Adalast

@Adalast@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What do You think about level scaling in cRPGs?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Consider me a psycho with a hot take, but I have always preferred games that mix the enemy difficulties around in a zone. Something like Ark where, sure, level 3 Dodos spawn on the starting beaches, but a level 70 Spino can spawn not far away and you have to be sure to skirt it lest you become a healthy snack. The steady progression of “zone difficulty” has always bugged me a bit because it is just so far off from realistic. Sure, close to a settlement there would be culling of particularly dangerous creatures, but some of them would still exist (if the settlement is being responsible). And yeah, as you get farther into the wilds those sorts of cullings would fall off rapidly, but to say that there would be areas where there are no easy monsters or no hard monsters, even in the wilds, is just not accurate.

  Also, you get the same feeling of accomplishment, sometimes more, when you have died to hard monsters in starting areas a bunch of times then learned to skirt aggro properly, but then suddenly you come back after being out for a while and utterly decimate them. Just feels so good.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Funko, BrandShield speak out about itch.io takedown⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Nope, they are covered most of the time by what is known as the “corporate veil”.

  Better explained than I can do here: federal-lawyer.com/when-can-a-ceo-be-held-persona…

  Essentially, unless they are personally doing it, they are protected. Embezzle millions and you go to jail, poison a water supply, kill thousands, give birth defects, cancer, and a myriad of other health issues to a community at large and only the corporation is liable/culpable.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Funko, BrandShield speak out about itch.io takedown⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Personally I want to see the criminal shield removed for corporations. All C-Level executives become personally liable for any illegal actions, malfeasance, slander/liable, or injurious action perpetrated or instigated by the company with the ONLY defense being proving, beyond a shadow of a doubt (not just reasonable doubt) that an actor within or without the company caused the action with the express intent of harming the C-Level executives, either specific or generally.

  Fuck corporate personhood. Fuck people making a LLC and doing whatever the fuck they want under the guise of the company then the company declares bankruptcy while they run off like a cartoon character with bags of money. Leadership liability and culpability should be the norm, not the exception.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Funko, BrandShield speak out about itch.io takedown⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Oh, I’m here for it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨FIGHT⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Let’s be accurate here, private slavery companies.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨fake reviews lol⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It was published, hence the first word being “Post-publication”. I think the issue for the retraction is that if 4 or the reviewers were lying about their identies then the voracity of their assessments is strongly in question. As shitty as the modern peer review process is, its essence is vital for the progress of modern science.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨US Senator Warner Presses Valve to Crack Down on Hateful Accounts and Rhetoric Proliferating on Steam⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  This is the central myth of “free speech” under the 1st Amendment.

  The 1st Amendment only protects individuals exercising speech and expression from laws being passed or used to silence said speech or expression and from agents of the government abridging the rights. That is a lot, but it is also all. Private citizens are allowed to abridge each other’s speech as much as we like. Private companies can censor whatever they want. This is why the guy wrote a letter to Steam, because literally ANY larger action would have crossed the line.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What are your favorite 1000+ hour games?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Honestly, I had it all with line breaks, but it didn’t take. I will fix.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What are your favorite 1000+ hour games?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Factorio: 2344 Path of Exile: 2736 Rimworld: 2191 Kerbal Space Program: 1071

  I have a bunch of honorable mentions in the several hundred hours ranges that are only not 1k+ because I have severe ADHD and something else became a hyperfocus before they hit that point: Backpack Hero Ark The Last Spell Timberborn Factory Town Dyson Sphere Program Loop Hero Brotato Satisfactory Path of Achra Against the Storm Desynced

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨DayZ creator reveals a "Kerbal Space Program killer" with kittens and challenges license owners to sue him⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  This. I was so pissed when I saw the EULA for KSP2. I love KSP more than probably any game that has ever been released, due in no small part to the vibrant modding community. The fact that they decided to abuse the very people who made KSP great is disgusting and short slighted.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Cognitive Biases⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  You hit the nail on the head for the conservative agenda, though that is not as impressive as it once was since they all have started saying the quiet parts out loud. Anyone with enough brain cells in close contact to notice that Jesus was about as anticapitalist as you could possibly get is appalled and concerned for their safety. At least all of the ones I know are.

  To your point on the authority of a postdoctoral level person who assumes they are right in hubris, I feel like they have kinda earned it. It is also likely that their “wrong” is going to be far closer to right than that of a lay. I am personally a polymath, so I don’t find lay topics for myself very often, but when I do, I do listen to topical experts and respect what they say, while checking the voracity of things that feel off to me using reputable journals and prepublication articles on the likes of arXiv.

  If someone is lay and they are either unable of unwilling to do the diligence to verify the person claiming topical authority, then they really need to just take what is said at face value and not enter the more global conversation aside from trying to learn more (eg asking questions). I am so tired of my numbskull uncle claiming that Anthony Faucci doesn’t know how viruses work of some distant relation bitching about how student loan forgiveness is theft from taxpayers. My uncle knows nothing about virology and my distant relation couldn’t parse economic principles to save his life, but there they sit, acting as counter-authorities to people with doctorates and 40+ years of professional experience. That is the part I want to see stop. If you have a Masters degree, fine, argue with the expert, but if you have never stepped foot inside a classroom where that topic was being taught, just don’t. Your opinion is woefully uninformed and thus not worth the CO2 you expended to voice it.

