xk3's recent activity

  1. Comment on CGA-2026-02 🕹️🚗 REMOVE CARTRIDGE ⏏️ Racing Lagoon in ~games

    xk3
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    South Yokohama Our Home, Our『STREET』 ...and our driving brings the『HEAT』 This one was really fun! It's like pokemon but with car parts. Toyota Sprinter Trueno AE86. I got stuck a few times and...
    South Yokohama
Our Home, Our『STREET』
...and our driving brings the『HEAT』

    This one was really fun! It's like pokemon but with car parts. Toyota Sprinter Trueno AE86. I got stuck a few times and eventually gave up after the gameplay got a bit too repetitive.

    I'm glad this video exists otherwise I might not have fully been able to appreciate all the twists, turns, and switchbacks that the story serves up:

    Square's INSANE Racing RPG | Racing Lagoon (PS1)

    5 votes

  2. Comment on Babylon 5 S01E1: "The Gathering" - Episode Discussion in ~tv

    xk3
    Link Parent
    And that might be the best way to watch it in full? (although the "Babylon5Project" fan-edit is very good) It seems like they might not put it on YouTube after all??...

    free on the Roku Channel

    And that might be the best way to watch it in full? (although the "Babylon5Project" fan-edit is very good)

    It seems like they might not put it on YouTube after all??

    https://cordcuttersnews.com/warner-bros-discovery-removes-babylon-5-from-youtube-after-brief-free-run/

    However, they don't list any sources... this might just be LLM slop! Not sure...

    3 votes

  5. Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp

    xk3
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    I used Antigravity/Gemini CLI to turn the retirement monte carlo simulation python script that I made last week into a lightweight singlepage app: https://unli.xyz/rforecast/ Gemini is fun to use...

    I used Antigravity/Gemini CLI to turn the retirement monte carlo simulation python script that I made last week into a lightweight singlepage app: https://unli.xyz/rforecast/

    Gemini is fun to use for web development as long as you do it incrementally and keep git add --patch handy ;)

    The site itself is unfortunately likely US centric--I hope other countries' retirement plans and social safety nets aren't as fucked up to need a complex visualization tool to be able to decide where to store $5,000.

    Doing all this made me realize that the Social Security program is actually pretty darn good and I don't get why boomers complain about it.

    It also made me realize that the yearly limitations on IRA contributions are pretty ridiculous. It effectively makes them only useful as intermediary vehicles. It's especially ridiculous when you understand that there are ways to build a Roth IRA with a balance in the billions. The bullshit complexity subsidizes the accountant, taxes, and retirement industry--which is perhaps the only good thing about it.

    2 votes

  6. Comment on IT helpdesk request? in ~tech

    xk3
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    Link Parent
    https://forums.sandisk.com/t/liberated-wd80ezzx-does-not-work-without-enclosure/403587 It's probably a 3.3v reset pin problem https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gBKV8XXG4k kapton tape will be a bit...

    WD80EZZX

    https://forums.sandisk.com/t/liberated-wd80ezzx-does-not-work-without-enclosure/403587

    It's probably a 3.3v reset pin problem

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gBKV8XXG4k

    kapton tape will be a bit safer than electric tape but do what you gotta do :-)

    To be clear, this isn't a motherboard problem but a PSU / SATA specifications problem. You could probably swap PSUs on the machines instead of taping anything--or just use the drive from your HDD dock (which isn't sending voltage to the 3rd pin which is why it works)

    13 votes

  7. Comment on IT helpdesk request? in ~tech

    xk3
    Link
    Just to be clear, you are using the USB HDD dock in both cases? What is the drive model number?

    when plugged into a USB HDD dock but in another machine
    ...
    Multiple SATA cables and Power jacks tested

    Just to be clear, you are using the USB HDD dock in both cases?

    What is the drive model number?

    5 votes

  8. Comment on Here are your choices for a self-hosted ebook server in ~books

  10. Comment on Purple Penguin - Question (1998) in ~music

    xk3
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    I feel like I've shared this before or maybe I've just been listening to it a lot recently If you only listen to one song from this... listen to Diamond. It's really a perfect song I think... I...

    I feel like I've shared this before or maybe I've just been listening to it a lot recently

    If you only listen to one song from this... listen to Diamond. It's really a perfect song I think... I recently added it to my all time perfect songs list

    1 vote

  12. Comment on archive.today is directing a DDOS attack against my blog in ~tech

    xk3
    Link Parent
    Individual html files aren't that big--especially if you can compress and deduplicate at the filesystem level. If you skip large files you can archive millions of pages per TB. So while any amount...

    giant data center resources

    Individual html files aren't that big--especially if you can compress and deduplicate at the filesystem level. If you skip large files you can archive millions of pages per TB.

