vili's recent activity
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Comment on I am new to Mac OS, give me your favorite or preferred settings/ tools! in ~tech
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Comment on I am new to Mac OS, give me your favorite or preferred settings/ tools! in ~tech
vili LinkAltTab helps me a lot to navigate between windows, having also come to MacOS with some 30 years as a Windows user. Even after 5 years of use, I would still constantly lose program windows without...AltTab helps me a lot to navigate between windows, having also come to MacOS with some 30 years as a Windows user. Even after 5 years of use, I would still constantly lose program windows without AltTab.
BetterTouchTool and Karabiner Elements have allowed me to make the touchpad and keyboard work the way I want them to. Largely little things that I use AutoHotkey for on Windows.
Spotlight (Command + Space) is wonderfully fast. I use it to launch apps and to do quick calculations and unit conversions and such.
I use the basic terminal with the Oh My Zsh framework. It's made things nicer.
Homebrew as a package manager works nicely. Postgres.app is a nicely straightforward way of running a Postgres installation, if you happen to need one for any reason.
I have turned off automatic updates, a setting which MacOS actually respects, unlike Windows. I do manual updates when I have the time and the energy.
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Comment on The Nintendo Switch 2 is the fastest-selling gaming hardware in US history in ~games
vili Link ParentThat's definitely true. In addition to what you wrote, hit games are no longer made by 5-10 member teams over the course of a few months, producing 5-10 hours worth of "content" (for the lack of a...the product changed
That's definitely true. In addition to what you wrote, hit games are no longer made by 5-10 member teams over the course of a few months, producing 5-10 hours worth of "content" (for the lack of a better word), but often hundreds if not thousands of people working for years to put together ten times that much content. It has indeed become a very different product in many ways.
And also a difficult space for new game makers to navigate. Perhaps one positive outcome of AAA title prices increasing could be that smaller teams can be profitable while also remaining price competitive against the bigger players.
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Comment on The Nintendo Switch 2 is the fastest-selling gaming hardware in US history in ~games
vili Link ParentBut isn't the same true of game prices as console prices, in terms of inflation? Adjusted to today's dollar, both NES and SNES games would be around $120, while PS3 games would be around $90. It's...Upping game prices to $80 sucks much more because it may encourage an industry-wide shift to higher game prices.
But isn't the same true of game prices as console prices, in terms of inflation? Adjusted to today's dollar, both NES and SNES games would be around $120, while PS3 games would be around $90. It's an apples to apple pie comparison of course, since games have changed, as have their sales methods, as has the industry as a whole.
Anyway. A nice guy in Monkey Island told me to never pay more than 20 bucks for a computer game. That was back in 1990, which in today's money would be a bit less than $50. Just to be sure, I round it down to $40.
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Comment on Who’d be into a book club but for retro games? in ~games
vili LinkI would definitely be interested. One thing that has worked well for film clubs that I've run, is to curate the title list so that each entry builds on top of previous ones, rather than just...I would definitely be interested.
One thing that has worked well for film clubs that I've run, is to curate the title list so that each entry builds on top of previous ones, rather than just having a random selection of films that people would like to watch. This of course requires far more work from the person running the club, and means that there will be a long-term focus on something, possibly for years, which may not interest all potential participants.
For instance, we liked to run through a specific director's filmography chronologically, sometimes with months alternating between the director's films and related films (influences, remakes, contemporaries, thematic connections, and so on). It took years to get through the filmography, but the context that a chronological approach gave really helped us to see those films in a new light.
Somewhat similarly, some years back I played through the history of arcade games chronologically, from the early 70s to the mid-80s, which is an era of gaming that I never personally experienced. I didn't play every released game of course, just a list of the most influential games that I found somewhere, which was something like a hundred titles. It really helped me to understand why some games like Donkey Kong were such a huge thing, as I had more context with which to appreciate them.
Another possible approach, which I also used in a film club once, is to have a main title and supplementary titles for context. With retro games, you could for instance have Super Metroid as the month's main title, but suggest that participants also take a quicker look at games like the original Metroid, Montezuma's Revenge, Brain Breaker, The Legend of Zelda, Impossible Mission, Prince of Persia and Castlevania II. Perhaps even watch Ridley Scott's Alien if they so feel.
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Comment on Tens of thousands have gathered for the Budapest Pride march, defying Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's legal threats against LGBTQ rights activists in ~lgbt
vili Link ParentThere were plenty of police but I was glad to see how peaceful things were in the end. The police did their job and didn't seem to interfere, and the two counter protests that had been a concern...There were plenty of police but I was glad to see how peaceful things were in the end. The police did their job and didn't seem to interfere, and the two counter protests that had been a concern before the event also seemed to have sizzled down to about a dozen or so middle aged men holding banners on the side of the street.
