gryfft's recent activity

  1. Comment on Jimmy Kimmel pulled “indefinitely” by ABC after Charlie Kirk comments in ~tv

    gryfft
    Link Parent
    At this point, genuinely, survive. Do what you can for the people near you, but take care of yourself. We can't stop the ship from going down from where we stand. Just try to keep your head above...

    What can we do?

    At this point, genuinely, survive. Do what you can for the people near you, but take care of yourself.

    We can't stop the ship from going down from where we stand. Just try to keep your head above water, look for the helpers, do the best you can locally. The big picture just isn't even worth focusing on at this point. Not as something we can do anything about.

    18 votes

  2. Comment on Taco Bell rethinks AI drive-through after man orders 18,000 waters in ~food

    gryfft
    Link Parent
    It's pretty confusingly written in the article. The "not using it in drive through" line seems unambiguous, but is contradicted by the direct quote two sentences later.

    He said the firm was "learning a lot" - but he would now think carefully about where to use AI going forwards, including not using it at drive-throughs. [emphasis mine]

    In particular, Mr Matthews said, there are times when humans are better placed to take orders, especially when the restaurants get busy.

    "We'll help coach teams on when to use voice AI [emphasis mine] and when it's better to monitor or step in," he said.

    It's pretty confusingly written in the article. The "not using it in drive through" line seems unambiguous, but is contradicted by the direct quote two sentences later.

    10 votes

  3. Comment on ‘It’s too late’: David Suzuki says the fight against climate change is lost in ~enviro

  4. Comment on What creative projects have you been working on? in ~creative

    gryfft
    Link Parent
    This is lovely! There is something truly special to me about fiction that presents challenges and hidden depths like this. Like reading footnotes of footnotes, but transforming the shape of the...

    This is lovely!

    it's challenging to [...] keep it cohesive

    There is something truly special to me about fiction that presents challenges and hidden depths like this. Like reading footnotes of footnotes, but transforming the shape of the text as its meaning emerges from the marble. The experience of reading these almost feels like writing, with the story appearing as the reader engages more deeply.

    The format really lends itself to complicated feelings, and drilling down on a sense memory is a great choice. What begins grounded in sensory experience and buried in rote little self-deceptions unravels into an emotional gut punch as you keep pulling the threads.

    Thank you for writing this!

    1 vote

  5. Comment on US Congress passes Donald Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' cutting taxes and spending in ~society

    gryfft
    Link Parent
    Sounds right. I haven't been commenting in the even handed style that is the preferred mode here.

    Sounds right. I haven't been commenting in the even handed style that is the preferred mode here.

    1 vote

  6. Comment on US Congress passes Donald Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' cutting taxes and spending in ~society

    gryfft
    Link Parent
    I haven't been able to give one all week.

    I haven't been able to give one all week.

    1 vote

  7. Comment on US Congress passes Donald Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' cutting taxes and spending in ~society

    gryfft
    Link Parent
    It looks like I'm no longer able to mark this exemplary; I suppose I've been marked 'noise' too many times or something. It deserves an 'exemplary,' though. We are six months in.

    It looks like I'm no longer able to mark this exemplary; I suppose I've been marked 'noise' too many times or something. It deserves an 'exemplary,' though. We are six months in.

    4 votes

  8. Comment on A24 sets horror movie ‘The Backrooms’ from 19-year-old Kane Parsons, youngest director in studio’s history in ~movies

    gryfft
    Link Parent
    The Poolrooms are a pretty good take on this in my opinion. There are a few "jumpscares" along the way but not in an unpleasantly jarring way (no screams, nothing gory, etc.) I think it hits the...

    The Poolrooms are a pretty good take on this in my opinion. There are a few "jumpscares" along the way but not in an unpleasantly jarring way (no screams, nothing gory, etc.) I think it hits the vibe you mean.

    4 votes

  9. Comment on Donald Trump deploys Marines to Los Angeles in ~society

  10. Comment on Help with ants in the shower! in ~life.home_improvement

    gryfft
    Link
    I've had the "persistent ant invasion" thing myself and I know how weirdly cumulative the psychological impact of their persistence is. Hang in there. In my case they were coming in by (and into)...

