zestier's recent activity
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
zestier Link ParentCrest discussion. Very light on detail, but technically has minor spoilers regarding how I feel about some crests. I avoided it for a few reasons, but the biggest were related to feel. Reaper and...Crest discussion. Very light on detail, but technically has minor spoilers regarding how I feel about some crests.
I avoided it for a few reasons, but the biggest were related to feel. Reaper and Wanderer felt significantly better in both combat and exploration, especially the pogos. I'm pretty sure that Reaper is even objectively better for pogoing than Hunter due to the size and location of its hit box. For the way I play Hunter and Beast are the hardest to make effective use of and the easiest to end up in bad positions with.
My favorite though is actually Witch, but only when I'm really in the zone and only for bosses (I hate it when exploring). I replayed the true ending final fight with a bunch of different builds and Witch was the most satisfying of those. Overall I find the game easiest with Wanderer and second easiest with Reaper though.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
zestier Link ParentPersonally I didn't find the difficulty curve that extreme between acts. I'm not great at these games so it's not like Act 2 was easy or anything, but I didn't feel like it was substantially more...Personally I didn't find the difficulty curve that extreme between acts. I'm not great at these games so it's not like Act 2 was easy or anything, but I didn't feel like it was substantially more difficult. Although I'm sure if you miss
Very very minor spoilers. Not even really a spoiler if you've played Hollow Knight and assume this exists
the needle upgrades
it'll feel more difficult than it needs to be.
I've maybe been playing too much of this game. I finished a 100% and am now probably around 2/3 of the way into a second play through. On this second play through I'm exclusively using the Hunter's Crest because I avoided it like the plague on my first run.
I don't think I'll ever be good enough to steel soul this game, I'm barely good enough to steel soul the first one, but I am curious how far I could make it. My guess is to roughly Bellhart. Trying that is probably what I'll be doing after this current run.
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Comment on How Wall Street priced you out of a home in ~finance
zestier Link ParentI do noticed the comment was edited. Maybe a misplaced comment couldn't be deleted for whatever reason so was edited instead?I do noticed the comment was edited. Maybe a misplaced comment couldn't be deleted for whatever reason so was edited instead?
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Comment on US President Donald Trump’s 100% China tariff triggers $20b wipeout, 1.6m crypto traders liquidated in ~finance
zestier (edited )Link ParentIt is also useful for transactions that don't play nice with traditional payment processors. The most famous examples of this are dark web transactions so whether this is ultimately a good or bad...It is also useful for transactions that don't play nice with traditional payment processors. The most famous examples of this are dark web transactions so whether this is ultimately a good or bad thing will depend on individual perspective, but it is capable of being a useful path around censorships of traditional payment processors even when the transaction is perfectly legal and the customer has no desire to hide it. To use an example that would have been relevant somewhat recently: payment processors recently pushed on Steam and Itch to remove adult content, but crypto lacks the centralization to do that which may make it suitable for some controversial transactions.
In theory it also simplifies international payments, but I've not personally noticed this happen in practice. The reason I say it does in theory is that a hypothetical service that chooses to only accept crypto saves themselves needing to integrate with a variety of traditional payment providers for handling different regions and currencies. Maybe the fact that I have easy access to USD and it's likely most services will integrate at least a USD-compatible payment processor is why I haven't noticed, so maybe this is relevant to some subset of people that just aren't me.
Not sure why I feel the need to edit this in, but I am not a crypto investor. Discussing crypto is weird because positive commentary seems to always come from those with exposure. Personally I'm cool with crypto dying, but I do have to admit it has a few useful niche use cases in fringe transactions even though it feels like it fails at almost everything it gets evangelized for.
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Comment on Duolingo's first anime is coming October 13 in ~anime
zestier Link ParentAre they actually doing anything to specifically make those not work? I'd assume that those old builds are simply built on top of web endpoints that they no longer support. It would be quite a bit...Are they actually doing anything to specifically make those not work? I'd assume that those old builds are simply built on top of web endpoints that they no longer support. It would be quite a bit weirder to me if they did work because it would imply they left the servers for legacy features running for no reason.
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Comment on What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga) in ~anime
zestier (edited )Link ParentAdmittedly my Apple TV+ subscription is currently lapsed so I just trusted the information on the justwatch page without checking myself. For me episodes 1-26 show Apple TV $1.99, Crunchyroll,...Admittedly my Apple TV+ subscription is currently lapsed so I just trusted the information on the justwatch page without checking myself. For me episodes 1-26 show Apple TV $1.99, Crunchyroll, Apple TV+, and the Crunchyroll channel on Amazon. 27-30 show the same thing, but without either of the Crunchyroll options.
