Protected's recent activity
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Comment on Bricks & Minifigs corporate stole a man's $200,000 Lego collection and told him to get bent in ~hobbies
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Comment on Taskmaster Season 21, Episode 1 - 'Cube is good.' | Full episode in ~tv
Protected Link ParentI'm loving this season. All the contestants are great.I'm loving this season. All the contestants are great.
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Comment on Taskmaster Season 21, Episode 1 - 'Cube is good.' | Full episode in ~tv
Protected Link ParentThe amount of people in the youtube comments who don't seem to have known the answer to the light bulb riddle (plus the contestants who didn't) is making me feel very old :DThe amount of people in the youtube comments who don't seem to have known the answer to the light bulb riddle (plus the contestants who didn't) is making me feel very old :D
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Comment on Jet Lag Season 18: Stateside Scramble | Trailer in ~hobbies
Protected Link ParentFor now it's hard to be sure from the trailer but I think each team wants to control the contiguous cluster of states with the most states in it. They have to do this by taking on challenges in a...For now it's hard to be sure from the trailer but I think each team wants to control the contiguous cluster of states with the most states in it. They have to do this by taking on challenges in a restricted pool of available states in the hope that they will be positioned to connect them into a cluster later if connecting states pop up in the pool.
I like the idea because it seems like it might be very hard to tell who is winning until close to the end, so things won't get boring, as long as both teams are making good strategic decisions. That's not too different from the most recent season, really.
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Comment on The user is visibly frustrated in ~tech
Protected Link ParentOut of curiosity, in what way was it robotty? Might they have been using pre-written templates?Out of curiosity, in what way was it robotty? Might they have been using pre-written templates?
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Comment on What internet discussion sites remain? in ~tech
Protected Link ParentUnfortunately I don't think the scale of the Internet permits communities exactly like the ones we had 20 years ago anymore. They all must strike a balance between openness and, to be blunt, not...Unfortunately I don't think the scale of the Internet permits communities exactly like the ones we had 20 years ago anymore. They all must strike a balance between openness and, to be blunt, not sucking. Any open forum will be fighting a relentless, exhausting war against bots, 24h/day, as well as low effort content. Any closed forum is exclusive by nature... Even Tildes is using invites to control access (and certain technological decision, I guess), but more than that, I think Tildes is somewhat protected by its obscurity.
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Comment on What internet discussion sites remain? in ~tech
Protected LinkYeah, a lot of people in HN comments with Redditor Syndrome lately. Submissions are still pretty good. You say you stopped using Discord, but you don't go into any detail. Was Discord as a whole...Yeah, a lot of people in HN comments with Redditor Syndrome lately. Submissions are still pretty good.
You say you stopped using Discord, but you don't go into any detail. Was Discord as a whole not doing it for you when it comes to communication, or was this more of a principled decision? There is a lot to dislike about the platform and the company, but the "community" is just a million little (or not so little) silos. Surely it is probable that there are a few containing people you would enjoy talking to?
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Comment on Jet Lag Season 18: Stateside Scramble | Trailer in ~hobbies
Protected LinkLooks like no one posted this yet, so here it is. These guys are on fire! Another season already? Premiering next week, so I'm assuming two weeks from now on Youtube. As always, I appreciate them...Looks like no one posted this yet, so here it is.
These guys are on fire! Another season already? Premiering next week, so I'm assuming two weeks from now on Youtube.
As always, I appreciate them trying new gameplay twists, especially if it results in more sightseeing.
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Jet Lag Season 18: Stateside Scramble | Trailer
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Comment on Emacs bra size calculator in ~comp
Protected Link ParentI recommend this video then, it won't help you.I have no idea what emacs is
I recommend this video then, it won't help you.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Protected Link ParentOh, I quite liked the color palettes! The colors turn monotone the closer you are to "pitch darkness". If you go into the mask shaper's hut while the daytime sun is shining on it, it should be...Oh, I quite liked the color palettes!
The colors turn monotone the closer you are to "pitch darkness". If you go into the mask shaper's hut while the daytime sun is shining on it, it should be colorful (I've observed).
