demize's recent activity
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Comment on Analogue is working on a Nintendo 64 console in ~games
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Comment on Analogue is working on a Nintendo 64 console in ~games
demize Link ParentI just wish it had OpenFPGA support. When they discontinued the Super NT, I thought for sure they were going to launch a desktop OpenFPGA machine, and this... if it can do N64, it has to be way...I just wish it had OpenFPGA support. When they discontinued the Super NT, I thought for sure they were going to launch a desktop OpenFPGA machine, and this... if it can do N64, it has to be way more powerful than the Pocket, so it would have been perfect. But alas.
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Comment on Computer savvy people of Tildes, do you have any advice re setting up a new MS Windows personal computer? in ~tech
demize Link ParentI will never use non-Pro Windows for exactly one reason: it lets me use the group policy editor to control updates. On Home, your updates will install when they want to and make you reboot when...I will never use non-Pro Windows for exactly one reason: it lets me use the group policy editor to control updates.
On Home, your updates will install when they want to and make you reboot when they want to. Through local group policy on Pro (settings that are very easy to change, if you know where to look) you can do a lot of configuration, including disabling automatic reboot with logged-on users. The way I have it configured updates will still automatically download and install, but my machine won't reboot until I tell it to.
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Comment on Desalination system could produce freshwater that is cheaper than tap water in ~enviro
demize Link ParentFortunately, the ocean is very big. We routinely and continuously dump unbelievable amounts of other waste into the ocean, and because the ocean is so big (and thanks to ocean currents) it has...I think ocean life depends on the ocean being a particular salinity.
Fortunately, the ocean is very big. We routinely and continuously dump unbelievable amounts of other waste into the ocean, and because the ocean is so big (and thanks to ocean currents) it has effectively no impact on the ocean as long as the rate at which we do it is low enough (and that's not very low!). Desalination probably won't be much compared to, say, all of the wastewater from a city that dumps their wastewater into the ocean, especially since it's just concentrating what's already in the water.
Then there is the carbon footprint and cost of transporting the salt/sludge further out into the ocean for dumping.
You can just mix it with more ocean water and pipe it back into the ocean. If you're already building one pipe to extract water, doesn't take much more to build another pipe to return it.
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Comment on UK PM Rishi Sunak applauded for being openly transphobic in speech in ~lgbt
demize Link ParentIt depends on what country you're in, really, but you're right. As soon as it becomes acceptable for them to backslide on gay rights, they do, and we're absolutely seeing that happen now (in...It depends on what country you're in, really, but you're right. As soon as it becomes acceptable for them to backslide on gay rights, they do, and we're absolutely seeing that happen now (in places where they did start to accept gay rights).
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Comment on UK PM Rishi Sunak applauded for being openly transphobic in speech in ~lgbt
demize Link ParentThere's also the difference that the outgroups like "billionaires" are ones you can just choose to stop being part of, but the outgroups that the right focuses on are largely ones you can't just...There's also the difference that the outgroups like "billionaires" are ones you can just choose to stop being part of, but the outgroups that the right focuses on are largely ones you can't just stop being part of. You can't stop being gay, you can't stop being trans, you can't change the color of your skin, and they sure do make it hard to stop being poor. But being a billionaire? That's a choice. Billionaires make the decision to hoard their wealth rather than put it back into the world. They can just stop hoarding, start distributing.
(Yes, I know that it's not as easy as just "sell all the shares of your company and donate all the money" but this isn't advice for billionaires. If they need that advice, they can pay someone for it.)
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Comment on UK PM Rishi Sunak applauded for being openly transphobic in speech in ~lgbt
demize Link ParentThe outgroups that I, as a queer leftist, have are not functionally the same as the outgroups that the right enforces. While sure, there's a lot of people I don't consider part of my ingroup, I...- Exemplary
The outgroups that I, as a queer leftist, have are not functionally the same as the outgroups that the right enforces. While sure, there's a lot of people I don't consider part of my ingroup, I will still argue for change that makes their lives better; we may be different, but that's okay. As a pretty basic example, I routinely argue for proportional representation in Canadian politics, and conservatives routinely pull out the "ah, but if we had proportional representation, your team wouldn't be in power right now" line as some sort of gotcha--but it's not, I'm not just arguing for better democracy for my own sake, I'm arguing for it for the betterment of society (and society includes people who pull disingenuous gotchas).
Conservatives' outgroups, however, are formed with the specific goal of oppression.