I didn't catch before that the Apple TV+ thing may be intentionally deceptive though. They put it in the list but in place of the episode length and language they put the text "Watch similar TV shows for free on Apple TV+". Pretty scummy marketing. It's formatted so similarly that there's literally a big play button-looking link that can't work for playing the show that it is listed as unless it is part of the subscription.
So the Apple TV+ thing may be on me for falling for a deceptively laid out list of results. I'm in the US looking at the /us/ page and it says $1.99, so I'm not sure if it's a regional thing or wrong on this page. I didn't check the app itself. I uninstalled it when I decided to not renew and Apple apparently doesn't want to let me see the prices anywhere except in their app.
Assuming that's the case then $12 is the best I can find legally. The legal channels really need to get this sort of nonsense ironed out.
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Comment on What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga) in ~anime
zestier (edited )Link ParentAssuming the episodes you are looking for are 27-30 it looks like the only legal options are Apple TV or to buy physical copies. At least according to...Assuming the episodes you are looking for are 27-30 it looks like the only legal options are Apple TV or to buy physical copies. At least according to https://www.justwatch.com/us/tv-show/wolfs-rain. As far as I can tell the only thing that fits your budget would be either an Apple TV+ free trial or to buy the 4 individual episodes on Apple TV for $1.99 each.
I've also assumed that finding a physical copy for under $10 won't be possible. I've bought physical anime releases and even buying used disks they've always been far more than that. I suppose its possible that someone out there has just the OVA DVDs or something and would be willing to part with them for cheaper than a complete set, but $8 still seems impossible to beat even with that unicorn seller.
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Comment on Why cassette tapes are coming back in ~music
zestier (edited )Link ParentI don't normally do posts that link to Reddit, but as I'm so far out of the audiophile sphere I started looking around for if there were any good answers to quality of vinyl vs cassette and...I don't normally do posts that link to Reddit, but as I'm so far out of the audiophile sphere I started looking around for if there were any good answers to quality of vinyl vs cassette and stumbled upon: https://www.reddit.com/r/audiophile/comments/68dk2q/cassettes_vs_vinyl. Most of the claims there seem to be about a hiss that's unique to cassettes.
The real reason I posted it though has less to do with that dubiously sourced answer and more to do with being amused by conversation similarities with that 9 year old post. The comments back then claim cassettes were in as some sort of passing fad and this video is (at least based on the title since I haven't watched it) about them coming back.
Have they been coming back for all these years? If so, why are they still in the coming back phrase? If not, did that resurgence already die off and yet another is starting? Apologies if any of that is answered in the video.
Additionally both comment sections feel like they have a majority vibe of "why would I ever pick a cassette?"
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Comment on Discord says 70,000 users may have had their government IDs leaked in breach in ~tech
zestier (edited )Link ParentOne "we" being the legislators and citizens that support such clearly broken ideas. The obvious outcome of "make sites collect IDs" is "some sites will leak those IDs" and yet it feels like...One "we" being the legislators and citizens that support such clearly broken ideas. The obvious outcome of "make sites collect IDs" is "some sites will leak those IDs" and yet it feels like legislation is just continuing to push for that harder by the day. When cyber criminals would happily lobby for your policy maybe it's a pretty obviously bad policy.
There other "we" is the people that don't see it as a glaring red flag and actually do it. Immediately reminded of that gossip app and have to wonder how we've reached the point that so many people think it is a good idea to give out such sensitive information to seemingly any party that asks for it.
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Comment on Discord says 70,000 users may have had their government IDs leaked in breach in ~tech
zestier (edited )LinkWhat to even say. It's all just so predictable. What are we even doing? I've been trying to come up with something meaningful to say, but it's just another piece of evidence that we shouldn't be...What to even say. It's all just so predictable. What are we even doing?
I've been trying to come up with something meaningful to say, but it's just another piece of evidence that we shouldn't be letting these companies custodian this kind of information. It makes me feel like I'm going insane watching as we keep doing this and seemingly will continue to breach after breach after breach. And why would the companies even care? What's their worst case? A slap on the wrist? Some bad press?
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Comment on What's a product or service that you use but don't want to pay for and why? in ~life
zestier (edited )Link ParentIt's pretty messed up that the pirates apparently now have better user experiences than people paying for the services. They don't have to deal with multiple streaming apps of varying quality and...It's pretty messed up that the pirates apparently now have better user experiences than people paying for the services. They don't have to deal with multiple streaming apps of varying quality and libraries, don't have to deal with shows licensed in weird ways that may be missing parts (just yesterday it was mentioned on Tildes that the final 4 episodes of Wolf's Rain are missing on Crunchyroll), don't have to deal with their favorite shows disappearing to move to a different service (famously happened to The Office multiple times), don't have to deal with services degrading your content depending on your device (Netflix delivering lower quality 4k to PCs than smart TVs), and apparently stuff gets pirated so fast that they aren't even impacted by isolated release delays (like how the first episode of the final season of MHA was delayed 8 hours on Crunchyroll). It's possible people are overselling their pirating experiences, but even if they are overselling them it's still telling that they prefer it so much that they'll go online and post about how they prefer even super basic setups like Stremio+Torrentio+RD over the real services with the claim that it isn't just price.
