This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. View on remote instance

sp3tr4l ,

I used to have a Prius C, got it used.

95% of shops wouldn't touch it for anything non cosmetic. Hybrid, confusing, scary!

Learned how to work on it myself, before it got stolen.

Guess I just got the beta version of not being able to have your car serviced, due to good old fashioned blue collar laziness and incompetence.

sp3tr4l ,

Yeah, its infuriating that punk has become a suffix.

There is nothing punk about steampunk, dieselpunk, atompunk. They are just fantasy technological scenarios / art styles.

Cyberpunk has an both a recognizable aesthetic and a whole lot of political, social and philosophical views baked into it. You get the punks in cyberpunk as either a direct ideological opposition to the power of corporations, or as an indirect result of said corpos creating a hell world for 99% of people.

There is nothing inherently rebellious about worlds or characters within worlds with more prevalent / advanced steam or diesel or nuclear power.

Solarpunk arguably has some actual punk to it if you actually try to follow the idea of personally minimizing your fossil fuel usage, but mostly its a utopian or post-dystopian setting / art style.

Its now like -gate being affixed to any kind of publicized controversy.

Most people do not understand what Watergate even was and why it was so significant.

sp3tr4l ,

I am not quite that old, but I learned digital media creation in the Macromedia Suite... Dreamweaver, Flash... before Adobe bought them out.

sp3tr4l ,

I recently returned to a hole in the wall restaurant that I used to frequent in my college days. One of the few actual restaurants in the city that never closed.

A decade later, a semi nonsensical scrawl about being kind and good to people I'd written on a dry erase board while quite drunk... was still there.

It only needed minor updating to be more gender inclusive, which someone else had done without removing any of my writing.

When I was frequenting this restaurant, the whole board was wiped every week or so.

For some reason, what I wrote persisted for a decade.

I couldn't believe it.

sp3tr4l ,

Nah, it was my handwriting, used the same lingo and joke I remember using at the time, took up most of the board... which is why I was so shocked it hadn't been erased.

Most of the time people wrote on it, they were gracious with the space.

Due to typing far more often than writing, and many years later me figuring out oh haha I'm actually naturally left handed, my writing is a fairly uncommon kind of small cap block print, otherwise I am basically the only one capable of reading my non block print scribbles.

What do you think the Great Filter is?

The Great Filter is the idea that, in the development of life from the earliest stages of abiogenesis to reaching the highest levels of development on the Kardashev scale, there is a barrier to development that makes detectable extraterrestrial life exceedingly rare. The Great Filter is one possible resolution of the Fermi...

sp3tr4l ,

Howabout a reasonably advanced civilization destroying itself and its homeworld after exploiting and then running out of petroleum?

sp3tr4l ,

Yeah, Arch is not a great choice.

I would suggest PopOS! or Nobara.

Or just good ole reliable Debian.

sp3tr4l ,

Its generally more up to date with newer standards and such than Debian, but it is by no means bleeding edge.

Bleeding edge is generally bad unless you really need some specific thing for a specific reason.

If your whole set up is bleeding edge then congrats, you are a basically alpha testing an OS.

sp3tr4l , (edited )

There exists documented proof in many bits of literature from around 200 BCE to around 100 CE of numerous different figures in what is called 'Jewish Apocalypticism', basically a small in number but persistent phenomenon of Jews in and around what was for most of that time the Roman province of Palestine, preaching that the end would come, that God or a Messiah would return or arise and basically liberate the region and install a Godly Kingdom, usually after or as part of other fantastical events.

Jesus was one of many of these Jewish Apocalypticists. Much like the rest of the movement's key figures, they were wrong, and their lives were greatly exaggerated in either their writings or writings about them or inspired by them.

This seems to be the (extremely condensed) opinion of most Biblical Scholars.

There are a very small number of modern Biblical Scholars that are 'Mythicists' of some kind, who believe that Jesus was completely fictional and wholly invented by certain people or groups.

This is an unpopular view amongst scholars and historians of that time and region, as most believe it more plausible that Jesus was just another example of a radical Jewish Apocalyptic preacher, which again, was fairly common for roughly 300 years in that region.

Its like how if you go to a big city theres always that one guy with a megaphone preaching imminent doom. 99% of people think this is silly and ignore them, but tons of people know that people like them exist and do have small followings.

sp3tr4l , (edited )

This stems from the fact that, so far, the earliest dated written fragments we have from what is now the New Testament are some of the writings of Paul.

Paul was not one of the Apostles EDIT: Disciples, and it seems possible that, after persecuting earlier, existing Christians, he could have basically had a stress induced psychotic break and hallucinated the vision of Jesus that he had, then converted.

