JCPhoenix

@JCPhoenix@beehaw.org

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Blacksky Is Nothing Like Black Twitter—and It Doesn’t Need to Be⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Ah fair point. Yeah, I rarely look at political content on YouTube, Instagram, and even Bluesky. Mainly because I use my real name on these platforms.

  I reserve that for reddit, Lemmy, Tildes, and Mastodon, where I use screennames. And Mastodon doesn’t have an algorithm.

  On Twitter, I did engage in political content, even with my real name, but I largely stopped using Twitter daily years ago. I went from tweeting regularly, to only lurking, and just maybe once or twice a week at that. By the end, I was checking maybe once a month. The Twitter algorithm probably didn’t have enough info on me, given my weak activity levels.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Blacksky Is Nothing Like Black Twitter—and It Doesn’t Need to Be⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Same. And I am a racial minority (though not black, so that may color things…excuse the unintentional pun). That said, on Mastodon, I almost mainly interact with the people on my instance. And it’s small. There’s probably only a core group of like 50 active individuals, and I’m one of them. So there I’m not surprised I don’t see racism.

  Interestingly, I have the same experience on even the proprietary social media sites. I was on Twitter from 2009 to 2023. I can’t say I was ever served up far-right content by the algorithms. I’m still on YouTube; same experience. Same on Instagram. Same on Bluesky.

  I’m not trying to discount other people’s experiences, and I’ve seen the horrible tweets referenced in news articles and reddit comments and such. So I know it exists, but why am I not being served this content, while so many others apparently are? I mean, I’m OK with not getting far right wing content, lol. Leave me out of it! Makes my online life easier and more enjoyable. But it’s just odd.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Donald Trump Team Plans to Cancel Biden's $7,500 Tax Incentive On EVs⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Oh god, please no. I need some eyebleach.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of November 3rd⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Over on another reddit/beehaw-like site, there’s a “Backlog Burner” event. Basically playing games in one’s games backlog during the month on November. And boy do I have a backlog.

  I started with This War of Mine. I didn’t play very long, nearly 1.5hrs. It wasn’t bad. I think I just got bored. I might go back to it at some point? We’ll see. It’s just slow to start and not a lot of direction. I’m kinda the type that at least in the beginning of a game, I’m gonna need a little direction and a push.

  For the second game I’ve played so far, I tried Signalis. Now THAT is an awesome game. So far anyway; only about 3hrs in. I will say, I don’t normally like playing horror/suspense games like this. I’m too much of a wuss. But Signalis has kept me hooked. I’ll only play for like 20-30min at a time, before my nerves start getting to me (lol), but I do keep going back.

  Otherwise, just playing FFXIV as usual. And also finishing up Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Spirit of Justice. Finally on the last case, “Turnabout Time Traveler.”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Humane slashes the price of its AI Pin after weak sales⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Jfc. Can’t, or rather won’t, refurbish? That’s beyond stupid.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Humane slashes the price of its AI Pin after weak sales⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah that’d be cool if the opened it up and recreate it as a platform for people to mess around with it. Like a rPi or Arduino or something. Because in it’s current form…pretty much useless. But you’re right; they’d have to drop that price point significantly and incentivize people even if it were open.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of October 20th⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Trying to finish up Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Spirt of Justice. I think I’m on the last case, so I can move on to the Ace Attorney: Investigations spin-offs after this. I’ve played all of these in the past on DS/3DS (except AA:I2), but that was years ago so some of these I don’t remember the cases and stories. Either way, I’m enjoying it. I don’t particularly love Visual Novels, but these kinds I do like.

  Picked up Metaphor: ReFantazio over the weekend. Only a few hours in, but it’s definitely got my attention. Cool to play a brand new JRPG IP. Definitely looking forward to getting deeper into it. I like that it uses the traditional JRPG turn-based battle system. I don’t mind active battle systems (a la FFXV and FFXVI), but I’m definitely a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to JRPGs. Plus I’m often just bad at active battle, ha.

  Friends also goaded me into getting the new Factorio: Space Age DLC. Even though I’ve had the base game for years, I don’t really play Factorio, preferring Satisfactory instead when I want to play Factory Sims, but I wanted to play with friends. Plus it’s a good chance for me to finally learn how to play this game and play efficiently.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of September 29th⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  So I’ve played a fair amount of the Settler games, as well as the more recent Anno entries: 2070, 2205, and 1800. I find those games super micromanage-y, especially the Anno games. But not stressful. Like in Anno, you can just kinda keep things on autopilot, not doing very much, and things will be OK (though the AIs might start getting stronger).