My outgroups are social, they inform my personal behaviors and levels of trust, but I don't see anyone as less human, less deserving of rights. Conservatives are specifically campaigning on the basis that people in their outgroups deserve less than they do by virtue of what are often intrinsic qualities of their person. Gay people don't deserve to get married (but conservatives do), trans people don't deserve gender affirmation (but conservatives do), poor people don't deserve healthcare (but conservatives do). By creating these outgroups and then fighting to oppress these outgroups, they're attempting to rise above everyone else, to get what's theirs even if (especially if) it means they have to take it from someone else.
So while yeah, everyone has an outgroup, it's not a fair comparison. You need to compare the function of the groups, the reason they exist, and if you do that you'll find that they're very different things we're discussing here.
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Comment on UK PM Rishi Sunak applauded for being openly transphobic in speech in ~lgbt
demize Link ParentConservatives need an outgroup. They've (mostly) lost the war on gay rights, so they're moving on to trans rights, making trans people the outgroup. Propping themselves up by embracing gay rights...Conservatives need an outgroup. They've (mostly) lost the war on gay rights, so they're moving on to trans rights, making trans people the outgroup. Propping themselves up by embracing gay rights helps to make them seem more progressive, more reasonable, more like they aren't just looking for an outgroup but actually identifying a problem with society.
The real problem with society, of course, is them. Their lives would be better if they stopped trying to fight cultural wars like this, as would our lives; it would be a net good. But as a classical music composer once wrote, conservatism relies on having outgroups, so they don't know what they'd do with themselves politically if they didn't have an outgroup to fight against.
Thus they perpetuate this cycle, finding a new group to marginalize every time.
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Comment on Trans identity and the gender binary in ~lgbt
demize Link ParentI don't really agree with dividing trans people into "feels dysphoria" and "doesn't feel dysphoria" groups, because every trans person feels a different amount of dysphoria and it presents in...I don't really agree with dividing trans people into "feels dysphoria" and "doesn't feel dysphoria" groups, because every trans person feels a different amount of dysphoria and it presents in different ways. Hell, a lot of trans people were hurt by older standards for defining dysphoria that basically said "you don't have bottom dysphoria? you're not trans".
Being trans is a wide range of experiences that are all related, but not all the same, and gender is basically impossible to sort into neat little boxes. I think it's a lot more important to try and reassure trans people that their experience is valid than try and sort trans people into different "kinds of trans", especially since the latter can make it a lot harder for trans people like you to actually understand they're trans.
"I don't think I'm trans enough to be trans" is an... unfortunately common thought among people who are just realizing they're trans. And while I don't think we'll ever get away from that, I do think we'd be a lot better off if we did more to validate "non-standard" trans experiences.
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Comment on Unity is offering a Runtime Fee waiver if you switch to LevelPlay as it tries to “kill AppLovin” in ~games
demize Link ParentHonestly, this should trigger an investigative action from the FTC as anticompetitive behavior. This is pretty classic abuse of their market position, the sort of thing the FTC and the Bureau of...Honestly, this should trigger an investigative action from the FTC as anticompetitive behavior. This is pretty classic abuse of their market position, the sort of thing the FTC and the Bureau of Competition are meant to shut down.
Just the fees on their own was bad, but it was just... uncompetitive, an excuse for people to jump ship (and a great way to extract more money from the people who can't). But the waiver makes it anticompetitive, it abuses their market position to put themselves in a better position and draw people away from their competitors. It's blatant, it's exactly the sort of thing the FTC hates, and I'm definitely hoping their ears are perked here at least.
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Comment on Cult of the Lamb dev says it will delete the game on January 1 in ~games
demize Link ParentIt's a deliberate choice to make you more likely to log in, though I imagine the effect is more in line with what you've been doing--giving up on trying to open Twitter links. Musk has turned...It's a deliberate choice to make you more likely to log in, though I imagine the effect is more in line with what you've been doing--giving up on trying to open Twitter links.
Musk has turned Twitter into a mess.
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Comment on Atari 2600+ announced in ~games
demize Link ParentThe store page lists a few international retailers now. You might be in luck if you live in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Poland, Benelux, or Slovenia. Not...The store page lists a few international retailers now. You might be in luck if you live in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Poland, Benelux, or Slovenia.
Not sure why they don't have any options for any other country. I can't say I'm even very interested in this but I'm definitely pretty annoyed that Canada isn't on that list...