Thing is though, Christians would have to ... you know exist and already be a real thing first, for that to make sense.

It does explain why Paul does not mention some very key elements of the narrative of the Gospels: He just had not actually read about or heard of those parts yet.

This creates some theological problems down the line, and some of those problems were 'remedied' by what a good deal of scholars and historians believe to be forgeries... chapters of the Bible that modern Christians attribute to Paul, but do not seem to actually have been written by Paul.

It is also possible to some of the empty tomb accounts in some of the Gospels as similar kinds of trauma induced hallucinations.

Mark famously originally just ends with an empty tomb, and nobody said anything about this because they were scared... and then the last bit of verses giving Mark a more satisfying ending have been shown to be added ... decades later.

sp3tr4l ,

I thought Paulogia's minimum witnesses argument is basically that Paul could have hallucinated, and that those who witnessed an empty tomb basically did see an empty tomb, but circumstantial confusion led them to misinterpret what they saw?

I'll have to rewatch some of his vids.

Also, hey, Goju Ryu! I trained in Shito Ryu =D

sp3tr4l OP , (edited )

What game involves super human perfect timing that does not include some other kind of puzzle to be solved?

Fighting games? Micro Heavy RTS or MOBAs? Bullet Hell Shooters?

All of these have strategy and can thus be reduced to puzzles.

I suppose if a game was purely just, click button as fast as you can after something happens, then ok, you got me, but add even one more element, and technically this is an extremely simple puzzle, albeit brutally unforgiving in terms of getting your human body to solve the puzzle.

Is there something different you have in mind?

EDIT: Alkheemist answered this later, with rhythm games (that have no elements of strategy ie, GuitarHero is not a puzzle but NecroDancer still is). I agree those are not puzzles. Skipped my mind as I have not played one in a very long time.

I would say you also have got me on a pure RNG slot game. Theres no gameplay, theres no puzzle, theres no strategy.

At least, within the game itself. If youre going to somehow exploit or hack or something, arguably thats now a real world puzzle of how to do it and not go to jail, but excepting that... yeah, there are lots of online 'games' with literally no puzzle element, just do thing and then random output happens, with a bunch of flashy graphics that have 0 bearing on what the outcome will be, whether its a digitized horse race or slots or whatever.

I would argue those are not really games though.

The player cannot make any choice that is more or less likely to achieve the goal, thus its the illusion of a game. No meaningful choices.

sp3tr4l OP , (edited )

Is Portal a... First Person Shooter with Puzzle Gameplay? A First Person Puzzle Game?

Is Elden Ring an extremely difficult Action RPG, or is it really just an easy Action RPG hiding behind an opaque and complex system of weapons and armor and enemy types and stats that becomes simple once a viable solution to the puzzle of stats and weapons becomes apparent after either reading a guide or just brute forcing through tens or hundreds of hours of bad solutions?

(For that matter, what even is an RPG?

Role Playing Game?

If that just means that you play a character, ie role, and it is an immersive and or compelling story and world, ok, thats a loooot of games.

Does it mean you can customize your character's appearance or weapons or stat-build? Ok tons of non RPGs allow for that, and tons of classic RPGs do not allow you to alter your character's appearance.

If it means you have the ability to put yourself into the game, make choices and do things differently in a way that meaningfully changes how the world of the game responds, then a whole lot of 'RPGs' are hardly RPGs at all, as many develop your character(s) as part of their story line to the point that many decisions presented seem entirely out of the established character's likely responses, or give the player few if any impactful choices, having a mostly or entirely linear storyline.

By that metric most immersive sims are more RPG than many 'RPGs', anything with a branching storyline or highly reactive world is as well.)

sp3tr4l OP , (edited )

Puzzle games can be solved or "won" by identifying the solution. Not-puzzle games require execution.

If you have 2 minutes to solve a puzzle, is it no longer a puzzle game?

If moving certain colored pieces requires a button combo or sequence, instead of a simple action, is this no longer a puzzle game?

EDIT:

Also, by this logic, Tetris is not a puzzle game.

...but knowing the optimal thing to do will still not give you victory which imo disqualifies them as outright puzzle games.

Knowing the optimal thing to do can be seen as but a higher order puzzle.

sp3tr4l OP ,

By your definition, Tetris is not a puzzle game.

Its generated and execution difficulty is a major factor.

sp3tr4l OP ,

A very simple puzzle which our brains and bodies usually perform automatically, yet there are quite a number of situations and conditions that make breathing significantly more difficult, or where precise breathing or certain ways of breathing are skills that require mastery.