Organisers estimate that over 200 000 people took part. I have no idea how close to the actual number it is but it was certainly more than the 25 000 or so that have gathered in previous years. It's good to see that that's what you get if you try to ban freedom. Hungary is still a long way from a civilised political system, but there is some glimmer of hope in the distant horizon.
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Comment on LLMs and privacy in ~tech
vili LinkThis probably depends on where in the world you are and what your local jurisdictions dictate about what companies can do with your data, but in the EU at least, it seems that if you pay for any...This probably depends on where in the world you are and what your local jurisdictions dictate about what companies can do with your data, but in the EU at least, it seems that if you pay for any of the major AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude, your data is not used for training the models. They will of course still have some level of access to your data, if for nothing else, then at least to provide the core service.
An added layer of protection would be to use a privacy focused third-party service that offers those models and anonymises your queries. I am only familiar with Kagi's offering, which works fine with multiple AI services, but is somewhat more limited compared to using them directly.
The truly (?) private option, as others have mentioned, is to run an AI locally, but it is a time and resource investment.
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Comment on Finland's obsession with saunas is going global – what does science say about the claimed health benefits? in ~health
vili Link ParentI'm breaking all internet etiquette and replying to my own comment to mention that I received a reply from Jari Laukkanen, who is also mentioned in the BBC article. He wrote that we don't really...- Exemplary
I took a look at some research on the topic yesterday and sent some questions to researchers whose names kept popping up in sauna research. I'll report back if I hear anything from them.
I'm breaking all internet etiquette and replying to my own comment to mention that I received a reply from Jari Laukkanen, who is also mentioned in the BBC article. He wrote that we don't really have data on what the effects of milder saunas are. Finnish saunas tend to be 80 degrees or above, which is what most research there is apparently done with.
He did write though that he suspects lower temperature saunas to have benefits. He pointed me to an article that he co-authored with Setor Knutsor (also mentioned in the BBC article), The multifaceted benefits of passive heat therapies for extending the healthspan: A comprehensive review with a focus on Finnish sauna, which looks at the evidence for different types of heat therapies. Based on that paper, and especially the data from lower temperature treatments like hot tubs and Waon therapy, I am ready to believe that people who enjoy lower temperature Finnish saunas aren't wasting either their time or their money.
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Comment on Finland's obsession with saunas is going global – what does science say about the claimed health benefits? in ~health
vili Link ParentI'm glad to hear that dry sauna has helped you mother! I haven't been to saunas in Czechia, but my best sauna experiences in the region have been in Slovakia (totally anecdotal, and N of I think...I'm glad to hear that dry sauna has helped you mother! I haven't been to saunas in Czechia, but my best sauna experiences in the region have been in Slovakia (totally anecdotal, and N of I think just 2), so perhaps I would like what Czech sauna culture has on offer as well.
As for your question about temperature, a couple of years back my local swimming pool here in Hungary opened not one but three "Finnish saunas" (their branding). The hottest was 85 degrees Celsius. The mildest 50 C. They have since increased the hottest to 90 I think and the cooler ones to 70, but none of them have the heat that I would personally consider a properly warm sauna. The "wellness host" comes in every fifteen minutes or so and puts a ladle of water on the rocks. They keep the door open when they do that, so much of the steam escapes immediately. This is a bit of an extreme example, but is overall quite typical of my experiences here, as well as in Croatia, Romania, Slovenia and Austria. But other people seem to enjoy it, so I have tried to accept that I'm just in a different sauna culture.
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Comment on Finland's obsession with saunas is going global – what does science say about the claimed health benefits? in ~health
vili Link ParentTotally! And that's exactly what I was thinking, if the "sauna" in most research means one thing and the "sauna" in a lot of people's experiences means another, is there a disconnect? Are lots of...Seeing Finns talk about saunas is a bit like Indians talking about spicy food. It's relative to an extent.
Totally! And that's exactly what I was thinking, if the "sauna" in most research means one thing and the "sauna" in a lot of people's experiences means another, is there a disconnect? Are lots of people not getting the claimed benefits, are they getting less of them, or are they getting some totally different benefits? You are right to remind that it's not a black or white situation.
Reading my earlier comment above, I realise that I perhaps come across a bit entitled, as if I somehow had the right to decide what saunas are. That wasn't my intention, I'm really just curious about the science. And perhaps a little sad about not being able to get "my" sauna experience locally.