    I've had the "persistent ant invasion" thing myself and I know how weirdly cumulative the psychological impact of their persistence is. Hang in there.

    In my case they were coming in by (and into) my bed (I never ate in bed or took any food into my bedroom, they just had some kind of ingress in the wall there and wanted to be inside.)

    Not sure how applicable this is since your entry point is the shower, but in addition to ant baits, an all-natural solution for immediately changing their behavior/cutting off their trails turned out to be cinnamon. They can't stand the stuff at all; it doesn't kill them, but they will avoid it like the plague, so sprinkling it at entry points or key chokepoints along their scent trails will get them to immediately reroute. They will always refuse to step foot on cinnamon.

    4 votes

  11. Comment on Elon Musk calls for US President Donald Trump to be impeached as extraordinary feud escalates in ~society

    gryfft
    Link Parent
    Looks like he's responsible for that formulation; kind of echoes 'gradually, then suddenly' as Hemingway put it

    Looks like he's responsible for that formulation; kind of echoes 'gradually, then suddenly' as Hemingway put it

    9 votes

  12. Comment on "Weave Me Another Cocoon" - A hypertext tragedy in ~books

    gryfft
    Link Parent
    What a great way of putting it! Exactly! Wow, what a lovely way to see the world! Thank you so much for sharing it with me :) I actually have only played the first hour or two of the game, I don't...

    It's a text based, tailor made movie experience

    What a great way of putting it!

    Changes in subtle ways every time you interact with it

    Exactly!

    And it will not be a tragic story, it will be about how we each found eternal fulfillment.

    Wow, what a lovely way to see the world! Thank you so much for sharing it with me :)

    Prey (2017)

    I actually have only played the first hour or two of the game, I don't remember why I never finished it (pre-pandemic memories 😅). Thanks for the reminder and recommendation, I definitely have to go back to it now!

    1 vote

  13. Comment on "Weave Me Another Cocoon" - A hypertext tragedy in ~books

    gryfft
    Link Parent
    Thank you for reading! I would be very interested in reading your take on a nonlinear story, hypertext or no. Memory is a great theme :)

    Thank you for reading! I would be very interested in reading your take on a nonlinear story, hypertext or no. Memory is a great theme :)

    1 vote

  14. Comment on "Weave Me Another Cocoon" - A hypertext tragedy in ~books

    gryfft
    Link Parent
    Thank you so much for taking the time to read and explore this. It's my favorite sort of thing to read, think about, and discuss, but it's difficult to find many people or communities with the...

    Thank you so much for taking the time to read and explore this. It's my favorite sort of thing to read, think about, and discuss, but it's difficult to find many people or communities with the curiosity and thoughtfulness to deeply engage with text like this.

    I've been meaning to make a longer post exploring some of the layered themes in this piece but I've gotten caught up at work this week. There's a few things here that you don't really see anywhere else because text by and large doesn't change as you read it, so there aren't really names for some of the effects at play. When you click a word and it cycles through a few variations, each iteration colors the experience in a way that you can't get across in an screenshot or excerpt. Something akin to the Kuleshov effect from film theory happens with the additional context a single word blipping past can give, and then the hard to place feeling when it's gone but you know it was there.

    At times that effect heightens the epistolary nature of the work, making it feel like someone is trying to find the right words. Other times one layer of wording is more human-centric, more like one might expect from a generic short story, then another layer reveals the entomologically-correct word for some buggy body part or arachnid behavior. I already love xenofiction, and I especially love this technique for kind of progressively deanthropomorphizing a scene without making it any less compelling.

    I've found it very rewarding to reread in different orders. The sense of dramatic irony can get thick when some parts of the narrative are left compressed while later ones are more deeply expanded. I also really love that in a few clicks one can get an almost entirely new and unique rewording of the story in a format that always feels like a well written poem.

    Sorry if this went on a bit, I've been meaning to express these thoughts for a bit. Thanks again for reading.

