Codex

Nice! I’m playing through TP2 right now and it’s great fun, though I did enjoy the mystery of the first more I think. How many laser puzzles does a person need in life though?

Chicle isn’t the only natural chewable by the way. Many resins can be jawed on for a while, I’m very fond of chewing mastic resin. Mastic comes from Greece, and has a piney taste when you’ve chewed it for a while.

I first heard of it from Joel Spolsky’s blog and wikipedia also credits that article with popularizing the concept. In it’s original formulation, it was based on remote procedure calls being hidden in APIs. Because a remote computer call has all these limits of latency, packet/info loss, and possible connection loss, it is impossible to make a perfect abstraction that allows the programmer to treat the remote call as though it were local. The reality the abstraction tries to hide “leaks” in those fundamental limits.

All of contemporary global society is such an abstraction; that’s one of the principles of post-modernism. When you buy clothes online an entire invisible work force of shippers, manufacturers, resource procurerers, and more lies beind each article of fabric.

Pressure from climate change, tariffs, global war, and more are straining the foundations of society and the comfortable abstraction is starting to crack.

The dip in usage comes just as Microsoft has been forcing full-screen ads onto the machines of customers running Windows 10 to encourage them to upgrade.

Yeah no shit! When my computer does full-screen, disruptive things that I didn’t tell it to do, I figure out how to remove that malware. I’ve been off Windows at home for about a month now, thanks Linux Mint! Getting some games to work has been challenging, but most things have just worked and quite a few work much better!

Performance is up overall, and my confidence that my computer isn’t running a bunch of secret ad and spy ware is way up. Hardware like my gamepad and microphone would randomly disconnect and have issues on Windows, all working perfectly now.

Unfortunately I’m still deep in MS land for work, but there’s almost a comedic quality to it. Everything’s very slow, everyone has constant issues with Teams, or Office online, or Dynamics, or copilot shoving it’s tendrils into everything. Watching businesses struggle to keep operating in the face of Microsoft’s inadequacy is like being a mechanic watching a motor grind to a halt because the owner/manufacturer replaced all the oil with syrup.

Like yes, it’s my problem to fix, but I’m just glad it’s not my car.

I had in some ways the opposite 23&Me experience and goals. My parents told me growing up that I had some small native ancestry. This is actually a common myth many Americans have either been told or somehow deluded themselves into believing.

So I did the DNA testing (which I now regret from all the obvious enshittification and privacy reasons) to prove that my ancestry was boring and predictable. Which it was, no indigenous ancestry, just the expected European countries that my great grandparents came from.

They also do a lot of nice health screening things and I think that’s probably the much more valuable aspect of it. It really is very American that people are so much more concerned with what DNA says about one’s race or ethnicity than about their health and wellbeing.

Every 5 minutes, at max volume:

YOUR CALL IS IMPORTANT TO US. ALL AVAILABLE OPERATORS ARE HELPING OTHER CUSTOMERS. PLEASE STAY ON THE LINE.

2 minutes later:

DID YOU KNOW IS WORKING TO SAVE CUSTOMERS LIKE YOU MONEY? UPGRADE YOUR PLAN TO ULTIMATE TODAY AND SAVE! YOU CAN ADD BASIC CABLE TO YOUR INTERNET PLAN FOR FREE FOR 3 MONTHS. MAKE ANY SOUND AT ALL TO LEAVE THE SUPPORT QUEUE AND SPEAK WITH A NEW ACCOUNT SPECIALIST RIGHT AWAY.

returns to playing compressed elevator music through an old can

I visited Ecuador several years ago and got to chew on coca leaves, but they also had coca leaf candies! Both were excellent for helping with altitude sickness, and I really enjoyed the flavor. Had a gentle mood lifting effect too, like a nice cup of tea, but in the form of chewed cud, haha.

I was wondering why HW3 was “controversial” and apparently I didn’t realize:

1. It’s been released.
2. It’s worse than the first 2
3. Because Gearbox is publishing it!

Thanks Randy! Fucking grease weasel ruins another great franchise.

“Yeah man, I’m fluent, says so on my CV!”

“But it just says ‘Fluent’. Fluent in what?”

“What do you got?”

It’s because they ruined Linux! Damn Linux users!

My big brained billionaire coyote boyfriend wants to invite a roadrunner into the mix but I haven’t worked through my feelings about casual polyamory yet and also I am a ghost bigfoot

Neon White was my suggestion as well. Ultrakill is fun but is going for a more Devil May Cry style game where score and style matter significantly.

Neon White i found a little confusing at first until I got the feel of it. Its a movement puzzle game, with some shooting. Precision and repetition are key to learning the levels and beating them quickly, and once you get into its groove, time flies by. For being a time-challenge game, I find it surprisingly relaxing and forgiving.

I agree with the general sentiment, I don’t think friendship is lesser, but I’d like to see an example of a healthy romance that doesn’t involve friendship.

I don’t know who really got that trend going. I’ve enjoyed up to hour-ish long videos on more or less anything, but a few years back the first truly excessively long video I remember is Whitelight’s 7 hour long overview/miniseries on Death Stranding. And to be fair, I did find that faster and more enjoyable than playing Death Stranding.

(Also I get why folks make them: more ads plus having that much watch time heavily biases the algorithm towards you so it’s more money overall. And the kind of person that watches 7 hour long reviews in the background (or while sleeping), aka me, certainly help weigh the scales for super long videos.)

But also, I kind of like when shorts are like a minute long or less so I can watch one when I’m like, on the shitter and not accidentally end up with a video essay. I mean 10 minutes used to be the limit of every youtube video! Will they introduce a new, even shorter format? Bring vines or blips back?

Alright, I split the differance, I think that should make everyone happy.

Can’t wait for 10 hour long reviews of Elden Ring, BUT VERTICALE AND LOOPS NOW!?!

I guess assembler is sumerien then, only still written and understood? And cobol or fortran? Linear a and b?

This person isn’t one of my usual YT watches, but I really enjoyed this overview of The Crow related media. I had no idea the series ran so deep, or had so much nasty Weinstein influence.

Its a shame, there’s so much potential in this series that our media apparatus is systematically incapable of making good on.

It’ll have no trouble meeting my expectations, because I expect that Bethesda today can’t make a good game so I expect it to be shiiiiiiit!

But also, fuck Bethesda and this “lower your expectations” bullshit. No Todd, it isn’t impossible to please your fans. No Todd, it isn’t impossible to make a good AAA game. No Todd, it isn’t a burden or a problem to have millions of fans who have high expectations for you.

If you can’t cut it, fucking quit and hand the reins over to someone with fresh ideas, someone who’s still hungry and still wants to make good things.

People in times of desperate oppression and violence rarely turn to the uncaring vastness of the chaotic universe for comfort.