Lol ah yes, the “fork me daddy!” camp weighing in

Oooh, that’s a fun one. I can just barely remember some of my early research projects for school - getting source material at the library was a bear. What a time to be alive.

When did they add blackjack and hookers?! That’s a hell of a feature update

That’s definitely part of the problem. I had an incident recently where an older family member had a minor panic. Because I left my (mfg in 2006!!) vehicle running in the driveway while I ran inside. During the day. In a very safe suburban neighborhood. Just a flat out absurd concern and she leapt right to it, instantly. She’s always been concerned, she’s a grandma, but she wasn’t pointlessly terrified like this years ago.

I think many of us don’t realize how badly this irrational fear has taken hold, or maybe I should say how effectively this irrational fear has been deployed. Otherwise ~reasonable people are walking around thinking the worst is going to happen everywhere at all times, based on absolutely nothing - worse than nothing, it’s based on weaponized deception.

Edit: OOPS. You meant whether the statement about being puzzle like applies to OG Rogue. You said almost exactly that. My bad lol, below remains intact to display my shame (and enthusiasm).

It’s a puzzle in the sense that you have a constrained number of options, both in a given combat scenario and in the general sense of building your character and attacking the dungeon. And usually all those options have some tradeoffs, beyond just the opportunity cost. Skill (and creativity! one of my favorite elements!!) of the player make the difference between a doomed run and a cakewalk. Careful marshaling of resources, knowing when it’s time to spend something rare or take a gamble. Knowing what late game change might solve the weaknesses your character has and help achieve specific goals, knowing what would be folly.

Lot to learn, and then deploy in fun and creative ways. And challenging. Loss is the teacher, lol. So good!

Oh snap! Haha well, musta been something I sensed in your comment. DCSS sure feels like an extra fun puzzle to me. Cheers!

A good rogue like is a super complex puzzle with randomness thrown in! Completely see the similarity.

Only RL I went hard for was DCSS for some reason, and it’s hard to estimate how much time I put into that over the years. At least as much as other heavily played AAA or MMO type games for me. What about you?

That seems pretty plausible to me, yeah, because it’s being attempted already and we seem to be sliding that direction. Privatizing those public services sounds like precisely the way to usher in a fresh new hell like this, completely agree.

I really wonder what that may look like too and how likely of an outcome it is. I mean we’ve seen versions of it with “banana republics”, but that wasn’t quite the modern era and wasn’t sophisticated tech companies. I also think most tech companies today would not want that responsibility, just the rewards, it’s a bit hard for me to imagine them actually attempting to provide a government. I think what we’ll see is increasingly hollowed out public institutions matched with ascending power and control of the corps, but leaving the govt in place (largely for a target people can point to when they’re mad) and stopping short of overtly seizing power. Best of both worlds for the corps.

For real. The big tech companies are today basically approximating and exceeding what have before been exclusively state-level capabilities. Not all of those capabilities, of course, but enough that the writing’s on the wall. Meta, Google, Amazon (and others) - they truly see themselves as above “petty” things like governments. Just obstacles to work around.

The question is what will we allow them to get away with, not how far will they try to take things. We should be clear on that.

Oh, tbh I was just commenting the sort of “pithy” way to say what commenter above me was saying. I wasn’t actually commenting on the situation, screw McDonalds and Taylor both lol

“Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the merely good” is one (imo important) way to state it.

For real. This is my basic approach to parenting too and I feel the same way about both substances (while also enjoying both), but I’ve never seen it expressed in just the right way like this. It’s perfect. Another one I’ve found useful is “drinking is borrowing happiness from tomorrow”. Applies to certain other substances to a degree but damn if it isn’t exactly right for alcohol. A loan is not always a bad idea, to be clear, but it’s good to be clear on the terms of any loan, lol.

Must be satisfying, having the pond you built part of the experience too. I’m just stumbling into the realization that I’m probably going to be in one place for a long time, for the first time, and if my luck continues the WFH will too. In other words I’m realizing I need to widen my scope for how to enjoy my home, to a longer term and to things like that.

Bro.

Oathbreaker’s Rheia is one of the most moving records I’ve ever heard, truly a masterpiece with no wasted moments, missteps, just basically flawless in my opinion. On the other side Deafheaven just hasn’t worked for me at all. Taste’s so fickle lol.

I’ll check out the third tho!

TikTok is the worst example we’ve seen come up

…so far :)

And the crazy part is I know of teens who say “I wish I could use my phone less”, and these aren’t even particularly self-reflective kids. I have to assume many feel this way. Literal textbook addiction, crafted on purpose, and half of the parents are so far up shit’s creek with the addiction too that they don’t even think to get involved.

This record, a few by Neurosis, and one or two by Cult of Luna were such a vibe. We knew some knuckleheads who even started a joke ish band called Cult of Neurisis lol

Buddy, “Appalachian atmospheric black metal” is a weird combination of words I’ve never seen before and I’m stoked to give it a whirl. Praise Satan for keeping metal interesting.

Lol yeah, name became a wee bit unfortunate thanks to those angry rascals