batmaniam
@batmaniam@lemmy.world
- Comment on Is there any security in the communication with Voyager I? 1 day ago:
I imagine it’s classified, but NASA being NASA, you know a full risk assessment along these lines exists, probably with dutiful updates as it’s still an active program. It would be fascinating read especially with the updates, with how much the world has changed while the probe remained the same.
- Comment on Black Myth: Wukong producer on The Game Awards top prize snub: "I came all the way here for nothing!" 5 days ago:
Not going to lie, despite loving the stories about the monkey king, I skipped it entirely because of the notes they sent to content creators. Which would also be why I skip movies and games that take the US’ DoD money. I’m glad it got passed over.
- Comment on Guys, what did you buy during the Steam autumn sale? 3 weeks ago:
I loved FC5. Ubisoft gets a lot of crap because they make the same game over and over but there’s a reason they started doing that. Good characters, and the pacing is pretty solid unless you’re a completions (which is your own fault). There’s some weird mechanics that progress the story that kind of break immersion that they chose because of the open world setting, but it’s a solid game. Enjoy!
If you like it, “new dawn” is pretty OK. Wait for it to be cheap, it’s basically really meaty DLC.
- Comment on FYI: Medieval monks were dumb. 3 weeks ago:
No joke: Uncle Sam was a real guy and Ive been to his grave. I forget if his wife was there (or if he had one).
- Comment on well, at least I wasn't the only one to wonder 5 weeks ago:
It might be? I forget exactly what it is in humans, I just remember the pictures I was shown. Midline disorders are nightmare fuel.
- Comment on well, at least I wasn't the only one to wonder 5 weeks ago:
Oh I get how it got that way, it’s just unfortunate what that lead to in a clinical setting.
- Comment on well, at least I wasn't the only one to wonder 5 weeks ago:
Similar to the meme… godamn did they fuck up by not holding geneticists to something close to… SOME standard naming.
Dated a maternal fetal medicine specialist. She’d come home being like “you ever have to explain to someone they have a mutation in the ‘sonic the hedgehog’ gene of their kid?!” If you’re familiar with what it does in fruit flies (when it was named), it’s fucking horrific in humans. Don’t google it.
- Comment on Little dude ATP 5 weeks ago:
That’s not me. Thaaaats asbestos.
- Comment on Little dude ATP 1 month ago:
I worked in bioelectrochemostry. We had looked into that to see if we could juice reactors. Turns out it’s not the bugs that limit things, but godamn did that stuff make them boogie.
- Comment on Worshippers of Cthulhum, a Lovercraftian themed town builder where you play the bad guys, released in early access on Steam 1 month ago:
No but it’s got a demo for free
- Comment on Alan Wake, Control developer agrees €15m convertible loan from Tencent 2 months ago:
People who don’t want to use the epic store. That was me. I just don’t want another launcher, another account. I’ll get around to it at some point I’m sure but I didn’t buy AW2 and probably would have if it wasn’t an exclusive.
- Comment on Climate change 2 months ago:
Not as great as it seems. The thing is, everyone’s retirement is tied to real-estate. The numbers my vary country by country, but nearly all pension funds and mutual funds have significant exposure to real-estate that is just ignoring the issue that those properties may become uninsurable. That’s before what happens due to the economic disruption of all those cities slowly, then at an increased velocity, relocating.
It’s not going to be pretty.
- Comment on Climate change 2 months ago:
So yes, I realize this a joke map (honestly, a giant, probably mostly freshwater sea, in the US would be a blessing). But what you’re describing is the main issue with climate change.
It’s not going to be “the day after tomorrow”. It will be coastal cities… which are… like nearly ALL of them… losing all their economic value. In the US when having this conversation I say “what do you do when any building in Manhattan is uninsurable? What do you do when it’s sure to have severe damage?”.
For most people there are plenty of places to go, but the “going” is going to be very, very ugly.
- Comment on [deleted] 2 months ago:
… Damnit. That is dope.
- Comment on [deleted] 3 months ago:
Can you markup pdfs with it? Like if I’m reading a paper can I put notes in the margin etc and save it?
- Comment on Remedy and Annapurna announce a strategic cooperation agreement on Control 2 3 months ago:
Or just… Don’t make a launcher?
- Comment on Can you "change" the environment in your "local" area? 4 months ago:
Trees actually do a lot of this on their own. If you want an absolutely fascinating read check out “the hidden life of trees” by wholleben.
