hamstergeddon's recent activity
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Comment on Harvest Moon 64 recompilation release in ~games
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Comment on Harvest Moon 64 recompilation release in ~games
hamstergeddon Link ParentI hope you didn't find it as painful to read then as I do now, 20+ years later :DI hope you didn't find it as painful to read then as I do now, 20+ years later :D
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Comment on Harvest Moon 64 recompilation release in ~games
hamstergeddon LinkI'll have to get this up and running on my SteamDeck. I owned this game on N64 back in the day and even wrote a GameFAQs guide for it!I'll have to get this up and running on my SteamDeck. I owned this game on N64 back in the day and even wrote a GameFAQs guide for it!
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Comment on Harvest Moon 64 recompilation release in ~games
hamstergeddon (edited )Link ParentWow I thought the 4th channel was missing as a nod to the Japanese superstitions about the number 4 being unlucky. You calling it "missing" sent me on a google search and it turns out it was...Wow I thought the 4th channel was missing as a nod to the Japanese superstitions about the number 4 being unlucky. You calling it "missing" sent me on a google search and it turns out it was simply ditched outside of Japan because of how much cartridge space the translation would've taken because of how text heavy it was.
edit: oh this is interesting. I wrote another comment and linked to a GFAQs guide I wrote, and out of curiosity I looked for what I wrote about channel 4. And in the guide, that I WROTE, I mentioned the actual reason for it missing. So clearly I once knew the real reason, forgot, and filled in the blanks with the wrong one :D hilarious.
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Comment on OpenAI says the US government will vet users of its latest AI model in ~tech
hamstergeddon LinkThis is great. The more involved the Trump Administration is, the faster AI will implode. I'm all for it!This is great. The more involved the Trump Administration is, the faster AI will implode. I'm all for it!
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Comment on To all the dads celebrating it today -- Happy father's day! in ~life.men
hamstergeddon LinkI went to make a Facebook post about how much being a father meant to me and I made the mistake of looking at baby pics to share (my twins are nearly 7 now). I've been sobbing and trying to make...I went to make a Facebook post about how much being a father meant to me and I made the mistake of looking at baby pics to share (my twins are nearly 7 now). I've been sobbing and trying to make sense of where the last nearly 7 years have gone. 7 years ago I reluctantly celebrated Father's Day* before they were born...then a few weeks later they arrived premature and I was basically thrown into the deep end. Having two premies was not difficult in the moment, because I had to be stoic and trust that things would work out (and they did). But in retrospect...how the fuck did my wife and I manage that? It's like it didn't click how scary/dangerous that situation was until way after it was over and the kids were healthy and fine.
Idk anyway...I hate how true the "days are long, but months are short" saying turned out to be. I was so sick of hearing of hearing it, but holy crap it's the most truthful thing anyone's ever said to me. I'm so thankful for the opportunity to be their dad. And it's only made me appreciate my own father so much more.
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- to be clear, It was reluctant because I felt like I wasn't a father yet so it felt wrong to celebrate it. But I had no idea how close to being a father I was because of how prematurely they were born. Life's funny.
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
hamstergeddon LinkSo at work we've got this bash script that runs as a github action when we cut a release. It git diffs to determine the new tickets in the release, sends them to openAI to generate more...So at work we've got this bash script that runs as a github action when we cut a release. It
git diffs to determine the new tickets in the release, sends them to openAI to generate more descriptive descriptions from the PR descriptions, then dumps them into a release document on Confluence.I picked up a few tickets centered around improving the script and it quickly led to a bunch of issues because it's impossible to fully test locally (because of the AI handoff and Confluence aspect) and there's no easy way to do unit testing on the script.
I got fed up with it and decided to refactor the whole thing in nodeJS.
I had a few goals:
- Be written in a language the whole teams knows natively (ie, not bash)
- Have unit tests
- Be able to run the script FULLY locally and be 90% certain it's going to perform the same "in prod"
For #1, easy enough -- node and TS.
For #2, just reused our existing unit test framework in the codebase
For #3, I had to get creative!The main limitation of running it fully locally was that there's an AI handoff component, and none of the individual devs have access to the openAI API key used. So I wrote a "sandbox mode" that hands off the AI bits to the individual dev's instance of Claude or Codex. It's not 100% the same, obviously, but it's as close as we can get without access to that API key (which I cannot get). The next limitation was Confluence. I didn't want to spam a confluence workspace with docs, but I found out you can query Confluence for docs by name. So the solution was a single document that serves as THE test document. It just gets overwritten any time the sandbox script gets run. And the sandbox doc has a big disclaimer at the stop stating that it's for testing purposes and not a REAL release doc, just in case some dipshit product person finds it while browsing confluence.