  Anyway, that’s a good take that Frostpunk is more of a puzzle game. I hadn’t considered that. If that’s the case, that might explain some of my, aversion. Because that parallels somewhat an experience I had with another game: Wargroove. I was looking at Wargroove as a TRPG/SRPG (akin to Fire Emblem or Final Fantasy Tactics), where I have wide latitude to execute my own strategies. So in Wargroove, I kept trying to do my own thing, but kept losing the level. It took me awhile to realize the game wanted me to complete the level its way, not my way. And that’s when I realized it was more of a puzzle game and less a strategy game. Which is weird, because I played Advance Wars as a kid. Though maybe it’s because I was a kid I didn’t realize it was a puzzle game at the time.

  It might be with Frostpunk that I’m doing something similar. Expecting a colony manager, a la Banished, but not seeing the puzzle game aspect. I’m making those narrative decisions based on nothing logical. Rather emotional: “Oh these kids are gonna starve! I better do this instead of helping the workers!”

  Thanks for this; this was helpful, for real!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of September 29th⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m about halfway through FP1 (I have the DLC). I want to go back and finish it, but like you said, it just kicks the shit out of you. It’s legitimately stressful for me to play it, so I’ve kinda been like “Ehhh…do I really wanna play right now?”

  But I am hoping to eventually complete it. Because FP2 does look interesting.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of September 29th⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Late to the party, but I finally picked up Helldivers 2. My friends have had it since it came out, but I was being the “hipster gamer” and didn’t get the popular game. Plus, our group has a tendency to do “flavor of the week”/FOMO gaming, where 1 or 2 people buy a new game, convince/guilt trip others into buying the game, we all spend $30-50 on it, play it for like 2 days, then never touch it again. So I was hesitant to get it, lest I get burned again (a la Starfield). Lastly, I’m also not a huge shooter player.

  But I wanted to played with the boys, and they were playing it again recently, so I picked it up. And I’m glad I did. Because it’s fun. Stupid fun even. Which is right up our alley. Already put 20hrs in over the last week.

  The mechanics are simple. The missions are straightforward. And I like that it’s a pickup/putdown game. Play a 20-40min round, then come back later or tomorrow. It’s not like we’re playing hours on end, which is great. We’ll play a match or two, then maybe do another before we start signing-off for the night.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨let's discuss: non major systems⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I had a Sega GameGear as a kid. Yeah it was a Sega system, which Sega was major back then, but the GameGear was nothing compared to the Gameboy. Very cool system, in that it had a full color screen and was backlit.

  Now that was at the expense of being heavy as all hell and a monster eater of AA batteries. 6 of them at at time!

  I think that was basically the only non-major system I had.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Let's discuss: Nintendo DS⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  My first DS was the DS Lite. I bought it when the game “Contact” came out. Played various JRPGs on it, as I’m wont to do with handhelds. IIRC, the DS Lite was backwards compatible with GBA carts, which was great. I loved the look, feel, and size of it. Honestly, DS Lite is probably my favorite Nintendo handheld, with the Switch a close second.

  After that, I think the next DS that I had was the 3DS. Which I still have; I even booted it up earlier this year to try to play “Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice.” I didn’t end up playing it on the 3DS, since I have that anthology on Steam, but I wanted to see where I was.

  Games or series that I played a lot on the DS line were practically all of the mainline Ace Attorney games, and even some of the spin offs like the Professor Layton crossover and AA:Investigations. Fire Emblem was another. I think I played Awakening, Fates, and Echoes. I played at least one Pokemon game, too.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Let's Discuss: Persona⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Huh didn’t know P1 and P2 were SMT games. Good to know. I’ve tried at least one entry in the SMT side and just could not get into it. Don’t even remember which it was. I get they’re both dungeon crawlers, but I don’t think I’m a fan of the more old-school SMT-style games.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Let's Discuss: Persona⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve only played P3 Portable and Persona 4, on PSP and Vita respectively (though I also have these on Steam now). I have Persona 5 (also Steam), but I’ve yet to start it, since I have quite the backlog to get through. Including P3 and P4!

  I got fairly far into P3P before stopping, while I didn’t get as far into P4 before stopping, then restarting, then stopping again (though I got a little further than the first time). My last attempt must’ve been during the pandemic, so not that long ago. It’s not necessarily that I didn’t enjoy them; I just have a thing with JRPGs where I intend to take a short break…which often turns into years-long breaks.

  P3P was more enjoyable than P4, IMO. P4 just seemed really slow at the start, while P3, I felt had much better pacing. If I’m remembering the correctly, the latter just dropped you straight in to the weirdness, and it just kept going, where I felt like P4 had more lulls in the action.