Swimming, diving, circular breathing for wind instruments, controlling your breathing while shooting, trying to calm yourself down from a panic attack, etc etc.

sp3tr4l OP ,

I will grant you that, I agree.

If there is no thought required to determine the difference between a correct and incorrect choice, if its purely just 'do this' and the only difficulty is in execution, then yes I would agree this is not a puzzle.

sp3tr4l OP ,

You think that pushing a button that generates a purely random outcome is a game?

To me, those are neither games nor puzzles.

There is nothing one can do, in terms of thought or execution, to influence the outcome.

Other than I suppose choosing to play or not play.

To me, a game must include some capacity of the player to influence whether they succeed or fail, within the game itself.

sp3tr4l OP ,

Depends on how the combo works. Is there an element of skill involved? If it's like a rhythm game I would just call it a puzzle/rhythm game. Otherwise it's just a puzzle game with extra steps.

That was in my OP though, that most games can be thought of as puzzle games with extra steps.

EDIT: I would agree that Tetris is not a puzzle game.

This is quite interesting to me.

My main point of this post is to highlight how the genres and categories we have for games breaks down upon examination and I guess changes over time.

I would say that most people either have or would call Tetris basically the most popular puzzle game.

When it came out it was basically the titular, archetypal 'puzzle' game.

sp3tr4l OP ,

I like this answer too!

sp3tr4l ,

Yeah, it comes from debuffs, which was applied to early FPS games when a gun was debuffed, which made the bullets hit less like bullets and more like nerf darts.

This gun used to take a guy out in 2 body shots and now its 5, like I'm shooting with a nerf gun!

Then the term spread around to non FPS games.

sp3tr4l ,

I'm going to M A N I F E S T my problems away!

It is amazing to me that millions of idiots whole heartedly believe in some variant of magic/placebo/prayer/astrology, some very slightly different version of it becomes popular when someone figures out some new lingo that sounds neat, and can lie convincingly in a video.

sp3tr4l ,

Ive been calling this the reverse turing test:

Can you tell that a known human being is not an 'AI' chatbot, based on text correspondence?

Apparently we are now just going to have AI simulacra of ourselves date each other on dating apps and meet with each other on zoom.

The meeting thing in particular is so fucking insane.

Problem: Meetings waste time and accomplish nothing!

Solution: Don't hire or train competent people, instead, automate meetings, the transcripts of which will presumably still have to be read, and will likely not make any sense, thus necessitating more meetings.

The goal of technological civilization apparently truly is to create maximum misery via maximizing meetings.

sp3tr4l , (edited )

Dear sweet christ, I've been the manager of a medium sized non profits databases (everything other than finance because they're special, as in using an overpriced wacky proprietary tool because they are used to it, oh and probably commiting fraud) and, as the author references, I have actually had one of the members of the board get a bunch of other people with 0 technical competence to try to get me to 'implement blockchain technology' on postgres.

Non of those fucking morons could ever provide an actual project outline. None of these fucking morons even knew their own teams processes, and they would all change depending on team member asked and date.

Not relevant to this story, but basically I am now disabled and living off of SSDI after being assaulted and seriously injured.

I am 99% sure, after years of working with completely technically incompetent managers, I am never going to work in tech again.

I would literally rather be poor, do uber eats delivery when I feel like it, and slowly build a video game, by myself, not even to make money, just to give my tech brain something to sate it.

I am too autistic to be able to handle the constant stream of bullshit and social manipulation/pressure from everywhere I have ever worked.

sp3tr4l , (edited )

Hold on , I'll edit this when I find a link.

Edit:

Ok, so here is OpenAI wanting to make... well basically it seems to want to have not only an AI agent in a text support chatbox telling you how to fix a problem...

...but give it the ability to completely take over your computer and just do it for you, presumably via Remote Assistance and whatever the Mac equivalent is.

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/openai-plans-chatgpt-supersmart-assistant-135029243.html?guccounter=1

No way this could go wrong and lead to fake support sites just fucking writing a batch file and executing it in the blink of an eye.

Then we've got both Zoom and Otter who yes, straight up, want to build AI powered avatars, based on each employee/user and replace the human entirely in meetings.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/zoom-s-ceo-wants-a-manipulatable-ai-avatar-of-you-to-attend-meetings-instead/ar-BB1nGO5m

https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/could-ai-personas-attend-your-work-meetings-for-you-one-tech-ceo-says-yes-and-by-the-end-of-the-year/articleshow/107797330.cms

Fuck the infinite paper clip making machine, we are intentionally trying to make the infinite meeting machine.

sp3tr4l ,

I so very hope this idiot asshole winds up either jailed and/or has his wealth severely diminished and most of his businesses fail from being unable to repay loans / convicted of fraud.

