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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • If you want, you can view science as a system of organization. A way of making sense of facts. If I give you a file of seemingly random ones and zeroes, it is useless. If I give you an algorithm to decode those ones and zeroes into a message, that has utility. However, somebody else could produce an algorithm to decode those same ones and zeroes into an entirely different message. So, which algorithm is correct? Neither.

    But say I give you another file, and Algorithm B doesn’t produce anything useful for this message, so now Algorithm A is more useful. But I also provide a new Algorithm C which also finds messages in both files. Now which is more correct, A or C? And on and on. We continue to refine our models of the data, and we hope that those models will have predictive utility until proven otherwise, but it is always possible (in fact, almost guaranteed) that there is a model of the universe that is more accurate than the one we have.

    Consider the utility of a map. A map is an obviously useful thing, but it is also incomplete. A perfect map, a “true” map, would perfectly reproduce every single minute detail of the thing it is mapping. But to do so, it would need to be built at the same scale as the thing it is mapping, which would be far too cumbersome to actually use as, you know, a map. So, we abstract details to identify patterns to maximize utility. Science, likewise, is a tool of prediction, which is useful, but is also not true, because our model of the universe can never be complete.




  • I played it - and if it was truly only made by two people is quite impressive - but it’s just alright. The world is very cool, and is structured around multiple levels of a tower each with their own language that you need to learn to progress. My main issue with the game is that the differences between these languages, and the puzzles built around them, aren’t particularly interesting or deep or varied. There are a few gems, but overall it’s much closer to a traditional adventure game than you might expect on first glance.

    That said, the art and world design are very cool.

    Edit: As an aside, it’s worth noting that the Steam Reviews metric is a tad misleading in a similar way to Rotten Tomatoes, in that it only gauges ratio of positive reviews, over what those reviews are actually saying. A universal consensus of a game being a 7/10 (if we assume 7/10 is positive) will appear “better” than a game where 99% of people believe it is a 10/10, but 1% think it sucks. It’s good at predicting whether you will like it, it is bad at predicting how much.


  • I have two podcasts in my rotation currently:

    • Remap Radio; previously Waypoint Radio, sometimes their politics feel overly dogmatic, perhaps as a reflection of the audience and culture they have cultivated, but the vibes are good and they have insightful things to say. I’d say they are currently in a transition period so they’re still finding their rhythm.
    • 8-4 Play; Started by a localization company based in Tokyo, you’ll get a unique perspective of life in Japan, Japanese games, and industry connections that you can’t really get anywhere else, at least not in English.

    Used to listen to the Bombcast, but none of the splinters from what it was appeal to me much. New Bombcast, Nextlander, solo Gerstmann, are all flawed in different ways imo.







  • Your sex are what your chromosomes are… It should be standardized…

    It’s worth noting that your sex is not “assigned” at birth, so much as “determined” from physical traits. They are not analyzing your DNA, they are making an educated guess. Usually they are correct, but there are exceptions. For something like 0.02%-0.05% of individuals (very roughly 1 in 3000) , the chromosomes are not obvious, or the doctor would be wrong upon determination.

    But this is beside the point, because the intention of the law is not medical clarity:

    “As Governor, it is my duty to protect our kids and women’s athletics, which means providing single-sex spaces for women’s sports, bathrooms, and changing rooms.”

    In my opinion, people don’t actually want sex-separated bathrooms. They think they do, until they see somebody they would have assumed was a man walk into the women’s room. Gender is a far more sensible line to draw, and far less invasive on the part of the government. And frankly, your comfort level in a bathroom is way more about your assumed reality than a biological or any other reality. I bet if we could know everything there is to know about the people around us, all the time, we’d never leave the house.

    As for sports, I think that’s much fuzzier topic (and it is certainly not apolitical).