I took a look at some research on the topic yesterday and sent some questions to researchers whose names kept popping up in sauna research. I'll report back if I hear anything from them.
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Comment on Finland's obsession with saunas is going global – what does science say about the claimed health benefits? in ~health
vili LinkSomething that I would like to know, but don't, is whether the benefits of sauna found by Finnish and other Nordic studies translate to how saunas work in many other parts of the world. As someone...Something that I would like to know, but don't, is whether the benefits of sauna found by Finnish and other Nordic studies translate to how saunas work in many other parts of the world.
As someone who grew up in Finland but lives in Central Europe, saunas here are not really saunas for me. They are, at best, somewhat warm rooms. The main issue is that in a lot of public saunas that I have visited outside of the Nordics, even in those that are marketed as "Finnish saunas", throwing water on the stones is forbidden. Or if it's not forbidden, it is frowned upon by other people in the sauna.
But sauna without the frequent steam bursts is really just a sad, mildly warm room. Whenever I sit in a space like that, I wonder whether the people in there with me are expecting health benefits that Nordic researchers have derived from what to me seems like a very different experience. Are they in fact only paying for a placebo treatment?
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Comment on A spoiler free but brief critcism of Blue Prince reviews/recommendation to play in ~games
vili Link ParentFor me, this wasn't quite true. The first couple of hours had some quick runs where I felt like I didn't accomplish anything. Sure, there were things that I could in theory have worked on, but I...You basically never get a run where you don't accomplish or learn something new, often multiple new things.
For me, this wasn't quite true. The first couple of hours had some quick runs where I felt like I didn't accomplish anything. Sure, there were things that I could in theory have worked on, but I hadn't seen enough of the game yet to realise that. This was fine for me as I went in fairly blind on release day and just assumed that things will evolve, as they tend to do in games. But I can imagine that someone who has read reviews that criticise the game for its RNG can in the early game conclude that the criticism is valid and then repeat that criticism, or maybe even have their entire experience coloured by it.
Things opened up for me after a while and it felt like I accomplished something with every single run. It was fun, it was exciting, it was obsessive. So much to do! If X didn't happen, there were always a handful of other things to deal with.
After somewhere around the 20 hour mark, which is also when I decided to go to room 46, things started to change. The number of clues that I knew to investigate or attempt to solve quickly narrowed down, to a point where my last game session lasted, I think, something like 3 hours and I managed to accomplish absolutely nothing. That's when I made the decision to stop, around the 30 hour mark. I think I have somewhere around a dozen ideas that I would like to solve or investigate, but getting to them just takes too much time.
Now, I am sure that there is a lot that I haven't noticed. And it could also be that I am unlucky in that the things that I am aware of and trying to solve are not connected, so if the randomness spoils me trying to do X, it doesn't leave me with the option to do Y.
I do like that the game is both opinionated about what it wants to be, and I was impressed how good it was at guiding me. But if it was my game (and if my experience is representative of a general experience with the game, which it might not be because of the randomness), I would try to adjust the early game a little to avoid some of the dead ends for new players, and in the end game, I'd give the player more power over the world.
Like I wrote in my other comment here, I love the game. But it did annoy me a bit too much at times. I'll probably go back to it one day, and I'm pretty sure to pick up the designer's next game on launch day.
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Comment on A spoiler free but brief critcism of Blue Prince reviews/recommendation to play in ~games
vili LinkI loved the game and spent some 30 hours with it, but I can understand the RNG criticism. I too felt that the game was repeatedly wasting my time through its randomness, repetition and the...I loved the game and spent some 30 hours with it, but I can understand the RNG criticism. I too felt that the game was repeatedly wasting my time through its randomness, repetition and the inability to save whenever I wanted. The further I got after room 46 and the list of things to try and explore narrowed, the more it felt like that. In the end, I just gave up and accepted that I don't have the patience to see everything, and I guess that's fine.
I hope someone will eventually make a mod that allows me to better control the RNG. It's frustrating when you know (or at least think you know) how to solve a puzzle but you just can't get to it because of the randomness.
So, while I love the game, it also left me with a strongly bitter aftertaste. I can understand how that could sour someone's entire experience. I still love it, but I have noticed that I hesitate to recommend the game to anyone.
