payitforward's recent activity
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Comment on A history of US cabinet appointments ...and why they matter in ~humanities.history
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Comment on eBooks cost too much in ~books
payitforward Link ParentI've always been very sceptical of bestseller lists. Besides the obvious shenanigans that publishers can do like purchasing their own volumes to increase their rank many people buy books simply...A list, by the way, that is basically just a handful of New York bookstores that report sales to the newspaper. So it's not "bestsellers", it's "best selling physical books in a handful of physical bookstores." There's a reason Trads can game the list, and do.
I've always been very sceptical of bestseller lists.
Besides the obvious shenanigans that publishers can do like purchasing their own volumes to increase their rank many people buy books simply because they are on this list, ie its a self-perpetuating preferential attachment scheme. Which gives all the more incentive to manipulate the ranking.
Besides, the implicit assumption that lots of copies sold = good content // a good match for the reader at least is tenuous at best.
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Comment on eBooks cost too much in ~books
payitforward Link ParentIn my location (Germany) it works like this for most media: library purchases license for a fixed amount of ebooks to lend, let's say 20 only 20 users can loan the book concurrently renewing a...In my location (Germany) it works like this for most media:
- library purchases license for a fixed amount of ebooks to lend, let's say 20
- only 20 users can loan the book concurrently
- renewing a loan counts as a new loan (as if a separate user had lent the book)
There's varying licenses so that both the maximum amount of concurrent loans as well as the actual copies checked out can factor into the payment. This makes sense because loan patterns vary widely across works. For instance a long novel might get checked out just once for 30 days by a single user who reads it all while a technical dictionary may be returned the same day, but is used by 30 different people over the course of 30 days to read just a page or two.
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Comment on eBooks cost too much in ~books
payitforward Link ParentLibraries can be a great way to lend ebooks but, it depends very much on how you will read the book. Many extant books have simply been digitialized horribly. Essentially the ebook is often just a...Libraries can be a great way to lend ebooks but, it depends very much on how you will read the book.
Many extant books have simply been digitialized horribly. Essentially the ebook is often just a series of the images, which means:
- no reflow of text, no matching your screen size or orientation
- no changing font or font size
- no clickable table of contents or glossary
- no convenient selection, marking, copying of text
- no convenience functions like tapping on urls to open them in a browser, translating words or looking up definitions
I have different 3 different library apps installed on my tablet (Libby, Overdrive, Press Reader) and they worry greatly in quality, all of them have issues. I'm an active reader who likes to mark things, look up definitions or pictures, copy passages, scribble margin notes, bookmark pages , etc. but the apps themselves still have many basic issues. For example:
- can't zoom in on pictures
- bookmarks rely to the current font size so if you bookmark page 20/78 and increase the font size your bookmark is now on page 20/94, ie somewhere else entirely
- can only select/look/up translate single words, so if you want to look up "mesh gradient" you can look up either "mesh" or "gradient" but not both together; conversely some languages like German often join words together (sequoia planting would be written as sequoiaplanting). Here I can't look up "sequoia" in isolation, only the conjoint word.
All of this is why buying a physical copy or a well formated EPUB file is often still the better choice, albeit not the more economic one.
I realize we're in a transition phase from analog to digital format, so here's to hoping that it'll all get better in the future. 😁
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Comment on Desktop icons are surprisingly hard! in ~comp
payitforward Link ParentOh, been wanting to try Claude but it's not available in my country, likely due to GDPR.Oh, been wanting to try Claude but it's not available in my country, likely due to GDPR.
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Comment on How do people get over enshittification? in ~life
payitforward Link ParentI don't have a problem with spending big money on clothing per se. In fact I encourage it because something in contact with my skin 24/7 merits that. My problem with the luxury segment is that I...I don't have a problem with spending big money on clothing per se. In fact I encourage it because something in contact with my skin 24/7 merits that. My problem with the luxury segment is that I don't want to pay for brand recognition, exclusivity or celebrity endorsement. I care only about the quality of the product itself. Put differently: paying more is a prerequisite to the good stuff, but it's not a guarantee. You could end up with something shoddy that also happens to be expensive.