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Comment on Understanding Bill C-18: Canada’s Online News Act in ~news
demize Link ParentThe preview/summary is done exclusively by the sites being linked to. Facebook came up with the standard that's used, called "Open Graph", but it's up to the sites themselves to put the Open Graph...I do think google and metas preview/summary content is over reach (although companies have largely submitted to this voluntarily)
The preview/summary is done exclusively by the sites being linked to. Facebook came up with the standard that's used, called "Open Graph", but it's up to the sites themselves to put the Open Graph tags on their pages. They choose to, because it benefits them: they'll have higher click-through rates if there's a well-crafted preview of the page.
DarkMoonEchoes has already thoroughly covered why this is a bad law from the perspective that it fundamentally misunderstands the internet, but it's also a bad law because the "content" people look at when they say the law has a point is put there by the sites that are complaining. They want to have their cake and eat it too, by utilizing Open Graph to entice people to click on their links while also getting paid by social media companies simply for being linked to.
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Comment on Ryujinx progress report June 2023 in ~games
demize LinkI actually found what may be the single one of these changes that did have a change in game! Finding the exact version, and then the exact commit that introduced the regression was a little...Followers of our changelogs may have gotten rather bored of the repetitive line “Code cleanup. No expected changes in games”, but this is the explanation.
I actually found what may be the single one of these changes that did have a change in game! Finding the exact version, and then the exact commit that introduced the regression was a little challenging owing to the massive number of changes in that commit to master, but to their credit the Ryujinx team implemented a fix very quickly (less than 24 hours between discovery on our end and a new version being released by the Ryujinx team).
For anyone curious, they added in a check that an int parse returned successfully, but sometimes (and in one game I'm involved with through a fan project) that function is called with a null pointer instead of a string. You can't parse a null pointer, so with the check in place that function call failed, but without the check it just parsed it as zero and it was fine. Was an easy fix for them, they just had to check "did the int parse correctly, or was the argument a null pointer" instead of just checking if the parse succeeded.
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Comment on Shopping for induction ranges in ~food
demize Link ParentI think OP was referring to those ranges with two ovens in one unit, which I think are actually a pretty good idea. You usually don't need the full height of the oven (and even if you're making a...I think OP was referring to those ranges with two ovens in one unit, which I think are actually a pretty good idea. You usually don't need the full height of the oven (and even if you're making a big turkey or something, it can probably fit in a half-height oven), so cutting it in half and giving you two ovens is a decent idea. Would get you most of the benefits of a toaster oven, but without needing a separate appliance, and giving you an opportunity to actually bake two things at once in the rare occasion you need to.
I'd agree that an entire second oven doesn't make much sense unless you specifically need one, but the combo units are neat.
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Comment on BlackCat claims to have hacked Reddit, and it is threatening to leak the data in ~tech
demize Link ParentThat looks like a post on Blackcat's site, rather than an email, so it's definitely the group itself. I guess ransomware groups use Reddit too!That looks like a post on Blackcat's site, rather than an email, so it's definitely the group itself. I guess ransomware groups use Reddit too!
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Comment on Reddit CEO tells employees that subreddit blackout ‘will pass’ in ~tech
demize Link ParentIt feels like spez (and the other admins) are scrambling to control the narrative, despite that control slipping further and further from their grasp with every word they say. They know this...It feels like spez (and the other admins) are scrambling to control the narrative, despite that control slipping further and further from their grasp with every word they say. They know this change has to happen for their IPO, and they know that the media is going to latch on to the poor underdog (Apollo), so they’re trying to make the narrative that Apollo is unreasonable rather than Reddit.
Unfortunately for them, it’s pretty easy to spot DARVO when it’s as obvious as this.
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Comment on Thoughts on making Tildes groups more independent in ~tildes.official
demize LinkOne thing I’ve been saying in discussions about Reddit alternatives and Tildes is that I like Tildes a lot (even though I’ve only been here for a week) but it’s too focused on being general to be...One thing I’ve been saying in discussions about Reddit alternatives and Tildes is that I like Tildes a lot (even though I’ve only been here for a week) but it’s too focused on being general to be a good Reddit replacement.
I certainly get the need for more specific communities, but I’m not convinced they need to be on this site. I think the beauty of tildes.net is that it’s a fairly general message board without hyper-specific groups, and while I get the concerns around groups being opt-out (and would encourage you to try out what you’ve described around that), I do think that keeping the groups roughly as-is would probably be best. Other people have mentioned expanding tags to help organize things better, and I think that would be the best approach.