Anyway, that's all there is to say about it really. I'm trying to get a few "high impact" items under my belt for leverage for a promotion, and there's been a recent push to make our releases easier for dev managers to test/approve before release (ya know...what release managers used to do before they got axed). And I figured this would be a good opportunity to improve upon our release docs to satisfy that goal. Plus it's internal tooling, which is so much more fun than client work.
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Comment on Tildes Minecraft Weekly in ~games
hamstergeddon Link ParentYes I saw that. My kids thought someone had griefed it until I explained that I told everyone they could freely use the tunnel and it just added more stops is all :DYes I saw that. My kids thought someone had griefed it until I explained that I told everyone they could freely use the tunnel and it just added more stops is all :D
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Comment on Tildes Minecraft Weekly in ~games
hamstergeddon LinkI hopped on for a little bit this morning just to check in. My kids heard me playing MC and scrambled into the room and began begging me to let them play again, so I'm probably going to end up...I hopped on for a little bit this morning just to check in. My kids heard me playing MC and scrambled into the room and began begging me to let them play again, so I'm probably going to end up active on the server again with the kids in the next couple of days.
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Comment on What are some seemingly silly things in your life that have practical purposes? in ~life
hamstergeddon LinkI recently attended my 20 year highschool reunion and I made a deliberate choice to wear one of these shirts (a Squirtle shirt, to be specific). Granted it was a small, private school I went to...I was thinking about my Batman t-shirt that I'm wearing today, and my other graphic logo t-shirts that I know a man in his mid-40's isn't supposed to wear because it's childish.
I recently attended my 20 year highschool reunion and I made a deliberate choice to wear one of these shirts (a Squirtle shirt, to be specific). Granted it was a small, private school I went to and only 8 or so people showed up, but still. I was getting ready to leave for it and started getting anxious about what to wear, how it'd look on me, etc. I just kinda said "fuck it" and went with what felt the most comfortable. Which ended up being that Squirtle shirt, my favorite pants, and skateboard shoes. Which honestly isn't too far off from what I wore in highschool, now that I think about it.
So yeah I get it (I am also a big guy that takes up space)!
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Comment on Commodore Callback flip phone in ~tech
hamstergeddon LinkKind of seems like whoever owns the Commodore name has no idea what to do with it.Kind of seems like whoever owns the Commodore name has no idea what to do with it.
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Comment on Where The Wild Things Are - by Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen in ~books
hamstergeddon Link ParentI know it's seen as little more than a cliched gift for graduates these days, but Dr. Seuss' "Oh The Places You'll Go" is a beautiful book. I get teary eyed reading it because it's such a good...I often think that more adults should take the often small amount of time to read picture books occasionally, there are so many gems that express in a few pages what novels take hundreds of pages to say.
I know it's seen as little more than a cliched gift for graduates these days, but Dr. Seuss' "Oh The Places You'll Go" is a beautiful book. I get teary eyed reading it because it's such a good metaphor for life. It's one of my favorite books to read to my children because it's real without being heavy.
you'll play lonely games too. Games you can't win 'cause you'll play against you. -
Comment on Tildes Survey #9: How optimistic are you about the future? (Results) in ~talk
hamstergeddon LinkThe immediate, 10 year future? Fuck no. 20 years? Maybe. But then it's not really my future so much as it is my children's future. Am I optimistic about my own? Not in the least. Am I optimistic...The immediate, 10 year future? Fuck no. 20 years? Maybe.
But then it's not really my future so much as it is my children's future. Am I optimistic about my own? Not in the least. Am I optimistic about theirs? I kind of have to me, or the weight of everything will crush me into dust.
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Comment on Any fellow software engineers using paid GitHub copilot? in ~comp
hamstergeddon Link ParentI really don't get it either. A few of our devs were hyping up this hybrid approach of planning in codex, then executing in Claude, but I've yet to see a benefit to that? At best Codex is as good...I really don't get it either. A few of our devs were hyping up this hybrid approach of planning in codex, then executing in Claude, but I've yet to see a benefit to that? At best Codex is as good as Claude is, but certainly not better.
It's substantially better than copilot though!