If you turn on photo mode, which oddly must be turned on in the settings first before becoming available using D-pad up (at least on PC), there's a slider for that effect in there IIRC. You can't use it while moving around but at least you can take a better look at a specific scene if you need.
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Comment on What change would make you quit Tildes? in ~tildes
Protected Link ParentI was thinking, this is an option? Where do I vote for it?I was thinking, this is an option? Where do I vote for it?
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Protected Link ParentYeah, you can always rely on Ubisoft to get wrong as much as they possibly can, but nevertheless they will once in a while release an interesting game or other. They are the most infuriating AAA...Yeah, you can always rely on Ubisoft to get wrong as much as they possibly can, but nevertheless they will once in a while release an interesting game or other. They are the most infuriating AAA studio(s). The others at least have the decency of being easy to ignore.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Protected (edited )LinkAfter having terrible luck and failing to win it in multiple giveaways, I finally got my hands on Sable some time ago for a very generous (75%!) discount. Sable is a young woman who, having just...After having terrible luck and failing to win it in multiple giveaways, I finally got my hands on Sable some time ago for a very generous (75%!) discount.
Sable is a young woman who, having just come of age, is sent by her nomadic tribe on her Gliding, which is immediately clear is a journey, or time period if you prefer, during which, having no obligations, she is to go out into the world on her own, experience things, and decide who she wants to be. And that's the whole premise of this game - it's an open world exploration game with all sorts of things to do, but no single, mandated goal. The player is vaguely told to procure badges related to various tasks, and every three badges of the same type can be traded in for a mask representing that trade or specialty. Very Scout-like! At the end of the game any masks you have claimed are presented as options for your final choice of Sable's new trade. It's your own decision when to go and end the game, the option becoming available once you have a mere three masks.
The aesthetic of the game is fantastic. The vibe is very Moebius combined with a Scavenger's Reign like cel shaded art style, complete with a full day-night cycle, shadows and indoor/outdoor lighting. It becomes very quickly evident that you are not on Earth, but on a barely terraformed desert planet. Everybody wears masks, not just for cultural reasons, but because the air isn't quite breathable to humans (one of the things you can choose to do during your Gliding is collect logs from various crashed ships that paint a better picture of why people are even there). The fauna and flora are vaguely familiar, but clearly alien. There is also a mystical (or at least mysterious?) component, seemingly tied to remains of a previous, long-gone civilization that people have integrated into their lives. This is mostly present in Sable's Gliding Stone, an artifact that allows her to temporarily, well, glide - fall slowly and safely - and her hoverbike Simoon, a customizable vehicle with a mind of her own that at times behaves more like a horse than a machine (you can whistle for it!)
Sable's world may be mostly a desert, but it's far from uniform. Various regions contain different biomes with distinct topography, geology, plants and colors, which your CPU and GPU both will work surprisingly hard to make look cool for you, for how flat the shading (deliberately) is. They are accompanied by simple but well suited soundscapes to help sell the vibe. There is a pretty good photo mode, although unfortunately they forgot to include a way to move Sable off the center of the view. What about the rule of thirds, devs? Some of these biomes are extremely craggy, so it's fortunate that one of the game's most important systems is the climbing system. It's like Breath of the Wild, where you can climb almost everything, limited only by your stamina. There is a way to increase your stamina, though, unlocking access to loftier peaks, and it's very satisfying once you're able to perform long, complicated climbs to get to the tops of very tall things!
I want to shout out two more things. First, the (written) dialogue, while often terse, does have a fairly good sense of humor that imparts personality upon Sable (and some other characters). Second, I quite liked riding the hoverbike. Its physics are very unstable, but in a fun way. And the game's framerate struggles all the harder when you're moving faster across the world, but there's something special about being able to shoot up a dune, fly onto the side of a mountain while your ride neighs like a panicked horse, and then hop off it, letting it drop like the most betrayed of Yoshis while you cling to the cliffside and leverage your limited stamina to complete a climb that would otherwise be impossible.