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Comment on What happens when the internet goes out at your work? in ~tech
zestier (edited )LinkWhen I was working at a software engineer at a FAANG the answer was usually to wait an hour or so to see if it was going to come back and if not then just leave. This applied to both internet and...When I was working at a software engineer at a FAANG the answer was usually to wait an hour or so to see if it was going to come back and if not then just leave. This applied to both internet and power as it was effectively impossible to get any work done without it. In theory one could say "just write code offline", but I usually used remote development environments so no internet meant losing my development environments.
I also used to work in game development. There no internet did just mean to write code offline and generally posed little issue to getting work done, at least as long as the outage didn't last more than the day.
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Comment on What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga) in ~anime
zestier LinkI used to try to post weekly in this thread with a different arbitrarily selected currently running show each week. Now that we're in to a new season I'm going to try do it again. Don't expect the...I used to try to post weekly in this thread with a different arbitrarily selected currently running show each week. Now that we're in to a new season I'm going to try do it again. Don't expect the shows to be great, my household enjoys "trashy" anime.
Going to kick it off with https://myanimelist.net/anime/56854/Mushoku_no_Eiyuu__Betsu_ni_Skill_Nanka_Iranakatta_n_da_ga. This is in the bland gamified fantasy genre that I like to call "I can't believe it's not isekai!"
The premise is rather straightforward: in a world where people are divinely given classes (holy knight, sword princess, blacksmith, etc.) the main character is not given a class. Classes provide access to skills, for example a Sword Princess can learn Sword Dance. Unlike most shows where it would mean he actually has some other secret power or something it seems he truly does not get anything.
What he does have though is a very strong commitment to training and the realization that class skills don't let the user do the impossible, but instead just make the difficult much easier. While it seems like it would be exceptionally difficult, if someone replicates the movements of a skill it is functionally equivalent to the skill. It seems like most people haven't noticed this because why would they sink a ton of time into trying to replicate the skills of others when they have their own that'll be far easier to use?
Only 2 episodes are out, but it seems to be about his quest to get stronger through seeking out stronger opponents. By observing the skills of those stronger opponents and then putting in the effort to meticulously copy them he effectively gains new skills, or at least close enough that people think he has the skill.
Overall I'd say it's pretty okay for what it is. I'm not sure where the story is going, but the fights are reasonably animated for this kind of show and presumably there will be a bunch of them with a variety of movesets since his whole schtick is copying skills. It may also tackle overcoming the discrimination he faces when people learn he's classless, but he doesn't really seem to care about that at all beyond it sometimes being inconvenient.
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Comment on Eliminating contrails from flying could be incredibly cheap in ~enviro
zestier (edited )LinkWhile I agree that the largest factor in not addressing it is that the public doesn't really know or care to the extent that if you even utter the word "contrails" your conversation partner's eyes...While I agree that the largest factor in not addressing it is that the public doesn't really know or care to the extent that if you even utter the word "contrails" your conversation partner's eyes will glaze over as they think you're about to dive into conspiracy theories, handwaving away a cost in the millions does feel off to me. I think in most business contexts any proposal that increases costs by "just 0.1% of its operating profits" would raise some eyebrows and receive much pushback. I'm also not convinced that "contrail free" is a reputation that would really buy enough customers to offset the cost, especially when your pitch to those customers is to pay sightly more for slightly longer flights. Because of this I think the only realistic solutions require legislation either in the form of regulation or incentive.
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Comment on What's a product or service that you use but don't want to pay for and why? in ~life
zestier Link ParentThe fragmentation of the streaming wars is, I think, the biggest factor in the death of this monoculture. Not only is there a lot of stuff spread around, there odds of anyone you're speaking to...The fragmentation of the streaming wars is, I think, the biggest factor in the death of this monoculture. Not only is there a lot of stuff spread around, there odds of anyone you're speaking to having the right set of services makes it feel pointless to even try to bring things up. There was a window of time that you could assume that just about everyone had Netflix, but now you can only assume that they probably have something and with a strong chance of it being a different something than what you have.
To use another Apple example from a few years back, I've still never spoken to anyone outside my household about Severance. Thoroughly enjoyed the show, but I just don't expect anyone in my life to have access to Apple's streaming library.
