blindsight

@blindsight@beehaw.org

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Facebook Is Auto-Generating Militia Group Pages as Extremists Continue to Organize in Plain Sight⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Project 2025 includes a detailed plan about how to dismantle the entire Federal government and replace thousands of government managers with alt-right extremists.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Facebook Is Auto-Generating Militia Group Pages as Extremists Continue to Organize in Plain Sight⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Project 2025 matches most of his campaign promises and is written largely by former Trump administration staffers.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Facebook Is Auto-Generating Militia Group Pages as Extremists Continue to Organize in Plain Sight⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The ultra-wealthy are terrified of reprisal from Trump. And they control the media (Bezos/WP) and social media (Zuck).

  Democracy in America may fail next week. Terrifying to watch.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Y=-x²⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Should have used the title to figure out the reading order. Would have saved me a lot of wasted mental effort. Brilliant.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What Ireland New Safety Code for Video-Sharing Sites Means for YouTube, Meta and Tiktok⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I worry that age verification will backfire spectacularly; users can just tunnel their traffic through a VPN and then once on a VPN, they would also miss all harmful content blocking. Middle schoolers can figure out how to get around school web filters, and they, and everyone else, will figure their way around age verification just as easily.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Let's discuss: Uplifting Games⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  A friend of mine has (had?) most of the world records in Sayonara Wild Hearts; it’s not as relaxing if you’re going for high scores since you need to get close to collisions for bonus points, but if you just play to beat levels and chill, it’s great.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Let's discuss: Uplifting Games⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Brilliant. I should do that. I’m not great at skipping stuff to race faster, so the skull dungeon is really hard for me and I end up save scumming after most runs. I read about people getting to floor 200+, but I can barely get to 100 unless I waste a whole stack of staircases.

  Pausing time would make it a lot more relaxing.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Let's discuss: Uplifting Games⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I just read the top review on Steam and it answered this question well: TL;DR it’s a shame this is a F2P game since the seasonal cosmetic FOMO is diametrically opposed to the message/spirit of the game, but if you can ignore the cosmetics, then it’s a fantastic experience that’s completely free.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨PC Gamer: The top 100 PC games⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Interesting seeing Hotline Miami make the list subs I just watched a short video essay the other day explaining how OTXO is just a better game in basically every way.

  I’m still in the 80s working my way down the list, but I searched and OTXO doesn’t appear to be on the page.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Recommend me your favorite linear games!⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Portal Pro I remember being great. So good that Portal 2 was a disappointment for me when it landed.

  I needed to cheat on a few solutions, iirc, too; not because they’re badly designed, just because I couldn’t wrap my head around the solution.

  It should be noted that a couple of the portal solutions need reasonably quick portal placement, so I don’t think it would be as good without KB+mouse. It took me a few tries to nail one of the techniques.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why 'free' proprietary software will always end in tears⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  … Or pay them for it!

  There’s a prolific open-source dev that makes many plugins and themes for a widely-used OSS platform. He’s quite open when asked for new features of it’s something he’s already planning on doing anyway (with no guarantee timeline) or if it’s not. But if it’s a reasonable ask, he’ll always mention that he can prioritise its development if they fund it. He even posts his current contractor rate; it’s quite transparent.

  I think more OSS devs should be more open like that. “Yes, I can do that feature request. Sounds like about 2-3 hours work. My hourly is $120 for correct work. Email me here if you’re interested and I’ll send a contract.”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Space Nazis⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  It looks more like a ladle (“dipper”) than a bear (“Ursa major”) to me. Always made more sense to me.

  It’s a stretch to say a pair of quadrilaterals with sticks look like a bear family, imho.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The British government is transferring sovereignty of an island in the Indian Ocean to Mauritius next week, potentially impacting the existence of the .io domain.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Canada uses gc.ca for federal government sites, and I think every province gets their own, too, like .bc.ca (but I don’t know if they all use them.)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Rockstar Games DDoSed Heavily By Players Protesting New AntiCheat Code⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Cheaters can load code before the kernel, so it supercedes kernel-level detection. There’s really no stopping client-side cheating, just ways to make it harder.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Do I really need DOCSIS 3.1 modem?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Wireless game streaming is another reason to upgrade WiFi. I couldn’t stream anything from my wired desktop to my Steam Deck on WiFi from the ISP-supplied router. I just finished upgrading to a WiFi mesh network partly because of that… but I haven’t tested game streaming yet.

  I expect it should do great, though. My Fire Stick used to occasionally buffer even with ~1.5GB/hr content, but I just tried a 1080p remux at 15GB/hr and it worked great.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Nintendo and Pokémon are suing Palworld maker Pocketpair⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  They also sold 5 million copies in 3 days, and who knows how many copies since then. They can afford to pay good IP lawyers for a long time, if needed.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨TIL I can restore games on Steam, which I removed years ago⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Right, but Steam still let’s people who own delisted games download and play them forever. (Well, assuming they’re not live service games with no servers, but that’s not a Valve problem.)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Let's discuss: Monster Hunter⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I have a slightly different perspective as someone just starting Rise as my first ever experienced with this series.