One thing I felt about the game was that it doesn't quite manage to sell its own promise of scale. Now, I'm not talking about the size of its 3D world, which was just right - videogames need to balance size with player boredom and it already does have some pretty empty regions as it is; I've availed myself of the extremely generous fast travel system without hesitation. It's just the implementation doesn't quite gel with the world building, in a way that's understandable but a little disappointing. Sable is the only glider at the time; you won't meet others. It doesn't make sense that some of the things she does haven't been done by others before. There is a job of Merchant, but who are they even trading with? All other jobs will trade and barter with Sable, and the population is pretty low. At one point Sable has to deal with a thief and saboteur, but their actions make no sense in such a small community - you can't steal the power source of a third of the world's population and then expect to sell it without being caught! There are like a hundred boarded up buildings while many people are living on permanent tents - why? And who built those buildings? And many other such details. I think this setup could have made for a fantastic AAA game with a richer world, if people actually were willing to pay for games like this, but no guns means no interest I guess.
Another problem was jank. Here's a non-exhaustive list of issues I ran into while playing Sable:
Just for fun
- The player camera sucks. It's completely manual (right analog stick) except when you're up against a wall, at which time it will simultaneously manage to move close enough to the player that the player disappears and still clip into things half of the time, making climbing/platforming sections harder than they had to be.
- Sable can't climb smooth surfaces, but it's pretty much impossible to visually tell which surfaces are supposed to be smooth except sometimes from context cues. You just need to test them I guess.
- When attempting to climb, Sable can sometimes spasm wildly, fail to grab surfaces that are climbable (especially after a glide), randomly fall for a bit (typically as the result of poor integration between climbing and moving surfaces, I think) and other such problems. To be fair, I've never seen a climbing system in a PC game that didn't have a fair bit of jank.
- When not attempting to climb, you sometimes will anyway because all you need to do to start climbing is push against a surface. This means a lot of spastic scrambling up small things you could have just hopped onto, or just random walls, which results in lost time (at best) or falling off a cliff (at worst). Especially fun when the camera decided Sable needed to disappear so you have no idea what's going on.
- Simoon the hoverbike will stop coming when you call at some point during your play session. Once this happens, you need to restart the game before she'll come for you again. This happened to me almost every session, and people mentioned it in the forums, so it's baffling that the devs never fixed it.
- At times, while mounted on Simoon, Sable (but not Simoon) will fall through the ground unprompted and into the void, creating a kind of rubber band clamp around the floor that will lock player and hoverbike alike in place. This can happen when you're barely even moving. Fortunately you can unstick them by dismounting and then re-mounting Simoon (this teleports Sable back to the surface).
- Sable's sprint defaults to the Xbox B button. A stupid choice when the camera is manual, since it's impossible to hold B and use the right analog stick at the same time unless you place the controller on a surface. Simoon's throttle is on right trigger, and it never seems to have occured to the devs that the sprint could also be on that button, as these functionalities can never be used at the same time.
- You can fish in the sands! The fishing minigame system is OK, except whenever you enter fishing mode you're never quite facing where you're looking, requiring the player to correct the direction each and every time (and yes, this does matter).
- You can, and probably will, sequence break certain parts of the game. The devs did a good job of including dialogue that accounts for when you take up a quest you had already unwittingly completed, but on multiple occasions, things just weren't working that should have been, and it took me some time to realize that I was experiencing a bug (these are fixable by leaving and re-entering the game). NPCs also told me things that made no sense until I started certain quests later.
- Sometimes the inventory in trade screens will not appear. This also requires a game restart. Good thing about the fast travel system, because it may have taken you a long time to reach the trader and you may be far from them by the time you realize that no, it wasn't supposed to be empty (note that shops can be legitimately empty, since all traders have limited stock and money).
- Despite what I'm sure were the devs' best efforts given the highly specialized aesthetic, you often encounter z-fighting or flickering on certain surfaces, especially at certain times of the day.
- When adding a marker to the map, even though your cursor is visually on the marker, the marker won't be selected, so attempting to remove it will instead add more markers in the exact same place. Great for when you add markers by accident!
I put that in a collapsible block because in the end, who cares? I kinda loved the game, despite its limitations. It had a lot of heart and style, and I'm happy to have played it. I finished every quest (that I found), collected every mask (probably) and maxed out my stamina in 24 hours of game time as measured by Steam. I did not find every fish or acquire every item of clothing and hoverbike part.
