• 1 Post
  • 24 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: June 11th, 2023

help-circle



  • I like this explanation. I don’t think we can do a lot better than this one at this point.

    I think a fun next step is “forget what’s real, I want to write a story with humans interacting with aliens that’s consistent with what we see now.” What do you have to invent to make it work? Nothing really works for me. But stuff like the dark forest is good. I can suspend disbelief enough to enjoy it.


  • I bought some $50 open back headphones a while back and they a just worlds better than anything I’d had before. Is there a step up from there that’d similarly rock my world?

    My mic is pretty similar. $100 got me an SM58 and it’s wonderful. You have to basically eat it and I can peak it if I’m loud. But it sounds so much nicer than most things. I know there’s a few steps up from there. But I don’t sing so think I’m fine.





  • Second generetions software engineer. 19 years. It’s been good. I’d recommend folks try writing software one time somehow and if they like the puzzle solving bits look into it more. The market is really saturated for new grads now so it has to be something you love.

    I’m a software engineer because I’m bad at everything else. Barely made it through college physics class and highschool chemistry. Wanted to do English but can’t write. Didn’t want to follow in my mom’s footsteps but I just can’t so anything else well. Came around in college after a pretty bad first semester.

    I was kind of a slacker in school. I did ok, but the pressure I see on kids these days would have killed me.

    I made it through a computer science degree because it was fun for me. So much puzzle solving. Even the theoretical stuff was fun. I had a professor who everyone thought was really easy. Folks were getting like 98/100 in the whole class. I think, though, he just tought well. We got it. He made it easy.

    These days I work on data things. Nothing fancy. All open though so googling my name will find it. It’s honest work. I got here accidentally. I was taking random tasks and worked on search once time. Was kind of fun. When that job went belly up I spent a while working for something cool. I found a job I was unqualified for but sort of bluffed my way into. Learned a lot.

    While I was there I built a search thing that, terrifyingly, is built right into Firefox. Go to the location bar, type @w, hit tab, and type a word. That was me for a while. I’m proud of it. It’s no google, but it’s honest.

    Been working in search and data stuff ever since. I don’t deserve it. It’s been good. But I got lucky.








  • It’s hard. I love Harry Potter. I love Ender’s Game. But their authors hate the people I love. Not personally. They don’t know them and hate them anyway. It makes me sad. I want to share those books.

    But I guess it’s better to share books by people who don’t hate my friends. I’ll always have Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. I’ve been sharing The Golden Compass with my kids lately.

    Harry Potter was good. But I can live without it in my life. I think I will keep sharing Ender’s Game though.


  • I really thought the idea was, “You like mecha? You like kids piloting mecha? This is how it’d go down.” I loved it so much. Shinji’s a broken, abused shell child. He lives with a broken human who drowns her sorrows in drink. His father is just evil. He’d have to be to let his kid pilot the mecha.

    The only real father figure we ever see for shinji is a spy. Who gets killed. He’s in love with a girl that hates him. Because he’s broken. But he has no one else. Except those friends at school who I think they take away. Don’t remember. And that angel who he has to kill or something. Damn, it’s been like 25 years. I have no idea what happened. But in my memory it’s terrible. Wonderful stuff.


  • We can be heretics together. But you’re wrong. It was the best of the three because it commented on the universe.

    I wanted to love TFA. So much promise wasted by repetition. They had an es-storm trooper! A super emotionally damaged Vader worshipping anger Jedi. The wiggly light saber. I should have loved it. The characters were so cool. But they didn’t do anything new. Felt very design by committee.

    In TLJ the characters did new things. It didn’t all feel right to me. But it was new. I loved Luke’s story. War stories should leave their heros damaged. I loved the worthless dirtfarmer parents. Everyone can’t have special parents. Even Poe’s stupid story with pink hair general was a commentary on how ruthless rebels have to be. People die. You can’t waste resources. There was a lot wrong about TLJ but it tried.

    And ROS had one good line. That’s it.

    The actors deserved so much better. They worked hard. They loved star wars. They wanted to make something good.