The tl;Dr is that a forrest is an organism unto itself. Trees literally use each other for support, regulate the temperature, and terraform the ground around them (pine being the most visible example). The natural cycles and interspecies communication is jaw dropping.
- Comment on "Look, honey! Grandma got you one of your little comic book toys! What do you say?" 4 months ago:
I assumed it was “Harley Quinn” Jim Gordon because THAT Jim absolutely would. He’s a damn good cop.
- Comment on How do you rank sums of single-digit numbers ? 5 months ago:
You’re wrong. You’re so wrong. The warm light of everything good in this world has clearly never warmed your face nor caused the roaches to flee from the empty, echoing cavern that holds not but rot, mold, and regret where a brain is sorely missed. I pity you, your parents that birthed you, and all of humanity at large for now knowing a person could be so misguided. I pray for your strength on the inventible day when the faintest candle of reason illuminates the vaguest shadows of comprehension, and you may finally witness your errors, so long called accomplishments, as they loom over you like demon gods eager to drag you to hell in a cage you’ve spent a lifetime creating for yourself.
7+9 is dope though.
- Comment on Golden 5 months ago:
Man, late to this party but if you want a wild ride this guy’s got a few… Humans to elements. I realize the statement wasn’t looking for a response but if you actually want to know buckle up…
- Comment on I Just wanted to close the valve... 5 months ago:
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Yes: you absolutely want the outdoor rated PVC if you’re getting sun exposure. You can cheat, it’s not like the white stuff will be immediately destroyed, but if you want something that will last a bunch of seasons, the “grey” stuff is the way to go. Double check that it’s UV rated though, and doesn’t just happen to be grey.
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To get around all of that, you can bury it. Because you’re just doing it for the garden, you don’t need to dig down to the frost line. Just make sure you clear the line at the end of the season. Another advantage is that you’ll minimize the amount of water that’s been baking in the sun idle in the pipes. If it’s a heatwave and they’re in direct sun, that water can get downright hot to the touch. I’ve never lost a plant because of it but frankly I’m kind of surprised by that. If you do bury, you might consider running some electrical conduit at the same time, even if you don’t put wires in it (DO however include a pull cable for later use). What you do at either end of that is a whole other project, but you can always just cap it and get it to it when you get to it. Solar + Battery usual works great for garden automation stuff, but being able to run an ethernet cable can simplify a lot.
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Plastic will hold up fine, but as others have mentioned you might want one of these.. The union allows to remove it. You could do a more simple threaded system IF you are able to completely and freely rotate everything “down stream” of the valve. I’m just going to say the stupid part out loud because I learned pipe stuff the hard way: A ball valve threaded on both sides cannot be loosened from one side without tightening the other (again, unless that other side can freely rotate).
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Finally, a last alternative I’ve seen done well for gardens that sort of “wrong done right” is putting posts up and stringing a hose over head. It kind of seemed like as much work/expense as burying it, but I guess they had the posts, it came out really sharp in the end. You need a pretty high quality hose though. Baking in the sun and sagging under the water weight can end badly.
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- Comment on Just Plain Terrifying 5 months ago:
My dad was a farmer. I AM AN ORPHAN.
- Comment on Was it a good thing that SNW explicitly said the Federation is socialist? 5 months ago:
That and post-scarcity doesn’t mean “zero scarcity”. Like if someone wanted to create a picard funkpop the size of a planet, I don’t think they’d be allowed the resource budget.
It’s like how it doesn’t matter where you live, if you want to buy on the silk road, you need bitcoin. Presumably even the federation can’t just make latinum whenever they please, or we wouldn’t see them haggle with it. Although, it would be fun to see that they could and just take the responsibility of not crashing non-federation cultures entire economies very seriously, either out of respect or treaty.
Damnit, I want a LD episode where the crew is frustrated and desperately wants to just “buy” their problem away but can’t because an economist at command says it’ll mean they have to rescue all these non-federation colonies that are currently self sufficient. Come to think of it it’s right there with the “you break it you own it” concept of the prime directive.
- Comment on It's real 5 months ago:
Yeet that into the rizzophere, no cap fr fr
- Comment on Bethesda Is Charging $7 For A New Starfield Mission, And Players Are Upset 5 months ago:
I think that’s exactly the point though. “We didn’t mark it up to mark it down, the price is just the price”. As a chronic patient gamer part of me hates that (I love finding older classics for like $10) but I don’t mind shelling out for a good game. The biggest expense is my time, and if a bunch of years later the price hasn’t moved it’s probably worth my time.