  Holy shit, the tutorials are terrible. Massive info dump walls of text explaining too many systems at once, cryptic earning messages to confirm you want to dismiss the tutorials are extra confusing… And despite the massive info dumping, they don’t even tell you everything you need to know to complete the tutorial missions as you complete them. When you go to trap your first monster, there’s no tooltip to teach you how to use items in the “how to trap” explanation or NPC dialogue.

  And no ability to pause in a singleplayer game? I googled some explanation about pause being on one of the menus, but I couldn’t find it. Thankfully, suspending the game on a Steam Deck pauses it, so it’s playable.

  Also, why was I given massively OP equipment and piles of loot just for logging in? The entire early game is now so easy that it’s not fun. I’m only 3 tutorials + 1 “real” mission into the game, so I’m going to try starting over without the EZ-mode loot and give it a second chance, but so far, I’m not impressed.

  If I’d bought this through Steam, I’d have refunded it already before the 2-hour playtime window closed.

  TL;DR: Terrible new-player onboarding has me questioning if I sound push through.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Moneyless Harvest Moon-type game?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Grow: Song of the Evertree has lots of crafting materials, but no money. I haven’t played it much, but it mostly seems to be about gathering daily to grow the Evertree, then using the resources to expand the town.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨PoE 2, lets goo⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I haven’t been following PoE2 very closely, but I hope it plays well on Steam Deck. If it plays well, then I’m going to play the hell out of this…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If you liked secret of mana or link to the past - Alabaster Dawn Reveal Trailer⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I just looked it up and I already own it from the Itch.io Bundle for Ukraine. I should play it sometime! Also on sale on GOG rn at a historical low price DRM-free.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨EU Citizen's initiative to pass legislation to stop game publishers disabling games we paid for⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I think that’s fine, tbh. Not as many customers will pay $80+ for a subscription. Then companies that sell games with more ethical business models will be more competitive, too.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨After 20 Years, ROMhacking.net Moves to News Only, Database and File Archive Released to Internet Archive⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It seems like the Archive.org .zip dump’s “size” is just 12580366816. I assume that’s bytes, which is only 12½ GB. That seems way too small to include all the romhacks, doesn’t it? I thought a lot created assets and HD textures and such. But that also seems like way too much to just be website data, and most hacks are tiny files.

  Does anyone know what’s in that data dump? I’m tempted to download everything, even though I’d only ever use a miniscule percentage of it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨For a belated celebration of Tetris' 40th birthday, here's a highly partisan look back at Tetris DS⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I had completely forgotten about the quest mode and tetronimo ball mode.

  I’ve long-ago lost (or sold, maybe?) all my original DS stuff, but it’s nice how cheap and easy it is to buy a used DSi/DS Lite and then get a flash cart or soft mod. I should pull it out and play it again. Highly recommended as a console; the DS has lots of timeless games.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why are US states, school districts banning smartphones in schools?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Three actual analysis itself makes it clear that the research specifically on cell phone bans is lacking. In particular, of the 1317 studies, only 22 were relevant, more than half of which were Master Degree research projects, not peer-reviewed studies. It’s fair that the evidence for cell phone bans in schools is inconclusive, but that’s because there isn’t enough quality reach yet to draw conclusions.

  I was actually referring above to studies on cell phones in general for task success, non-specific to schools.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Big Bird⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Can confirm. I measured on my screen, estimating the trunk length extended, and it’s about 6 cm trunk to tail (or 2⅜" in the US).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why are US states, school districts banning smartphones in schools?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  You’re missing the point entirely, I think.

  If you want to learn about the research, Jonathan Haidt’s book includes links to studies on the effects of cell phones. I don’t have time to find the curtains for you right now, but you can look there if you want to learn more.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why are US states, school districts banning smartphones in schools?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s a shame your child’s teacher used the tool incorrectly. That was unprofessional of them.

  If it helps, there are people like me running training sessions for educators to let them know what LLMs are (and are not) capable of. The main point I was pushing this year was that LLMs don’t know or understand anything. “The I in LLM stands for Intelligence.”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why are US states, school districts banning smartphones in schools?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  By age 16, there’s reason to think that youth can handle the addictive nature of what phones, with support. Same for adults.

  That said, yes, we probably should make dark patterns illegal, in general.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why are US states, school districts banning smartphones in schools?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Smart phones in pockets being a problem is supported by robust psychology research. People do the worst at tasks when phones are on the desk in front of them, worse when phones are in their pockets, and best when phones are left in another room even if the devices are turned off, in all cases. It’s even worse if phones are on even without any sort of notification, like vibration. (And, obviously, notifications make things increasingly terrible.)

  The research is not at all unclear or anecdotal; it is very strong. Phones are damaging to attention, task completion, and learning. This is established; the only disagreement is to the degree of the effect.

  Re: phones in “class”, I think we’re misunderstanding each other due to terminology. Here, “a class” means a single instruction period. I thought you were for banning use during instruction time, but against phones being fully banned at school, but if you mean “class” to be the entire time from first bell to last bell, then we’re in agreement. No smart phones at all during school hours would be a good step.

  Hopefully, that might also make parents more aware of the damage smart phones are causing and support a societal move away from giving youth addiction machines.