Now there are companies out there matching my profile but I find them very hard to find. Or rather: it's strenuous to separate the wheat from the chaff, as anyone can make promises or fake reviews but there's no substituting actual long term experience with the product. In my experience that is especially true for how well fabric quality will hold up after repeated washing. Some of my favorite shirts lasted more than a decade and still felt great to wear. For certain niches (outdoor, bed sheets, etc) I have found vendors that I trust, for others I'm still looking.
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Comment on How do people get over enshittification? in ~life
payitforward Link ParentReeee, you speak my soul. At times it seems the whole mainstream market is centered around fashion, outward appearance and the experience of shopping itself. But what matters most to me is how...Add on top of that sensory issues related to certain fabrics and forms of clothing, it gets exhausting having to buy new clothes. It's come to the point where when I find something I like, of the right size/texture/quality, I buy two or three of the same, even if it only comes in one colour.
Reeee, you speak my soul.
At times it seems the whole mainstream market is centered around fashion, outward appearance and the experience of shopping itself. But what matters most to me is how clothing feels on the skin, how comfortable it is to wear. Furthermore how durable it is and how easy to maintain. I feel in the absolute minority.
I know there's stores, brands, manufacturers out there that cater to these sensibilities but they tend to be in the uptown/luxury segment and I can't or don't want to spend that much. Plus just because something is expensive doesn't mean it's necessarily good. You still have to do your diligence.
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Comment on Desktop icons are surprisingly hard! in ~comp
payitforward Link Parentgood call, which assistant are you using?good call, which assistant are you using?
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Tildes often takes me away from Tildes (via links) and that's a good thing
It's no secret that the big (commercial) social media platforms are designed to maximize on-site engagement as much as possible. Anything that leads the user away from the site, be it an external...
It's no secret that the big (commercial) social media platforms are designed to maximize on-site engagement as much as possible. Anything that leads the user away from the site, be it an external news article, an image/video hosted somewhere else or relying on external communication tools, is antithetical to your business model if you rely on ad impressions or sponsored content.
So when I visit Tildes it's feels different. Often I stumble across interesting links or discussions that take me elsewhere on the web and encourage me to research or think about topics in a variegated way. So after an hour or two I can decide that I have gotten my share of curiosity, entertainment or social interaction and can move on to something else. It helps that the content on here is generally genuine and high quality.
This is in stark contrast to the endless scrolling loop of other sites that keeps one busy, but never quite satisfied. It's a very good sign.
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Comment on Desktop icons are surprisingly hard! in ~comp
payitforward (edited )LinkThat was insightful. To the oblivious user desktop icons are something plain that should just work. But there's always so much hidden complexity behind all things computing. I'm only a novice and...That was insightful. To the oblivious user desktop icons are something plain that should just work. But there's always so much hidden complexity behind all things computing.
I'm only a novice and occasional coder but this absolves me of some contrition:
Reading code is the hardest part
When going through old code, especially some that has barely any comments, it can take a very long time to understand what is actually going on
Writing code seems so much easier than reading it. I can't be the only one spending copious time on thinking how minor variables should be named. I do this because I might have to readjust a script I wrote months or years later. And at that point I want it to read as autological as possible.
Ironically I like to keep my desktop clean. Just like a physical desktop. If I place something on the desktop it's because it needs attention, but I can only resolve it at a later time.
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Comment on What's a game that you feel is almost great? in ~games
payitforward Link ParentAha, I didn't know about the budget cuts but it makes a lot of sense in retrospective. Mayhaps I suspected as much. For instance in the final area of the base game (the endlessly looping chasm...Aha, I didn't know about the budget cuts but it makes a lot of sense in retrospective. Mayhaps I suspected as much. For instance in the final area of the base game (the endlessly looping chasm that you can jump into) the game reuses the same architecture over and over but cobbled together in different ways. The enemies and mini bosses are all reruns of previous iterations really. Bit of a shame as the game otherwise has very striking ncounters. The griphon atop the lone tower for instance or the the dragon in the hellfire grove.