  I do like your take on the societal and philosophical underpinnings for the Death of Expertise. It gels well with some things and gives me some avenues to investigate should I finally get fed up with this world enough to write it. Until that time, I will just keep Farnsworthing it. Dr. Farnsworth meme: I don’t want to live on this planet anymore.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Cognitive Biases⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Fair enough argument. I do wonder who, in your opinion, is someone who can justifiably have authority on a topic if not a topic expert? Who is reasonable to be educated by?

  As for the book, at this point I have not put pen to paper as it were, but the premise is the observation that there is a concerted effort on the part of some political parties to sew so much doubt in subject experts as to render their knowledge meaningless to the general populace and how dangerous that becomes when the situation is something that has potentially dire consequences. I have seen it happening for a long time, but it really came to a head for me in 2020 when I saw entirely lay politicians and pundits undermining warnings from virologists, epidemiologists, and statististians and sewing distrust in public health organizations essentially to trade people’s lives for political points. Since then I have been seeing an ever escalating trend for people in category 1 of authority to push the populace away from category 3 on topics which really only category 3 should be talking at all. The rest of us should be shutting up and taking notes, asking questions for clarification, and learning.

  Abortion, gender identity, climate change, economics geopolitics, etc. Essentially every topic that has been politicized into a hot button issue is really somerhing that is so beyond complex that we should not be arguing with the people who have dedicated their entire adult lives, sometimes 40+ years, to studying.

  My father has the perfect microcosm anecdote from his working days. He worked for a garage door manufacturer who hired some fresh faced MBAs into middle management. They were all sitting in a meeting one day and thought they came up with an amazing idea, so they took it to the veteran engineers who had been designing garage door openers for decades, some of them essentially since the damn things were invented, and told them to make their hairbrained idea. The enginners looked over what they were given and told them that they had had the idea decades earlier and that it did not work and that materials science and engineering had not progressed to the point that it would be feasible. Did the MBAs who were trying to make waves and make a name for themselves listen? Nope, they fired all of the veteran engineers and hired in a bunch of fresh faced engineers who had never actually designed a garage door opener and told them to build their hairbrained idea. The engineers, only knowing what they had learned in school and a couple of years in other jobs got excited by this revolutionary idea and dove into it. Fast forward about 2 years, and millions in R&D, and we find the fresh faced engineers, now not so fresh, somberly telling the MBA dickheads exactly what the veteran engineers had told them initially. This, along with a few other boneheaded schemes to make earnings sheets look better for the MBAs actually ended up tanking the company and it was sold like 10 years later.

  Subject expertise matters. Respecting subject expertise matters. Being able to recognize when you are sitting atop Mount DK is one of the finest skills we could ever teach our children.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Cognitive Biases⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Even with the somewhat incorrect examples, I want to print this out and hang it as a poster on my wall.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Cognitive Biases⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I have to respectfully disagreed with your example. Ostensibly the researcher should be an authority. I think the example given in the chart is not quite right either. I think the confusion comes from the three definitions of “Authority”.

  1. the power or right to give orders, make decisions, and enforce obedience. “he had absolute authority over his subordinates”

  2. a person or organization having power or control in a particular, typically political or administrative, sphere. “the health authorities”

  3. the power to influence others, especially because of one’s commanding manner or one’s recognized knowledge about something.

  In your example the “Authority” is definition 3, someone with specialized knowledge of a topic that should be listened to by those who are lay on the topic.

  In the chart I think they were trying to go for 1, which is the correct source of Authority Bias, but they didn’t want to step on toes or get political. The actual example is someone who has decision authority like a police officer or politician or a boss at a workplace who says things and a listener automatically believes them regardless of the speakers actual specialized knowledge of the topic they are speaking on. A better example would be “Believing a vaccine is dangerous because a politician says it is.”

  This all feeds into a topic I have been kicking around in my head for a while that I have been contemplating attempting to write up as a book. “The Death of Expertise”. So many people have been so brainwashed that authorities in definition 3 are met with a frankly asinine amount of incredulity, but authorities in the first are trusted regardless of education or demonstrable specialized knowledge.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Nobel Prize 2024⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I forget the exact quote or who said it, but the gist is that a species cannot be considered sapient (intelligent) on an interplanetary/interstellar stage until they have discovered Calculus. I prefer to use that as my bar for the sapience of those around me as well.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨My mental health has improved after deleting games that have microtransactions in them⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  You can’t really say Blizzard has not raised prices when they have added microtrans and mental health costs to the game.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Steam's new disclaimer reminds everyone that you don't actually own your games, GOG moves in for the killshot: Its offline installers 'cannot be taken away from you'⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Gabe heads a company which is successful because it respects its employees, customers, and suppliers instead of constantly trying to marginalize and abuse them. They are not perfect by any means, but they do fit into the definition of ethical capitalism, which should not be understated. They don’t employ anticompetitive tactics like bribing/coercing developers into exclusivity contracts. They don’t operate with a bunch of 1099 contractors so they can avoid providing benefits. Etc.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Artifical Intelligence⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Honestly, auto generating text descriptions for visually impaired people is probably one of the few potential good uses for LLM + CLIP. Being able to have a brief but accurate description without relying on some jackass to have written it is a bonefied good thing. It isn’t even eliminating anyone’s job since the jackass doesn’t always do it in the first place.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨PS5 Homescreen Now Replaces Unique Video Game Art With Annoying Ads You Can’t Turn Off⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  What, you don’t want to pay another 80 bucks for what could have been a content patch to last year’s game? Pshhh… You’re not a real fan.

