scratchee

@scratchee@feddit.uk

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Dirt Man⁩ ⁨⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  She sorta was the cult leader, iirc the aliens didn’t understand humans and trusted her organisation to decide how to get things done (at least until they finally realise how humans actually work and decide to just shut it all down), so the cult was probably her idea

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[VIDEO] Japan Sanctions Visa after the Censorship of Anime and Manga⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  And we’re equally disappointed in both of you for following our terrible example.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨'Friendslop' Isn't Real, But People Love Posting About It Anyway | Aftermath⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Sure, that’s absolutely true, but the games that have done well recently have found ways to properly take advantage of an “easy” market. I suspect the lesson is just that this particular market is well suited to smaller and simpler games but with quick turnaround, there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, if anything it means small games companies can shoot for big wins, which can only be a good thing.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨It's just loss.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Fair, we certainly won’t see any perfect or even good solutions given human nature and the large population, but I do think we can achieve mediocre success if we really work hard

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨It's just loss.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  If you’re worried about cultural factors, you might find removing any significant percentage of the total population will likely run into even more implacable “cultural factors” than meat reduction would.

  This is regardless of the method of population reduction, save perhaps “slow decline” which seems to be promising atm, but that obviously has the downside that it’ll take a few generations to really have an impact.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Rightwing campaigners claim there is covert deal to return Parthenon marbles⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Oh for sure, I was being tongue in cheek. I do think they should make a system for returning things stolen that would be appreciated more where they came from (I’m fine with guarantees of quality preservation and public display, but I think that’s as far as can be justified). We really can’t justify keeping things that we couldn’t buy today because they mean more than money to the people we stole them from.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Rightwing campaigners claim there is covert deal to return Parthenon marbles⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  To be fair, I’m sure there’s some British things in the British museum, I assume those could be kept.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Owen Jones: This column does not express support for Palestine Action – here’s why⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I really think we need to distinguish between terrorism in the sense of “are they going to keep blowing people up?” and “terrorism” in the sense of “are my taxes going to go up because of this?” I feel like the word is being stretched for the second example…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨European game publisher group responds to Stop Killing Games, claims 'These proposals would curtail developer choice"⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, “I don’t like this proposed change to the law because it has an effect” is not the compelling narrative they seem to think it is.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Steam now generates three times more revenue for Capcom than PlayStation⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  There are 2 schools of thought. Those that are against the entire concept of software that tries to control how you use it, drm/anticheat/etc in any form is malware to them. And those that accept it might be acceptable in principle (eg for anticheat especially), but believe denouvo and certain other drm programs go too far and cross a line (especially when they hook into the kernel or start tracking things outside the game that they have no business tracking).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨All babies in England to get DNA test to assess risk of diseases within 10 years⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Sounds like they need to speed up the test, if it takes 10 years then they won’t be babies anymore by the time they get results.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨British passenger in seat 11A survives India plane crash, reports say⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  people improbably survive plane crashes all the time. It’s not likely in a crash like this, but there was 241 opportunities for it to happen, 1 seemingly got lucky.

  People survive falling out of planes or getting struck by lightning sometimes too. Shit happens in both directions.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Outer Worlds 2 - Official Story Trailer | Xbox Games Showcase 2025⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  On the one hand, the ship was one of the most fun parts for me, but on the other, I do wonder if it was a mistake because it makes the game so much more frustrating for anyone who hasn’t been trained on kerbal space program or some other Newtonian space control game to get the hang of it.

  It’s like riding a bike, if you know how to do it you have trouble even imaging why it’s hard, but nobody can do it at first, and it takes ages to get the new instincts to actually enjoy it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨observer 👀 observed quantum state⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Are you sure? I don’t think the Nomai would stand for scientific inaccuracy…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Wolf Reboot⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s not, the lack of wolves caused the elk to become a problem. Returning the wolves is (according to the infographic) fixing the elk problems.

  So it’s more like the wolves are policing the elk, it’s the wolves “fault” that the elk are not a problem.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨BioTechbros⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Meh, let Dr Ian Malcom come in and worry about the ethics after we’ve published.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Raid on Quaker Meeting House, mass arrests by London Metropolitan Police of Youth Demand members⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Seems like an awful waste of police resources, if nothing else.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Prospect of £5 pint leaves bitter taste for some pubgoers⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Londoners looking at this article in utter confusion

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨poor little mousecell⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Our society runs on our stomachs

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨poor little mousecell⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It sort of still works if you imagine they’re talking about the descendants of the dinosaurs which form the primary meat of human society (chickens)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anti-acknowlegements⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve certainly been there, shocked to realise my personal slice of reality was unusual. At least in this case, it’s a good problem to have.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anti-acknowlegements⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  But surely equality has been achieved in the last few months, this all feels so very January. People are so much more open minded now than in those dark days of the past. Why waste time even discussing such outdated attitudes that totally and completely disappeared in February and are certain to never return?!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anti-acknowlegements⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It may be in a scientific paper, but this is more of an anecdote about the various issues the author encountered, rather than something intended to be actionable and clearly delineated as you’d expect in the body of a scientific article. Therefore a more literary style is appropriate for this section.

  My mental model is that bullet points are for when you expect a reader to go over the points with a highlighter, prose for when you want to produce an emotional response. This feels more like the latter.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Police admit arrest of anti-monarchy heckler in Oxford was unlawful⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Ironic that his polite human-scale protest wouldn’t have gotten much attention if the police hadn’t turned it into national news.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨👁👄👁⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  You’re not actually wrong. The Goa’uld were indeed far too slow moving, and it was their ultimate weakness, they weren’t able to keep up with the pace of change around them, even despite a lack of competition in their evolutionary niche.

  Or possibly because of a lack of competition. Another object lesson in the dangers from having a lack of biodiversity in our ecosystem.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨GARBAGEOLOGY⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I once had to stay in Birmingham after a cancelled train. On leaving the station I was accosted by a drunk demanding cigarettes, who started swearing at me after I admitted I didn’t smoke. That’s my only experience of Birmingham, I have to assume it’s typical.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Bloodletting recommended for Jersey residents after PFAS contamination⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I imagine they can’t because their blood is too ironic

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨IEEE 754⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Well, rules like “all integers can be represented up to 2^24” and “10^-38 is where denormalisation happens” are helpful, but I often have to figure out why I got a dodgy value from first principles, floating point is too complicated to solve every problem with 3 general rules.

  I wrote a float from string function once which obviously requires the details (intentionally low quality and limited but faster variant since the standard version was way too slow).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨IEEE 754⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  In game dev it’s pretty common. Lots of stuff is built on floating point and balancing quality and performance, so we can’t just switch to double when things start getting janky as we can’t afford the cost, so instead we actually have to think and work out the limits of 32 bit floats.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Vegan drink Oatly can’t call itself ‘milk’, judges rule⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Honestly prefer it to milk in tea. I still use milk at home since I can’t be arsed to have fancy milk for porridge and tea only but at the office I’ll go for the oat milk by preference.