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Comment on Podcast recommendations thread in ~talk
vili Link ParentThanks for the recommendation! I listened to an episode and it felt very similar to the podcast No Such Thing As A Fish that I recommended here, so if anyone is familiar with Fish, they might well...Thanks for the recommendation! I listened to an episode and it felt very similar to the podcast No Such Thing As A Fish that I recommended here, so if anyone is familiar with Fish, they might well like this one as well. And vice versa.
As I've only heard one episode of That's Absurd, I'm not the right person to compare them, but in the spirit of not caring about such things, I would say that Fish is a little bit faster moving with more banter and detours, while That's Absurd seemed to go into much more detail in the topics. I'm looking forward to hearing more episodes.
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Comment on Podcast recommendations thread in ~talk
vili LinkA History of Rock Music in 500 Songs (https://500songs.com/) is my favourite podcast. It is nothing short of a magnum opus scale undertaking that has been moving chronologically through the...A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs (https://500songs.com/) is my favourite podcast. It is nothing short of a magnum opus scale undertaking that has been moving chronologically through the history of English speaking popular music. Its focus is on rock, but in telling that story, it offers a much wider and more detailed look at a wider range of things that you might imagine from the title alone. Insanely well researched and presented.
Another music podcast that I quite liked was Wind of Change (https://crooked.com/podcast-series/wind-of-change/), whose tagline "Did the CIA write a power ballad that ended the Cold War?" pretty much tells you everything that you need to know about it. If you nostalgically remember the song and love mystery and spy stuff, it's worth a listen. A couple of other investigative podcasts in a slightly similar style would be Finding Drago (https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/finding-drago) which is about a mysterious author and The Polybius Conspiracy (https://www.radiotopia.fm/showcase/the-polybius-conspiracy) which is about the claim that a strange early-80s arcade machine was designed to manipulate its players. If you happen to like any of these and have recommendations for something similar, I'm all ears!
The Rest Is History (https://therestishistory.com/episodes/) is my favourite general history podcast. It strikes a perfect balance between interesting information and light hearted presentation. Not all of the topics interest me, but more often than not, topics that I didn't think would be interesting ended up being really fascinating. If you want a good starting point, their 8-part series on the fall of the Aztecs (episodes 384-391) was absolutely brilliant.
Another podcast that combines comedy and information, this one leaning more towards comedy, is No Such Thing As A Fish (https://www.nosuchthingasafish.com/). If you know the BBC panel show QI, it's quite similar in tone. Which is not surprising, given that the podcast is run by QI researchers.
History of Philosophy (https://historyofphilosophy.net/) is actually two podcasts. One concentrates on diving deep into the history of western philosophy, while the other has by now done almost 200 episodes on the history of classical philosophy in India, Africa and now more recently China. It's this latter podcast that I'm particularly fond of, as I'm less familiar with those traditions.
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Comment on How did you learn to read? in ~humanities.languages
vili Link ParentThis is indeed what I had in mind. People would write their "marrys" and "merrys" and "Marys" as they pronounce them. For some they would all be the same spelling, for others not. Like I wrote...if the solution if for everyone to just write exactly how they speak
This is indeed what I had in mind. People would write their "marrys" and "merrys" and "Marys" as they pronounce them. For some they would all be the same spelling, for others not. Like I wrote earlier, this hinges on people actually understanding each other's dialects.
Note that this wouldn't force anyone to stick to just one dialect. It would allow the same kind of code switching and register shifting strategies that people employ in spoken language. This is what I anecdotally see happening in languages that use more phonemically focused writing systems.
Let me emphasise though that I don't believe this to be in any way practically possible for English. As I believe we have established, for a spelling reform to happen for English, something monumental would need to happen, and this approach would not just change the spelling of things but much of the underlying assumptions of the current English writing system. So, we are talking hypotheticals. I just offered a third hypothetical to the two that you proposed. The likelihood of this one happening is even smaller than the ones you suggested.
There is a fourth impossible hypothetical as well. If we take your assumption about the purpose of a writing system -- the "ability to learn to read other people's work without having to learn the idiosyncrasies of how they represent things" -- to some sort of an extreme, we could also argue for a Chinese style approach where the writing system doesn't care so much about pronunciation at all. English already does it with numbers, it would just need to expand it to everything else. And while at it, maybe we could take it even further and make the writing system not care about syntax or morphology, either. That would be a fun challenge. And also terribly impractical for day-to-day use, I'm sure. Not to mention impossible to implement.
But through hypotheticals like this, I end up wondering if perhaps English is already in some sort of a good enough sweet spot between something like the Chinese and Finnish systems. Its spelling more than hints at an intended pronunciation, but also comes with some kind of logographic qualities. Maybe, in the end, it is a near enough optimal solution for a global language with a wide range of dialects?