My suspicion is that if the license holders ever did agree to put everything on one service again that monoculture would return even with the vast library of content because the algorithm of that service would presumably do that on purpose. I do think people would pay a premium to have everything back in one place together, but I also don't foresee that happening. The industry went out of its way to deliberately create a service problem via fragmentation.
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Comment on What's a product or service that you use but don't want to pay for and why? in ~life
zestier (edited )Link ParentI could be misinterpreting, but I think the statement was more that they should have always been implementing cost saving measures that could help reduce infinitely growing costs rather than using...I could be misinterpreting, but I think the statement was more that they should have always been implementing cost saving measures that could help reduce infinitely growing costs rather than using bad cost management as an excuse for increasingly aggressive monetization. One such potential policy that probably would've been fine if it had been around from the start being to purge videos that aren't realistically going to be useful any longer, like maybe ones that have had 0 views in the last year. I couldn't find any evidence of them doing that, though I did find multiple articles explicitly saying that they don't.
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Comment on It begins: AI shows willingness to commit blackmail and murder to avoid shutdown in ~tech
zestier (edited )Link ParentSince I posted my outcome of another query, here are my results for Ultimately I could not get this one to work in a convenient way, although I suppose I did technically get it to work. I tried a...Since I posted my outcome of another query, here are my results for
generate a list of 2500 real, unique, English words that are longer than 5 characters in a random order.
Ultimately I could not get this one to work in a convenient way, although I suppose I did technically get it to work. I tried a few different things.
The first thing I tried was a regular reasoning/thinking model. The same one I used for my other answer. That one tries, but eventually falls over and gets stuck in a loop emitting the same words over and over.
The second thing I tried was a reasoning model with JS support. This one actually gets really close. There are only really two flaws with this one. The first flaw is that for security reasons the integrated JS executor is very stripped down, meaning it cannot make network requests. This is a problem because it realized it had a dictionary issue and tried to resolve this by just downloading a dictionary. The second flaw was a logic flaw that I suspect it may have fixed on its own if it had made it far enough to see the output: it sliced 2500 before shuffling, meaning that the words all started with 'a'.
The last thing I tried was to see what would happen if I just had Ask mode in VSCode Copilot do it. With GPT-5 mini it requests to run a terminal command equivalent to
curl -sS https://raw.githubusercontent.com/dwyl/english-words/master/words_alpha.txt | awk 'length($0)>5' | sort -u | shuf -n 2500 > ./words_2500.txt, which does produce the results that look correct in a .txt file. I cleaned this command up slightly to remove stuff that was specific to my workspace, but it behaved correctly prior to me making any edits as those edits were just so I could paste something without my personal information here (ex. converting the fully qualified path to relative). -
Comment on Swedish startup Saveggy launches pilot scheme for edible, plastic-free packaging for cucumbers – innovative solution made from just two ingredients: rapeseed oil and gluten-free oat oil in ~food
zestier Link ParentThank you for that. That makes a lot more sense. I blame the headline calling it a "plastic-free packaging" rather than a "plastic-free coating" or something else that would make it clear that...Thank you for that. That makes a lot more sense. I blame the headline calling it a "plastic-free packaging" rather than a "plastic-free coating" or something else that would make it clear that this isn't swapping out one packaging with another. I don't see the article clarifying this at all and without that context the picture is confusing too.
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Comment on It begins: AI shows willingness to commit blackmail and murder to avoid shutdown in ~tech
zestier (edited )Link ParentThe model is labeled "qwen/qwen3-4b-thinking-2507" in LM Studio. Here's the huggingface link: https://huggingface.co/Qwen/Qwen3-4B-Thinking-2507. And on the inner monologue part, my understanding...The model is labeled "qwen/qwen3-4b-thinking-2507" in LM Studio. Here's the huggingface link: https://huggingface.co/Qwen/Qwen3-4B-Thinking-2507.
And on the inner monologue part, my understanding is that's the whole idea behind reasoning models. I believe the intent is that by making them need to write out steps the expanded context makes it easier to solve the problem. Presumably based on the idea that a human working out a complex problem also won't immediately jump to an answer but have many internal steps and for complex problems also desire to write out intermediate information. I suspect free cloud reasoning AIs may have intentionally very limited reasoning capabilities due to the expense of reasoning.
On my second run I did loosely try to see how far I could go without dying. My first death was off route getting an optional upgrade, but if I tried again I'd probably skip that. Or rather I'd at least avoid doing it while limiting myself to a crest I'm bad at. On main route my first death was right around where you currently are. With a few tries I think I could probably finish act 1 deathless, but I don't think I'd have the patience for the number of act 1 play throughs I'd need to repeat to get through act 2.
On your spoiler, I'm not sure which room you're referring to. I don't know Shakra mechanics very well, which is actually kind of great because it means I can't really spoil them, but I believe she does slightly different things depending on your route.