drosophila @ drosophila @lemmy.blahaj.zone

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Implemented like that it would probably be a step in the correct direction. I'm not trying to say you're a monster who wants to turn the world into a capitalist hellscape. But let's use an analogy:

• There's a country with a public library system that's been suffering from chronic underfunding and dysfunction. The buildings are falling apart, the catelogs are outdated, and many people don't even have a library near them.
• Jeff Bezos proposes to eliminate public libraries, says it would be more efficient and effective for the government to give citizens a stipend to buy off of Amazon. Its called universal books.
• Years later someone says "leftists will infight about anything, someone would probably say universal books isn't left enough."
• Someone points out who came up with universal books and why they wanted it, then there's a reply saying "the version of universal books that I support would still fund the public libraries but have the Amazon stipend in addition to that."

Maybe adding the Amazon stipend to the existing public library system would be great. After all not every library can carry every book, and sometimes its not feasible to put a library in every tiny rural community.

I'm just trying to make the point that its not completely insane to get a little defensive about such an idea in a situation like that.

Kinda reminds me of this old proposal for "modernizing" Amsterdam:

Skyscrapers sticking up with a spaghetti of highways running between them.

It was cooked up by Milton Friedman, one of the grandfathers of American free market libertarianism.

The whole impetus of UBI was to eliminate traditional social services because, it is argued, there's no way that a government institution could be as efficient or effective as a free market.

And make no mistake, even modern proponents of UBI such as Andrew Yang propose funding it by hollowing out existing social services.

Like, yeah, UBI is better than having literally no social support at all, but the fact that its seen as this ultra-leftist idea, to the point that we apparently can't even conceive of how it could possibly "not be left enough", is an indication of how far right mainstream politics has shifted.

That was a real file browser on IRIX

Is this supposed to mean that I secretly liked it or else I wouldn't have played it as long as I did? Would you rather I stopped after 10 minutes so you can say I didn't give it a fair chance?

What's good about it then? I don't mean that as an insult to you or your taste, I am genuinely asking because I'm the sort of person that likes to think about games. I've spent hours listening to GDC talks on game design, hours looking at map viewers for some of my favorite games. When I play a new game I take screenshots and make notes about my thoughts while playing it.

From what I saw playing Skyrim there's basically nothing there in terms of NPC dialogue, very little in terms of environmental storytelling, world design, and worldbuilding, and usually not very much atmosphere or sound design. And that's on top of the completely vacuous gameplay. If the game did even a single one of these things well I would have considered it to be good, but for me there's just nothing there.

I am aware that the Elder Scrolls series in general has interesting lore and metaphysics based on Hindu mythology. But it's my understanding that the person who came up with most of that no longer works at Bethesda. And while I was playing Skyrim even googling some of the things I encountered (such as "why do the draugr attack you") failed to elicit feelings of intrigue.

I did like the amount of verticality you experience ascending the main mountain though. That was cool map design IMO.

EDIT:

Skyrim isn’t good because it’s not your idea of a specific kind of rpg game

Most of the games that I listed are pretty vastly different from each other, but they all do at least one thing that's interesting. Skyrim not being "a specific kind" of RPG has nothing to do with it.

Skyrim released in 2011.

New Vegas released in 2010.

Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines released in 2004

Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magic Obscura released in 2000

Plainscape: Torment released in 1999

Fallout 1 and 2 released in 97 and 98 respectively.

The concept of a good RPG wasn't invented in the last few years.

The concept of good gameplay and encounter design wasn't invented in the last few years either.

I played Skyrim a few months ago and felt like my soul was getting sucked out. I just kept asking myself "what am I doing? Why am I playing this?", and stopped after a few hours.

I think the straw that broke the camel's back was when I encountered a group of bandits that tried to attack me. I went into the cave they seemed to be operating out of and was greeted by a named NPC called "ulfric the blind" or something. He said something like "[name] is that you?", and I thought "oh I wonder if I'll be able to fool this guy into thinking I'm someone he knows. I wonder what could have driven this old man to banditry, or if he and his family have been in the game so long he's now elderly. Or maybe instead of information about his life he'll inadvertently reveal some secret that can help me. Regardless I'll probably have to carefully choose what I say if I want to get the most out of this".

Then the only dialogue choices were "yeah I'm him [end conversation]" and "he's dead, you're next [end conversation]".

That was a different technique, using simulated evolution in an FPGA.

An algorithm would create a series of random circuit designs, program the FPGA with them, then evaluate how well each one accomplished a task. It would then take the best design, create a series of random variations on it, and select the best one. Rinse and repeat until the circuit is really good at performing the task.

A dark pattern would be some sort of underhanded but legal tactic to trick or coerce a user into agreeing to something they wouldn't otherwise.

But most websites aren't using dark patterns for this, instead they just blatantly and plainly violate the law.

Doesn’t really count if you have to google it first to know what it is

Maybe you have to Google it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQ2QWsNG71s

I've had my current CPU for longer than the Confederacy existed.

I am about to replace it though.

I know that date handling isn't necessarily indicative of the quality of the whole operating system but...

Unfortunately these bulbs didn't have any components that could steer or modulate the electron beam, which is how CRT televisions form an image. Instead it just sprays a cone of electrons at the phosphor face to form a big blob of light, so the most you could do is make it brighter or darker (or make it flash) by turning the power up and down.

The closest thing to what you're imaging would be "pixel LED" headlights. That's a car headlight technology that continually adjusts the shape of the light output to avoid shining onto cars in the opposite lane, allowing you to retain high beam brightness without blinding other drivers. It works by using essentially the same technology as a projector: an LED light shines onto a MEMS mirror array which can dynamically change the direction that each pixel is pointing to shape the light that is reflected off of it. Sensors detect the position of oncoming cars and direct that light shaping process so the light avoids them.

You absolutely could form an image with one of those (projected onto a surface its shining on), though in the present day they're only used in car headlights. I could see them eventually being used in room lighting though, if the price of MEMS chips comes down enough. They could be used to improve efficiency using anidolic lighting principles, and marketed as as a way light a room perfectly evenly, or direct pools of light to certain spots as the owner desired (a bit like how color changing smart bulbs are marketed today). Such a light source would have to scan the shape of the room, then decide how to aim its light into that space.

See also Li-Fi if you're interested in weird stuff piggy backing off of lighting technology. Hackers have actually used something like that (subtly modulating the brightness of a light source) to exfiltrate data:

https://www.securityweek.com/ethernet-leds-can-be-used-exfiltrate-data-air-gapped-systems/

https://thehackernews.com/2020/02/hacking-air-gapped-computers.html?m=1

Remind's me of this essay.

it’s actually designed to slow down typing speed

This is a myth

Please relay the information about the 60s ghost anime.

Or at least give us it's name.

Inaccurate, none of the options on the right involve trying to open an ancient sarcophagus to commit diablerie.