• 24 Posts
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Joined 10 months ago
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Cake day: March 4th, 2024

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  • Hngh. Balatro already had a bunch of hassle on Switch eShop due to the PEGI ratings change.

    Earlier, Nintendo somehow got a PEGI 12 rating for 51 Worldwide Games, which includes poker and blackjack. I wonder what they argued to avoid the 18 rating. “Sure, this compilation has poker and blackjack, but it’s not like we made it fun.” (It’s adequate but compared to Balatro it’s very much a non-frills experience.)





  • I assume they’re trying to out-do the old Soviet joke.

    Preface to a new sex education schoolbook:
    “Dear children. There are three kinds of love. First, there is the love between parents and children. We’re sure all of you are already familiar with that, so there is no need to discuss it here. Second, there is the love between two adults. Some suggest it might be too early to tell you anything about that yet. And third, there’s the love the People feel toward the Party, and that is what we shall discuss for the rest of this book…”


  • There’s a movie plot hook buried there. About a kid on spectrum whose robot buddy gets killed by the uncaring business. They go “oh no, I’ll have to fix my robot buddy” and go on to become a tech genius. One day, they become a tech millionaire, and the story’s antagonist, the shady businesses partner, goes “look, we’re bankrupt, we have no choice, we have to shut down all of the robot buddies”. And the protagonist remembers the saddest moment of their childhood and are like “no, we can’t do that”.


  • There was some 1990s documentary about fractals, narrated by Arthur C. Clarke (I think), where he said something along the lines of “I’ve not tried this myself, but I’ve been told there’s certain illegal chemicals that can cause hallucinations that look like fractals”.

    (I have this on VHS tape somewhere. Should probably digitise it.)



  • For those who don’t need cloud access, I just put all of my photos on a NAS and use a digital asset manager software. digiKam is great if you want an open source solution. I use ACDSee because it’s faster and has better usability in my humble opinion. But since both of the software packages store the metadata in image files and XMP sidecars and basically only use local app-specific database for caching, if digiKam ever gets a couple of quantum leaps ahead, switching back to it isn’t that big of a deal. (As usual, don’t use Adobe Lightroom or you’re screwed in that regard. Or so I’ve been told.)



  • Kinect! I mean, a bunch of Wii games were really fun, but Kinect had some really interesting uses. And unlike Wii games the sports games actually gave me an exhausting workout. Without cheating.

    Neither of the platforms really got to the fullest of the full potential though.

    But even there, Kinect had one incredible example of where it was great. Xbox 360 Skyrim had the absolute best voice commands I’ve ever used anywhere.







  • Authors have to submit manuscripts to publishers individually (or, in some markets, agents who work with multiple publishers in the same niche).

    Publishers get showered with manuscripts. Very small percentage of them are what publishers deem will meet market goals.

    In standard publishing contracts, the author gets paid an advance. This is basically the royalty percentage for the entire first print run. It’s not refundable. It represents the trust the publisher puts on the author, and if the publisher can’t sell all copies, well, tough for them. (They’d probably just not work with that author again.)

    Getting to that point is a pretty massive hurdle to clear for first time authors.

    So no, authors don’t really get to pick their publishers. The only scenario where people get to pick their publishers is some celebrity deal bullshit.