- Comment on Bethesda Is Charging $7 For A New Starfield Mission, And Players Are Upset 5 months ago:
oh yeah, I didn’t want to be dismissive of the mtx stuff. It’s absolutely predatory and awful, but I don’t think it fully stands in the way of developing good games.
Which is related to what you’re saying about indies going under even after success. Game development takes time, and you need money to underwrite that time. I just think there’s going to be a split; right now AAA studios are shitifying their games, turning them more into CandyCrush skinner boxes. But the demand for good games hasn’t gone away, there’s just less financial upside than making CandyCrush. My point is, even though it’s less money, there’s still a good amount of money to be had there. Eventually the gaps going to be filled. Microsoft cant fill it because on the balance sheet, things like COD and anything from King are where they should be focused. And it sucks right now because they sucked up a stupid amount of talent and thanos snapped them, but thats not a sustainable practice.
But yes, it’s going to be painful. It’ll suck seeing really nifty indie stuff have to struggle so hard. Like I said I’m also going to miss the polish that comes with AA stuff. I’m going to miss the hell out of Arkane. Their games weren’t perfect, but they had so much soul. They didn’t deserve to have Redfall be their epitaph.
- Comment on Bethesda Is Charging $7 For A New Starfield Mission, And Players Are Upset 6 months ago:
Oh I’m well aware lol. The game is a godamn miracle. But thats the thing, Bethesda has been on this trajectory for a good lonnnnnng while. Like the whole “obsidian good bethesda bad” thing isn’t quite right, but what is true is Bethesda has been incredibly strategic about shittifying their games: there’s always just enough there to keep you going “ok… one more”.
Starfield is the first one I just didn’t even bother with.
- Comment on Bethesda Is Charging $7 For A New Starfield Mission, And Players Are Upset 6 months ago:
FO4 is why I waited and ultimately didn’t buy starfield. I LOVED elderscrolls, and FO:NV is like my alltime favorite. I didn’t hate FO4, there’s some fun to be had, but you can see pretty clearly from it where FO:76 came from. From what I’ve seen and read, I’m not missing anything with starfield.
NMS is tough. They did an amazing job trying to salvage it, but it will always be a game that was never meant to be that big. It’s not bad but at somepoint in the loop you just go “wtf am I doing?”. I give that team all the credit in the world, but that game never belonged where it is.
- Comment on Bethesda Is Charging $7 For A New Starfield Mission, And Players Are Upset 6 months ago:
Eh, skill up had a great take on this. The thing is it’s wayyyyy easier to be a small indie developer than it ever was before. Making a game (or any art) still isn’t easy, it never was and never will be, but it’s viable without a giant publisher in a way it just hasn’t been before.
Its the AA titles that are on the most precarious footing, but I bet even those do ok. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy some AAA stuff time to time, I’ve got a stupid amount of hours in overwatch, but I’ve never once paid for a skin because… why would you?
The thing that’s going to suck is losing the studios like Arkane. Their games weren’t perfect but they were freaking cool, and they basically always got the raw end of the deal. Even Prey(2016), their masterpiece, is the product of corporate bullshitiery they had nothing to do with. So we’re probably going to miss studios like that for a while (as they get re-tasked to fortnite/cod support teams) but “indie” stuff has already been stepping up to fill that void, and is less indie all the time.
Look at Dave the Diver. That’s not exactly an indie studio. They had resources. There’s going to be a gap for a bit, but there’s still a demand for good games and art. Those AA breakthroughs are what people want. Again, I continue to spend dumb amounts of time on overwatch, but it’s not where I spend my money. Microsoft hovelled themselves by buying all these studios and not taking the leap with supporting them. Distribution just doesn’t have the value it once did. So if microsoft wants to become CandyCrush, feeding an addiction loop to grab the whales, sure, whatever, but there’s plenty of bread out there for studios doing other stuff.
- Comment on Venus Fly Traps 6 months ago:
Agreed, and I spent like a decade in protein engineering and pre-biotic chemistry.
And if someone really wants to be a pedant about it, go ahead and prove conscious “intent” is inherently different than, not just a more complex form of, what’s going on here. If someone’s managed to solve all of the philosophy around consciousness, self, and intent, they could really save us all a bunch a time! Until then, pedantically, you’re not wrong to say the plant “knows” to do this as much as I “know” to pay my rent; it’s all just chemical reactions based on environment.
… Or we could allow people to enjoy the pressures and reasons that give rise to the subtle aspects of organism in this complex ecosystem we call earth without being a dick about it, and trust that the level of language specificity will increase/decrease commiserate to the degree of precision the topic requires.