    So while any amount of this type of charity work is generous, I don't think you should feel it is impossible to get started--start small with wget2 and archive the sites that are important to you!

    5 votes

  13. Comment on Liberals who were formerly far-left (communist, anarchist, etc.), what led to you coming to liberalism? in ~society

    xk3
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    Maybe that's because the status quo and centrism in general doesn't have many anchors? Right wing and left wing theory often has the air of religious text but where would liberalism go, what would...

    liberalism's history as a term for so many different political philosophies makes it confusing af

    Maybe that's because the status quo and centrism in general doesn't have many anchors? Right wing and left wing theory often has the air of religious text but where would liberalism go, what would it become over time, if the left and the right didn't exist? Without the pressure of radicalism, the core tension within liberalism--individual liberty vs. social equality--would become the new left/right axis.

    To me liberalism feels like Jerry in Rick & Morty. Jerry is often the only sane and consistent character. Jerry is often correct and appeals to rationality. He just wants a predictable environment where he can exist.

    Being a centrist in the USSR has a lot of similarities between being a centrist in 1980s Canada but there are also many differences--so what distinguishes social liberals when morals are relative?

    1 vote

  14. Comment on Liberals who were formerly far-left (communist, anarchist, etc.), what led to you coming to liberalism? in ~society

    xk3
    Link Parent
    Maybe we should have a separate pejorative word for these rent-seeking, late-stage capitalism behaviors; like the distinction between socialism and communism

    Maybe we should have a separate pejorative word for these rent-seeking, late-stage capitalism behaviors; like the distinction between socialism and communism

    3 votes

  15. Comment on Pandoc for the people: convert documents without leaving the browser in ~tech

    xk3
    Link
    Pandoc claims to be a universal document converter--and it is pretty great for XML, LaTeX, and a few obscure formats--but I've found that it doesn't quite come close to being an "ffmpeg" of text...

    Pandoc claims to be a universal document converter--and it is pretty great for XML, LaTeX, and a few obscure formats--but I've found that it doesn't quite come close to being an "ffmpeg" of text document/book formats. Even Calibre's ebook-convert is better at bidirectional conversion support.

    Still, it is pretty neat that this all runs in the browser! I'll have to remember that this exists

    7 votes

  17. Comment on What do dreams mean? in ~science

    xk3
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    I doubt there is much correlation. The mind is mostly compressing information and re-organizing. Dreams are a byproduct of sleep but not a reason for it. I doubt there is much of a relationship...

    [does] a dream's content indicates anything about what problem the brain is trying to work out?

    I doubt there is much correlation. The mind is mostly compressing information and re-organizing. Dreams are a byproduct of sleep but not a reason for it. I doubt there is much of a relationship between what we experience as dreams and what the brain is actively doing at a physical level.

    I feel like dreams are either ideation separate from the purpose of sleep that we've somehow evolved into doing with the excess of nighttime processing capacity OR dreams are an emergent property of what is happening during sleep.

    is there any study

    I found these:

    And here are a few that possibly contradict my view:

    It will be exciting to see if we'll ever get concrete answers here--via neuralink, etc.

    We tested this hypothesis by analysing the content of dream reports from severely traumatized Kurdish children and ordinary, non-traumatized Finnish children
    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15766897/

    lol

    edit:

    Nightmares are probably learned rather than something physical or uncontrollable, like how different cultures have different experiences with mental health disorders. eg. feedback loops rather than chemical imbalances:

    9 votes

  18. Comment on Phil Smith - BlĂĽte, GerĂĽst (2017) in ~music

    xk3
    Link

    Yesterday, on my way home, I went into a bar-restaurant I'd never been into before. There was a goat above the door, and I'd spotted a piano inside. I asked if I could play it and the woman asked what I play. I said "Richtung jazz", or something similar. Her name is Dunya and mine is Phil.

    Dunya said they do have a beautiful piano stool, but for now I sat on one of the wooden chairs. It was a Friday afternoon and people were out in the garden. It was the warmest day of the year so far. It's the kind of place where everyone seems to work there. Familial.

    I gave a fifty minute concert in two halves. They poured me a drink in the middle. Dunya asked how I found them. I said I just walked past. She smiled and said, "That's how I want it."

    I left. I wanted to write to tell you that I felt so happy where I was, doing this. With you there it would have been even better, but it wouldn't have been, also.

    One small fresh Bier, free.

    Blossom and scaffolding,
    BlĂĽte, GerĂĽst,
    Berlin in spring.

    The man working there said they've been closed for a year and are just opening again. The place was gradually filling up. There are plenty of wrong notes and I ask you to ignore them. They said I can come back whenever I want.

    I don't know if I can do this anywhere else.

    1 vote

  20. Comment on Isoland in ~design

    xk3
    Link
    Very simple site--the main.js is a delight to read

    Very simple site--the main.js is a delight to read

    3 votes