Going back to code switching and register shifting strategies, I suppose one could in a way argue that the current English writing system does exactly this. People switch to a standard pronunciation when writing. It just happens to be one that existed hundreds of years ago and that the writers themselves don't speak. It's not a million miles away from something like Finnish where, in public and official communication, people tend to write in a form of language that they actually never speak.
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Comment on How did you learn to read? in ~humanities.languages
vili Link ParentSo, what I had in mind was a system that just records sounds. It would be the same for all dialects. Basically, like IPA. Or any spelling system with a fairly strict and straightforward letter to...unless the spelling systems are designed in parallel in order to work well together
So, what I had in mind was a system that just records sounds. It would be the same for all dialects. Basically, like IPA. Or any spelling system with a fairly strict and straightforward letter to phoneme correspondence.
It seems to work for languages like Finnish, allowing people to write in their own dialects. Sort of, kind of. It's not and never can be a perfect one to one replication of spoken language, of course. But a robust phonetic system is typically quite flexible: I entertained myself in high school by writing my physics class notes in hiragana, i.e. used a Japanese script for notes written in Finnish, and I can of course also write Japanese with the Latin script using Finnish orthographic rules. Some information is lost but enough transmits to remain understandable.
Anyway, as discussed, like any English spelling reform, it would require an unprecedented coordinated effort from multiple countries and hundreds of millions of people to change the writing system. So, not likely.
I will confess that I've tried to come up with my own new English orthography for fun
Sounds fun! Would you use a Latin based script or invent a completely new symbol set?
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Comment on How did you learn to read? in ~humanities.languages
vili Link ParentI would say Sierra titles like King's Quest, Space Quest and Leisure Suit Larry, as well as Infocom's text adventures. And the adaptation of Fredrik Pohl's Gateway. Basically anything with a text...I would say Sierra titles like King's Quest, Space Quest and Leisure Suit Larry, as well as Infocom's text adventures. And the adaptation of Fredrik Pohl's Gateway. Basically anything with a text parser.
But the more mouse driven adventure games were important as well. Gabriel Knight is one of my favourites, such a brilliant game.
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Comment on How did you learn to read? in ~humanities.languages
vili Link ParentYou are absolutely right, English's reluctance to reflect language change in its spelling rules is a bigger issue than its limited symbol inventory. And so, some of these wacky rules that came...You are absolutely right, English's reluctance to reflect language change in its spelling rules is a bigger issue than its limited symbol inventory.
And so, some of these wacky rules that came about for historical reasons have also become productive rules. Continuing with the "e" example, when bicycles were invented and they came up with the shortened word /baɪk/, it came to be spelled "bike". Not that it probably could have been anything else at that point, given the system. Although something like "bighk" could have been fun (cf. "light")?
It's indeed likely too late for a spelling reform. In theory though, I suppose there is a third alternative to the ones you propose: a reform where there is no standardised spelling of words and you just spell words like you speak them. In theory at least, we can understand speakers from other dialects, so we should also be able to understand writers from other dialects. If I recall correctly, that's somewhat how it used to work in Middle English, before the printing press changed things. In my native Finnish, some people do that in private communication, writing in their own dialect, while others don't, instead sticking to the somewhat artificial Standard Finnish in their spelling. I for some reason belong to the latter group.
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Comment on Finland is home to some of the most prolific caffeine drinkers in the world, and now Helsinki is positioning itself as a new brew capital in ~food
vili LinkFor someone coming from a different coffee culture, Finnish coffee can certainly be an experience, as Emmanuel Macron so meme-worthily discovered some years back. I've observed the development of...For someone coming from a different coffee culture, Finnish coffee can certainly be an experience, as Emmanuel Macron so meme-worthily discovered some years back.
I've observed the development of coffee culture in Helsinki when visiting the city in recent years. Whether they can become the coffee capital is debatable, but I'm sure they can do something interesting and unique. From my admittedly anecdotal work tourist's experience, the cafes and roasters in Helsinki have been moving towards quite different taste profiles than what I have encountered in, say, Stockholm, not to mention continental Europe. But that's great, I think there is a lot of room in coffee to express local character and preferences, and it's nice if that range is fully utilised. And I would say that coffee certainly is a huge part of the modern Finnish idenity.
Not really.
Command + backtickpresupposes that I know that I have a second window open for some application, which is not always the case. With AltTab, I don't need to mentally keep track of what is open where as I always get the full picture of open windows through a layout that is structured and quick to navigate.