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Comment on Any fellow software engineers using paid GitHub copilot? in ~comp
hamstergeddon LinkWe stopped using Copilot as soon as Cursor hit the scene. Then we stopped using that as soon as IDE-less workflows via Claude became common. And now everyone's all hyped about Codex. It's frankly...We stopped using Copilot as soon as Cursor hit the scene. Then we stopped using that as soon as IDE-less workflows via Claude became common. And now everyone's all hyped about Codex. It's frankly really annoying. Everything but Cursor is available via company accounts still, though, so I usually start the month on Claude, switch to Codex midway, then finish month limping along with Copilot.
Remember when our jobs were rewarding? That was a fun nearly 2 decades of my career.
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Comment on What's a game you're dying to play that doesn't exist? in ~games
hamstergeddon Link ParentYes, exactly! I like that mundane small stuff like a temple or fending off pests. But also I want to see those problems evolved into bigger problems as my village turns into a town, a city,...Yes, exactly! I like that mundane small stuff like a temple or fending off pests. But also I want to see those problems evolved into bigger problems as my village turns into a town, a city, multiple cities, regions, nations, empires, etc. I want to start off REAL micromanagey and then progress into broader stuff.
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Comment on What's a game you're dying to play that doesn't exist? in ~games
hamstergeddon Link ParentI'd be curious to hear what you want from it that isn't given by current retail WoW? I'm inclined to think the Blizzard I'd want to make WoW2 doesn't exist anymore and kind of WoW2 I'd want to...I'd be curious to hear what you want from it that isn't given by current retail WoW? I'm inclined to think the Blizzard I'd want to make WoW2 doesn't exist anymore and kind of WoW2 I'd want to play isn't viable in 2026 (outside of niche servers like Classic, Seasons of Discovery, etc.)
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Comment on What's a game you're dying to play that doesn't exist? in ~games
hamstergeddon LinkA massive strategy / civ / nation management game that progresses very slowly through time. Maybe with the mechanics changing between eras to keep it fresh. The closest to an all-in-one game like...A massive strategy / civ / nation management game that progresses very slowly through time. Maybe with the mechanics changing between eras to keep it fresh.
The closest to an all-in-one game like that I've seen is Spore with its different eras (cell, animal, tribe, civilization, space), but they're all just way too short. You can plow straight to space in a single sitting if you want to.
And I've heard that you can kind of do this with Paradox strategy games. Like start with CK3, convert your save file for Europa Universalis, convert that for Victoria, convert that for Hearts of Iron, etc. I've never actually tried that though, so idk how valid that is.
And then Civilization set with slow tech progression comes pretty close to it as well, but there's still something missing.
What I basically need is all three of those examples mashed into one game that nobody but me would enjoy!
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Comment on Tildes Survey #8: What is your favorite video game? (Results) in ~talk
hamstergeddon LinkI want to say "Ocarina of Time" or "KOTOR" or "Pokemon" as they're all games I adore, but in terms of games I enjoy so much that I keep returning to them without ever getting bored (which my basis...I want to say "Ocarina of Time" or "KOTOR" or "Pokemon" as they're all games I adore, but in terms of games I enjoy so much that I keep returning to them without ever getting bored (which my basis for "favorite", here), it's gotta be World of Warcraft.
Admittedly there may be some recency bias as I'm currently playing a lot of Hardcore Classic. But TBC and Wrath dominated my college years and between always checking in for a new expansion (even if only to hit level cap) and being a huge fan of Classic, Season of Discovery, and now hardcore, I'm still finding new ways to enjoy the game.
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Comment on Tildes Survey #7: What is your gender identity? (Results) in ~talk
hamstergeddon LinkI answered "man" and forgot to check "cisgendered", so whoops. I've certainly had mild friction against male stereotypes. I'm either not masculine enough in some ways or too feminine in others....I answered "man" and forgot to check "cisgendered", so whoops. I've certainly had mild friction against male stereotypes. I'm either not masculine enough in some ways or too feminine in others. Particularly when I was younger and growing up. But feeling-wise, I am firmly man. Nothing I went through was particularly damaging or anywhere close to what any non-binary or trans person has gone through, but it has firmly cemented the idea that gender roles, stereotypes, etc. hurt everyone in one way or another to varying degrees.
I also wrote a fairly popular one for Friends of Mineral Town! I don't know what compelled me to write these things in my teens, but I put everything into them. My sense of humor, my immaturity, my love of the games, etc. are just all over the text and in retrospect I'm really glad to have these snapshots of my teenage self. Plus I genuinely love little encounters like this where people recognize my work years later. I've had that happen IRL once or twice with friends and it was just neat.