The expansion, Bitterblack Isles, unfortunately falls into the same trap. The environments are intricately designed but you'll soon enough recognize the same coutyards and hallways having been copied and pasted. Nevertheless the game here does a better job at concealing this with varied lighting, color tinting and added obstacles. There's also simply more varied gameplay here thanks to a mix of enemy types, difficulty progression and rewards.
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Comment on What's a game that you feel is almost great? in ~games
payitforward Link ParentWell in addtion to the exploitative gambling angle that many games now employ I'm weary of micro transactions because they warp the game design space. When you can buy outfits or looks for extra...Well in addtion to the exploitative gambling angle that many games now employ I'm weary of micro transactions because they warp the game design space. When you can buy outfits or looks for extra money the artists are enticed to make the normal gear plain or ugly. The camera perspective and menus might be adjusted to more frequently show you close ups of your characters even if from a gameplay or UI standpoint something else would be expedient. If there's a characters who sells you MTX than the map editor will try to warp the layout of the town so that you frequently walk buy him. A potion that grants you experience or let's you skip straigh to the maximum level will only be bought if the normal leveling process is arduous.And so forth.
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Comment on What's a game that you feel is almost great? in ~games
payitforward Link ParentI wouldn't say there is a best class per se, all of them shine in some ways are unique enough to warrant exploration. Striders excel at climbing large creatures, mages at healing, rangers at...I wouldn't say there is a best class per se, all of them shine in some ways are unique enough to warrant exploration. Striders excel at climbing large creatures, mages at healing, rangers at ranged damage, and so forth. The exception might be the warrior vocation with its limited move set of slow winded close range attacks that prove hard to land.
And that's the great thing about Dragon's Dogma: first you can switch your class at any time and even benefit from getting to keep perks you unlocked with one class as another. And lest we forget: you play not as a lone combatant but have a full party of 4 at your back. Admittely, the pawn AI isn't stellar so the player ends up doing most of the lifting yet still it feels quite different from something like Dark Souls where it is all on you.
But yes, magic archers is both versatile and easy to play. One of my favorite skills in the game is ricochet hunter (the arrow that bounces of walls manyfold). It's a complete massacre if you use it in narrow passages and enclosed rooms but quite meek out in the open where it doesn't get to bounce. Then there's the multifold tracking arrow (forgot actual name) which highlights all enemies in the viciniity (even invisible/stealthed ones) once you draw an arrow. The trick is to simply knock the bow whenever entering a new area to scan for enemies but forebear firiing and instead plan a tactical approach instead, hehe. Which hightlights another fun aspect of the game: it pays off to pick and choose your skills accordng to the environments and enemies therein.
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Comment on Linux Distro Recommendations in ~comp
payitforward (edited )LinkLots of people endorsing Mint Linux and I can corroborate that with a personal example: during COVID pandemic my uncle's laptop broke down. He used it for both personal and work affairs. Tech...Lots of people endorsing Mint Linux and I can corroborate that with a personal example: during COVID pandemic my uncle's laptop broke down. He used it for both personal and work affairs. Tech affinity is average, not super knowledgeable but willing to listen and learn. So I helped him set up Linux Mint on an older laptop as a temporary fix and he could make use of it well. We did the installation together and then I ensured that all major apps and hardware he used daily would work.That was easy with Mint and took about an hour. It then also really helped to give him a basic tour of how to search and install new software from the inbuilt app catalog, how to access your files or adjust brightness/loudness etc . Took about another hour, so nothing too deep. Included in that was a very quick tour of the terminal because that's invariably something you'll come up against when using Linux.
After some months he got a new laptop with Windows on it from work and went back to that. But he said that he generally liked Mint and found it easy enough to use as a daily driver.
My take is that for many people the operating system doesn't matter too much as long as they can access their daily workhorses (browser, email, conference/video calls, etc). Mint has broad hardware support and a good on boarding experience in that experience.
