pseudolobster's recent activity

  1. Comment on Minecraft running on Sega Saturn in ~games

    pseudolobster
    Link
    This is really interesting, it's just a shame the author locked all the info behind a patreon paywall. I'd be interested to know how they did this, but instead we just get a playthrough.

    This is really interesting, it's just a shame the author locked all the info behind a patreon paywall. I'd be interested to know how they did this, but instead we just get a playthrough.

    1 vote

  2. Comment on How many Hosers are there on Tildes? in ~talk

    pseudolobster
    Link Parent
    I initially read "hoosiers", saw the comment count, and wondered if there's really that many people from Indiana.

    I initially read "hoosiers", saw the comment count, and wondered if there's really that many people from Indiana.

    4 votes

  3. Comment on How much "boilerplate tax" different languages have: a 400M LOC analysis in ~comp

    pseudolobster
    Link Parent
    Right? I feel like #include <stdio.h> could be considered boilerplate but return(true) should not be. Also some javascript weirdos like to do: if (true) { doSomeFunction(); } That's 75%...

    Right? I feel like #include <stdio.h> could be considered boilerplate but return(true) should not be. Also some javascript weirdos like to do:

    if (true)
{
    doSomeFunction();
}

    That's 75% "boilerplate" when it's functionally one unique line so long as doSomeFunction is a unique name.

    Judging this based on percentage of LoC is a terrible metric, and I'm not even sure ML tools are capable of knowing the difference.

    5 votes

  4. Comment on I'm back in ~talk

    pseudolobster
    Link
    Welcome home! We're still the slow lane of the internet. We never "took off" as a "reddit replacement" but we've managed to retain a core group of quality posters with high effort content and...

    Welcome home!

    We're still the slow lane of the internet. We never "took off" as a "reddit replacement" but we've managed to retain a core group of quality posters with high effort content and conversations.

    41 votes

  5. Comment on List animals until failure in ~games

    pseudolobster
    Link Parent
    I got into a sea-creature vibe then ended up spending 30+ seconds trying to spell "anemone". What I thought was fascinating were these suggestions it gave me at the end: I noticed along the way...

    I got into a sea-creature vibe then ended up spending 30+ seconds trying to spell "anemone".

    What I thought was fascinating were these suggestions it gave me at the end:

    To remember how to spell “anemone”, consider the etymology: the Latin anemone; from Greek anemonē meaning “wind flower” or “daughter of the wind”, from anemos meaning “wind”. anemos comes from the Proto-Indo-European root *ane-, loosely meaning “to breathe”. This root is used for what seems to breathe: in other words, the animate, which comes from anima (meaning living being, soul, mind, passion, courage, anger, spirit, feeling) which comes from *ane-. Another word that comes from anima: animal!

    I noticed along the way there are a lot of easter egg sorts of things where if you say "cicaida" the response will be "Don't you just love their songs". This became impressive when I read this:

    Uses Wikipedia and Wikidata, plus a lot of hand-tuning. No LLMs involved.

    Obviously someone put a lot of work into this to give specific advice on how to spell "anemone"

    3 votes

  6. Comment on Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech to World Economic Forum in ~society

    pseudolobster
    Link Parent
    No need to guess. They've got a three-word-slogan about it: Workers, not WEF (because of course they do) (emphasis mine) There it is. Also the first time I've read the word "highfalutin" from an...

    No need to guess. They've got a three-word-slogan about it: Workers, not WEF (because of course they do)

    Whereas the Liberals frequently attend World Economic Forum conferences in Davos to give lectures on their radical woke agenda and hobnob with celebrities.

    (emphasis mine)

    There it is. Also the first time I've read the word "highfalutin" from an official party platform. So there's that.

    10 votes

  7. Comment on Cow astonishes scientists with rare use of tools in ~science

  8. Comment on Scott Adams dead: Dilbert creator was 68 in ~comics

  9. Comment on "Visa" gift cards - What should I be looking at? in ~finance

    pseudolobster
    Link Parent
    Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm fairly certain merchants typically pay no fees on refunds. They only pay on credit purchases. Debit purchases (like gift cards typically are) don't incur any...

    Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm fairly certain merchants typically pay no fees on refunds. They only pay on credit purchases. Debit purchases (like gift cards typically are) don't incur any percentage-based fee like credit purchases do. Refunds cost the retailer nothing.

  10. Comment on "Visa" gift cards - What should I be looking at? in ~finance

    pseudolobster
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    I'm sure you're not wrong, processors probably hate that, but I don't actually know how much info is transmitted from the POS to the pinpad. I'm definitely sure that when you're processing a...