He's the closest person on earth to becoming Horatio from the Endless series, yet he's also basically a badly written Bond villain.

What a pos.

sp3tr4l , (edited )

This would happen in a just world.

It won't though.

Reminds me of the recent millionaire guy who got lambasted on YT (i think his actual posts were on TikTok?).

Guys, I am going to lock up my money, my phone have no contacts and go to a new city and start from nothing and earn a million dollars in 30 or 90 days or something.

Whoah big surprise, a few weeks in he has to call the whole thing off for health reasons.

OMG he got robbed? Lost his paper work and thus couldn't get the right aid? The shelters are full? Sleeping outside in a city is extremely dangerous and unhealthy? Your hygiene suffers? No one talks to you or treats you like a human being?

In a just world we'd put the income tax levels back to around FDR levels and thus be able to actually fund social programs and eliminate a great deal of the wealthy's massive over representation in politics.

Instead it looks like we will be making a b-line toward theocratic corporatocracy.

Blargh.

Edit: Income and Corporate tax levels.

sp3tr4l ,

possibly because it could be easily confused with 'fix this shit'?

Who knows, theres no real rhyme or reason to how lingo evolves, somethings get popular, other don't others go through popularity waves and other totally change meaning.

For example, the origin of the phrase 'pull yourself up by your bootstraps' is, in its original context, meant to denote something that is obviously impossible.

You cant pull your feet up so hard you'll float or fly. Its like the modern nonsense propulsion/infinite energy memes from 4chan or plugging a power strip into itself to power it

But, nowadays, it means basically 'do something difficult and unpleasant', wíth the implication that 'i did it, so can you, if you cant or dont, there must be something wrong with you'.

Almost the opposite of its original meaning.

sp3tr4l , (edited )

To start off, put the gummi worms in a shaker, shake, collect the sour dust, snort.

Next, add the whiskey to the shaker, set aside

Dunk the bread in the McNuggies sauce, sprinkle on cocaine to taste.

Add weed, thin crackers and coffee beans to grinder, grind thoroughly. Take the brie and your ground up spices, work them into each other as if you were making meatballs.

Eat this raw.

Ok, now vomit into the condoms.

Now that the appetizer is done with, grab handfulls of the other cheeses, salami, prosciutto and McNuggies, and just stuff it into your face as if you were eating popcorn.

Now that you've been thoroughly fucked by this culinary experience, finish it off with the drink you set aside earlier, which should hopefully be a lovely semi congealed glass of gummi whiskey.

sp3tr4l ,

Hey, I'll take it haha!

Unfortunately my default joke state is basically dad jokes and puns, but my life has been so utterly absurd that I can basically just reference some insane nonsense that's happened to me in the past somewhat indirectly, and most people just think I'm creatively making a joke.

In seriousness, I have found that more conventional charcuterie boards are a pretty cost effective, while also decently fancy first kind of at someone's place date, if presented well.

I've done this multiple times and it has worked every time, and almost every time I'll be told this is extremely adorable and no one has ever done this for them...

...Then I find out, a year or two or three into the relationship, oh god, this person I love is extremely abusive, takes me for granted, and is astoundingly irresponsible.

So I guess just hand me both of those whiskeys, neat, please.

sp3tr4l ,

I appreciate the sentiment, very truly.

Hah, my entire patriarchal lineage is massive alcoholics, so I actually drink alcohol very rarely, maybe a few times a year.

I have managed to never get addicted to the stuff or become abusive from it, I'm basically just an absurdly lightweight drinker.

Two whiskeys like in this pic in a row and I'd be stumbling. Two more soon after and I'd be slurring and stumbling.

Or, the optimistic take on that is I can get a double shot of bourbon and nurse it for 4 to 6 hours and be enjoyable buzzed the whole time haha.

Maybe someday I'll find somebody, but right now I'm quite happy single.

Maybe a few years go by and I'll try again haha.

Either way, cheers mate, probst, etc.

sp3tr4l ,

<3

sp3tr4l , (edited )

Hey, I'm from the other thread, and I'm using Thunder on mobile... seeing as I ended up blocking MindTraveller to keep my blood pressure at a reasonable level, thus preventing me from seeing that whole comment chain and replying to you in that thread... and ... I don't seem to be able to initiate a dm on Thunder? Maybe because your account is based in another instance?

Just wanted to reply to you here.