Personally I'm a big fan of Kubuntu which ships with the KDE desktop environment but I'm also more of a power user. Beautiful thing about KDE though is that it's layout is quite similar to Windows so many people will feel right at home. You can taylor and customize it to your liking and it offers many sensible ways to enhance productivity but even if you leave everything at the default settings and use it as-is it's a well thought out and pleasant experience.
Edit: choose long term support (LTS) versions if possible. This means your friends have to do larger operating system upgrades only every couple of years.
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Comment on Dragon’s Dogma 2’s combat is sloppy and unrefined — on purpose in ~games
payitforward Link ParentThat's what I loved about DD1: you really have to play as a team to shine. About that though: So in DD1 pawn AI made a huge difference in their effectiveness, but the system behind it is rather...That's what I loved about DD1: you really have to play as a team to shine. About that though:
So in DD1 pawn AI made a huge difference in their effectiveness, but the system behind it is rather cryptic opaque. Your main pawn would be influenced - among others - by the orders you give it but also tactics it learned from your own behavior. So if you've been training your main pawn to rush in head first along side you to play super melee bros the entire game it will retain that AI even if you now make it into a frail ranged spell caster. And it's neither easy nor obvious how to alter that behavior.
I specifically remember keeping on hiring the same rogue pawn simply because he had just the right AI even though there were others of much higher level available.
Unfortunately there wasn't a great way to filter hired pawns for their AI other than simply trying them out.
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Comment on What's a game that you feel is almost great? in ~games
payitforward Link ParentDragon's Dogma was quite close to being great, but not quite. I could have benefited from more patching, for instance: the pawn lending system doesn't favor pawns from players that are still...Dragon's Dogma was quite close to being great, but not quite. I could have benefited from more patching, for instance:
- the pawn lending system doesn't favor pawns from players that are still actively playing enough. since many players sort by all time ranking, the same pawns get lent out over and over again which gives them even more positive ratings. For a new player it's unlikely their creations will get hired at all.
- armor system is mostly linear (not percentage based) and thus quite broken: if your sword does 46 damage and an enemy has 45 armor you'll do 1 damage per hit. Find a sword with 50 damage (a 11% increase over your old one) and you'll now do (50-45=5) damage, a 500% multiplier. There's a reason most RPGs use logarithmic scaling...
- pawn AI has many faults and its hard to understand/inspect the details of how it works. For instance healer pawns often walk right next to the big dragon to cast their lengthy heal animations instead of staying back safely.
- endgame content reuses many assets and tries to come up with some weird lore to justify that. same for bitterblack isles.
- warrior vocation mostly sucks. way too many slow melee attacks with a long windup and limited projection.
That being said: for all its faults it's still a gem in the rough and offers a unique take on the RPG genre. Some of my favorite memories are from simply taking a lantern and wandering off into the landscape at dusk. In many games nighttime is just a color filter but here navigating through the night is truly dark and scary, so much so that it reminds me of the real world. You really have to watch your step as you could easily tumble down a hill at any time. Plus there's different enemies at night time in many locations.
Another great thing is the variety in vocations (classes). Dragon's Dogma doesn't punish you for switching clases midway through, in fact it rewards you for experimenting with all of them.
Perhaps the sequel will truly shine although the inclusion of micro transactions hints at the game going down a dark path.
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Comment on The film fans who refuse to surrender to streaming in ~movies
payitforward LinkGuess I'm in the middle space. I want everything digital and don't like stacking boxes and covers at home which just take up space. I cherish the ease of access that digital media brings. For...Guess I'm in the middle space.
I want everything digital and don't like stacking boxes and covers at home which just take up space. I cherish the ease of access that digital media brings. For instance you can search through thousands of files in less than a second to see whether you own a particular movie or whether there's subtitles for it. Doing this with physical media is much, much more cumbersome.
On the other hand I don't like older media no longer being available as is the case on subscription services. The consumer not having access to the underlying files is the real culprit here imo.
The best of both worlds is to have everything online but being able to download copies of it. That's why I prefer to purchase from sites like bandcamp which give you the actual music files and they are yours. And avoid any service that tries to lock you into a proprietary app // eco system.
