm at the limit. I had to pick one game to go short and this one's already in or near the lead vote-wise.)

    Meta: Voting felt easier this time around than last time due to the shorter list. Counting, I see 28 nominees this time vs. 51 last time. I recall trying to make a short list to figure out how to allocate my votes and then realizing that even if I gave them only one vote each, I still wouldn't have enough votes.

    5 votes