  I don’t mind the school stuff, though I’ll admit it’s not my favorite thing in the world. I do try to make an effort, rather than just breeze through it. I do hope to one day complete both of them and then get to P5. I very much enjoy their visual styles and music. I also like games that take place in the modern world, so the series is right up my alley.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Need tips, when is a non-campaign game considered 'completed'?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  For something like Civ or Stellaris, I’d count “completion” once I’ve won at least one game. Because, ideally, I’ve shown some mastery of knowledge, skills, and mechanics that allowed me to win. I don’t need to play and win as each leader in Civ or every race/trait and combo in Stellaris to say I’ve completed it.

  This is similar to how I’d view “completion” in open-ended games like Cities:Skylines or Banished. Having played a city or town for several hours, was I able to keep the residents alive, stabilize the city if there were any issues, and also grow and develop the settlement for a significant, though arbitrary, length of in-game time? If the answer is Yes to all of these, then I’ve “completed” the game. I’ve understood how things work in the game. Doesn’t mean I have to understand every nuance or know every little trick. But I know enough that things are going well and largely continue to go well. And every time I start a new map, things tend to always go well.

  Earlier this year, I stopped playing Eve Online for the nth time after mostly playing straight through since 2019. Because I viewed my time during this last 4-5yr stint as “complete.” I achieved practically all the goals I set out to do: join a major alliance, join massive PVP fights, engage in smaller PVP fights, make money that I ever had before, buy and fly ships I’d never used before, learn how to explore and navigate wormholes, try out specific types of industry, play with IRL friends, own and run my/our own station, and more.

  In all of these, “completion” obviously doesn’t mean I’ll never go back. There’s always more to do, new things to see. But for now, I am satisfied with my progress, experience, and understanding. I’m no longer a noob.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Has anyone tried Proton VPN?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I use it since I subscribe to Proton for email. It seems fine. I used to use Windscribe – or rather still do since I have a lifetime subscription – but I tend to alternate between the two services these days. Proton seems to have tons more servers though. I’ve torrented on both and have had no issues with either.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨"My maternity leave was supposed to start next Monday and I got laid off today," former Bungie employee says⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It is. Additionally, my co-worker who made the comment is like 33-34. I’m 37. Another person on the committee is 40. HR is like 64. So it’s not like we’re a bunch of young guns ourselves lol. We should want experience, and with experience tends to come age.

  But yeah, I getcha on the management thing. I’m technically a manager, but I don’t have any subordinates. Because I told them, they’re going to have pay me way more to become an actual manager with direct reports, especially since I’d lose my non-exempt status. To make me exempt, they’d need to make it worth my while. We’re a non-profit, so we already get paid crap (though benefits are excellent).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨"My maternity leave was supposed to start next Monday and I got laid off today," former Bungie employee says⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  My work is in the process of hiring someone to replace me since I’m headed to a new job. After a recent interview, a co-worker on the hiring committee made a comment on Teams, “His age seems OK.”

  Uhhh, maybe we shouldn’t be talking about age in hiring decisions. Especially on a written medium. Pretty sure that in the US, age discrimination laws starts at like 40yo, including hiring and firing. That interviewee seemed to be over 40yo, which is probably what prompted that comment.

  Not that I think the candidate will sue us if we don’t hire him, but it’s just unnecessary risk. And I don’t even work in HR or legal; rather I’m in IT. Surprised HR didn’t say anything about that comment.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Alexa had “no profit timeline,” cost Amazon $25 billion in 4 years⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The idea is that people will be willing to pay a recurring fee to use Alexa if it can do more advanced things, like perform multiple commands without the user having to say “Alexa” repeatedly, be more conversational, and manage smart homes more intuitively. Amazon is considering charging $5 to $10 per month for generative AI Alexa,

  I don’t know if that’s worth $5-10/mo. I use Google Nest products at home, mainly to control lights. And yeah it sometimes annoying to be like, “Hey Google do this…Hey Google, do that…Hey Google, do whatever…” But at that point, I usually just use the Google Home app or a specific IoT app.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of July 14th⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve been working through a replay of all the original mainline Ace Attorney games, via the trilogies on Steam. Played these all on DS/3DS back in the day. I just finished Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies, and now I’ve started Spirit of Justice, the last game of this second anthology. Love this whole series. Can’t wait for the release of the “Investigations” spin-off games in September!

  Otherwise, still playing FFXIV. I started Dawntrail, but I haven’t gotten too far into it. I put a pin the MSQ (Main Scenario Quests) a couple weeks ago and just kinda left it there. I have enough other things to work on. Class/Job leveling, finishing up some Alliance Raids/Normal Raids from Endwalker, trying to suck less while healing on Sage, and whatever else side stuff I find.