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Comment on What's the deal with the popcorn button? in ~food
payitforward Link ParentOn the stove top oil is a sheer necessity although you only need a thin film that barely covers the bottom of the receptacle. Oils are all different though. For cooking/frying you will want...On the stove top oil is a sheer necessity although you only need a thin film that barely covers the bottom of the receptacle.
Oils are all different though. For cooking/frying you will want something that can get really hot without smoking. The products of (partial) combustion are definitely not healthy. With that restriction many of the most healthy contenders like cold pressed olive or linseed oil are unfortunately already out. Coconut oil still works nicely and even imparts some flavor. Sunflower cooking oil is neutral in taste and also works well.
For my microwave popcorn I don't use any oil whatsoever and it still has great taste. Sometimes I sprinkle it with cinnamon, pepper or lemon juice.
As far as snacks go I consider it quite healthy. Of course it shouldn't replace a proper meal but compared to something else you might snack on like a chocolate bar it's upper echelon.
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Comment on Facebook does not let me delete my account in ~tech
payitforward Link ParentI certainly remember that perhaps 13 years ago acquaintances of mine could tag me with full name in group photos before I even had an account there. And not only that. Different people could tag...I certainly remember that perhaps 13 years ago acquaintances of mine could tag me with full name in group photos before I even had an account there. And not only that. Different people could tag me in different photos and that would point to the same database entity (so not just 2 incidentally aligned strings). Thus you could click on my name in a tagged photo and it would open up an empty mock up profile with a reminder that I wasn't on Facebook "yet" with a convenient button to send me an invitation via email. So they could get know my email address (or at least one of them). And the more people tag you and send you that reminder using the same address the more confident Facebook can be that they've got the right guy. The photo meta data itself also provides valuable information. If you frequently get tagged with people from the same city there's a chance you also live there. And if you've been tagged with the same last name as somebody else in the picture you're likely related. And hey if people send you invitations to different addresses they can now cross link any figments they already have in their database.
So basically in such a scenario the site creates a profile for the "missing" person and once that person creates the account it claims the profile. That is how you can sign up and immediately get suggestions for friends, former school mates, venues, employers, interest groups, news tags and so forth.
But remember even if one doesn't sign up knowing a personal email address makes it much easier to track people across the web, integrate relevant information and build a profile for the person; all of that even without even having a real Facebook account.
Now as mentioned that was more than a decade ago but I suspect they have only refined their methods since then European GDPR non withstanding.
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Comment on What's the deal with the popcorn button? in ~food
payitforward LinkI've looked at quite a few microwaves before purchasing my current (and 1st) model but none of them had popcorn buttons. ¿Is that an American thing? I do like to eat popcorn but here you typically...I've looked at quite a few microwaves before purchasing my current (and 1st) model but none of them had popcorn buttons. ¿Is that an American thing?
I do like to eat popcorn but here you typically buy loose kernels and thus get to determine the quantity yourself. It also seems healthier to skip the oil/flat.
As the video explains just listening to the popping frequency slowing down is a pretty reliable proxy. From experimentation I have come to accept that with a microwave I'll always end up with a portion of roughly 1/5 unpopped lest I risk charring. And overcooking is much worse than undercooking when it comes to smell and taste.
From experience there's also a difference from brands and shelf time. Larger, fresher kernels tend to yield better results.
Back when I owned a gas stove I actually found the perfect way for loose kernels (plus oil): you start at a low flame and very gradually increase it until the first pop. Then you instantly maximize the heat and only turn it off once the popping slows considerably. Pouring it out into a bowl for consumption right away completely removes any external heat, so no chance for delayed burning. I guess it works so well because the slow heating gets all kernels uniformly to a high base temperature level. Then they spend minimum time at the temperature were actual burning can occur because they need not wait for their siblings.
Ha! Can you imagine this as of today? It's clear that the next president (Trump) values loyality above all else. During his first term there were still lots of proverbial adults in the room to keep his worst impulses in check. I suspect it's going to be very different this time: less dissenting voices but more backroom brokers who know how to string along Trump just enough to push through their policies, grab power or enrich themselves.