  Is what I would say if I were the type of guy who should take a long walk off a short pier.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨California’s new law forces digital stores to admit you’re just licensing content, not buying it⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Other way around. Require sales of licenses to games to be perpetual. The way you phrased it means that the license holders can charge way more.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Steam does the opposite of forcing Arbitration on its users⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Same. I initially had the sinking dread then I saw that they actually fixed the arbitration clause and I became quite elated.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨'AI is coming for all of us:' Mass Effect, Metal Gear Solid, and Baldur's Gate voice actor Jennifer Hale weighs in on SAG-AFTRA's games industry strike⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Your idea is one of the specific reasons many companies try to label everyone as an “independent contractor”. Especially people like voice actors are not “employees”, and thus do not count as such for your idea.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Updates to Free Demos on Steam⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  That is actually intentional. They do it to restrict refunds on Steam and consoles.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨‘Death Occurs in the Dark’: Indie Video Game Devs Are Struggling to Survive⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I play Rimworld and Factorio. Those are 200 hours per playthrough each and I do about 2 a year for them. My Steam Deck helps a lot with the latter though. The UI for the former unfortunately does not lend itself to the smaller screen even though the game plays well.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What are your plans for when the Milky Way galaxy collides with Andromeda?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m going to enjoy making up new constellations every so many years and using them to mess with people who are into Astrology.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Bethesda Is Charging $7 For A New Starfield Mission, And Players Are Upset⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Why are we surprised? They were the ones who pioneered the DLC microtrans model. I would legitimately have been more surprised if this headline were the converse statement.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Choose your Fighter⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Ankylosaurs please. Give me an armor plated tank with a built in beat stick that could knock a midsized car several feet with a single swing.

  If we are going ancient life in general I will always pick Dunkleosteus. A swimming arrangement of thick bone plates the size of a medium bus with a set of Jaws of Life (Death?) for a mouth. The damn thing could slice through or crush literally anything in the ancient oceans and shallow seas. If it weren’t for the Hangenberg event Sharks and Orca would definitely be having some competition.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Nintendo Issues Multiple DMCAs On The Modding Site 'GameBanana'⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I am getting really tired of these all these chucklefucks being in charge of things they patently do not understand. Modders are the modern lifeline of gaming. They work for free, fix your fuck-ups, and breath life into games that are years and sometimes decades old. Rimworld and Factorio both started their crowd funding campaigns in 2013, and both are wildly popular 11 years later, still selling copies. Factorio is just now coming out with their first expansion, and Rimworld just came out with their 4th. Neither Ludeon Studios (Rimworld) nor Wube Software (Factorio) have had ANY financial need to produce any other projects besides these games. Why are they so wildly profitable and evergreen? They both have rabid modding communities that have been supported and cultivated by the developers constantly fixing and expanding modding support to allow for an infinite variety of new content to be created for their games. Hell, the Vanilla Expanded team of Rimworld modders have actually turned it into a primary income source via Patreon.

  AAA devs need to just sit down and thank these modders for tirelessly working on their games after release for free. Ever since DoTA became more popular than Warcraft 3, they all have their panties in a bunch and keep trying to claim ownership over all mods. No, bad developers smacks on the nose with a rolled up newspaper. God, it pisses me off to no end.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Falling⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, that’s why I used the heavy caveats. The wall produces an inelastic collision which will do WAY more damage as all of the energy is arrested rather than an elastic collision of the two vehicles in which a good portion of energy is spread between the two bodies as they separate.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Falling⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  One definition for a “rate of falling” would comfortably be “the time it takes the surfaces of two free gravitational separated by some distance to meet.” With this in mind, the imperceptible but very real difference in the acceleration of the earth towards the bowling ball would become part of that equation, as it shortens the distance between the two from the other side.

  Think of it like a head on collision of two vehicles. You can do the math as two bodies colliding with opposite velocity vectors, or you can arrive at the same mathematical result (at least for some calculations) by considering one of them to be stationary and the other to have the sum of the two speeds in the direction of its original velocity. “Two cars colliding head on at 60mph is the same as one car hitting a brick wall at 120mph.” It is rough and doesn’t work for all calculations, but the idea is the same.