Moonside

Moonside wrote

You might enjoy Embrace The Void podcast episode on cheap talk.

I think the closest thing to a good answer would have to deal with discourse norms. Putting some boundaries for asking questions is arguably good, actually, if the goal is to foster some kind of understanding. Especially if the norms are set up so that every answer must be up to a demanding standard, an easy way to try to control the discourse is just asking questions, since it's a cheap tactic.

With teens though, you probably should cut some slack. Growing up in a bullshit world necessarily leads to bullshitting in the people growing up.

2

Moonside wrote

I enjoy the riffing on scifi tropes and the show is mostly self-aware about Rick's faults, despite a part of the fandom not getting the point. I like the voice acting a lot. Some of the bullshitty aspects are things that you're apparently obligated to do to be an Adult Animated Comedy show being crass in a formulaic way, like the ridiculous amount of gore.

The Australian version was better though.

5

Moonside wrote

I tried it out the last time there was a big war and the game really is one of those things that aren't worth the time. I thought I'd like the game more if I could play it while jogging! All the progress is overcoming one gatekeeping mechanism or another. The wikis are full of the 'correct' playstyles, which just disincentivizes what I was after, the fantasy of freely adventuring through space.

Maybe if you got into the social side of it, but playing boardgames feels like it's superior at scratching that itch of getting to compete and collaborate with others in a game.

Lots of aspects I enjoyed other games do better. I liked space roaming and ship fitting, but honestly Star Control II was simpler and more fun with real sense of exploring the galaxy, that had interesting characters. Getting to influence '"real" events? Most good single player games. Collecting stuff with a crew? Animal Crossing, honestly.

Lots of things in Eve made me feel like "that's not why we play games".

2

Moonside wrote

Just finally got around watching this video. I find it far superior to the FF7R review, better strictured and I could actually follow the lines of argumentation. The problem now is that Kotaku stuff now appears kind of crass from a technical perspective, you csn clearly hear how much better the sound is, for example.

1

Moonside wrote (edited )

I'll say this before diving in that I am not surprised at all that Golding's travel writing might be insufferable based on two of his novels I've read.

Golding's a weird character that one work of his has achieved pop culture immortality yet people aren't terribly interested in him more broadly. With Orwell it seems to me that people are a lot more interested in the author - lots of people have a broad take inside of them.

2

Moonside wrote

My take is two-pronged:

  1. I think it's good to get rid of 'master' even here since using the term does connote 'slave' as its antonym in various ways throughout technology. The more peculiar 'master' becomes in computing contexts, the easier it is to forget the old habits.

  2. This shouldn't be seen as too significant either - it's a small capitulation to outside pressure, which ought to continue as the strategy is clearly working. Many things are rotten in IT and being satisfied with the crumbs is a mark of a fool.

3

Moonside wrote (edited )

First, I want to offer the meagre hope that Trump re-election is looking somewhat unlikely according to the polls, not that Biden is that much more palatable, but the republican agenda is none-the-less likely to be hindered. Clinton's loss was a mix of unusual circumstances, both tactical and strategic blunders and weak economy in early 2016. (A big part of issues with polls is that they struggle to account for the electoral college, but it's still unusual for popular vote winners to lose and the the situation in the key swing states is favorable to Biden.) Of course you might have prospects other than Trump in mind, but I think almost everyone is dedicating some thought into the issue, so it might be in your mind too.

I'd like to highlight nordic countries as an option. If you manage to make it in one country, it's somewhat easy to move between them because of cultural, political and economic ties.

Everyone speaks English, though finding employment is easier if you speak a native language. Many large companies operate internally in English, for example. In addition, Swedish, Norwegian and Danish are relatively easy to learn for an English speaker so it's reasonably feasibly to escape expat circles. (Finnish is way more challenging - the challenge is akin to learning korean or japanese. Many english speakers have done it so it's possible, just challenging.)

If you got a degree in software engineering and work experience at Amazon, I am confident it's possible for you score a local software job. The local bourgeoisie is quite concerned about shrinking labor force, this can work in your favor.

I don't want to hype the nordic too much, I just think that after the anglophone countries they're the easiest place to move to for you.

One last thing to consider is dual citizenship. Becoming a citizen has multiple upsides, if you choose to stay, and may or mat not keep your US citizenship as well. I think this is possible in Finland or Sweden, but you need to check for others.

5

Moonside wrote

Honestly I think it's just too long, though I did watch it and liked it. It suffers from the kind of bulk pop science books do: unnecessary evidence. Many have over 100 pages of useless anecdotes and examples which could be simply cleaved away to make a better work as they don't carry additional support for the points in book. There was a great 2 hour video inside, imho, and Hbomberguy pulled it off with his Pathologic video so it can be done.

I did like Tim explaining his process, though, so I welcome that heft even if it was kinda unnecessary.

3