    I'm sure you're not wrong, processors probably hate that, but I don't actually know how much info is transmitted from the POS to the pinpad. I'm definitely sure that when you're processing a refund no invoice number or transaction number or whatnot is sent to the pinpad.

    I'm sure the credit card processors hate processing refunds in general. It makes them no money. They have a pre-determined idea of how much profit they'll make from every transaction on their machines, so if you're using the machines in a way that doesn't make them profit, it's considered an expense, and the shareholders hate that. However, it's not until you have more refunds than purchases that they'd cancel your merchant account.

    Anyway, I'll bet if you find some Lebanese man who owns a bodega that sells vape carts and has a bitcoin ATM, I'm sure you could ask him to refill your prepaid card for a dollar or two.

    2 votes

  11. Comment on "Visa" gift cards - What should I be looking at? in ~finance

    pseudolobster
    Link
    I've recently discovered that those visa gift cards are actually refillable. I'm not sure if it's a service any retailers actually provide, but I recently worked for a point-of-sale company where...

    I've recently discovered that those visa gift cards are actually refillable. I'm not sure if it's a service any retailers actually provide, but I recently worked for a point-of-sale company where I needed to troubleshoot an issue with prepaid cards. I ended up buying a $20 Vanilla visa card, spending all the money on it during testing, then refunded the money I spent testing to the card.

    What I realized after the fact is, I wasn't refunding a specific transaction, I actually had ten or fifteen transactions and I just hit refund, $20, manager code, ok, and it put twenty bucks on the card. Incidentally I ended up defrauding a dollar or so since I realized there was as small balance left, leaving my $20 card with $21.39 or something.

    Any retailer could take twenty bucks cash, hit refund on their machine, and put that money on the card.

    I'm not sure if this is helpful or not. Like I said I don't know if this is a service any retailer actually provides.

    1 vote

  12. Comment on Hi, how are you? Mental health support and discussion thread (January 2026) in ~health.mental

    pseudolobster
    Link Parent
    Hey, thanks for your supportive words. It's really not anyone in my life that's negative. It's just, I spent 8 months looking for a job, found one, got laid off within 2 months. Now I need to find...

    Hey, thanks for your supportive words. It's really not anyone in my life that's negative. It's just, I spent 8 months looking for a job, found one, got laid off within 2 months. Now I need to find another one, except my unemployment benefits have run out. So now I need to find a new job, this time with zero income.

    3 months ago my roommate moved out unexpectedly, and I've been trying to rent his room ever since. It's been a shitshow though, since people on facebook marketplace have been flaky as shit. I've collected two damage deposits, signed papers, etc, only to have people bail out at the last minute. So, last month I had to pay $2500 to rent the entire house by myself. Bills are coming up and I have the choice of paying them or eating food. I've got a friend who can probably help me out with rent for next month, but not the full $2500.

    So basically I have fucking clue what I'm going to do. It's either I sell my car for a couple months rent or I move into it and idk, try and sell all my stuff, abandon what I can't sell or fit with me in my vehicle.

    My stress and frustration is entirely financial and has nothing to do with other people.

    It's chipping away at my sanity and I'm struggling not to let depression take over, but I haven't given up yet.

    7 votes

  13. Comment on The "why does this movie exist" scene in ~movies

    pseudolobster
    Link Parent
    This actually happened in the opposite order, if you can believe it. As I recall Snakes on a Plane was a working title for a script that was in pre-production. Samuel L Jackson happened to knew...

    This actually happened in the opposite order, if you can believe it. As I recall Snakes on a Plane was a working title for a script that was in pre-production. Samuel L Jackson happened to knew the director and signed on without even reading the script. When a list of movies in production was leaked, someone from a forum, I'm thinking Something Awful, though it could have been 4chan, started making memes about it.

    The working title was so dumb, with a star like Sammy J attached, that it was prime meme fodder. The memes generated so much publicity for the film that they went back and rewrote it to match the tone of a schlocky B-movie, specifically adding that line to match the tone of the memes. I think the original was supposed to be a lot more serious of a serious thriller, and the actual title would have been something like Pacific Airlines Flight 141 or something like that.

    11 votes

  14. Comment on Post-American internet by Cory Doctorow in ~tech

  15. Comment on What are some stories of progressivism gone wrong in implementation? in ~society

    pseudolobster
    Link Parent
    That might not be the ultimate post on the subject. We've been over this countless times. The first post I can recall about this issue is this one from August 2018. I think the site only went...

    That might not be the ultimate post on the subject. We've been over this countless times. The first post I can recall about this issue is this one from August 2018. I think the site only went public in April 2018 or so. If you dig down in the thread, at the time I wrote an exasperated reply as the reluctant centrist / devil's advocate talking about how far this site skewed to one direction, and how conversations that were deemed objectionable by a few were shut down.

