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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: September 1st, 2023

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  • I’m not quite sure what the advantage of doing it that way is

    If I had to guess, it just kept the programmers from being super lazy about it. If the individual enemy AI doesn’t have exact coordinates of the player, it actually has to move around, search a space, potentially manipulate the environment, and possibly fail to find the player, versus doing what is effectively an idle animation while waiting for the player to step out of cover.





  • Bari Weiss is a disgusting hack, and laughably unqualified, but being a news outlet editor is way more complicated than just rubber stamping factual reporting. Editors allocate resources - from writers and photographers/crews to even start a story, to how the front page is divvied up, how stories are promoted, how many column inches (or words, or minutes) a topic gets.

    Point being that there are definitely feelings involved. Even if it’s one story is more interesting than another, or we’ve covered this topic more than enough lately, or this story is factual but not adding anything new, etc. etc. etc. It’s a hard job, and more subjective than you’d think, so I don’t blame her for being defensive when she’s literally the worst editor to ever hold a national news desk down.






  • I do think no matter what reforms we do in schools, the subject being the most interesting / stimulating thing currently available must help a lot.

    We are getting to a point where we need to rethink how we teach to be more resistant to technological distractions. Students would be more stimulated by topics they are interested in and pursuing interests doesn’t stop when the school day ends. Instead, kids are bored all day and naturally looking to relieve that boredom by focusing on passive videos or social media.

    If we make the classroom reward being self-driven and passionate in an environment mirroring the real world (with guardrails provided by schools) we’d get driven, passionate students ready to operate in reality.

    … Of course, we’d probably have to have motivated teachers that give a damn, kill toxic social media, and abolish capitalism to keep kids from trying to make pragmatic, soul crushing decisions to make money over interests but, well, I’m willing to make that sacrifice.


  • I bounced off Stalker 2 at launch because of bugs, but revisited earlier this year and had a ton of fun with the 90% of the game that is open world scavenging, stealth and combat. The only thing that sucks are some of the boss fights.

    Nothing takes me out of being a sneaky, resourceful Stalker more than being forced to drop into an arena, or have a door magically lock behind me, and not being able to advance the story without either beating some bullet sponge or reloading a save from an hour before to change my load out/get more ammo etc and redo it.

    I wish they would take more of a Deus Ex approach, where you can action hero your way through if you want, but with some clever/thorough playing you could significantly nerf the boss fights. The game even pretends to do this, but ultimately your choices have no bearing on the bosses.








  • My dad likes Dire Straits, Clapton, The Police, Tracy Chapman, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison. I know a few more from what he’s told me later in life, but those were the casettes/CDs he had around when I was a kid.

    When I was a teen I tried to introduce him to the Pixies, but he looked like I was making his ears bleed.

    It was my mom that introduced me to Pink Floyd though, which is really the only musical common ground I have with my parents (although I will definitely get whiskey drunk and belt out Dire Straits on occasion, or sing along to Orbison).


  • Imo’s in St. Louis is my favorite overall. Thin, crispy crust, square cut, Provel as the base cheese. It scratches an itch that all other pizzas don’t. I’d eat it 7 days a week if I could, hot or cold.

    I’ve had pizzas with superior ingredients, made in fancy ovens, served with wine instead of cold beer, but if I could get any pizza right now, it’d be Imo’s black olive or veggie pizza.