  I figure that it’s gonna be at least a few months til the next big content update, and at least two years until the next expansion, so what’s the rush? I’ll get back to the MSQ eventually.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sony kills off [recordable] Blu-ray and optical disks for consumer market — business-to-business production to continue until unprofitable⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m sure they do, but I feel like even on r/datahoarders, I only ever see people talk about masses of HDDs, tape drives, or cloud storage.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I asked what your fave controllers are, now. What is the worst controller you have used?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Worst controller? Eh, I have controllers I don’t like. N64 controller. Original Xbox controller. Dreamcast controller. But are they the worst? Idk. Maybe I just didn’t have a whole lot of experience with any of those (didn’t own any of those consoles).

  Maybe the Wiimote. Like I get the idea, but as a dedicated controller, meh. Same with the Switch Joycon; maybe even more so. I have a Pro controller because the Joycons just don’t cut it. When they’re attached to the Switch, they’re OK, but not as individual controllers.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Google Is Paying Reddit $60 Million for Fucksmith to Tell Its Users to Eat Glue⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  You could also add toxic glue. It’s edible! Probably only once though.

  This is now going to be added to some LLM-generated answer in the probably near future.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Let's discuss: Earthbound / Mother⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s certainly a fan theory, but that’s not a confirmed thing by any means. The location of the last battles does look the inside of a vagina, looking towards the cervix, but that’s supposedly only a coincidence.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Let's discuss: Earthbound / Mother⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Earthbound was probably the first game I was ever really enamored with. Even today, it’s definitely one of my favorite games ever. And it’s probably the first JRPG I ever played, and it’s what started me down a long path of JRPGs.

  My parents got me a subscription to Nintendo Power magazine, and I remember reading about the game there and wanting to play it. They didn’t buy it for me when it came out, but I did rent it from Blockbluster a few times. And they did eventually buy it for me for Christmas. It even came with the strategy guide!

  Everything about the game was great. I didn’t appreciate it at the time, but it was insanely accessible, even to a then 7-8yo kid like me. JRPGs tend to be darker and complex (though not always). But Earthbound still had complexity, but it wasn’t darker. Yes these kids were having to save the world from destruction, but the story was told in an upbeat, fun way. And it was just the right amount of complexity.

  Earthbound is also probably the first game I ever beat. Certainly the first JRPG.

  I did try the fan-translation of Mother 3. I didn’t end up finishing it. I got close, but it was far too depressing and different from EB. The game was beautifully done (as was the player-made strategy guide!), but I just couldn’t really get into the story and characters. Just wasn’t for me.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of April 14th⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Mainly playing Rimworld, FF7 Rebirth, and a little bit of the Ace Attorney Apollo Justice Trilogy. Also finished the visual Coffee Talk last night.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Amazon Ditches 'Just Walk Out' Checkouts at Its Grocery Stores⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I know some airports have similar Amazon convenience stores. But they’re not staffless; there’s still at least one person at the exit. Sometimes even another person at the entrance. Yeah it’s quick for me since I’m not waiting in a line or being rung up (though I rarely see people in them compared to the traditional convenience stores), but is the company really saving money? Not that I really care if they are or not, but seems pointless if they still have to staff the stores.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Are game studios suddenly abandoning Black developers?⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Final Fantasy XIII had Sazh Katzroy. He’s not the main character (that’d be Lightning), but he is a playable character right from the get-go. He has his own storylines as well.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  There will always be new, perhaps younger, users who come through who don’t know what it was like before. And of course, there will always be more veteran users who perhaps don’t care. I care that reddit is going to shit, but I’m still on it (less than pre-APIgate though). On the other hand, my brother who’s been on reddit almost as long as me, doesn’t care. As long as gets his memes or whatever else he uses reddit for, he’ll be there. He barely knew about that protests last summer.

  It seems that the only way a social media actually collapses is when the company itself pulls the plug. Twitter has been circling the drain since Elon bought it, but it’s still one of the main nodes of information from companies, governments, journalists, and just regular people. It’s still used by millions of people daily, even if it’s also used by millions of bots, too. Google+ was in a sad state for a bit, but there were still users. It only died when Google finally shut it down. I think Vine was in a similar situation back in the day.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Social media lobby group sues US State for protecting children from Meta, TikTok and Snapchat⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Doesn’t COPPA already require this for children under 13? This state bill raises it to under 16.

  I guess it comes down to the particulars. Is there something more onerous in the Ohio bill than in COPPA? Because I don’t think I’ve heard of any company seriously getting mad that COPPA is a thing.