Thank you. I'm 35, queer autistic man, and I somehow seem to be the most left leaning person I know IRL at nearly all times of my life, and I actually put my... boots where my ideology is, worked at non profits, volunteered, actually do the mutual aid thing.

But somehow, online, theres always somebody who in their mind is the perfect embodiment of the progressive advocate, the perfect member of society who... fairly obviously is either extremely privileged, or terminally online to the point of delusion, and they will have no problem telling you that actually you're a pos because they have a whole fun world view that answers every question even though it bears little resemblance to reality, and your reality informed views do not align with this.

Cest la vie, thats just how things go.

Thanks again for your kind words, and I guess apologies to the mods, if someone could explain to me how to dm another user on Thunder, I'd appreciate it.

sp3tr4l , (edited )

Thanks, truly.

(Hey, I'm being so sincere right now =P)

((See other reply to your other comment))

Best wishes to your cats.

What is a good second career?

The wife and I are getting older. We have been working for decades at this point. But we are too young to retire, and we had kids late. But one of us could totally switch over to a lower stress second career. Ideally something with benefits, maybe even a chance to get a pension. And since we still have kids, needs to be...

sp3tr4l ,

Ah yes, spend your golden years getting expensive certs for the low stress job of cybersecurity.

Are you high?

sp3tr4l , (edited )

I have had multiple people in my life tell me that it is irresponsible to not have my phone on, 24/7, in case they need to message me about something.

These are the same people who get angry anytime I message them and they are busy, but also get angry if I am busy and don't immediately reply to them.

I've been woken up so many times at 2 am...

At least in my life, its quite common for people to be hypocritical douchebags.

sp3tr4l ,

If God's favorite cooking oil is petroleum, a comedian's favorite cooking oil would be castor oil.

sp3tr4l , (edited )

The augmented Carlos Hathcock set up, redesigned with ergonomics in mind.

sp3tr4l ,

I think it was ABC that just showed a poll saying 15% of independents would be more likely to vote for Trump if he's a convicted felon, 8% less likely, and 74% indifferent.

So uh, at least amongst independent voters, no, apparently being a felon does not matter that much.

sp3tr4l ,

Not a thing I can, but I once knew a person who could make their eyes go anti-crosseyed, as in left eye looking far left, right eye looking far right, away from their nose.

sp3tr4l ,

Oh hey, I can do that too!

sp3tr4l ,

Wtf lol, malfunctioning bot.

sp3tr4l , (edited )

I go with Fancy Fox Gaming's chill game music compilations on YT.

Its calm music from various rpgs and farming sim kind of games. SNES era sounds, roughly.

What song should I play for my bathroom neighbors?

The work bathroom is currently a warzone, on their phone speakers people like to play music, play games at full blast, and one guy likes to chill to ambient rainforest. What song can I play to passive aggressively make it known that I don't want to listen to their tik tok feeds while I work out my demons?

sp3tr4l , (edited )

Hockey Scores.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VbZMnF1VNlE&pp=ygUXaG9ja2V5IHNjb3JlcyBtZW1lIHNvbmc%3D

Ideally, start multiple looping instances of the song, at between 0.5 to 2.0 second delays.

Edit: Or, the Terrifying Tiny Tim rendition of Tiptoe Through The Tulips.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zcSlcNfThUA&pp=ygUYdGlwdG9lIHRocm91Z2ggdGhlIHR1bGlw

Why do people throw out old motors, bicycles, anything metal into rivers and lakes instead of a junk yard or the trash system?

I have been watching magnet fishing and people love to toss stuff over bridges without a second thought on the environmental impact. Hiding evidence I can almost understand but not lawnmowers, car batteries, etc....

sp3tr4l ,

I mean, I believe those studies, but I've also been homeless, been through shelters and camps and have known people who would just toss their broken shit into the woods or a river, whether it legitimately be theirs, or if they stole it.

Obviously not all homeless people do this, but some of them do.

This kind of stuff is usually the most visible to your average joe... so its not accurate to say it does not happen.

But at the same time, its likely that at a more grand societal level, those studies are fairly accurate.

I would be interested if the methodologies of those studies even took into account the homeless population.

Homeless people are kind of notoriously difficult to study or survey, as they are often migratory, have no... you know, permanent residence, and often do not want to be bothered.

sp3tr4l ,

A person working min wage and sharing a studio is actually highly likely to engage in illegal dumping. Ive known many people in my life who've done so because theyre too broke to afford a visit to the dump, both in monetary and wasted time terms.

sp3tr4l ,

Throw it all into volcanoes?

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • kbinchat
  • All magazines