    A lot has changed since then. So far, I've only gotten more jaded and cynical, but I haven't tuned out.

    Honestly, the site is more diverse and inclusive of other viewpoints than ever, if you can believe it. This thread stands as a testament to that. I'll admit I haven't read every reply, but it seems like everyone has been pretty civil and polite so far. I haven't seen anyone be banned in this thread or ragequit the site, go on to create a federated equivalent site, etc, which used to be the style at the time.

    13 votes

  16. Comment on I just noticed a slightly easier way to link tags in comments in ~tildes

    pseudolobster
    Link Parent
    Oh shit, nice call on the specific code! One of these days I'm going to get around to installing tildes on my home server. I'm just a little intimidated still. I think only a couple people have...

    Oh shit, nice call on the specific code! One of these days I'm going to get around to installing tildes on my home server. I'm just a little intimidated still. I think only a couple people have pulled it off in recent years. I recall @talklittle saying it was harder than it should be / used to be.

    1 vote

  17. Comment on I just noticed a slightly easier way to link tags in comments in ~tildes

    pseudolobster
    Link Parent
    True, but that only applies if it's the first character on a line. In markdown, asterisks do similar double or even triple-duty, as they're both used for: italics bold or bulleted lists if they're...

    True, but that only applies if it's the first character on a line.

    In markdown, asterisks do similar double or even triple-duty, as they're both used for:

    italics

    bold

    • or bulleted lists if they're the first character of a line.
    4 votes

  18. I just noticed a slightly easier way to link tags in comments

    ~tildes Text 187 words
    So, here on tildes we can link to users with an @, as in @user, or we can link to a group using a ~, as in ~tildes, but we've never had a way to link to a tag. Long ago I proposed using an...

    So, here on tildes we can link to users with an @, as in @user, or we can link to a group using a ~, as in ~tildes, but we've never had a way to link to a tag. Long ago I proposed using an octothorpe for that, as in #tag, but it's never been implemented.

    Yesterday I noticed there's a somewhat easy way, just use: [tag](/?tag=tag). It's not as easy as #tag, but it's easier than what I used to do, which was go to the front page in a new tab, right click on any tag, copy link, go back to my draft in the other tab, paste it, edit the tag, surround it in brackets, etc.

    Not revolutionary, I know, but "slash questionmark tag = whatever_tag" is a much easier shorthand.

    I love the tagging system here, and feel it's underutilized. It's really helpful for providing context by linking other topics that have been posted here before. Thanks to the tireless work of several tildeans, especially @mycketforvirrad, who will not be named, this site is fantastic for digging up previous related topics.

    That's all, folks!

    18 votes

  19. Comment on How do you report an entire topic? in ~tildes

    pseudolobster
    Link Parent
    If you can be a rational voice towards progressive causes, in my opinion it'd be a loss to the site if you left. Otherwise there's an ignore button you can use for topics you don't like. As a...

    If you can be a rational voice towards progressive causes, in my opinion it'd be a loss to the site if you left. Otherwise there's an ignore button you can use for topics you don't like.

    As a Canadian, I've seen too many people steered towards the alt-right by the whole "freedom convoy" thing just because they didn't want to wear a mask and they felt as if the big liberal government was the one who were making them do that.

    With a few conversations and a few links to official government sites saying these are just guidelines, given by non-partisan health organizations based on objective science, rather than a big government conspiracy I've converted a few of them back to rationality.

    I guess what I'm saying is, if it's in your capability, implement Hanlon's razor and try to talk to people in good faith. Otherwise ignore them and go about your day.

    There's no better way of burying a thread on tildes than not replying to it.

    12 votes

  20. Comment on How do you report an entire topic? in ~tildes

    pseudolobster
    Link Parent
    I think of it as a good opportunity to learn what other people are thinking, and if you think differently it's an opportunity to explain your perspective. If you can't teach someone your...

    I think of it as a good opportunity to learn what other people are thinking, and if you think differently it's an opportunity to explain your perspective.

    If you can't teach someone your perspective, learn persuasiveness. If they aren't in a position to be persuaded, fine, maybe they'll come around in the future.

    If they're being disruptive or the replies are getting heated, with personal attacks etc, report the thread. Your replies in a heated conversation will also be deleted.

    I feel like this thread will end up suffering that fate. Everyone these days is too invested in divisiveness at this point.

    During the founding of Tildes we've often voted that voices on the other side of the aisle as it were, were welcome, so long as they're civilized and respectful. Unfortunately even civilized discussions devolve into shit slinging that involves deimos, and we don't want to have to get him involved since it's a big hassle.

    6 votes