    1 vote

  15. Comment on "Weave Me Another Cocoon" - A hypertext tragedy in ~books

    gryfft
    Link Parent
    Very good question and valid apprehensions. There are themes about the inevitability of hurting those you love, and themes of self destruction. If you can get behind a story told from the...

    Very good question and valid apprehensions. There are themes about the inevitability of hurting those you love, and themes of self destruction. If you can get behind a story told from the perspective of butterflies and spiders, even with a sad ending, I believe you will enjoy and appreciate this story.

    The interactive element isn't one that forces you to make terrible choices or puts you in a lose-lose position; rather, the a story is told in a nonlinear way rather similar to this little tech demo from 15 years ago, but realized in a deeply thoughtful way. You can get the broad strokes of the story pretty quickly, then dive down as deep as you want into the specifics in any order.

    2 votes

  16. Comment on "Weave Me Another Cocoon" - A hypertext tragedy in ~books

    gryfft
    Link
    Enantiodromia. Light's tendency to cast shadows even as it erases them. The way ice drinks heat. I give this work my highest possible recommendation. I've enjoyed hypertext fiction for a long time...

    Enantiodromia. Light's tendency to cast shadows even as it erases them. The way ice drinks heat.
    Like a moth drawn to the flame.

    I give this work my highest possible recommendation. I've enjoyed hypertext fiction for a long time in various forms. Homestar Runner Dot Com, Homestuck, even things that didn't start with "Homest," like 17776 or Dionaea House or I Love Bees.

    When reading about the development of hypertext and early web browsers, I recall that something akin to the core idea here-- fractal expanding levels of detail in response to the user's curiosity-- was very much envisioned as part of how people would use this new technology. It just turns out that it's a huge amount of work to do it well.

    I'm going to be thinking about this story for a long time. There are so many themes resonating across so many layers. Tragedy was an excellent choice for this experiment. I would love to read horror in this format too. I've seen Yarn interactive fiction try to go for some of the flavor here but never executed nearly this well.

    I'm a big fan of Snuggle Squiggle's work; you might say it's a bit out of the mainstream (there's a big emphasis on xenofiction starring sentient arthropods) but rarely will you find such a trove of determined creativity as its website, and her literary and technical accomplishments speak for themselves.

    (Note: Snuggle Squiggle (it/her) does not use any AI in its work. Her website is built with a fully custom rendering pipeline that I'm pretty sure no LLM could ever figure out.)

    6 votes

  18. Comment on The Donald Trump administration wants to create a ‘US Office of Remigration’ in ~society

    gryfft
    Link
    inb4 thousands and thousands and thousands of words of apologism

    inb4 thousands and thousands and thousands of words of apologism

    5 votes

  19. Comment on Help me understand vim motions in ~tech

    gryfft
    Link Parent
    Huh, interesting, TIL that the number can go after the verb. I always did number first, e.g. 10yy, 10dd

    y10y
    d10d

    Huh, interesting, TIL that the number can go after the verb. I always did number first, e.g. 10yy, 10dd

    3 votes

  20. Comment on A comfortable life for 8.5 billion people would require only 30% of current global resource and energy use in ~science

    gryfft
    (edited )
    Link
    "We" here seems to actually mean "the financial and political decisionmakers of the world." "Need" here means "necessary if we want to achieve the goal of eliminating most unnecessary death and...

    We need to actively plan to shift productive capacities away from capital accumulation and elite consumption

    "We" here seems to actually mean "the financial and political decisionmakers of the world." "Need" here means "necessary if we want to achieve the goal of eliminating most unnecessary death and discomfort from the world."

    However, the primary goal of power is not the elimination of death and discomfort. The primary goal of power is power, and the pursuit and preservation of power demand a great deal of death and discomfort.

    So I find studies like this little more than sad, idle curiosities. Yes, great things could be accomplished if the people and systems who made and keep the world the way it is all simultaneously had a change of heart. It just isn't very realistic.

    The rebutting propaganda campaign against this initiative is so easy to imagine, it doesn't even require anything new. "These people want to take away your cheeseburgers and force you to eat a mixture of tofu, granola, mealworms, and human embryos."

    36 votes