As for other communities… you’ve made Tildes open source, and there are absolutely people like me who are comfortable running “instances” of it for their own communities. I’ve offered to set one up for a specific subreddit that I think would be able to leverage the structure of Tildes well, and if the mods are interested I’ll gladly run that for that community. I don’t think that’s the best solution, but I do think it’s a good one in a lot of cases, and it might help to make it a little more approachable of an option; right now there doesn’t seem to be a ton of documentation on running Tildes in production, it’s mostly focused on development.
But ultimately, I think that for tildes.net you should be leaning into what makes Tildes different from Reddit. Which isn’t to say you shouldn’t make it work better for the community it’s gathering—but you’ve got it designed in certain ways, and I think changing those designs to appeal more to users like me would probably only result in more spaghetti (both from a code perspective and a moderation perspective). I don’t think you’re likely to ruin the site, but you’ve got an opportunity to take what already makes it special and really make it shine here, and I’m looking forward to seeing that (regardless of what you choose to do here!).
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Comment on Reddit CEO tells employees that subreddit blackout ‘will pass’ in ~tech
demize Link ParentIt's because this is a prepared statement meant to be leaked, to help garner sympathy for Reddit. The entire thing stinks of PR, but that part in particular, as well as the whole paragraph where...- Exemplary
Interesting that they advised "please be mindful of wearing Reddit gear in public", I didn't think anyone would go that far.
It's because this is a prepared statement meant to be leaked, to help garner sympathy for Reddit. The entire thing stinks of PR, but that part in particular, as well as the whole paragraph where spez looks at the camera and reiterates that they're working with apps that want to work with them:
While the two biggest third-party apps, Apollo and RIF, along with a couple others, have said they plan to shut down at the end of the month, we are still in conversation with some of the others. And as I mentioned in my post last week, we will exempt accessibility-focused apps and so far have agreements with RedReader and Dystopia.
It's pretty clear already that they're not actually in talks with any apps people care about, and employees should be even more aware of that—this is using all the same verbiage that he's been using to talk publicly about the changes, it's continuing his DARVO tactics by invoking "people are attacking poor helpless Reddit employees", and it's providing only information that Reddit clearly wants the public to understand.
Sure, this was sent out as an internal memo, but they're not looking for the person who leaked it. This was all strategic.
And I sincerely doubt the strategy is going to work. It's too transparent.
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Comment on What are your favorite books in the horror (or horror-adjacent) genre? in ~books
demize Link ParentSame. I bought the book not really knowing what to expect, but figured it seemed interesting, and I've been reading it for a few days now. I don't read a lot of books anymore, it's usually hard...Same. I bought the book not really knowing what to expect, but figured it seemed interesting, and I've been reading it for a few days now. I don't read a lot of books anymore, it's usually hard for me for ADHD-y reasons, but House of Leaves is certainly overcoming that.
I'm not that far into it1 but I can already say I like it a lot. The structure is actually a large part of that, because the structure itself is a satire, meaning the structure on its own has substance. It goes further than that, though; the actual physical design of the book has substance: the physical design of the cover is clearly a reference to part of the book, the title page is written "in-universe", the verso (the copyright page) follows the same trend of highlighting a certain word every time it's written (a word that's part of the publisher's name and website domain)... the book had me hooked before I even started reading the introduction.
I've also been thinking I'd love to see a film adaptation, but so much of the book2 feels like it would be impossible to work into a film. There would certainly be ways to tell the stories in the book effectively, but capturing the experience... I don't know how you could capture the experience of this book in film without making an absolutely insufferable film (or TV show). I almost feel like it would work better as a video game, though I guess that just brings us back to the start of your comment, doesn't it?
1 It's hard to really assess how far I am, given the structure; I just finished reading a particularly long appendix, which is also the first time I think the book has directed me to actually read an appendix.
2 Like the footnotes.3 If you haven't read the book yet, but you're planning on, you'll know what I mean very early into it.
3 And don't forget the editor notes!
Oh I'm sure there will be jailbreak firmware, but I wouldn't expect more from it than we've seen on (e.g.) the Super NT. Maybe the ability to play ROMs, probably not the ability to load in OpenFPGA cores and play games it wasn't designed for.
OpenFPGA could have meant Analogue could provide adapters to play physical SNES/NES/Genesis games too, with full first-party support (similar to what the Pocket does for handheld games). Plus open-source cores for ROMs and other systems. It would have made the 3D so much more worth it, but I imagine they'd need to design the 3D specifically for OpenFPGA, and they seem to be pretty clear about having not done that:
(https://www.pastemagazine.com/games/analogue/analogues-next-retro-game-console-is-a-4k-nintendo-64)