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Comment on The last technical interview in ~life
Protected Link ParentOK, but is that really how it works? Does doing mountains of free work actually correlate with your likelihood of getting hired in the next interview? I hear people have to send out hundreds of...working directly with someone on real work
a six hour investment in a permanent small reputation bump
OK, but is that really how it works? Does doing mountains of free work actually correlate with your likelihood of getting hired in the next interview? I hear people have to send out hundreds of CVs to even have a chance of getting hired these days. Even just a hundred interviews with "6 hours of work" as part of the process would be more than two months' worth of unpaid work, full time...
Should we maybe figure out a way to do the not-simulation once and share the results with all interviewers? Or at least for all sufficiently similar job applications.
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Comment on Do you prefer to 100% games, or to move on to new experiences? in ~games
Protected Link100% is a lot. Unfortunately a lot of games (most?) have some really obnoxious busywork for the player that I really can't be bothered with. But otherwise it is fun for me to be thorough with a...100% is a lot. Unfortunately a lot of games (most?) have some really obnoxious busywork for the player that I really can't be bothered with. But otherwise it is fun for me to be thorough with a game. Call me a 90% completion kind of person?
I shy away from most games known to be overly long though.
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Comment on What are your personal crackpot conspiracy theories about the world right now? in ~talk
Protected Link ParentLiterally just got a 484848. The odds are one in a million!Literally just got a 484848.
The odds are one in a million!
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Comment on Bricks & Minifigs corporate stole a man's $200,000 Lego collection and told him to get bent in ~hobbies
Protected Link ParentThey didn't return (or pay for) the collection though? I don't think justice was served if they never show up to (small claims) court or address the issue. The victim still doesn't have their...The store was sued, lost, and closed down.
They didn't return (or pay for) the collection though? I don't think justice was served if they never show up to (small claims) court or address the issue. The victim still doesn't have their money.
I'm glad you think this can go the victim's way in court eventually, once they get a good lawyer, which at this point I'm assuming they will because so many people want to help. But justice shouldn't be gated by wealth. I agree with you that some of the actions taken by the investigative youtuber helping the victim should not have happened, and that they should have gone to court sooner.
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Comment on Bricks & Minifigs corporate stole a man's $200,000 Lego collection and told him to get bent in ~hobbies
Protected Link ParentI know it's weird that I'm writing this, but I guess something hits different between "these cartoon villains defrauded millions of people with their wholesale evil schemes" vs "this company went...I know it's weird that I'm writing this, but I guess something hits different between "these cartoon villains defrauded millions of people with their wholesale evil schemes" vs "this company went out of their way to rob one specific elderly person, be extremely belligerent about it and weaponize law enforcement against the people helping him even when it became dubious whether it was in their best interest to do so."
But I suppose at this point other instances of theft might come to light?
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Comment on Bricks & Minifigs corporate stole a man's $200,000 Lego collection and told him to get bent in ~hobbies
Protected LinkWould any american like to weigh in on this subject here? Because this whole story is dystopia-levels of incredible and not a great look. I'd love to know if there's a framing that makes this any...Would any american like to weigh in on this subject here? Because this whole story is dystopia-levels of incredible and not a great look. I'd love to know if there's a framing that makes this any less horrible, and I'm sure tildists can present it if so. I'd also like to know how you think this might develop in the future.
Please disclose in the event that you have any affiliation with or connection to the university or church mentioned in the article.
I'm also not sure how to tag this one so I appreciate any help with that!
Here's the Legal Eagle video painstakingly analyzing the nitty-gritty regarding the relationship between the collection owners, original franchisees, new franchisees and Bricks and Minifigs, and referencing relevant law.
Note: This video does not (yet) examine Reckless Ben's actions and later actions by employees and police.
Also: The video title is "Everybody's Wrong About The Bricks & Minifigs Case" but that feels a bit clickbaity to me, unless they mean both B&M and the new franchisee are in the wrong (in light of the video's content)... Spoilers!
Devin seems to agree and disagree with some of the arguments of the various people who discussed the subject here, depending on which argument.
At this point I gather there are multiple lawsuits, so this is going to be fun to untangle.